Leadership – Process Enhancement Overview

Cure vs Remedy
Businesses struggle with balancing risk and reward.  Many times, leaders or managers are drawn to installing band-aids over issues.  The logic is easy to follow – the company experienced an injury because of an error, and then an additional step is placed on the workflow meant to eliminate the risk of it happening again.

This is an act of managing by exception.  The more effective measure is to manage the exception.

It’s important to note – as there is a significant difference…

Remedy
The result of creating this band-aid is that the problem was not cured.  It was remedied.  But the remedy is not sustainable.  And this is why: Each added step translates into a more complex workflow and likely increases the resources needed to complete a project.  This added complexity and increased necessity for resources lowers the likelihood of a having an efficient process, also known as throughput succes.

Cure
We believe there is a better way.  We ask ourselves “What risks can I drive down through process and training?”  Thinking about the solution with relation to its affect on the entire workflow is encourages a more insightful, replicable solution.

And any sustainable cure must be both replicable and scalable.

So think twice before adding a step to a process that usually works fine. Consider the additional work in doing that step all of the time when it is irrelevant, and try to think through a solution that encourages success, while managing the exceptions that are bound to occur.