Rigorous analysis

What is the biggest, most painful challenge, problem or issue you face currently and most urgently need to solve in your business?

Just suppose you were able to implement a solution to the one major headache which is holding back the performance of the business.  Analysing the root-cause of a problem which currently impacts performance could highlight a variety of causes.  Whether the problems are:

• Failing to understand why customer satisfaction and retention is so high
• An inability to attract new and retain old customers
• Not being able to close new business quickly enough
• Business expansion in new regions being slow to take off
• Lack of motivation, staff distrust, excessive absenteeism and even tribunal proceedings
• Failure to attract and retain the right quality staff
• Inability to build a customer focused culture
• Developing continuous improvement that delivers significant bottom line results
• Developing a proactive and empowering leadership style

Many of the above problems are resident within many organisations.

Why You Cannot Fix the Problems

Perhaps you are too close to the problem or need a clear pair of objective eyes to review the situation.  Perhaps the problem has been around a long time and has only ever attracted what I call minor ‘band aid’ solutions.

I know that some organisational ills are never resolved once and for all.  Often, solutions have been applied to resolve issues in the short term, but the same problem reappears in other areas of the business and, often where you least expect it to arise.

Responsibility and Ownership of Problem Solution

The reason most problems are not resolved is that they are not the province of just one area or department or function.  Often, problems are owned by several managers who operate out of different departments, units and locations.  Sometimes some managers are not aware that their actions can impede their closest colleagues or are unaware of the simple actions they can take to resolve the headaches that others are experiencing.

A question I like to ask is when problems are experienced across the organisation, who takes ownership for resolving the problem?  It is usually the managers who are most hurt or impacted by the problem who have to take action because the problem stops them being effective and doing their job.

My experience is that once problems spread across functional boundaries, the opportunity to put a permanent fix in place is a challenge.  In my experience problems remain ‘problems’ because all the key stakeholders and actors don’t come together jointly and commit to resolving the issues.  Simply, no one really takes personal ownership for researching, analysing and then implementing a solution that works.  The reason for this because the problem is shared – the most likely ‘fixer’ is he who is most damaged by not fixing it!

Joint Problem & Ownership for Change Never Works

For example, if there is a customer service issue which impacts two or more functional areas who really takes ownership to fix things once and for all.  In all likelihood we would say ‘the team’ should fix it.  But my experience says ….”Joint ownership is no ownership at all.”  It simply does not happen.  In most cases it just does not work.

What I usually find in practice is the head of section that mostly has to live with the problem is the one that ends up applying the band aid solution’.   It’s only a ‘band aid’ and partial solution because a real long-term solution requires the commitment and actions all affected by the problem.  Because of functional silo’s and petty politics, turf wars, etc.  the problem is never truly solved.  You think you may have fixed things but “hey presto”, a few months after the ‘band aid’ solution has been applied, and the symptoms of the problem show up again in a different guise.

Failure to Commit to Ownership of Implementing Change

So the same problem erupts again, and this leads to de-motivation and a belief that nothing is ever going to change and get better.  The knock on effect is that people who work in the business recognise that things are never going to get better.  The danger is they reflect the commitment of those who manage them – and they adopt a similar mentality which does nothing for the business as a whole.  Further not fixing things which are ‘owned’ but ‘not experienced’ by all managers leads to further turf wars reflected in the silo mentality.

How I can drive Change for You

A fresh pair of eyes, some extremely rigorous and innovation data collection methodologies, focusing on attitudes together with analytical metrics and some creative and truly tested implementation tools and plans can speedily deliver your business the results you require, and the solution which will survive the long term.

Further, I will put in place preventative processes to pick up warning signs of potential problems and give you the power to run your business to cope with tomorrow challenges and opportunities rather than fixing yesterday’s failures.

For further information contact me now philip@philipatkinson.com