Point #1: Create consistency of purpose toward improvement of product and service with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.

Breaking down Deming’s definition, we pick up on the following key items:

• You need a purpose for everyone to get behind

Having a clear purpose means that management are thinking not just about the problems of today, but are also focussed on the problems of tomorrow and on long-term future of the organisation. This future focus gives people confidence that the business will continue to exist and that their efforts are less likely to be wasted by the company going under.

• Continuously improve your product and service

We live in a fast-paced and constantly changing world where the expectations of our customers increase every year. Businesses can not rest on their laurels and rely on today’s product, service and process to deliver long-term value for their customers. Therefore, continuous improvement should be a core area of focus in every department of the business.

• The overall aim is to stay in business to provide jobs

This is achieved by becoming and remaining competitive. How would you feel if your efforts to drive improvements to product, quality and productivity meant a higher chance of you losing your job? How hard would you work to drive improvement? Thus management need to leave no doubt in the minds of their teams, that no one will lose their jobs for contribution to quality and productivity.

This sentiment about having an eye on the future is the core theme of Simon Sinek’s book The Infinite Game. It is all about playing the game of business not to “win” the next quarter, next year or next 5/10 years but to ensure that you stay in the game for the long-term future (think the next 200 – 500 years).

What is consistency of purpose?

Consistency of purpose means that the work of everyone in your organisation is fully aligned to achieve the same specific goals and objectives. For this, you need to have goals and objectives in the first place.

Why is it important?

It’s important because if you don’t know where you are going, how are you going to plan your route to get there? 

Moreover, if you think of your organisation as a row boat, you can only be successful if everyone is rowing in the same direction and that the direction you are all rowing will get you to where you want to be. 

Having consistency of purpose ensures that you are all working together to get to a common destination.

I’ve worked in 10 businesses and so far only a small minority had clear goals and objectives, that were simple and easy to communicate and that were rolled out to every person within the business.

It was no coincidence that those organisations systematically improved the engagement of their people and improved their service to customers year on year.

Once you have created a clear vision for the future, you then need to ensure that it is cascaded down to everyone in the organisation at a level that is relevant to the work that they do (see Deming’s point #14).

Everyone must be able to directly relate the work they do, back to the overall purpose of the organisation. 

How do you create consistency of purpose?

The leadership team within the organisation set the tone for what needs to be achieved (the objectives)and how to achieve it (the goals). 

For most organisations, you will have a mix of KPIs in Safety, Quality, Customer service, Customer satisfaction, Colleague engagement, Financial return and overall Output (be it in number of services or products delivered); these are the objectives.

Try these exercises at your next off-site meeting with the rest of the senior leadership team to get the ideas flowing:

What are your KPIs and what should their targets be?

Imagine that you are sat having dinner at a fancy restaurant in 5 to 10 years time; you’ve had your best year in business yet and are the best company in your division / market.

What KPIs would you have achieved to hit this level of success?

When you have your list of KPIs and their targets, review them and ask whether hitting these would truly mean that you are the best in your division / market. If you are all satisfied then put them up on the wall so you can all see them.

If you get stuck, take a look at the paragraphs below on The surrounding KPIs and on The 10 year objectives.

Now think about culture:

The KPIs are the “goals” part of your goals and objectives. The objectives part is a group of aspirations and mindsets that will contribute towards hitting your KPIs.

Spend 5 minutes thinking about what sort of things you need to put in place in order for you to hit those aspirational KPIs.

Here are some things to get you going

• You can’t get to that 10 year plan on your own; how do you need to support everyone in the business to want to and be capable of working with you towards this plan?
• Growth over time can only be sustained if it’s profitable
• How developed are you in continuous improvement? Long-term success comes from small & continuous improvements as well as big leaps in innovation.
• What do you need to do for your customers to make sure they keep coming back to you, and tell others to buy from you as well?
• Strong leadership throughout the organisation ensures you remain focussed on the 10 year plan even though some members may move on Ensure clarity of vision and strong leadership capabilities

Time for a good old fashioned SWOT analysis:

Now that you know what KPIs you need to achieve and you are clear on some key areas of focus within the business, it’s time for a SWOT analysis.

For this, put the questions below on the wall and give everyone a bunch of post-it notes; take 10 minutes to sit in silence and ask that everyone comes up with things relating to each question.

Perform the SWOT analysis with the 10 year goals in mind & make sure to highlight the following:

• What are the current strengths of the organisation that already support the 10 year vision?
• What weaknesses exist that need more development and focus?
• What are the opportunities on the horizon which you need to take advantage of?
• What can you see that might threaten (or is threatening) your ability to put your 10 year plan in to action?

Feedback in turn what you have written for the SWOT analysis – note that the most senior leader always gives their opinion last.

Review and write up:

Go back to the start of the exercise and repeat the initial thought exercise.

Look over the work that you’ve done; are you satisfied that by doing all of the things that you’ve written, you’ll become the best in your division / market?

Make tweaks as necessary before wrapping up and sending all of the details out to your team.

Be sure to put some time aside at your next team meeting to go over the work that you’ve just done and ask for any more thoughts on it before settling on this plan.

How to represent your goals and objectives:

The clearest way I’ve seen the goals and objectives laid out in using the house model which is based on the house of Lean:

The house broadly consists of 3 to 4 layers:

1. The foundations – the things that ensure your business continues to exist.

2. The pillars – the things that you will do or the attitudes you aim to develop.

3. The roof – what that growth delivers i.e the reason for the organisation to exist beyond profit. For us, it’s about the benefits both to the current and future employees and customers of the business. 

The Roof:

It may seem counter-intuitive to start building your house from the roof down but there is method to this madness and it is called “Right to Left Thinking”. You start with the end in mind and work backwards to where you are now.

The roof of your “house” should be your reason for existing. What is the “why” of your organisation? If you are a subsidiary of a larger organisation, this could be cascaded down from the parent company or you can create your own.

Think of the roof as your mission statement beyond profit and is fundamental to the identity of the organisation.

Consider the following to help create and shape your “Why”:

1. What impact do you want to make on the world / community / your stakeholders (including your customers and your people)
2. What do we want to be known for as an organisation (to your people, the community, your customers)?
3. Your “Why” statement should help you make the right decisions in tough times
4. Think of your company as a vehicle to accomplish a purpose – what is that purpose?
5. Is this something that you’d feel proud aligning all of your efforts towards achieving?
6. Is this a finite objective or something that you will forever strive for but will never be fully accomplished (note: it’s better that it be the latter)
7. Think about your ideal company culture, what message would motivate everyone to work hard towards achieving?

Remember that this process is meant to take time and is meant to involve multiple people in the organisation. It might take you several weeks of thinking and observing before you land on something you are truly proud of.

Some examples include:

• Mars Petcare – “Making a better world for pets”
• Patagonia – “We’re in the business to save our home planet”
• Tesla – “To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy”
• Smurfit Westrock Global- “To be a globally admired business, delivering sustainable and superior returns for all stakeholders“

If you are stuck finding your “Why” – pick up Start with Why, Find your Why & The Infinite Game– all by Simon Sinek.

The Ceiling:

You can not achieve your overall goal as an organisation without the help of your people.

“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients” – Richard Branson

Placing your people at this level of the house is no accident because it shows a clear hierarchy of care: The business takes care of it’s people through support and development who in turn will take care of customers.

The ceiling should contain a statement of your commitment to care for and develop your people.

The Pillars:

Next are the pillars. Think of these as the prevailing attitudes and mindsets that you’d like within your organisation. These should be the things that ensure you continuously grow and adapt to a changing environment so that you can continue to strive for your mission.

Pull out your notes from the “culture exercise” above; these are the things that go in to your pillars as they support the ceiling and roof of your house.

Some examples include:

• Profitable growth – why grow for the sake of it and be busy fools?
• Continuous improvement – always strive to get better each day
• Growing the capability of your leaders – better leaders will take better care of your people
• Training and empowering employees – the better equipped your people will be to make the right decisions without the need of management which makes you more agile
• Building a great place to work – happier people are safer, deliver better quality and are more efficient
• Working as one team – you are all employed in to deliver the product to the customer at the right time and at the right quality in a safe manner and can not do this without the people to your left and to your right

The Foundation:

The foundation of your house, should be the critical few things that ensure you can continue to be in business. Poor financial management is probably the highest on the list but it can include other things like not harming your people. This is because, if you continuously hurt people at work and don’t make any money, you will go out of business.

What elements are key to ensuring you stay in business?

Can you articulate the elements of the foundation of your house in this way: “If we didn’t have [insert foundational elements] we will go out of business”.

These should be fundamental standards that you want to adhere to that support the continuation of the business. These could be safety related, financial, regulatory etc.

The Surrounding KPIs:

Each of the surrounding KPIs need to be specific to your organisation and to what you want to achieve. It’s a good idea to have two sets of the KPIs within your house model; one that remains unchanged as the longer term, 10 year objectives and one that you update yearly for the focus over the next 12 months.

Each yearly goals and objectives becomes a stepping stone towards the 10 year goals and objectives.

Most organisations will have a similar mix of KPIs that cover Safety, Quality, Customer service, Customer satisfaction, Colleague engagement, Return on sales and overall Output (be it in number of services or products delivered).

Once again you need to use right to left thinking here to come up with the 10 year objectives and work backwards to where you are today.

For the 10 year objectives – Why not strive to be world class?

No matter your starting point, if you are diligent you should be able to achieve world class results in 10 years, so why wouldn’t you make that your aim?

Safety: 0 harm in the workplace should be the objective here

Customer service: Best in class organisations hit 99%+

Quality: this will depend on your industry but you should have a stretch target for your DPPM (# of defects per million units produced)

Colleague engagement: Engagement scores at +80% are considered excellent

Customer satisfaction: World class is +9/10

Return on sales: Overall you’d want to make a higher return than if you just invested your money in any high return investment vehicle + a bit extra for it to be worth the hard work and risk involved (somewhere around 15% would be a good benchmark but this will vary by industry).

For the yearly objectives – what would be a meaningful and achievable step in the right direction?

For these, you will likely have to look at where you are tracking now and decide what push targets you’d like to set in the business. Don’t just look for an arbitrary reduction like 5% or 10%… because what if you could actually get 20% better if you tried?

Have a think about what would be a meaningful step in the direction towards your 10 year vision. Note that the KPIs don’t always have to improve year on year (as much as we’d like them to). Sometimes they are good enough to be maintained for now while you focus on improving other, more critical areas of the business.

Finally – display and communicate

The final thing to do with your goals and objectives is to put them up in places where you and others will see them and cascade them down to everyone in the business; this is the first step in getting everyone aligned to the 10 year plan.