September 2007 E-Zine

In a recent survey, 46% of CEO's believed the biggest benefit of lean is in reducing costs. Yet Toyota created their system to create growth. Many organizations are caught up in a false belief that continually reducing costs is the only way to survive. Of course removing all forms of waste and costs is important but we can't lose sight of the fact that we must also continuously innovate and grow. In this E-Zine we offer workshops, whitepaper-videos, and best practices to help you grow your organization.

Innovation Tour #3: "Measuring what Matters for Innovation and Growth"
	Achieve Sustained Profitable Growth A world-class team of experts (JW "Jahn" Ballard, Praveen Gupta, and Thomas Hood III) will come together on November 12 to provide a practical approach to sustaining profitable growth for your organization. As Gupta states, "Many businesses focus on either profitability or growth, but few focus on both." Sustained profitability requires a focus on both aspects, but we are most often blind to some major elements. Ballard states, "What's killing us in business is our individual and collective blind spots. In any given situation, it's what we don't know that we don't know that is hurting us the most - the invisible dynamics and underlying patterns that continuously operate below the surface." Just as a fish can't see the water it swims in, in our businesses, we often can't see elements that are crucial to our survival and sustainability. We need to be able to step back and take a different view to be able to address these key elements in our businesses. The complexity of most businesses today often leads to a tendency to measure too many things to the point that it becomes impossible to make useful decisions based on those measures. How can you minimize the number of measurements you use, while also making sure they are the right ones? Can you move to fewer, but better, measurements? You will take back pages of relevant insights and actions from this highly interactive, hands-on day. Your business reality will be the focal point that your delegation (Ops, Finance, Marketing, Exec) can really sink its teeth into as a team. Is your business evolving and changing? The pace of change in our society and organizations continues to accelerate. Often, measurement doesn't evolve as our businesses change, and many measures report past activities (lagging indicators). Sometimes quarterly information is too late. Ballard states, "Emergent measures are crucial because change is happening so fast. The process of how measurement can and should evolve is not taught in any schools." It WILL be taught here. In addition to both Ballard and Gupta's books, you will receive the highly acclaimed Transforming Performance Measures by IBM Research Fellow, Dr. Dean Spitzer, a critical new resource for understanding and leveraging this crucial arena. Ballard identifies a fundamental problem in businesses: People use different words for the same things, and the same words/terms for different things. For example, "sale" can mean various things to different groups; a signed order to sales/marketing, cash received to executives, the warranty expired to finance, goods out the door to shipping. There is a need to align and communicate consistent meaning of terms throughout the organizations. Blind spots, complexity, the pace of change, need for a common language. These issues, and more, will be addressed at this event. What you can expect at this event: Preparatory work to create a whole system analysis. The opportunity to assess and enhance your ability to identify and test the measures that really matter. A co-created view of the organization as a whole system, in an innovative fashion. A simple & powerful picture of cultural and financial elements of their businesses. Tools to help you drive profitability evolve your measurement systems and get closer to providing "real time" information. Focus on aligning and communicating consistent meaning of terms, strategy and performance throughout the organization. Alignment of Executive, Financial, and Operating views. Measurement software and a Six-Sigma Scorecard. Practical interaction with your numbers. Tom Hood, our host in Baltimore, will share his story of turning around the Maryland CPA Society over the last eight years. As Chair of the American Institute of CPAs Vision 2011, and a frequent member of the 100 Most Influential People in the accounting profession, Tom found he needed support to think about his business challenges in new ways, both financially and operationally; and engage his people to think with him. By doing a quick, whole systems financial analysis using the Integral Operations Finance Toolkit, Hood and his staff were able to think in new and practical ways that have made their organization a national leader, and strategic ally with half the other state CPA societies. Who should attend? A multi-disciplinary delegation would definitely be preferable because of the different views of the organization that they bring. The following three areas are a great start on bringing together a whole system perspective. CEO/Owners - Use the numbers as a compelling tool to frame and communicate your strategic vision, and anchor how you design an organization that supports the talents of your people for maximum value creation. CFOs - Bring the numbers continuously to life for your internal customers so the lights go on in their heads, and provide your CEO with what they really need to make their strategic vision transferable, and their organization design evolve. Operating Leaders - Unify the language of finance with the day-to-day reality of the floor, so that everyone can continually see more clearly how they impact overall business results. Gupta also suggests that department managers, strategic planners, and front line people can add a great deal to the discussion, planning, and decision making. As Joe Scanlon stated, "The people doing the job know the job better than anyone else." Measurement is crucial at all levels. Plan to experience an integrative, holistic approach to measurement, performance management and organizational design that engages all four of the Scanlon Principles; Identity, Participation, Equity, and Competence. Ballard and Gupta both recognize the importance of engaging all employees in this whole system process. As Gupta said, "Be prepared to look at new ways to measure and monitor for sustaining profitable growth." For more information on the Innovation Tour #3 contact the Scanlon Network office at 517-332-8927 or office@scanlonleader.org.
	To download the Measuring what Matters registration as a pdf file...

3M Tour Whitepaper and Videos Available
	Did you miss the 3M Innovation Tour? If you did, you missed, in Paul Davis words, "One of the best, if not the best, event I have experienced in 20 years." All is not lost! As a member of Scanlon Leadership Network, you can now receive a whitepaper on the event, as well as videos of all of the presenters, including Powerpoints and handouts. Learn from the likes of Art Fry. Art is the inventor of Post It Notes. Who can live without Post It Notes today? Art offers the following definitions: Creativity is a new idea for a product or process or a new pattern for doing something. Invention is an idea that has been reduced to a prototype or practice. Innovation is where people switch to a new practice or use a new product. In other words, innovation under this definition must be applied, it must be used, it must be adopted---in order for innovation to have occurred. The 3M Innovation Tour was a unique opportunity to get behind the scenes access to one of the most consistently innovative corporations in America. Presentations were given by past 3M scientists, like Art Fry and Dave Braun, as well as many current innovators. Opportunities to learn about the nature of innovation were invaluable, as well as how to develop a "Culture of Innovation." The Scanlon Network has captured many crucial aspects of innovation in the White Paper. You have the opportunity to learn about the Types of Innovation, Forms of Innovation, Continuous Improvement vs. Innovation, Radical Innovation, The Nature of Innovators, and Twelve Ways to Create a Culture that Supports Innovation and Innovators. The White Paper is one of the "meatiest" documents you can imagine. The videos of presenters are all on CD so they are playable from any computer. Between the videos, PowerPoints, handouts, and the White Paper, you have enough material to do an intense study of innovation in your company. Contact the Scanlon Leadership Network office to get your copy of the White Paper and videos of the 3M Innovation Tour. Each member company is entitled to one-set of the videos as a membership benefit. The Scanlon Network regrets that we are not yet able to offer the videos to nonmembers (we are working to obtain permission). The Whitepaper is available to nonmembers for $100.00.

2007 Best Practices Books Available Soon

A major benefit of membership in the Scanlon Leadership Network is access to and cultivation of great ideas and practices. Perhaps the most tangible manifestation of that from Scanlon is the annual Best Practices Book. The 2007 version of the book will be published by the end of September. Copies will be mailed to members soon thereafter. What will you find in the book? All of this year's Best Practices submissions are included. Dig into those and you have a springboard into growth and evolvement of your business. For example, consider Jackie Schulte's Gold Medal Winning submission. Schulte is HR Director at SGS Tool Co. In her position, she is responsible for attracting individuals who will take the initiative to acquire new skills or enhance current skills. To accomplish this, they created a Recruiting Video and Brochure. These tools are coordinated with table top displays used in their recruiting process. The tools highlight educational opportunities such as the journeyperson tool maker program, tuition reimbursement, 50 hours of annual training, and more. It is clearly communicated that individuals will have many opportunities to continue their education and increase their earning potential, at the same time as they become more and more valuable to SGS. The Scanlon Principles are an integral part of both the video and the brochure. Schulte states that all four principles were considered during all phases of development of the tools from storming to story boarding to editing. The philosophy of SGS was captured in both. The Best Practices Book not only provides the ideas, such as Schulte's submission, but also information on cost, length of time the practice has been in operation, indicators of effectiveness, things learned, and pitfalls to avoid on each submission. For example, Schulte and SGS learned that often times a person who received a copy of the video passed it on to others, who subsequently became applicants for positions at SGS. Also, Schulte's submission warns of taking too narrow of a focus with a tool such as this. Doing so could jeopardize the shelf life of the tool. Wow!! Just a few weeks and members will have their hands on this gold mine of information and ideas. Watch for your copy to arrive soon.