SOURCE: Kay Sever | January 29, 2025
In 2025 we will focus on sustaining the gains achieved via the optimization process… gains from investing in new equipment (designed to optimize performance) and gains from positioning an organization to achieve its best performance. Why spend a year talking about sustainability? One answer overarches all other answers… your optimization gains are at risk of being lost in future months/years unless certain actions are taken to prevent this loss. The risk of losing what you have gained is worth investigating!
When a company decides to optimize performance, the focus is often on equipment upgrades… meetings with vendors, investment approvals based on expected financial gains, and installation plans. Personnel are trained on operational changes and process outputs are monitored and measured. When expected ROI gains are consistently reported, management assumes the equipment will generate the gains in the future, so taking additional steps to sustain gains over the long-term is unnecessary.
If this is true, why are we spending an entire year talking about sustaining gains from optimization?
The reason is simple: value stream touchpoints impacting operational and financial performance were excluded from the scope of work:
- Upstream/downstream production departments from the optimized functions.
- Support departments that interact with optimized functions.
- A subset of management processes/practices not aligned with optimization goals.
These touchpoints can directly or indirectly:
- Limit the ability of optimized functions to sustain gains achieved by equipment upgrades (millions of dollars over time in some cases).
- Cause losses (often unmeasured) that partially offset the gross gains from optimization.
Can management take preventive action to minimize the risk of losing future gains? Absolutely! When should management focus on the sustaining gains? At the beginning… when defining the scope of work.
Before we jump into detailed actions to take and when to take them, let’s start with an example that most people can relate to. This example is linked to your success with sustaining any kind of change. In this example, we are going to explore mindsets that affect choices made AFTER deciding to change (or optimize performance).
Weight Loss Example:
- You have decided to lose 25 pounds. Setting that goal is the easy part.
- You consult a doctor and/or exercise consultant before you start.
- You develop a calendar for exercise and go shopping for the foods you are going to eat.
There are things you must simultaneously START and STOP doing before you can achieve a weight loss goal. Understanding the power attached to these choices is key to your success:
- You MUST STOP doing some of the things you have been doing for a long time (examples: eating too much, eating a lot of fast food or snacks, sitting too much after work).
- You MUST START doing things you have not done for years or maybe never done (examples: eating more protein and/or whole foods, doing weight-bearing exercises).
- These choices mean that you must choose to live life differently to reach your goal.
We are taught that change is uncomfortable, but we may not be aware of some invisible dynamics working for and against us that make us uncomfortable. Here are some general rules about change that will help raise your awareness of these dynamics as you move through the change process:
- It is easier to START or STOP new behaviors than it is to STOP old behaviors.
- Your current COMFORT ZONE is filled with old behaviors that are “comfortable habits”. Your old behaviors will be working against you and pulling you back. This is when you must be determined to resist the temptation to backslide.
- Moving to a NEW COMFORT ZONE filled with new behaviors means “permanently” abandoning those habits to achieve your goal.
- Expect to feel uncomfortable until new habits yield an experience/benefit linked to your goal.
- Some things to remind yourself of during and after a shift in behaviors:
- Getting comfortable with your NEW comfort zone takes time.
- A “mindset shift” happens as you repeat new behaviors that deliver results.
- If you decide to only change some behaviors and not others, you will forfeit a portion of what was possible to achieve. There is no gray area here. You can’t have it both ways.
- The good news is that you have the power to choose… this shift in thinking and lifestyle choices is ALL UNDER YOUR CONTROL.
How are these observations linked to sustaining optimization gains?
- Mindsets determine the choices made to do things differently, whether the goal is weight loss or protecting millions of dollars of additional profit.
- Management teams develop a collective mindset as they work together. That collective mindset must shift to maximize and sustain future gains.
- If there is no history of value stream management strategies or practices in a company or at a site, expanding the optimization scope “horizontally” may feel uncomfortable or unnecessary. As a result, choices may be made to do things “the old way” and keep the scope small, even though this management CHOICE increases the risk of losing future gains.
- Resistance or rejection is greatest if executives or leadership teams have to change some of their own processes for decision-making or organizational management to minimize risk of loss. This kind of change requires an increased awareness about how losses are generated and an understanding and mindset shift about the “trade-off” required to protect future gains and sustain change.
In future articles, I will be sharing case study examples (anonymously) of management teams and organizations who adopted this methodology with success and others who chose to “walk away” from it knowing the dollars at risk. Next month we are going to apply our weight loss example to sustaining optimization gains in greater detail.
Thought for the year: Connecting intentional strategies and choices to the sustainability of optimization gains is a winning combination. Your team can maximize the chance to sustain today’s gains (and gains yet to be captured) with tactics designed for that purpose. Taking action to sustain gains is an overlooked strategy for “being the best” in your industry and maximizing shareholder value long-term.
Kay Sever is an Expert on Achieving “Best Possible” Results. Kay helps executive and management teams tap their hidden profit potential and reach their optimization goals. Kay has developed a LIVESTREAM management training/coaching system for Optimization Management called MiningOpportunity – NO TRAVEL REQUIRED. See MiningOpportunity.com for her contact information and training information.
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- About Us
Kay has worked side by side with corporate and production sites in a management/leadership/consulting role for 35+ years. She helps management teams improve performance, profit, culture and change, but does it in a way that connects people and the corporate culture to their hidden potential. Kay helps companies move “beyond improvement” to a state of “sustained optimization”. With her guidance and the MiningOpportunity system, management teams can measure the losses caused by weaknesses in their current culture, shift to a Loss Reduction Culture to reduce the losses, and “manage” the gains from the new culture as a second income stream.
