Jim Clemmer

<strong><em>"When you arrive at a fork in the road — take it." — Yogi Berra, major league baseball Hall of Fame player and coach</em></strong><br />
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Many paths lead to higher performance. The high performance route is individual and unique for every person, team, and organization. There is no one or best way. What works for me, or anyone else, may not work for you. We can't follow someone else's path. We need to blaze our own trail.<br />
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While no route is exactly the same, successful organization change and improvement efforts cover similar territory. Highly successful organizations have passed most of these change checkpoints and improvement milestones as they move toward ever-higher performance levels:<br />
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__ Clear and compelling reasons for changing and improving<br />
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__ Balanced focus on people, management, and technology<br />
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__ Strong ethic of self-determination<br />
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__ Comprehensive and balanced improvement model<br />
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__ Clear and compelling picture of our preferred future<br />
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__ Three or four core values<br />
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__ Definitive statement of purpose, business we’re in, or why we exist<br />
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__ Rich and continuous customer/partner performance gap data<br />
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__ Intense exploring and searching for new markets and customers<br />
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__ High levels of experimentation, pilots, and clumsy tries<br />
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__ Robust process for disseminating team and organization learning<br />
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__ Three to four strategic imperatives for each annual improvement cycle<br />
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__ Direct links between all improvement activities and strategic imperatives<br />
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__ Comprehensive and balanced improvement plan<br />
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__ Improvement planning structure, process, and discipline<br />
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__ Well designed, proven approach to process management<br />
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__ Clarity on the preferred types and focus of all teams<br />
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__ Well trained team leaders and members<br />
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__ Intense levels of technical, management, and leadership skill development<br />
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__ Simple customer/partner, innovation, capabilities, improvement, and financial measurements<br />
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__ Active feedback loops that foster learning and improvement<br />
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__ Flat, decentralized, and team-based organization structure<br />
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__ Systems that serve and support customers and partners<br />
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__ Extensive and continuous education programs<br />
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__ Effective communication strategies, systems, and practices<br />
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__ Partner-designed reward and recognition programs within a vibrant appreciation culture<br />
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__ Strong development of change champions<br />
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__ Support for local initiatives<br />
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__ Annual progress reviews and improvement assessments<br />
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__ Frequent celebrations of major breakthroughs and small wins<br />
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__ Annual refocus and planning for the next year's improvement cycle<br />
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Management teams can use this list in a variety of ways. It could be a simple checklist for the development of improvement strategies and plan. They might have everyone on the team rate how well the organization and/or team is doing in each area now. Or they might have everyone rate the improvement urgency of each of these 31 areas. Another possibility is to have everyone do both rating exercises to provide performance gap data.<br />
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