Once we have developed a breakthrough strategy, the next step is how to we make this vision a reality?
Think of John F. Kennedy saying in 1961; “I believe this nation should commit itself to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth before the end of the decade.” A lofty and motivating vision.
Often it is not possible to plan how to get to the vision because we don’t know all the steps required. Take for example the aim to make humankind an interplanetary species. No one has all the knowledge to plan just how this is done.
What we do in these situations is establish the vision so everyone in the company knows the direction of travel, establish clearly where we are today and then establish the next target (e.g. to build rockets that can return to earth for re use as SpaceX is doing, because they know that to build a colony on Mars will require many hundreds of trips to deliver all that is required to build a habitat that man can live in). Once this target is met, we set the next target condition and keep iterating towards the next target.
At ECOsystems we came up with the theoretical possibility of reducing energy consumption in commercial buildings by 50%. We had never done this before and couldn’t be sure it was possible but with this vision before us, we began to implement various energy saving measures and measure the results of each. In a number of cases we achieved the actual 50% and maintained this. In others we got to 40% plus and the remaining target was not cost effective however we proved that, the vision which we had no idea we could achieve when we started, was possible.
Mike Rother from the University of of Michigan studied the continuous improvements practices of Toyota and codified them in his book Toyota Kata. Toyota have developed a set of daily scientific practices that have enabled them to remain profitable in each of the last 60 years, apart from one.
We have now established the Kata School to promote and provide information and practice of these kata used at Toyota (a Japanese word meaning “way of doing”. A kata is a pattern you practise to learn a new skill).
The idea is that through practise, the pattern of a kata becomes second nature and over time a new culture of continuous improvement becomes the natural way things are done.
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Toyota Kata comes to Wellington
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