Theory of Constraints Handbook - James Cox Iii [331]
The Importance of Finding and Sharing “Pockets of Excellence”
The pockets of excellence that do exist within the solid waste management units and private contractors and community-based enterprise must be identified and leveraged. This is important both to provide benchmarks that can be turned into best practices for rollout as well as to provide a way to quantify the inherent potential that can be unlocked if we can move from competing for survival to collaborating for success.
The Key Is Finding Out How to Change and Then Sustain The Desired Behavior
In May 2005, an article appeared in Fast Company titled “Change or Die” where the author, Alan Deutschman said that, “All leadership comes down to this: changing the behavior of people.” He claimed later in a book by the same title (Deutschman, 2007) that in the United States, 80 percent of the healthcare budget was consumed by five behavioral issues (smoking, drinking, eating, stress, and too little exercise) by a relatively small percentage of the population. This has been known and validated by science for many years. Still, the way to change these fundamentally damaging behaviors are still escaping policy-makers and doctors, even to the extent that most people when faced with the decision to change (their lifestyles and behaviors) or die, they end up making the wrong decision by not changing.
In managing organizations, we know that people at all levels find it hard to change. Their awareness of the negative consequences of not changing and/or the benefits of changing is seldom sufficient to trigger the necessary change. This is mainly due to an awareness and often, an over exaggeration of the potential negatives of changing or benefits of not changing. For successful changes to occur, we need to affect the psychological, emotional, and spiritual dimensions, not just thought. Helping people to reframe the concepts that influence their thinking is the key. This is done by creating a new narrative that’s simple, easy to identify with, and emotionally resonant.
TOC, if used properly, can play such a role as it can help stakeholders consider all four aspects (the positives and negatives of changing as well as the positives and negatives of not changing) related to a change in a holistic way. The analogy of focusing all stakeholders to contribute to strengthening the weakest link is a simple, easy-to-identify-with concept, and if combined with the commitment from all stakeholders that winwin-win is the only sustainable solution, can provide the emotional resonance to inspire contribution.
Where Are There Still Gaps or Complexity in the TOC Roadmap and Process?
Feedback from the InWEnt and UNDP projects reminded the team that there are two important steps in the analysis, which should not be skipped:
1. Recognize past achievements (but then show the large current and future gaps remaining and the consequences on all stakeholders of not closing it).
2. Validate the impact of current/planned strategies (that is, can they help break core conflicts/constraints and how will T, I, and OE be impacted) or will they be in conflict with the new strategy? To release the necessary capacity and/or prevent conflicting priorities, these existing programs should be listed and reviewed on the last day since frequently they fall into the category of “what should be STOPPED so we can START doing what is really needed now.”
If either (1) or (2) are not done, the workshop will not achieve its objective of reaching full consensus and commitment from all stakeholders on Why Change, What to Change, What to Change to, and How to Cause and Measure the Change to Close the Gap.
Future Research
As mentioned before, managers within public sector organizations, like their counterparts in the private sector, know that the fact that we reach full consensus on what needs to change and how and by whom the change will be implemented does not mean it will be done. To ensure proper execution, we need a mechanism to enable managers