PHASE - The Fast Track to Success
PHASE is a new and exciting approach to organizational development that incorporates best-of-breed solutions to age old organizational problems.
(PRWEB) April 14, 2005 -- PHASE is a new and exciting approach to Organizational Development that incorporates best-of-breed solutions to the age-old problems faced by businesses, corporations and organizations around the world.
For years, Organizational Development proponents have known that in order to outperform their competition business leaders must look to the two systems that are directly responsible for success:
• Process Systems -- Systems driven by technology
• Human Systems -- Systems driven by people
Each of these systems is distinct from the other in the way they operate and each has its own inherent strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, different techniques must be employed for each of the systems.
Process or Technological Systems:
Process systems often operate at well below optimum efficiency levels, and tend to get worse as they age. Any system based on technology becomes inefficient to varying degrees within one year of implementation and many begin producing waste within six months.
Adding to this problem are the COTS technologies or Off-The-Shelf technologies so often found within organizations. Unless the COTS technology is a perfect fit and interacts with other technological systems seamlessly, the organization is buying waste from the start.
Many organizations begin to realize that their technological or process systems are not functioning at optimum levels when they begin to receive feedback from their customers in the form of product complaints. If the organization is receiving product complaints, they are already losing customers. The time needed to analyze and fix the problem is already greater than the time the customer is willing to wait.
Organizations should take the time necessary to carefully plan and execute any change or implementation of a process system. Keeping one goal in mind. Customer satisfaction! This careful planning and execution should take approximately forty percent of the total time to market and include a careful study of the customer needs. Organizations who rush their product to market run the risk of customer dissatisfaction and consequent lowered competitive advantage.
Technological systems should be monitored for efficiency using a closed loop process. Constant feedback from customers on quality and time to delivery should drive the measurement, analysis and constant upgrading of the process system to keep it operating at optimum levels of performance. The tools for this type of closed loop process system include:
• Customer Engagement
• Full Statistical Measurement and Analysis
• Highly trained and empowered product teams
Human Systems:
The human system is by far the more challenging of the two systems to optimize but it is also the most rewarding. Human beings are capable of outperforming any technological system built. The human brain is by far the most complicated, efficient and innovative process system known to man.
The human system and its optimization require careful planning and involve several steps:
• Professional Training
• Personal Skills Training
• Empowerment
• Reward and Disciplinary Systems
• Alignment
• Synergy
Most organizations that enjoy strong competitive advantage and sustained profitability understand the need to keep their employees well informed, highly trained, gainfully productive and happy in their respective positions.
Organizations who do not take care of their people soon find themselves losing ground to those who do. The first step in the human systems optimization cycle is to make sure you hire and retain the right people for the right job. Assessment tools are readily available to employers and can cut hiring mistakes by seventy five percent and provide a good idea of areas of interest and job fit capabilities.
We have all heard the story of how management took the best technical employee they had and promoted him to a management role only to lose him to another company six months later. The rule of thumb here is simple. Dont promote people into a position that they do not want.
Employers who take the time and effort to train their employees in the professional and personal skills necessary to excel in their work gain benefits in two distinct and profound ways. First, they send a strong message that the employee is important to the organization and part of the long-term plan, and secondly the organization gains benefits from the employees enhanced skill.
Traditional versus High Performance Model:
Most modern organizations operate on a set of principles and practices set down in 1903 by Frederick Winslow Taylor and known as scientific management. These principles and practices outline the way work can best be accomplished by implementing:
• Simple, narrowly defined jobs
• Strict division of labor
• The one right way to do a task
• Uniform, and unwavering policies
• Management as the driver for the means and speed of work
This model is currently being challenged successfully by many organizations that choose to adopt a High Performance model in which the human system is allowed to be innovative, and creative. Employees in High Performance organizations are customer focused, they are looked upon as the organizations greatest asset, they perform whole tasks centered around an entire process, they work in cross functional teams and have leaders who provide resources and training in addition to managing.
The results of implementing this type of work environment are clear and compelling. These organizations simply outperform their more traditional counterparts in every measurable category known.
Releasing the creativity and inherent ability to innovate in the human system brings about the greatest gains in performance and efficiency in any organization, directly influencing quality and customer satisfaction and indirectly influencing an organizations competitive advantage and profitability.
PHASE brings both process systems and human systems into alignment in a holistic approach to Organizational Development that includes:
• Process Systems Optimization
• Human Systems Optimization
• Alignment
• Synergy
• Engagement
PHASE accomplishes profound and highly positive results in any organization wishing to adopt a High Performance model by utilizing 21st. Century best-of-breed methodologies to optimize, align and synergize both process systems and human systems while keeping the customer fully engaged in the design process.
John Maceda is president of Applied Knowledge Systems Inc. a Washington D.C. based consulting firm specializing in High Performance and author of PHASE. He can be reached for consultation at (703) 368-1779 or by visiting the Applied Knowledge Systems Inc. website.
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