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An article by Bob Burton and Bernard Butt. Bob Burton and Bernard Butt, of Back on Track, have been involved with the Best Practice Club as Active Learning Day providers for many years. This short article is one of a series that they wrote for the Club Newsletter during the early part of 2007.

Managing for today and tomorrow…

This article discusses the development of high performing, sustainable organisations. In it we outline the areas in which businesses need to become expert and examine some of the apparent threads that run through these areas of expertise.
Over the last hundred years there have been many "solutions" to improving business performance, from F.W. Taylor's School of Scientific Management to the more "touchy feely" notions of "empowerment" that were so in vogue through the eighties and nineties . As we enter the 21st Century we have Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Lean Organisations and Six Sigma etc. etc.
A common experience is the sense of disappointment we feel when such an implementation fails to live up to its billing. The way solutions are bought and sold are perhaps one cause of the problem. Consultants offer a single strand solution to a complex problem while the client, desperately seeking immediate improvement buys it. The issue here is not that the consultant is dishonest, neither is it that the client is naïve. The problem occurs because of our ability to respond to the pace of change and business managers feel the need for an instant fix.
Change is the only constant facing business today. Change is accelerating as technology, fashion, taste and regulation are satisfied in an ever shrinking world by a continually changing supply base, where anything vaguely transferable migrates to the lowest cost base. It's the pace of change that drives business managers to seek instant answers to complex problems.
We propose that business should take a wider, more holistic view. Drawing from extensive analysis, we suggest that organisations that create dynamic purposeful cultures that thrive and can sustain in such a world have become "expert" in the following key areas of management:

• Leadership, direction and strategy
  Businesses need leaders who possess an unrelenting will to continually match the business to the market place and the determination to see it through. They need to develop strategic initiatives that are seen as on going processes that everyone in the business feels part of and are organised to support.
• Valuing learning and development
  The capability of the organisation to evolve and progress is linked to the capability of each and every individual. Offering the opportunity for individual and team development is one of the most effective ways of positively engaging people. When people are so engaged, they are able to combine their own interests and the interests of their team with the interests of the organisation.
• Organisational design and aligned reward systems
  Identify the core competences that the organisation needs and design the most effective and efficient processes to deliver them. Without making sure that the reward systems are aligned with desired organisational outcomes, even the best process designs falter. Reward systems in organisations so often divide and dissipate energy, yet they should serve to be a uniting force.
• Corporate social responsibility and conscience
  The role business plays in creating a sustainable society is becoming a very current issue and perhaps the fastest growing management discipline. This may however not be so new. We should perhaps keep in mind the more traditional values that have marked out some of our longest lived businesses.
  Each month, for the next four months, we will explore some current thinking in each the above topics.

Common to and running through all these areas of competence are five threads that apply in some measure to each of the management competencies:

• Everyone feeling part of a common resolve
  The most successful teams always appear to have a secret ingredient which has little to do with the capability of the best player or the technical expertise of the coach. It's difficult to quantify this quality precisely, but it begins with everyone understanding and sharing a common propose.
• Everyone adopting a common value system based on integrity
  Most organisations have a common value system. How it helps or hinders depends on how it reflects the aspirations of the stakeholders. It doesn't have to be complicated either. One extremely successful organisation says simply "...we won't be rude to each other and we won't tell each other lies". Another "... we will do what is right not what is expedient".
• Simplicity of thought and action
  Simplicity of thought and action produces the most effective and efficient outcomes. Remember Ockhams Razor "...what can be done with fewer ...is done in vain with more. Put another way "...as simple as you can, as complicated as you must".
• Conducting business through fact
  A great deal of the waste in organisations results from us failing to get a complete understanding of the true position. Improvement can only come from fact. Yet facts are often difficult to pin down. Often decisions are based on "how we always did it" or hunches or "gut feeling" or indeed the person with the loudest voice. We must always seek specific information to guide our decision making and so help us to avoid tampering when gaining control of our systems and processes. In one organisation we know, everyone is encouraged to follow the mantra See - Think - Plan - Do - See. In many more businesses we know, the process is See - Do and Wonder!
• Concurrency of all information and actions
  Businesses have been using concurrent design very effectively to reduce product time to market since the mid eighties. Its effectiveness stems from running processes and systems in parallel and so that information is exchanged in real time and issues are highlighted and dealt with immediately. The same concepts and practices are now being employed to great effect by business focused on customer satisfaction, aided by some excellent computer software, in sales and operations planning, supply chain management and service environments.
  
  If you would like to know more please contact the Club on 01306 646555 or admin@bpclub.com.