Image source midjourney, prompt by the author

The Factory floor model

Does the organization produce outputs or outcomes? Does it describe itself as a factory floor or through its engagements with its customers? One way to find out is to simply ask colleagues: what does success look like to them?

If colleagues describe successes connected to their own processes of production or if the language is purely internal; they are in a factory floor model. If they describe what happens to customers when they engage with the firm’s offering and can articulate the line-of-sight between what their own work is and the customers’ outcomes you are outcomes focused.

Give it a go. It is eye-opening to learn what the organization has been trained to look at, articulate and focus on.

Another way to find out is to look at what is being measured. Is it measuring internal efficiencies or customers’ valuable outcomes?

And a third way is to examine the language the organizations uses when describing value. E.g. does it talk about efficiencies or is it able to articulate what happens when their products or marketing leaves the factory floor goes out into the world and produces value through its interactions with its customers?

There is nothing wrong with being in the factory model if the organization is already satisfied with the value it is putting into or taking out of the market.

If it just wants to keep doing whatever it is already doing, but more efficiently.

While if it is not 100% content with the value it is adding to or taking out of the market, and it is thinking there might be room for improvement, then the factory floor model won’t help. It needs to focus on its external environment and how to produce better outcomes.

To create new value it should be looking to explore and understand customers important unmet needs (1). And that won’t happen if the focus is on internal processes or improvements.

Checking colleagues’ feedback to the question “what does success look like to them” undresses the organization, goes beyond its powerpoints and slogan exercises and gives a naked understanding of what the organization is really about.

In most organizations there is a little bit of both, hopefully.

Only my assumption is that most organizations don’t recognize these two modes of operation and don’t distinguish between them.

So they are e.g. running an internal efficiency operating model while it is hoping to identify new value — with all their focus being inward.

Or they are trying to make their operations more efficient while making investments in innovation and experimentation exploring the external environment.

If we don’t have the language to explore what is happening we won’t be able to see it, discuss it, understand it or act on it. If we don’t distinguish our operating models to fit what we want to achieve then we will never achieve it.

The process to understand and act on this is simple:

1. Acknowledge that there are many different operating models
2. Have curiosity to find out yours and if it fits what you want or need
3. Simply ask people “what does success look like?” in order to identify a. what they focus on and b. what their language is
4. Qualify it with what is being measured and appreciated
5. Identify what operating model(s) you have and if you have a gap
6. If you have a gap then in my experience what needs to done to fill is a. develop the language to articulate the gap b. develop the measures to appreciate it and c. develop the operating model (process) to fill it.

It is a whole lot of fun!

Image source midjourney prompt by the author

Sources:

1. Strategyn: Quantiy your customers’ unmet needs, https://strategyn.com/quantify-your-customers-unmet-needs/