Improving company performance through Systematic Thinking Skills
The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us valuable business lessons, including:
- The need to prepare for an unimaginable situation
- The need to adjust quickly as the situation unfolds
At the heart of both of these lessons is what we call Systematic Thinking Skills (STS), a body of capabilities to plan for situations and resolve issues through processes that can be learned by teams throughout a company. The ability to apply the processes and language of STS makes problem solving and decision making more effective (developing the right response) and efficient (ability to act quickly) because it gives everyone in the company a common approach.
While it would have been very difficult for any company to plan for a major pandemic, most companies had some crises plans in place to deal with various scenarios including facility closures, large numbers of employees not being able to work, supply chain disruptions, etc. The pandemic brought into play many or all of these issues, forcing companies to improvise these plans. The companies most successful in dealing with the pandemic were able to anticipate by thinking through: What could happen next? How can we keep that from happening? What do we do if we can’t keep it from happening? What opportunities does this situation present and what can we do promote those opportunities? Through this process, they were able to stay one step ahead of the pandemic (and competitors) to meet market demand and customer expectations.
At the same time, it is impossible to plan for every possible contingency. Companies had to react quickly as the situation developed. Common, company-wide processes and language to diagnose and resolve unforeseen issues quickly, with no time wasted on debating the best way to approach the issue, would be beneficial. With this shared approach, people throughout the company could contribute to problem solving and decision making by applying their specific expertise to the issue at hand.
Through the dual approach of planning for problems and opportunities, and reacting quickly to developing situations, leading companies were able to not only survive the pandemic, but, in some cases, emerged in a better position than pre-pandemic. Often, the strong became stronger.
The good news is that these approaches can be learned and used by any company. And these skills are not just applicable to a pandemic situation: They have been used by respected companies for generations around the globe in all kinds of market conditions. To learn more about STS click here.
How we help clients
We help clients improve the problem-solving, problem-prevention, decision-making and project management skills of employees throughout the company. We achieve this by transferring processes and techniques through classroom learning and on-job application. The skills employees develop are aligned with their specific job responsibilities.
But we know that learning new skills is rarely enough. That is why we often develop process coaches within the company who facilitate use of the processes on an ongoing basis. We also work with the management team to assure the problem-solving and problem-prevention processes are integrated into performance and information systems. This assures maximum return on the company's investment.
The result is profit growth by avoiding problems, taking advantage of opportunities and resolving problems without costly trial and error.
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