7 Levels Of Change (Part 4 of 9) - Level 3: Improving
Table of contents for 7 Levels Of Change
- The 7 Levels Of Change - Introduction (Part 1 of 9)
- 7 Levels Of Change (Part 2 of 9) - Level 1: Effectiveness
- 7 Levels Of Change (Part 3 of 9) - Level 2: Efficiency
- 7 Levels Of Change (Part 4 of 9) - Level 3: Improving
- 7 Levels Of Change (Part 5 of 9) - Level 4: Cutting
- 7 Levels Of Change (Part 6 of 9) - Level 5: Copying
- 7 Levels Of Change (Part 7 of 9) - Level 6: Doing Things No One Else Is Doing
- 7 Levels Of Change (Part 8 of 9) - Level 7: Doing Things That Can’t Be Done
- 7 Levels Of Change (Part 9 of 9) - Bringing It All Together
The fourth in a nine-part series on Rolf Smith’s 7 Levels of Change, I introduce the third level of change - Improving (Doing Things Better).
Part 2 - Level 1: Effectiveness
In Level 2 we focused on doing things right to make an effective organization work more efficiently. We differentiated between Level 1 and Level 2 thinking and improved our Level 1 tools.
Fast forward a few months: our efficient organization is humming along but the world is changing. You notice that, even though processes are efficient, they no longer achieve the results you expect. You find that efficiency is no longer enough - you have to improve your core processes. You need to introduce Level 3 change - improvement.
Thinking
To get better results, you have to do things better. To do things better, you have to practice positive thinking. I’ve talked about positive thinking before and here is the change level where it becomes a crucial skill. You need to focus outward on your customer’s experience, and inward to your enabling processes. You must find out how to tap the creativity of your people to generate new ideas and plans of action. You seek new technologies that improve customer experience, and processes that establish new performance goals.
Who
As with Level 1 and 2, people who are attracted to Level 3 thinking are KAI adaptors. But they are less concerned with adherence to rules: they’ll keep the box but don’t have a problem changing it’s shape. They may have more affinity for interacting with people - Myers-Briggs types xSFx.
Ideas
Ideas at Level 3 can be effectively generated by some of the SCAMPER questions. For instance, the Firefly Energy battery answers the question “What can we SUBSTITUTE?” The revolutionary battery substitutes carbon foam for lead inside the battery to yield a four/five-fold increase in performance. The Taco Bell-KFC restaurant combination answers the question “What can we COMBINE?” Our front it looks like a single fast food restaurant with two menus - behind the counter it’s actually an efficient integration of the processes of two different restaurants.
Tools
Level 3 tools are more geared at helping us think at a “higher level” than Level 1 and 2. Along with SCAMPER here are a few other tools for personal creativity:
- Levels of Abstraction - When confronted with a problem, determine the root cause by asking ‘Why?’ Ask ‘why’ up to five times to achieve higher and higher levels of abstraction. Once you get the answer to the five ‘whys’ you can start asking ‘how’ and ‘how else’ to focus on more concrete ideas to solve the problem at the root.
- Refocus the Problem Statement - A more lateral way of rephrasing the problem is to ask the question “Do you mean…?” until you get three ‘yes’ answers from whoever ‘owns’ the problem.
- Hot Wash-Up - A Hot Wash-up is an evaluation technique that can be used at the end of any meeting, event, or project to get a collective assessment of ‘what just happened.’
- After a meeting or event, give everyone a handful of blue slips.
- Ask everyone to write the keyword “Well” in the upper left corner and have them answer the question “What went WELL for you?” Have them right one “Well” slip for each statement. Give everyone a minute to write.
- At the end of the minute, have everyone write “Value” on a blue slip and answer the question “What was the VALUE for you personally? What did you learn?”
- A minute later, have everyone write “Different” on a blue slip and answer “What would you like to have done DIFFERENTLY?”
- You can also add two more optional questions before “Different” - “What became CLEAR to you?” and “What INSIGHTS did you have?”
The Five Minute Meeting - this is similar to the Hot Wash-up but can be used anywhere during a meeting - beginning, middle, end - to focus and energize the group. The technique again involves having the participants fill out blue slips, but the questions are different:
- “What are the critical ISSUES and CHALLENGES?”
- “What INTERESTING or novel ideas do you have?”
- “What OPPORTUNITIES do these issues, challenges, and ideas present?”
- “What ACTIONS can we take now?”
Levels 1-3 cover the continuous improvement programs like Lean Six Sigma. Moving beyond Level 3 to Level 4 we get beyond the adaptive ‘efficiency and improvement’ changes to changes that make a big difference. Level 4 change is ‘Cutting.’
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