Skip to main content

Stop firefighting, start performing!

Another weeks passes and another example of unnecessary fire fighting demonstrated by a business I have been to help.

If you have this taking place in your business, let me ask you a few questions:

1. What keeps on happening?
root cause problem solving
Regain control with this practical book
Can you pin down what it is that you keep having to do, to get out of trouble? If you can't, is there a pattern you can observe?

2. Do you want it to stop?
Is it causing you enough of a problem that you want it to stop? If the answer is yes, keep reading, if not park it for another day.

3. Find out what is going on
Do you know why you are having this issue? If you aren't sure where the issue is arising from, then take a few minutes to have a look around. When you have some idea, go to the next step.

4. Cause and effect
Do you know what is truly causing the fire fighting situation? If you spend the time to get to the root cause of the situation, you have a good chance of permanently eliminating this situation.

Most people don't bother to dig deeply and solve problems once and for all. It is a lot easier to deal with a symptom of the problem with a knee jerk reaction... in the short term. In the longer term the problem will most likely rear its head once more.

Dealing with problems at the symptom level is time consuming, expensive and tiring....

If you want to get rid of your fire fighting situations then I'm afraid to say that you need to think differently going forward. It can be difficult, but definitely worth it!

And, like most disciplines, it gets easier and faster with practice. Thank goodness!

If you want to get some ideas on how to stop firefighting in your business then check out my books Losing the Cape and Effective Root Cause Analysis. 

As I said earlier, most people don't do the simple actions listed above. From personal experience, as well as the experience of my clients, I can assure you that high performance lies on the other side.

Have fun putting out your fires once and for all.


Giles

About the author:

Giles Johnston is a Chartered Engineer who specialises in helping businesses to grow and improve through better business processes and embracing Kaizen.

Giles is also the author of Effective Root Cause Analysis and 'What Does Good Look Like?'.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

What do you think?

Popular posts from this blog

The Kaizen Checklist is here!

Do you want to get better results from your Kaizen programme? Improve your business results quickly with my downloadable kit (including guidebook, workbook and templates) for only $39. Are you looking for a sustainable way to identify and implement improvements across your business? Practical improvement strategies The Kaizen Checklist is a downloadable kit that you can use with your management team to develop a system that suits your business and allow you to quickly implement Kaizen effectively at your place of work. This works great if you use it as the centre piece of your own internal workshop. The kit includes a 40 page guidebook, a workbook, four appendices and three templates. All parts of this kit are designed to get you up and running as fast as possible. If you are unfamiliar with Kaizen, let me stress that this is a simple improvement philosophy that is so much more than just  ‘a Japanese word for continuous improvement’. I’ll cover what it...
Read more

How to get started with continuous improvement

We all know that continuous improvement is a strategy that is essential for business. It involves constantly seeking ways to improve processes, products, or services in order to achieve better results and outcomes. However, for many people, the thought of starting on the path of continuous improvement can be daunting. The fear of doing it incorrectly or not knowing where to start can be overwhelming.    The key to successful continuous improvement is to start small and gradually build upon your successes. Here are some tips to help you get started if you are unsure of how to begin:   1. Identify areas for improvement: The first step in continuous improvement is to identify the areas that need improvement. This can be done by looking at the processes, products, or services that are not performing as well as they could be. It is important to involve all stakeholders in this process to gain a comprehensive understanding of the areas that need attention.   2. Set specifi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nail the number one improvement project

Over the past few weeks I have intervened in my client's continuous improvement programmes . I did this for one good reason: They weren't getting results. They caught the improvement bug, like so many organisations do. They got caught in the trap of wanting to change everything now! As I said, this happens to most of us from time to time. You start with some small improvements and you then identify more improvements you could get your teeth into. The next thing you know, you are trying to run ten improvement projects as well as deliver your day job. I know from bitter experience that this usually leads to having lots of loose ends rather than tangible increases in performance. So, what can you do about this? I know that with careful experimenting and resource management, you could find your sweet spot and figure out how many projects you can handle at once. Or, you can take the quick route and pare back your list until you have one priority. The one project that will give you t...
Post a Comment
Read more