Reaching The End… Design Thinking

We did an amazing and productive job in Design Thinking. We are reaching the end of this process.

We are very lucky. Some great professionals supported us. Thank you to all of them we have validated our prototypes.

Last Friday we enjoyed in the company  of some entrepreneurs, Managing Directors and Managers of Via Express, Nebula, Concha Baeza Escritora por Encargo, linkmyjob, Centro Farmaceutico, Maxxium y Movistar.

We had a great time and we learned all together. Thanks Manolo, Quique, Concha, LuisMi, Ernesto, Marian y Diego.Después de un trabajo muy interesante y productivo estamos llegando al final del proceso de Design Thinking.

Changing The Way To Design Processes

Currently technologies, digital transformation, industry 4.0, new software to face changes in processes are demanding companies that are either gaining or keeping competitive advantages. But something it doesn’t change is the necessity to apply continuous improvement in our organizations. This will help to manage change as part of corporate life.

Managing change in organizations require a continuous education of our corporate managers, managers, middle level and the whole organization. It is very important to consider some basics at the time a process change is successful. Sometime to underestimate those basics can drive companies to fail.

Once is defined what we want to change and the scope of the change action, the first aspect to consider is the timing for the design process. This should be well defined, not too wide but not too fast. At the same time, we must focus all the change in the output that creates the value proposition the customers.

Latter we must communicate the changes we are implementing to the whole organization. We must consider all the areas. The critical factor most often ignored is the need to take the message to the entire audience – people must be engaged with the project, because it is upon their actions that success depends.

It is very important that the workforce is completely integrated in the strategy of the company, know the importance of the processes and the performance levels expected to understand perfectly well the changes and the sense of them. This will contribute to support the actions of change that organizations implement.

We can build a successful and simple road map to implement the change and re-design process:

a). Process owner will be the one motivating the change. He will be responsible to communicate to the organization the sense and reasons to implement such changes and also will push with the courage and determination get the end with success.

b). We will look for the right Project Leader to re-design the process who will define the team member. That team must be able not only to drive the changes but can also work together in a cohesive way being very effective.

c). Assigning the adequate resources, facilities, technological to handle the project effectively.

d). Main goal will be to eliminate activities without added value and generate extra costs, mistakes and delays.

Before we start with any change implementation in re-designing processes we must check that we are able and ready to face a process transformation. We should check aspects as leadership, culture, experience and management skills.

Too often individuals spend a significant amount of time fixing things that have gone wrong, on top of just performing the tasks and processes that make up their ‘day job’. That’s why many times organizations have to initiate a more radical change in an organized way.

It is also necessary to define the right key performance indicators that fulfil some requirements:

1.- Aligned across all the organization

2.- No gaps in the measures applied through the organization hierarchy

3.- Used to drive improvement

 

Finally, new processes or changed ones must be approved and finally implemented properly. Consolidation and sustainability will guarantee the results and success of processes.

Making Changes Effectively

We all face leadership challenges in our global business environment. We have turned around our organizations and sometimes succeeded as turnaround leaders. But to succeed as such leaders we need to face organizational changes, development and overcoming challenges that can embrace change effectively.

XXl Century has forced us to effect change due to fierce competition. New products and services offered by our competitors made relevant their businesses and made us to enter in new ways to manage our own businesses. But certainly before that we had to restructure, improve or innovate to prepare for growth and beating cutthroat competition globally.

It is very important that our organizations don’t decline over a period of time to the extreme they are nor recoverable. So we must anticipate those moments and turnaround our organizations through various strategies to ensure that our organizations go consistently in the right direction.

Under those circumstances, people are not immune from change and we cannot avoid them.

Our customers demand more and more and they are changing very fast their demands. Meeting their aspirations and expectations is really a hard task and oblige companies to enhance constantly innovation and creativity to follow up changing customer tastes and preferences.

If you want to grow, change is essential.

Many times people confuse growth and change. It is different to say “I want to shift to another career” or “I want to grow in my career by shifting from one place to another”. Change is something that can occur very rapidly whereas growth takes time and requires immense effort and energy. Growth has a very important relation with the definition of grit. Grit is passion and perseverance in the very long-term. I can say that growth is like a marathon and change is a sprint race.

That’s one of the important concepts in change management, sense of urgency. We need to speed change up. Time will run against us.

However, one thing which is in common between change and growth is to come out of the comfort zone.

As I always say, people often assume that the status quo is good. They prefer to remain without change as it is much better known status than unknown one.

Change management is a process of effecting change in a successful way persuading the people to follow the strategy defined by the organization. It also consists in getting the right coalition and aligning the employees to neutralize the resistance to the changes to be implemented.

Change Management and turnaround leaders should create enough confidence between their employees to facilitate all the actions that can conduct successfully the changes required. They will try to fulfill the motivational needs of their people.

Leaders will have to act with optimism and guide the people forward with confidence.  They will define and implement a clear and consistent strategy with a well-defined vision and mission.

All leaders in a change management process must be always beside their people during the transition period and building trust and confidence. They must be passionate and crowd-pullers about the change. They will have to join in the change process their employees and make feel them part of that process.

And at the end, ensure that the change takes place completely and no new bottlenecks could appear breaking the process. Don’t underestimate the resistance to change.

Ensuring the change process requires flexible and adaptable leaders that can lead situations and people successfully. If they communicate with passion and make things clear for people, implementation of change will become much easier. If they give good example they will create trust among the people.

Leaders must hold strong communication skills, resilient; they must empower others, share the vision, motivate others and make change a part of the organizational culture. They must be competent and confident. They must learn to prioritize their tasks and strictly focus on change efforts. It is also essential to show and celebrate small successes to motivate others. They must be risk takers and learn to overcome barriers during the process of change and also they must be good at analytical and problem solving skills by looking at the big picture.

Above all, the change leaders must be passionate in their endeavors to effect the change smoothly and successfully.

Change is unavoidable and CEOs of global companies must outguess than their competitors to face future challenges.