It's not rocket science!

One of the challenges for any business is the fact that employees prefer their own way of producing the goods or services they sell. Let’s say our business is in the accounting space and we sell audit services. If I went and reviewed how each Audit Partner delivered their product to the customer I am sure to find a variety of processes leading to a wide variation in on-time delivery, quality, efficiency, client satisfaction, and even staff morale.

It’s not rocket science to reach the conclusion that there must be one best way; a process for delivering audit services that achieves the best outcome on all dimensions. So why doesn’t it happen? The main reason is that professional service firms tend to operate in silos. In our hypothetical audit practice I would guess that audit partners rarely get together, and when they do is to discuss the lack of growth and declining profitability (and resultant cash-flow issues).

So how we change this culture of anti-continuous improvement? I usually wait until they have a crisis that can be tied back to the culture and then suggest the following five step process.

1.       Get all the Audit Partners together and commit to developing one process that everyone must follow.

2.       Invite the exemplar Partner(s) to share exactly how they do their job. Document the process.

3.       Invite contributions from everyone present to further improve the process.

4.       Lock down the process and set key performance indicators that will highlight any deviations from the process.

5.       Meet at least at six-monthly intervals to review the process and document any changes agreed. My rule of thumb is that if everyone has had their say and two-thirds of those present agree, it is policy.

It is not rocket science. Anyone can do this. In the quality space it is generally agreed that 85% of what goes wrong in a business is due to ineffective processes. It is also accepted that the custodians of the processes are the leaders of that business. That means 85% of what goes wrong in a business is due to leaders not leading. It is essential that you build in consequences if people fail to follow the approved (and agreed) process. It is not rocket science.