Research

Incorporating Change into Business Evolution

Incorporating Change into Business Evolution

By David N. Rasmussen

August 01, 2006 — CSO —

Corporations that perform well over long periods of time have typically learned how to maximize the performance of their people. They recognize that it is people who make good or bad decisions or who may even avoid making decisions. They strive to create a business environment where employees feel valued and are supported by effective directionâ¬policies, procedures, standards of performance, guidelines and toolsâ¬for performing their work. These business environments are generally those in which people want to do their bestâ¬and are able to!

How do companies achieve this type of high-performance culture? They start by embracing a corporate philosophy of "doing the right thing" in all business relationships. They encourage employees to make commitments to customersâ¬and then to deliver on those commitments. And they embrace a tolerance for a manageable level of mistakes, viewing them as learning opportunities for improvement. Finally, they capture the experiential knowledge of people from the successes and failures of delivering on those commitments and recycle that experience into revised business rules for the future.

Over time, the productivity and efficiency of the workforce improves because:

• Experience is captured and shared with others.
• Old mistakes are avoided while new mistakes help train for the future.
• The company learns from its customers through the experience of its people.
• The knowledge is captured, recycled and institutionalized.
• Employees are motivated to challenge the "old" and reach for the "new."
• Business practices reflect the evolving needs of customers to changes in their businesses.

Repetitive Innovation, developed by Stratner Company, is focused on incorporating continuous change as a natural aspect of business evolution, thereby helping to minimize the cost and impact of major business change initiatives.

The Principles of Repetitive Innovation

Repetitive innovation is:

• the concept of innovating new operating structures to support evolving changes in the business
• the idea of keeping your business practices current with the evolving needs of your business
• the objective of delivering improved productivity by eliminating management time spent in fighting business fires

This is accomplished by implementing business rules according to two guiding principles:

1. Ensuring the continuing adequacy of business rules, skills and tools for today's work procedures.
2. Creating tomorrow's business rules today by changing the rules for the right business reasons.

The result can be a dramatic improvement in the business value of people.

The Business Value of People

Fundamentally, there are five parameters of measuring business value. Employees' work contributes to one or more of the following business measures:

1. Increased revenue
2. Reduced cost
3. Cost avoidance
4. Regulatory compliance
5. Fundamental to business futurity

When people are measured against these business parameters, several things happen:

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