Have you ever been so passionate about a sport you thought to yourself, \u201cI should join a league!\u201d In my case, my passion is playing golf, and, typically, I only play 3-4 times per year, but I\u2019ve never taken the opportunity to play consistently \u2013 much less in a weekly league.<\/p>\n
Since I am inside all day working with clients, joining a league seemed like a great opportunity to get outdoors in the evening to try to have fun in these crazy times.<\/p>\n
The lesson I learned this summer reinforced something I already knew: Golf is a very difficult sport, one that requires a wide range of skills, consistent practice, patience and a burning desire for continuous improvement. Although my primary goal was to play recreationally and for fun, after a few rounds under my belt, I realized I needed to take a more structured approach to improve my game.<\/p>\n
Like the business world, it is often helpful to bring in a fresh pair of eyes to assess your operational challenges to help develop a path to achieving your short and long-term goals and achieve operational excellence<\/a>.<\/strong> So, before we dive into how process improvement concepts can help your personal passions, let\u2019s first look at what that means.<\/p>\n For businesses, operational excellence simply means ensuring your business processes align to your vision and strategy and that your processes are consistent, repeatable, reproducible, efficient and sustainable. Achieving operational excellence balances delivering immediate improvements while building the operational foundation to enable ongoing sustainable improvements<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n In my case, as you\u2019ll read further on, I gained immediate improvement in my golf game after working with a professional on my grip and alignment, which built the foundation for further improvements to my swing.<\/p>\n Businesses often are tempted to \u201cboil the ocean\u201d when it comes to introducing the processes or operational changes needed to address their business challenges. In most cases, you need to first consider the bigger picture while evaluating your vision and strategy. But then, you need to start small with a quick win to build momentum and then act quickly to scale the change across the organization.<\/strong><\/p>\n In terms of my personal goals, I often dream of playing on the PGA tour (or, realistically, the Sr. PGA tour) someday, which is a big goal! However, to get there, I need to start small, with basic changes I can then put into practice during my next game. With a continued focus on learning how to address the number of pain points in my game, I plan to make incremental improvements over time to help achieve or get closer to my long-term goals.<\/p>\n Golf \u2013 and running a business \u2013 is hard and takes endurance and tenacity. At the beginning of my story, I shared that golf is hard, even for some of the best professional players in the PGA. The same is true in the business world. Achieving operational excellence is even more difficult for businesses than it is for individual improvement, but it\u2019s not impossible.<\/p>\n This story about my personal passions explains how I used operational excellence and process improvement concepts to address the \u201cpain points\u201d in my golf game. These are the same steps you would take when evaluating areas of improvement<\/a> within your company.<\/strong><\/p>\n For example, I joined a #Spark Golf league in the spring of 2021, which gave me the opportunity to play 9-hole rounds of golf 18 times during the spring and summer. Although the league I joined is considered a \u201csocial golf league organized to be casual and fun, with a touch of friendly competition,\u201d about halfway through the season, I started to assess my progress after each round to understand what I was doing well and where I could improve.<\/p>\n In other words, I wanted to start understanding the \u201cpain points\u201d in my golf game and what I could do to make the pain go away!<\/p>\n Becoming a better golfer or a better business is a journey that requires a roadmap to define how one achieves success. Here are the process improvement concepts<\/a> I used to improve my game and how you can use them for business improvement.<\/strong><\/p>\n Within your business, you should first identify and understand or define the problem you need to solve and then measure and quantify the impact.<\/p>\n In my case, after each hole, I assessed each shot or stroke needed to get from tee to green (or from when you hit your first shot on the tee until the ball rolls in the hole).<\/p>\n I captured my real-time feedback on my drive, my approach, my chipping (if needed) and my putting. I used a letter grade system to give myself an \u201cA\u201d for great shots (which happened occasionally) and anywhere from a B to an F for bad shots.<\/p>\n Once you identify the specific problem(s) to solve, you should then gain an understanding of the specific paint points associated with the business problem.<\/p>\n In my case, at the end of each round, I would analyze my scorecard to assess the pain points in my game.<\/strong> For example, two specific things I observed were that I consistently missed my target to the right (in golfing terms, I had a lazy slice), and when putting, I often would miss short putts (3-5 feet) due to not hitting them with enough speed to remain on the intended line.<\/p>\n Over the summer, I noticed a consistent theme in these two areas by looking at my \u201cgrades\u201d for my tee shots and putts. The course also had several factors I couldn\u2019t control, such as water or bunkers that also affected my shots, which I took into consideration.<\/p>\n It\u2019s tempting to jump to conclusions regarding the root of a problem using anecdotal statements like \u201cwe have poor technology, manual processes, non-integrated systems,\u201d and so on, without determining what the actual \u201croot cause\u201d of the problem is. This doesn\u2019t help you make improvements. You need to try to find the reason for your business problems to make effective improvements.<\/strong><\/p>\n For me, after searching for answers and watching YouTube videos on the golf swing, I was still unable to determine the root cause of my issues \u2013 consistently bad shots. Even though the videos were helpful in providing some useful tips, I couldn\u2019t fully understand what fundamental issue caused my bad shots, so I couldn\u2019t determine what I could change to achieve my desired improvements.<\/p>\n In many cases, your stakeholders can\u2019t determine a root cause because they are too close to the issues and rely on assumptions or statements, like \u201cthis is how the process is supposed to work\u201d to drive their problem-solving efforts.<\/p>\n As I mentioned, the instructional (DIY) videos didn\u2019t help me find my root problem. After some self-reflection, I decided to invest in my game and meet with a local golf-teaching professional to get help to understand better how to address the pain points in my game \u2013 aka, golf lessons.<\/p>\n As mentioned earlier, it is important for you to \u201cThink Big, Start Small and Act Quickly\u201d when it comes to your strategic plan to use process improvement concepts to achieve operational excellence over time.<\/p>\n I had not taken formal golf lessons since I was in the fifth grade, so I was accustomed to using \u201chope as a strategy\u201d to get better. As soon as I met with my teaching professional, his first question was, \u201cWhat do you want to improve?\u201d From that point forward it was about creating a roadmap<\/a> to fix all the areas I\u2019ve mentioned, starting with the foundational elements (e.g., grip, alignment, swing and so forth).<\/strong><\/p>\n Furthermore, my instructor wanted to know how much desire I had to improve \u2013 was I willing to commit time weekly to practicing and applying what I learned during our weekend sessions? Ultimately, he was asking if I was willing to invest in myself to realize the return on my investment. (Spoiler alert: golf lessons aren\u2019t cheap!)<\/p>\n After just my first session with my teaching professional, I saw rapid improvement in my game. It is amazing how quickly an expert in their field can tell you immediately what the root cause of your problem is and how to address it.<\/p>\n For me, my bad shots were primarily due to my grip and my alignment. Upon understanding and applying how these two factors impact the flight of the golf ball, I was able to see immediate improvement. These two changes are the foundation through which I will continue to gain further improvement over time, with practice, practice and more practice.<\/p>\nWhat Is Operational Excellence?<\/h2>\n
Think Big, Start Small, Act Quickly<\/h3>\n
Applying Process Improvement Concepts Is a Journey<\/h2>\n
1. Start with an operational assessment<\/a>.<\/h3>\n
2. Identify and understand pain points.<\/h3>\n
3. Perform a root cause analysis of the problem.<\/h3>\n
4. Face the reality that sometimes you need help from an expert.<\/h3>\n
5. Balance the desire for immediate results with developing a plan to improve over time.<\/h3>\n
Moving Forward with Process Improvement Concepts<\/h2>\n