Accelerating Your Business Growth Through Continuous Improvement: Part 1

HOST: Hello everyone and welcome to Cherry Bekaert’s Digital Journeys podcast. My name is Jim Hullman, and I am pleased to host today's episode in a brief series about continuous improvement.

HOST: In this session, we will talk about continuous improvement broadly and important things to consider when implementing a practice of continuous improvement.

HOST: In our second session, we will talk about a straightforward approach to baseline your organization's improvement maturity and help clarify attributes to advance your practice.

HOST: In our third session, we will talk more tactically about advancing your improvement practice and how to create focus on the best initiatives for business impact.

HOST: Today I am joined by my colleague Steve Holliday. We are both part of Cherry Bekaert’s Digital Advisory practice, in which we guide our clients forward in their digital transformation journeys. Steve, thanks for joining me.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: Hey Jim, it is a privilege to be here.

HOST: What we would like to discuss today and share with our audience is guidance to help them start or advance their initiatives to drive improvement anywhere in the business.

HOST: But before we get started with that, Steve, help me set the stage. When we talk about continuous improvement, what does that mean?

STEVE HOLLIDAY: Certainly, Jim. If we were to look up a definition of continuous improvement, it would be an ongoing process of identifying, analyzing, and making incremental improvements to systems, processes, products, or services.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: Its purpose is to drive efficiency, improve quality, and value delivery while minimizing waste, variation, and defects. That is the book definition.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: It is a general definition, but we will get into more detail about how this gets operationalized in the business.

HOST: Steve, you have been helping companies with continuous improvement for almost 30 years. One could say you have been continuously improving. What are some key lessons that you have learned that are essential to success?

STEVE HOLLIDAY: I feel like I have lived and breathed continuous improvement. These views have evolved with experience, both personally and broadly in the improvement community.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: First, continuous improvement needs to be organized and intentional. Second, it needs to be aligned with the organization's key objectives, supported by management, and driven by frontline teams.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: Third, the best results occur when improvement efforts are balanced with the capacity to deliver and when efforts are focused on business impact and time to value.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: This is especially effective when experienced coaches are available to support management and frontline teams.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: Finally, the best long-term results occur when all of the above gets embedded into the organizational culture, objectives, and standard work.

HOST: Let’s begin with the first point. You mentioned that continuous improvement needs to be organized and intentional. Give the listening audience an example of what this looks like in a practical business setting.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: An example could be a manufacturing firm where they have organized a Kaizen event, which is a form of continuous improvement, to identify inefficiencies in their assembly line.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: These events are intentional, planned, and involve relevant stakeholders, ensuring that their improvements are systematic and purposeful.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: Moreover, we want to be sure that these events are aligned with key strategic priorities and that there is an overarching improvement structure that helps sustain efforts over time. It is not an isolated event; it is part of a programmatic approach.

HOST: It is often observed that management might have short-term focused objectives. In the current economy, there is a revenue and profit crunch driving attention.

HOST: That may not seem aligned with continuous improvement, which may have a reputation for being slower. How should companies handle potential misalignment between short-term and long-term objectives?

STEVE HOLLIDAY: In my experience, I have seen companies try to accelerate continuous improvement projects to hit critical quarter-end or month-end dates because those benefits flow to the bottom line.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: In reality, a long-term and short-term perspective are not incompatible. Short-term goals are steps towards longer-term, larger improvements.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: The key is effective communication between management and your frontline team to ensure everyone understands the projects in the pipeline and the impact these are expected to have for the business.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: Those smaller, quicker wins contribute to the broader improvement vision.

HOST: It is always helpful to get some momentum and buy-in with those wins that are able to get everybody on the same page quickly.

HOST: You mentioned that the best long-term results occur when continuous improvement is embedded into the organization's culture. Could you elaborate on how a company can achieve that cultural shift?

STEVE HOLLIDAY: Embedding continuous improvement into an organization's culture begins with leadership. Leadership plays a critical role.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: First, leaders need to promote a mindset of constant learning and improvement. If people are not challenged to learn and make personal improvements, then it is hard to sustain this kind of culture.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: This also includes creating an environment where there is regular training, where you are rewarding employee suggestions, and celebrating improvement successes.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: Leaders really need to walk the talk. Nothing kills improvement initiatives faster than a leader who does not behave in a way that is consistent with the talk around improvement.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: I say, "Inspect what they expect." If they expect certain behaviors, they should go out and inspect that while behaving in that way themselves.

STEVE HOLLIDAY: Over time, all this aligns the organization and fosters a culture where every employee feels part of the improvement journey.

HOST: Outstanding, Steve. Thanks so much for the insightful discussion today. I know much of what we covered is just a brief synopsis of continuous improvement, and we have a lot more to cover.

HOST: For anyone listening who wants to explore their business's improvement processes, we are here to be your guide forward and can offer an assessment to help you along the way.

HOST: Stay tuned for parts two and three in the series. Please reach out to any one of us at the contact information listed wherever you are listening to this podcast, or go to cbh.com/digital.

HOST: Thank you for tuning into Cherry Bekaert’s Digital Journeys podcast. Please be sure to subscribe and follow along so you don't miss the next episode in this series on how to optimize operations for your organization.