Sixteen Steps for Organizational Greatness
By Lori and Bob Bomes & Wilbur “Bill” Creech
Achieving organizational greatness doesn’t just happen. Many factors are involved throughout the various phases and stages of an organization’s development. There is a set of guiding principles, however, that establish a firm foundation for stepping into greatness.
This article is based upon collaborative efforts between Bill Creech (1927-2003) and Lori and Bob Bomes of Bomes Consulting Group. The content of this article is based primarily on Bill’s book The Five Pillars of TQM. His lifetime and career achievements include being a Top-Gun Pilot, Four-Star General in the United States Air Force and a wonderful man.
Step 1: BUILD YOUR CULTURAL APPROACH, AND ITS PRINCIPLES, ON FIVE SYSTEM PILLARS:
PRODUCT—PROCESS—ORGANIZATION—LEADERSHIP—COMMINTMENT
The product is the focal point for the organization purpose and achievement.
Quality in the product is impossible without quality in the process.
Quality in the process is impossible without the right organization.
The right organization is meaningless without proper leadership.
Strong bottom-up commitment is the support pillar for all the rest.
Each pillar depends upon the other four, and if one is weak all are.
2. FIRMLY ESTABLISH THE CHARACTER AND CULTURE OF YOUR ORGANIZATION
Develop the overarching principles.
Key them to the human spirit.
Ensure they are wholly understood and widely practiced - by all.
Give them vigor through insistence, persistence, and consistency.
Stress ETHICAL conduct, integrity, and courtesy in all endeavors.
The principles flow top down but their power must flow bottom up
3. USE A DECENTRALIZED, INTERACTIVE SYSTEM THAT INTEGRATES ALL LEVELS
Organize for the new realities.
Centralism is a bankrupt approach.
Build a decentralized structure on the teams-outputs-product model.
Replace the “I and my” mindset usually found with that of “we and our. “
Foster belief in the rich rewards of teamwork and professionalism.
Build strong commitment by all to highest quality and productivity.
4. ORGANIZATION IS THE CENTRAL PILLAR — IT INFLUENCES EVERYTHING ELSE.
Create widespread ownership.
Decentralize the authority throughout.
Combine authority with accountability.
Make that unambiguous to all.
Eliminate unnecessary layers.
Tear down all of the functional walls.
Recast the rules.
Streamline the paper work.
Shorten the cycle times.
Maintain coherence and control with incentive, not authoritarianism.
5. BASE THE STRUCTURAL BUILDING BLOCKS ON SMALL TEAMS NOT ON BIG FUNCTIONS
Organize by teams for involvement, agility, and an ownership focus.
Keep each team at a reasonable size.
Provide each its own identity.
Every team has a product.
Identify it. Dignify it. Celebrate it.
Form teams of teams.
Clearly identify the interfaces between teams.
Provide each team ample authority over its part of the product.
6. ORIENT EMPLOYEE FOCUS AND ACTIVITY TO THEIR PRODUCT NOT THEIR JOB
One's job is self-centered.
Build a group-centered product mindset.
Define each product in terms of its customer, internal or external.
Identify each product sub-element. Identify all involved processes.
Create process improvement by measurement, analysis, and incentive.
Use the product as the focal point, and rallying point for quality.
7. PLACE THE PRIME LEADERSHIP FOCUS ON THE OUTPUTS, NOT THE INPUTS
Inhibit micromanagement of the inputs.
Champion outputs ownership.
Develop output goals repeatedly with the teams directly involved.
Make the goals understandable, relevant, attainable — and wanted.
Provide ample incentive, initiative, ingenuity, and innovation.
Create strong desire for continuous improvement in every activity.
8. KEEP SCORE, ASSESS, AND PROVIDE TIMELY FEEDBACK TO ONE AND ALL
Measure quality and productivity at varied product/process points.
Use quantification benchmarks to judge your progress — and needs.
Amplify objectivity through the broad use of data, facts, and surveys.
Use comparison to bring life to the data and to provide relevance.
Use goals and scoreboarding to decentralize and create ownership.
9. KNOW YOUR MARKETPLACE INSIDE OUT AND CREATE STRONG CUSTOMER LINKAGE
Continually assess your strength and competitiveness in your niche. Be sure your expertise is suitably matched to each of the products. Pay close attention to the business of your interest. Stick to it. Create a product — customer linkage. Be sure everyone understands it. Ensure that every decision, every action, is keyed to the customer.
10. PROVIDE A CLIMATE OF QUALITY WHICH PROMOTES PRIDE AND PROFESSIONALISM
Mobilize dedication to highest quality in all things, at all times. Pride is the fuel of human accomplishment. Create it. Sustain it. Make continuous renewal and rejuvenation everyone's responsibility. Calibrate your revisions on the level of motivation and enthusiasm. Quality begets quality. Provide the means, tools, and motivation.
11. BASE ANY AND ALL DECISIONS ON THE INSEPARABILITY OF COST AND VALUE
Get every organization level involved — from the very bottom up.
Provide cost data to teams.
Install value consciousness throughout.
Be wary of cuts that affect the quality mindset.
Don't disable it.
The line cuts the costs not the staff, to ensure value sensitivity.
Use quality to drive costs down, not savings to drive quality down.
12. PROVIDE DETAILED, FOCUSED TRAINING TO ALL EMPLOYEES AT EVERY LEVEL.
On-the-job and ad-hoc training are key parts, but are only parts.
Formal training is vital for a proper quality mindset and know how.
Make all training specific on key principles, methods, and goals.
Train all employees at every level - including at senior levels.
Leaders at all levels must be teachers. Leaders create leaders.
13. GIVE HIGH PRIORITY AND PAY GREAT ATTENTION TO THE COMMUNICATION FLOW
On key issues augment the hierarchical flow.
Go several layers deep. Talk numbers as well as words.
Ensure full comprehension throughout.
Replace all inhibitions to upward communications with full openness.
Provide the requisite means and incentives to make it work.
Listening, hearing, and caring are the catalysts that make it thrive.
14. WORK UNCEASINGLY TO INSTILL COMMON PURPOSE FROM THE BOTTOM TO THE TOP.
Close the classic management and labor gap.
Make leadership seamless.
Assure the common purpose is keyed to the product and the customer.
Get all of the employees enthused, and fully involved to support it.
Stay in touch and in tune with all the employees all of the time.
Instill in all that commitment from all determines success for each.
15. BUILD THE COMMITMENT THROUGH GENUINE OWNERSHIP, AND SHARED SUCCESS.
Emphasize the dignity and the worth of each job and every employee.
Make wide use of recognition and reward, for individuals and teams.
Make involvement real.
Provide the opportunity and the incentives.
Make ownership real.
The test is if they feel it — and apply it.
Provide a clear stake in the outcome for everyone. Share success.
16. ABOVE ALL, BUILD YOUR CULTURE ON ALL FIVE PILLARS.
It's not complicated or mysterious.
It need not all be done at once.
But it requires actions -- not just in words.
A slogan is not a system.
The system is not difficult to implement.
Start with these principles.
The very best companies worldwide use them to beat the competition.
All who use them reap far greater quality, productivity, and success.