Management Must Evolve Fast – 15 Days to Radically Improve Company Performance

There is one major constraint today that is preventing sustainable growth: management.

Why is this? Because our reality today is one where interdependencies and interconnections multiply at an ever-increasing speed. This is complexity in its most dynamic manifestation. Our businesses, instead, are mainly managed by people with little or no understanding of these dynamics, let alone methods and tools to operate successfully and grow within them. This lack of understanding and knowledge in management translates into a series of very real barriers to a true and lasting recovery once the positive impact of the government relief measures has gone. These barriers include:

businesses organized in a traditional functional/hierarchical way that slows down flow, sub-optimizes resources and frustrates people’s efforts
structural inability to organize for speed
flawed measurements that emphasize cost instead of throughput
flawed measurements that do not allow speed of cash generation
Over-reliance on linear thinking
Decisions based on flawed assumptions
Inability to understand systemic implications of decisions and actions for supply chain and wider stakeholders
Cognitive challenges of continuous change

We believe that the two major priorities to help businesses recover and grow is to enable them to:

accelerate cash generation through sales
do more with the resources and competencies currently available

Neither of these priorities is addressed by traditional accounting methods or anything taught in an MBA. This is because accounting methods and MBAs exist within a pre-complexity paradigm. Accelerating cash generation through sales and doing more with the resources we have is precisely the realm of an existing body of knowledge and methods for management based on systems science. Without a systemic understanding of what it means to manage businesses, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

10 weeks to move out of the crisis

We believe, based on over 20 years of international experience, that a practical way forward comes in the form of a 15-day program over 10 weeks for leaders and managers where they learn how to accelerate cash generation through sales and do more with the resources and competencies they have available. The major elements of the program are:

what complexity means and why it matters
organizations as systems: a network of interdependent processes and resources working towards a goal, based on the work of W. Edwards Deming (Deming’s teachings provided the foundations for the Japanese economic recovery post WWII)
variation, how it affects all processes, and how to drastically increase Quality (overall ability of the company to sustain performance through continuously addressing customer needs)
buffer management to radically simplify and accelerate production (Theory of Constraints)
how to leverage the constraint of an organization to radically improve overall performance (Theory of Constraints)
how to increase rate of cash generated through sales (throughput) to a wider market share, using the same resources (External Constraint method)
how to measure and report performance systemically – measurements for speed of cash generation
how to manage projects systemically for maximum speed and reliability (Critical Chain method)
how to redesign our organizations and manage them as a Network of Projects to increase Quality, accelerate Flow and increase Involvement of people
methods for systemic thinking to challenge assumptions and develop breakthrough solutions
methods for systemic thinking to support decision-making that takes into account implications for all stakeholders and to adopt a throughput improvement mindset for sustainable growth