Tackle the biggest barrier
to performance – adoption of your improvement initiatives. By everyone in the company. The easy way. Today.
What
people are saying...
“The book addresses the
question that all business managers have been struggling with over the past years: how are all these initiatives and projects
going to work together. The answer is offered in a simple and practical way. As a reader you truly get the feeling
that you can do something with the tips and solutions that are suggested. COP - possibly the missing link to finally
get the return on these big bang projects."
Nick Dieltiens
- Manager Strategic Projects Group - Toyota Motor Marketing Europe
“We very recently
handed over our entire IT processes to a large outsourcer. I wish I would have read Ian’s book before we started as
it would have made our life considerably easier.”
Robert
F. Walters, former CIO, J. Hancock,
USA
"You can actually measure the
success of a strategy by looking at what the whole company is focused on (or not). The approach Ian suggests makes this simple
concept accessible by involving everyone in the building of a common understanding, with impressive results. The most
refreshing business book I’ve read in a long time.”
Jeremy
Locke, Marketing Director, Capita, UK
“This
book is different - it describes how you can develop a reality check for your strategy, and provides basic but up-to-date
insight in the steps a strategy implementation can follow to deliver its promise.”
Flemming Norklit, Managing Director, BSI - Management Systems
“Only by tying working practice (processes) change to IT can organisations get the best out of IT. This book
gets your organisation talking a common language and taking a common approach to business improvement. Therefore it
will prove to be an invaluable investment."
Hussam Otaibi, VP International Operations, Ventana Research
“I have been involved in many business improvement initiatives over the last 20 years. All of them would
have benefited from the principles, methodologies and tools that are so skilfully explained in this book. It provides
a comprehensive business management template for dealing with our ever-changing requirements and challenges."
Daniel L. Murphy, Engineering and Production Director, Intrepid Energy North Sea Ltd
Synopsis of the book...
How do you really deliver results on all the initiatives and projects in your
company? The answer is Adoption.Through Adoption, everyone in your company ensures
that your strategy gets implemented and you obtain visible results from your initiative.
We put this succinctly: R=IA2(Results = Initiatives x Adoption2)
Maximising Results by successful Adoption of the transformational changes
driven out ofthe Initiatives. In
other words, it does not matter how many initiatives (projects, exercises, and programmes, whatever) you throw at people if
no one adopts the results of them. Typical initiatives include Six Sigma, software implementation (SAP, Siebel etc), Cost
Reduction, Sarbanes Oxley and outsourcing programmes.
While this may sound obvious, the corporate landscape is rife with these initiatives
in progress, where little or no thought has been put into how to make sure that the rest of the organisation actually adopt
and own whatever improvement is advocated. Little surprise then that the adoption rate (and hence the success rate) of initiatives
is pitifully low in many companies.
Gaining adoption is a challenge, not least because it involves changes in
behaviour and attitudes. Inspirational leadership helps kick-start adoption throughout the company, but it cannot sustain
the necessary continuous improvement required for companies to stay competitive. Adoption has measurable results, as the dramatic
benefits obtained by the success stories reveal.
Adoption means communicating the changes required of people – and getting
people to make the changes. The approach we are suggesting is applicable to virtually every initiative and it is achievable
as it makes change as painless as possible.This is where a common language is
required – an operational language which can describe the changes in activities, behaviour and results that are expected.
This language describes activities, roles and measures, and is managed through
the use of a Common Operational Platform.It manages processes, documents, resources
and metrics – and the relationships between them.This is made possible
by current IT infrastructure and software.Use of this Common Operational
Platform enhances accountability and serves to further adoption.And once the
COP is in place it can be applied to other initiatives and therefore increases their return on investment.
Whilst this may seem interesting in practice, most companies already have
a range of initiative s at different stages. Therefore the book takes 5 typical initiatives (outsourcing, compliance, Six
Sigma, software package implementation, and rapid growth) and considers the most effective way of implementing the COP alongside
them depending on the phase of the initiative.
From the experience of countless client engagements we have identified 7 simple
steps to develop and manage the Common Operational Platform.These steps build
on on the principles of Adoption, but sets them out in a practical blueprint for action.
In this short video clip Ian answers some questions about
the book "Common Approach, Uncommon results", and reveals a rather strange, but vital use for the book.....
Click the start button to watch the video
To purchase a
copy of the book (£12.99 plus P&P) click here
Visit our weblog to
see the current thinking click here