Prodsol Blog

Leading and managing the implementation of systemic solutions is a crucial part of securing dramatic improvement. It doesn’t matter how good a solution is if it doesn’t get implemented!

The problem – People don’t have the required expertise, incentive or time to apply and implement new ways of thinking on-the-fly

Dramatic improvement is particularly challenging because it requires people and teams to go about things in a significantly better way which – as we’ve already said – is very challenging.

Conventional project management methods are woefully inadequate for dramatic improvement because they’re task-focused, not people-focused. That’s why so few organisational change projects are successful – and why nearly all that do succeed, blow out on both time and budget.

The solution – Create a pull-system

The trick is to deliberately create an internal pull-system, rather than an external push-system.

Evoking the desire within people to participate is far more effective than coercing them to comply. It’s only natural to resist an external force, but nearly impossible to resist an internal craving.

Here are some things you can do to start the ball rolling:

1. Focus interventions at current backlog and workload and immediate challenges and objectivesPeople – particularly when they’re under pressure – are far more open to expedient solutions that make things easier immediately and relieve immediate pain than they are to longer term, more strategic solutions that make things harder and more painful in the short term.Because the solutions are systemic, however, they deliver bottom-line benefits almost instantaneously – and sow the seed for long-term gains in the process.
2. Use small, short, fast-cycle iterationsSmall footprint solutions are easier to implement and far more effective, because they don’t require a large change overhead and establish momentum very quickly. The key is to use multiple cycles, downplaying quality and focusing on speed. Quality will emerge iteratively as a prosequence. It may be counter-intuitive, but it’s highly effective.
3. Restrict accessRestricting access to the solution roll-out is the surest way to create demand for it:
   1. Start where appetite and aptitude is highest and migrate outwards in layers.
   2. Publish and promote results and progress across the organisation to crank up demand.
   3. Make it clear that people need to contend for the next roll-out “slot”.
   4. Crank up the pressure to get better results, so that even the laziest see the solution as the easy way out.

Please sing out for help in creating a pull-system for your intervention – we’re keen to help.

Just ask.

(Direct quote from our “3 Things You Can Do” eGuide: http://prodsol-online.com/3_things/online/)

It’s with great trepidation that I make this post. I’m very uncomfortable making such claims myself, but – as one of my supporters says:

“Gary, you’re expecting people to work out, for themselves, the significance of your discoveries. But how can they? They’re too far-reaching. You say yourself that the insights are elusive: why don’t you give them – us – a hand and blog on it? I know that you prefer to let your work speak for itself, but it would make it so much easier if you just gave people a starting framework. What’s the worst that could happen? Some people might think that you’ve got an ego. So?”

So, here goes:

1. Systemic Thinking equips people to deliberately and systematically gain genius-level insights into challenging (complex) situations. This equips anyone who uses the technique to significantly advance their situation very quickly.
2. The fact that there is a single, fundamental, apparently intractable problem that everyone faces everywhere all of the time exposes a huge opportunity for individuals, organisations, countries and our society – because it means that we can get dramatically better results faster, more easily and less expensively than we currently can even imagine – because the effects are so disproportionate to the changes made.
3. The thought that apparently intractable problems are eminently solvable (in a deliberate and systematic way) is an extremely counter-intuitive and disruptive idea – and holds implications for every facet of life and our civilisation.
4. The fact that you can distil the essence – the DNA – of a solution and apply it to current workload and pain and immediate challenges and objectives, while advancing the broader objectives, at the same time, provides an immediate, small footprint, low cost, high-return starting place for dramatic improvement.
5. The fact that one can deliberately and systematically “manufacture” and disseminate ingenuity – across an organisation or a nation – is the most thrilling prospect for people wanting to change the world.
6. An increasingly comprehensive library of ever-refining common solution patterns that can be applied to a broad range of situations and organisational functional areas, dramatically reduces the time, effort and risk footprint for dramatic, massive, macro-level improvement and societal transformation.
7. Being able to deliberately and systematically create an intervention pull-system (where people aren’t resisting the intervention, but hungry and competing to be part of it) is a huge advance on traditional change management practices.
8. Having an ever-evolving solution to the fundamental human condition problem(s) of the different facets of unconscious incognizance and it being impossible to know, ahead of time, a lot of the things we think we have to know to ensure a good result (for example) – is not something of small value and significance.
9. The fact that systemic thinking is not a replacement of existing methodologies – whether formal or natural – but an integrator and framework for the maximisation of those techniques and methodologies, puts it in a different league from other methodologies – and elevates them to that same league.
10. The fact that systemic thinking isn’t an answer, but a process and a method that builds on, extends and extrapolates on existing insights in a deliberate and systematic way – ensures its longevity and constant evolution.

What I’m most excited about is the ability for anyone to play a deliberate and systematic role in transforming our entire society – from their circle of influence outwards. ‘Wish I could convey this in a simple way, but – as always – it’s the concept that is difficult to grasp and, although one can definitely make it easier to grasp with words, pictures and experiences – it takes time to “get” the concept!

The problem – Competing priorities, resulting in fragmented time

The biggest challenge in Operations is competing priorities. The natural consequence is multi-tasking – which is really fast task-switching – with a growing overhead on each switch (starting at 14 minutes to get to deep concentration when you’re fresh and growing as the day progresses).

A third of people’s time is wasted – irretrievably and unnecessarily – through unnecessary task-switching: multi-tasking, interruptions, competing deadlines and conflicting priorities.

The solution – Defragment your and your people’s time

The solution is to do things in series rather than in parallel, wherever possible. This gets more done faster and better – but flies in the face of ordinary intuition which reasons that the best way to get things done early is to start early. Here are three basic techniques to get you started:

1. Task-Batching: Batch similar tasks where possible, to reduce the task-switching overhead (the time it takes to set one task down and setup for the next one). Task-batching might enable you to do 5 similar tasks with 1 setup, saving 4 setups or more throughout the day.
2. DND-Slots (Do Not Disturb): Set aside regular one or two hour slots where you can work interruption-free. This can be across the entire team as well as staggered to ensure that service levels are being met. Use this time for processing work that needs deep concentration.
3. Interruption Windows: Set aside regular interruption windows for staff members and colleagues to use for queries and questions. Interruption Windows have the added benefit of allowing people to batch their queries.

There are many other ways of reducing unnecessary task-switching. The impact of these three will astound you – as will your people’s ingenuity in applying the principle elsewhere.

We’re keen to help. Email or phone us.

(Direct quote from our “3 Things You Can Do” eGuide: http://prodsol-online.com/3_things/online/)

Huge amounts of sales effort is wasted – and sometimes even counter-productive – because it’s not directed at removing friction-points in the buying process, but at increasing sales pressure.

The problem – Difficult to know what the friction-points are

The problem is that it’s difficult to know what the friction points are in any given situation – the customer seldom knows what they are him/herself. The result is slow, time-consuming and unpredictable sales cycle – and customer buying experience.

The solution – Simple friction-point diagnostic framework

The solution is to equip sales people with a simple diagnostic framework that maps common buying (not selling!) friction points to common friction-removing solutions. This equips sales people to intervene in a surgical way to assist the customer organisation to make the right buying decision quickly and easily.

The trick, in dealing with sales people, is to provide a starting framework and engage them in the process of capturing and institutionalising their own expertise.

Here’s a starting list of friction-points:

1. Customer doesn’t recognise the need (provide basic options of what they really need in order to evoke the insight within them).
2. Customer doesn’t recognise the superior vaue of our offer (help them see how our offer maps to their needs, while competing offers map to different needs).
3. Customer doesn’t have the budget (work with them to deliberately increase the budget by establishing the immediate and ongoing value of our offer. Stage or recalibrate our offer to meet the budget if we’re unsuccessful or return them to the follow-up list).
4. Customer has a formal process that needs to be adhered to (work with them to follow their formal process).
5. Customer doesn’t have the authority to purchase (work with them to present to someone who does).
6. Customer is too busy or disorganised (schedule meetings to advance the opportunity – always providing a value and urgency reminder).

The following Excel table (not formatting very well! – see the PDF or online version – http://prodsol-online.com/3_things/) lists a sales person’s opportunities with each friction-point rated (0 is no friction; 3 is show-stopping friction; 1 is low; 2 is high).

Sales Acceleration and Opportunity Management Framework
| Need | Value | Budget | Process | Authority | Busy |
Prospect A | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
Prospect B | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
Prospect C | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Prospect D | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Prospect E | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
The sales person can use this framework to batch-process opportunities – in addition to the direct benefits of ranking, reporting and friction-point diagnosis and intervention.

People have a tendency to look for evidence that they’re doing it already, so that they don’t have to change anything. If they’re doing it rigorously already – fine. If they’re doing “effectively the same thing, in their heads”, they aren’t doing it and you’re losing out on way more than 20% in monthly sales that you could get for free.

It’s your choice whether you make sure they do it or not.

(Direct quote from our 3 Things You Can Do eGuide: http://prodsol-online.com/3_things/online/)

Our demand generation solution is for situations in which the market opportunity (customers who need a company’s products or services) significantly exceeds market demand (customers who are actually buying our products or services). We have yet to come across a situation in which opportunity doesn’t exceed demand – even in recession times and declining markets.

The problem – Lack of ability to recognise and diagnose needs

The reason for the disparity is the combination of (a) potential customers being unaware of their need or unable to diagnose it correctly and (b) being unaware of you and/or of how your products and services satisfy their need. The tendency, in situations like this, is to think that the bottleneck is in Sales, when it’s really more of a Marketing issue:

The Solution – Simple need-diagnostic and mapping framework

The solution is to identify ideal customers and equip them to self-diagnose their needs and map them to our products and services.

This solution creates a customer-need driven pull-system – but it packs even more punch than one would expect, because it delivers a far fuller stream of far better qualified buyers to Sales than conventional approaches deliver unqualified prospects.

Even a small increase in better-qualified buyers will have a disproportionate impact on sales throughput. And the marginal gains from sales throughput improvement, on the same or lower operating costs, is huge.

To apply it to your situation, start by mapping your most lucrative products and services (where you make the most total contribution margin on the smallest variable cost footprint) to ideal customers (prospects for whom our product is ideal) that you can target and market to easily.

Then develop a simple framework that enables them to diagnose their needs and map them to your products and services.

Run a campaign to disseminate the framework and be prepared to deal with the avalanche of demand that ensues.

We’re keen to help you apply this solution to your situation – over the phone or via email – free of charge and obligation.

Just ask.

(Direct quote from out 3 Things You Can Do eGuide – http://prodsol-online.com/3_things/)

Well, it’s been 12 years in the developing and 12 days in the writing…but it’s finally done!

We released our first Executive eGuide yesterday – “3 Things You Can Do To Transform Your Organisation Forever” http://prodsol-online.com/3_things/ and http://prodsol-online.com/3_things/online/ and have had a lot of extremely positive feedback on it.  I’m still cringing at the weaknesses and flaws in it – but feeling relieved and encouraged by the responses we’ve received so far.

We’re trying to capture and present the dramatic improvement insights we’ve learned from others, developed ourselves and gained in the process of running our dramatic improvement consulting practice over the last 12 years – and disseminate them as widely as we can.

It was extremely challenging to resolve the too much / too little contradictions and dilemmas:

1. Too much detail and people will never read it – too little and they can’t understand how it applies
2. Too much explanation and people feel bored and patronised – too little and they don’t get it
3. Too many solutions and people assume that the insights are shallow – too few and too few people find it relevant
4. Include case stories (to show the impact in a tangible way) or exclude them (to keep the page count down)?
5. Explain how  the solutions change things forver – or let people work it out for themselves?
6. etc etc etc

The next task is to create a series of lighter abstracts that lead people into the first eGuide – while we’re finalising the second eGuide (The Executive Guide To Dramatic Improvement – http://prodsol-online.com/exec_drim_guide/) – due for release on Tuesday.

‘Keen to hear your opinions on the first eGuide.