Taking a Stand for the Big Picture

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Hammer

Process owners frequently wonder to what degree the role should be tactical and to what degree strategic. It’s as if they hear two voices. One says: “Listen to your stakeholders. Solve near-term problems. Demonstrate the value of process thinking.” The other argues: “Take a stand for performance, customer experience, business outcomes … the big picture.”

The other day I was talking with a group of newly appointed process owners who were wrestling with these conflicting messages. I asked them how things were working out. Here are their responses:

  • I’ll be entirely focused on meeting several remediation deadlines, following significant findings resulting from a recent corporate audit.
  • We’re revisiting legal guidelines and functional responsibilities in some markets. I’ll be driving numerous changes in our measures, documentation, and training.
  • We have multiple teams implementing process improvements and they’re running into all kinds of pushback. Firefighting will take most of my time.
  • I’m introducing shared goals in 2013. I have 30 days to get executive buy-in, 30 days for system changes, and 30 more to set the stage with function managers. It’s tight, but it’s important. I intend to power through–whatever it takes.
  • As process owner, I’m chief motivator and salesperson for a multi-year customer experience re-design project. My job is to get it online by November 1.

These comments suggest an unfortunate 60/40 split in process owner time and attention. The first three indicate a tactical orientation, resulting in a focus on near-term priorities including remediation, documentation, training, and firefighting. The last two suggest a more strategic view, as reflected in the phrases ‘chief motivator’ and ‘shared goals’.

It’s those two that inspired me. They both reflect an awareness of the big picture – more aggressive goals, longer timeframes, and a clear line of sight to business outcomes. At the same time, they both imply thoughtful planning–indicating short-term actions in the context of a longer-term journey.

Taking a stand for the big picture, although part of the role description of many process owners, is easier said than done in today’s heads-down business environment. But that’s what most process owners aspire to, and that’s where their organizations need them most.

Walter Popper, Hammer and Company Senior Faculty Member
Instructor, The Process Owner in Action: Measures for Success
Boston, November 8-9

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  • Hammer and Company

    Walter, great Process Owners (PO’s) have to do both.
    You and I know that excellence requires rejecting the ‘either/or’
    tradeoff and embracing the ‘and’ or the ‘both’. So process ownership is
    really about living in both the tactical and strategic worlds. Both are
    needed, benefits need to occur both in the short term and in the long run.
    Not sure that simply having to do both is the real issue.

    Perhaps we can frame it in terms of DOING BOTH WELL. This means focusing
    on the Right Fires and allocating enough time for successfully implementing big
    change for big results.

    Stanton’s Rule: The Urgent Drives Out the Important. Great process
    owners must resist twitching daily to intense, but trivial, fires to maximize
    their time. They have to thoughtfully determine which near-term issues
    are truly high priority and which are simply loud noises. They need to
    take the time to think before they grab the nearest fire extinguisher.
    This should grant them time for the important longer-term issues of
    bigger projects, best-practice research, improving process metrics, improving
    performer skills, etc.

    PO’s have to live in two timeframes and excel at both.

    If only it was as easy to do as it is to say……

    Steve Stanton, Hammer and Company Senior Faculty Member

    Instructor, The Process Owner in Action: Measures for Success

    Boston, November 8-9

  • Hammer and Company

    Walter, great Process Owners (PO’s) have to do both.
    You and I know that excellence requires rejecting the ‘either/or’
    tradeoff and embracing the ‘and’ or the ‘both’. So process ownership is
    really about living in both the tactical and strategic worlds. Both are
    needed, benefits need to occur both in the short term and in the long run.
    Not sure that simply having to do both is the real issue.

    Perhaps we can frame it in terms of DOING BOTH WELL. This means focusing
    on the Right Fires and allocating enough time for successfully implementing big
    change for big results.

    Stanton’s Rule: The Urgent Drives Out the Important. Great process
    owners must resist twitching daily to intense, but trivial, fires to maximize
    their time. They have to thoughtfully determine which near-term issues
    are truly high priority and which are simply loud noises. They need to
    take the time to think before they grab the nearest fire extinguisher.
    This should grant them time for the important longer-term issues of
    bigger projects, best-practice research, improving process metrics, improving
    performer skills, etc.

    PO’s have to live in two timeframes and excel at both.

    If only it was as easy to do as it is to say……

    Steve Stanton, Hammer and Company Senior Faculty Member
    Instructor, The Process Owner in Action: Measures for Success
    Boston, November 8-9

    • Walter Popper

      Connecting the dots, we may have an interesting 2×2 matrix to help Process Owners think in portfolio terms:

      First dimension: Incremental Improvement … Process Redesign
      Second dimension: Social (Chief Motivator) … Technical (Chief Standard Bearer)

      Let’s see what practitioners have to say … comments welcome here, or join us in the Process Owner course next month.

  • http://twitter.com/BradfordPower Bradford Power

    The key tension that I see Process Owners balancing is between the “social” (people) and the “technical” (projects and results). And their biggest challenge is on the social side: process owners have a built-in handicap in trying to influence people who don’t report to them. They have to be masters of persuasion in getting people to move, without the authority to move them by command and control. They have to be clever at giving people what they want and showing them how the big picture process changes are in their interests. These are skills and activities that aren’t as tangible and don’t get the rewards from management systems that projects and results do.

    So I would emphasize the “chief motivator” role for the process owner and look at the forces in your management systems that compete with having a process owner focus on the social aspects. For example, how can we create measures of social progress that compete with measures of tangible short-term business results? The Process and Enterprise Maturity Model may offer some ideas for social measures. I worked with a hospital to develop some behavioral progress measures that I offer for your consideration and comments:

    Behavioral Measures

    •% of colleagues who have made improvement suggestions

    •% of colleagues who have participated in improvement activities

    •Number of suggestions implemented

    •% of colleagues who are participating in daily huddles

    •% of managers using daily huddles

    •% of executives rounding in clinical areas weekly

    •% of executives who have made visits to other hospitals

    •Number of colleagues speaking at events sharing our continuous improvement experience

    •Number of improvement projects in monitoring mode

    •Number of improvement projects in process

    •Number of improvement projects retired and recognized