It's just the 'Why?' we do things around here!

Fail to change the belief and fail to change at all.

My business partner said to me today, "A common definition of culture is 'It's just the way we do things around here', but that's focused on behaviours, on doing, which is an outcome, an emergent property of an earlier brain based process. Using our definition of Culture, and using our knowledge of psychology and neuroscience of change, we look at 'root cause' behind behaviour, at how people are 'being' before they 'do' anything. 
So we need to talk about 'The WHY we do things around here!' ​

My business partner said to me today, "A common definition of culture is 'It's just the way we do things 
... and thus this article was born! I just had to share the insight that comes with that play on words! Nice one Ken!


So here goes ... Lean, Six Sigma & Systems Thinking which some combine under titles like Lean Sigma Systems Constraint Excellence Thinking, or something like that .... it's all a bit confusing really isn't it... or is it?

Many hail the benefit of lean tools, while others promote the statistical analysis from Six Sigma, while others suggest the key to organisational performance improvement is understanding the relationship and emergent properties of sub-systems interacting together under the banner of Systems Thinking... & then of course there's Theory Of Constraints and OpEx, Agile, etc. etc. and the combination of two or more approaches to give us the wonderful names like the one in italics above (which is a joke BTW).

The reality is, in one way or another, they are all good ... so, by default, you'd think that a combination of one or more would be 'better' ... but we have 'Change failure rate' stats >75% reported globally, so what goes wrong?

LEAN
The purist opinion about Lean, is that it's about removing waste and increasing capacity with the same, or less overhead and resource. This is typically done by training and applying a set of 'tools' to address different functions, bottlenecks and of course, the 7 wastes. Kanban, SMED, 5S, 9 Step Root Cause Analysis etc. all require people do things which are better for the organisations Quality Cost and Delivery (QCD) performance; ensuring you avoid what has come to be known as 'Kamikaze Kaizen' (isolated improvements which have a negative impact on other parts of the organisation). This can be avoided by making sure your lean efforts are aligned through Hoshin Kanri (Policy Deployment). Once people's efforts are aligned under such an operational strategy framework, it's evident that following A 'Kaizen' (12 step project) process will have a positive impact and 'Lean' will become part of the 'Way we do things around here'.
So, in principle, nothing wrong with that!

SIX SIGMA 
In a data rich world full of computers processing gigabytes per millisecond, running mathematical scenario's can help us assume averages with Little's Law & visualise patterns in graphs so we can identify trends and address 'root cause' issues. Utilising frameworks like DMAIC as a 12 step project management model, allows people to design different processes to improve organisational performance improvement. 
So, in principle, nothing wrong with that!

Systems Thinking
From SSM through Critical Systems Heuristics to Nadler & Tushman's congruence model, it's about improving the quality of relationship between interacting parts. Everyone knows if you improve the quality of relationship between two things, the overall performance of the thing improves. You might think of gear-wheels in a machine. If people redesign the gear, to remove the friction, so each tooth and gap interacts better, the machine will go faster and last longer. It's the same with marriage, family, organisational departments or business units.
So, in principle, nothing wrong with that!

And in principle, nothing wrong with practicing Lean Six Systems Thinking or what ever combination of names you want to give to your change and improvement drive.

So why the global reports of >75% change program failure rates, when looked at as part of the bigger picture? 

In-year benefits are readily reported, but sustainability is something else entirely. Over 3-5 year cycles, many organisations pursuing change by adopting these models report little if any bottom line performance improvement. So there's something else needed, isn't there? If you think you have all the ingredients and you've followed the instructions, but the cake doesn't rise, something in the mix is wrong! But, let's face it, if it's not listed in the recipe or the instructions, it's not easy to see what you're missing.

At Duxinaroe, we've been dealing with change in business for around 30 years and we now specialise in that missing ingredient. The piece in the jigsaw that makes a real difference. The 'Waste' that the Lean world loosely and without detail refers to as the 8th waste, or Mura / Muri (over Muda). 

And this change that makes the real difference, the difference between change efforts becoming either 'short-term' or sustainable, the missing ingredient which gets the cake to rise or become a stodgy mess in your organisation ... is the change which happens in peoples heads! 

The change witnessed in algorithms & on spreadsheets or associated to best practice models are a result of people being a certain way, such that what they do improves outcomes. Change is a Human factor. The change failure stats are generated because the world has had a focus on the 'tangible' tools and models for too long, losing site of this simple fact! 'Behind every number, there are people!'

When you think about the training, the data, the principles ... the intention is for the presentation of such things to facilitate a change of belief in the people being asked to learn and apply them; but, changing a person's belief, i.e. re-defining what a human being considers and believes to be 'good' (or bad), such that they abandon deeply imprinted habits (reactions and behaviours), formed through life experience  and such that they utilise new knowledge they have only just encountered, which has left hardly any imprint on their brains at all ... that's a neural change, a change in the firing and wiring in their heads which takes time. Time we typically ignore in pursuit of targets and time we undermine by creating conditions which detract from the brains capability to adapt.

Now, we understand that this can sound very challenging as a concept, but it's really not, and I'll say why it isn't. Because it's totally natural - it's happening anyway! If you know about it or not, the process continues. It's like Gravity, just because you're not conscious of it, doesn't mean it doesn't apply to you! Just because you're not conscious of your brain changing to reflect your latest experience of the world, doesn't mean the neurons aren't firing and wiring away to their hearts content. The only choice we really have to make is; do we embrace the knowledge of change at this level and deal with it consciously, so we have a better chance of achieving the best outcomes, or ignore it and maintain the global >75% failure rate statistic.

We adapt and adjust to our surroundings every day, every last vertebrate on this planet in fact! Anything with a backbone beneath it's brain is growing new neurons and dropping old ones as part of their design on a second by second, minute by minute basis. To ignore this fact and fail to take it into account when considering the design of our organisations is ... well ... just daft!

Read these next lines to yourself ... 
"Reading this article is wiring and firing new neurons in my head right now." 
"Reading this article is wiring and firing new neurons in my head right now."
"Reading this article is wiring and firing new neurons in my head right now."

Knowing more about this gives anyone who understands it a significant advantage over those who do not.

When we 'believe' a new view of the world is of benefit to us, our brains adapt to integrate that world view for our benefit (WIIFM - What's In It For Me). If we believe in 'Lean' tools, we'll learn them and use them. If we believe in Six Sigma or TOC or OpEx or Systems Thinking, we'll learn the project management approaches and tools they present .. and use them. If however, we don't form a positive belief about them, we don't personally integrate them into our world-view, they will remain, at worst, a threat we oppose, or, at best, an inconvenience we will tolerate. We may change while under pressure to do so (while the consultants are on-site), but we will not sustain the approach, we will 'revert to type'. We will go back to 'habitual behaviours', because those behaviours are a by-product of our neural network. The way our employers want us to behave, as promised by those they employ to train us, will not become 'just the way we do things around here', and the resultant 'Culture' will be one of skepticism about 'latest fads', rather than a genuine 'high performance' culture fully utilising best practice approaches.

Worse than that, where we find ourselves in a situation where we don't believe in the 'goodness' of something and we're forced to abide by the rules, the levels of stress hormones in our system rises. This leads to sickness averages going up, attrition rates rising, re-training costs soaring etc. etc. So we look like we're 'Doing Lean' or 'Using Six Sigma' (for example), but it's all window dressing (As the Japanese would say, the Tatamae [The face presented] covering the Honne [The true reaction and feelings of the person]) ... failing to acknowledge the Honne, we are actually creating a 'Kamikaze Kaizen' approach to change at a cultural level, where our change effort undermines the performance of the organisation in ways our overt reporting mechanisms don't recognise sufficiently or overtly to highlight cause and effect.

The irony is, without a substantial understanding of the brain, the approach taken toward change leads to these scenario's and the global reports of >75% change intervention failures ... and yet, in the absence of a belief in the missing ingredient, the need to include it in our knowledge base about 'Change' is often dismissed. (Demonstrating many of the principles which we can explain at a neuro-psychological level about people opposing a new view due to comfort zones [neuro-chemical balance] and defence mechanisms [also a neuro-chemical process]).

The difference between Six Sigma and Lean is that the first relies on Data to try and leverage that change in belief and Lean encourages experience to get to the same end result ... but no matter what medium you use, what banner it's sold under, the 'root-cause' of behaviour (Action) and thus organisational performance improvement always comes back to changing belief... the good news for today is, now we can understand this, and use it to your advantage.