It’s often been said we learn from history, and that opportunity comes from calamity. But have leadership and business objectives really changed all that much these past months? Or has the recent disruption served as more of a reinforcement of already established business priorities: employee safety, customer delight, business continuity and growth, and quick ROI?
Perhaps this disruption is a less-than-subtle reminder, an opportunity for business leaders to refocus on these priorities, not reinvent the wheel. Likewise, it’s nothing new that focusing on the “vital few” critical things that get in the way of optimal performance requires an educated workforce. What better way to build capabilities than through a variety of modalities (certification, kaizen events, etc.) that, used in concert with one another, result in skills development, knowledge transfer, and ultimately, achieving business goals?
The key then is to adopt the right mix of knowledge transfer modalities that best supports each individual, team, and organization. To facilitate that process, we’ve added another tool to our lineup of offerings: SDP (Skills Development Process). SDP, created to drive fast learning and rapid results, is founded on:
SDP is made up of individual How-To programs focused on specific CI disciplines (such as Autonomous Maintenance, Value Stream Management, Problem-Solving, Daily Management, and Administrative Process Flow Improvement), each of which combines brief, consultant-led learning sessions with immediate workplace activities. These “micro-learning sessions,” coupled with the learn/go-do approach, offer a powerful, results-driven formula which is the hallmark of many of our learning sessions. This approach also helps bridge the gap that can occur between learning and doing that can delay progress and hinder results.
Benefits of SDP are far reaching, and include focus on:
- The learning and transfer of CI skills to rapidly become part of daily work
- A strong partnership between leaders-at-all-levels and process-owners – upskilling the people who service the customer
- Leaders-at-all-levels learning skills to coach and teach process-owners about CI practices directly in the workplace
- Improved ways of doing work which is more quickly translated from one area to others
- Continuous improvement truly becoming Continuous Improvement as process owners become capable of fully managing end to end processes to drive rapid change
- Capabilities building becoming measurable results
“Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”
George Santayana
We’re reminded during times of disruption that adapting CI principles, agility, responsiveness, innovation, and the ability to quickly modify daily work to respond to changing environments and customer needs are always critical for business continuity and transformation. The more effectively an organization can upskill employees to quickly translate learning to action, the better able they’ll be to survive all business climates and grow in the process.