Once again, it is that time of the year, when according to Forbes, 40 percent of us set off on a journey to change our lives with New Years Resolutions. Only 8 percent of us will be successful according to the same article. Ouch! So many of the companies that we interact with need profitability growth as their New Years Resolution. In today's post I have documented what we have seen from past successful growth companies. I have referred to it as the Profitability Cycle. Take a quick look at each of the eight "P words" that drove their profitability process.
Starting with Probe, where they looked into past results and practices and measured their gaps through metrics and process checks.
Once the probe phase is complete, they then Prioritized the principles and gaps using business case thinking.
Next, they began to review the priority and they sequenced and linked the task to create a Plan for execution. They considered resources available and the relationships between the prioritized items. In some cases, they identified key items that must be completed in a certain order for success for the larger project.
After the plan was ratified, they began to Promote the plan and explain the value to the larger population. They were very careful to explain both how it affects the individual as well as the benefits that should be expected.
The made up word "Passionize" is there to convey how that now that the plan had been promoted. The leaders selected a group of people that had demonstrated a passion for each of the improvement areas within the plan. These selected people with passion were then given power to execute the principles of the plan and implement the results.
As the passionate began to Progress with the plan, the site leadership measured progress against the plan and worked to remove barriers that could impede progress.
As barriers are identified by the leadership team or the passionate people, they go through a Problem Solving Process. Here, the passionate are looking for root causes while also looking at the business case for each of the solutions.
Once the processes are pressure tested and problem solved, they are put into the full implementation phase known as Perform. Here, the balance of the plant or facility is implemented, and they closely watched things like adoption and results.
These results lead to the data that that could be used to probe and start another improvement cycle.
The process based nature of the Profit Cycle helped to combat the enemy of improvement, which is referred to in the graphic as Pressure. Pressure existed in many forms all trying to keep the improvement from occurring. It could have been pressure to stay with the status quo or pressure to give in to political or emotional forces.
This eternal spiraling process led to increased profitability and performance and more passionate people progressing.
Does your improvement project have the points and processes presented?
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