The following is another in a new series of columns that will provide answers to small business questions. The new question and answer column is written by Dr. Leonard Bertain, Ph.D., the president of The Bertain Consulting Group of Oakland, CA a consulting firm specializing in the improvement of business processes and business re-engineering. Dr. Bertain's book, "The New Turnaround", contains a fictionalized character known as "Dr. Elbie". Should you have a question regarding business management issues, write or fax them to Dr. Elbie, Bertain Consulting Group, 3758 Grand Ave., Suite 25, Oakland, CA 94611, phone (510) 653-6355 or lbertain@bertain.com Dear Dr. Elbie: O.K. I understand the first steps of the quantum leap are: 1) get the CEO involved 2) encourage the ideas of employees 3) the workplace is organized on the basis of teams. What are additional characteristics of the quantum leap? Signed. Still Puzzled in Oakland. Comment: As I indicated last time, the concepts that we are talking about that characterize the quantum leap are new observations. The first three noted features are clearly mandatory. As we have expanded our analysis a number of other characteristics of the quantum leap arise. During our training program, a number of proposals are laid on the table for management to consider. These aren't just any proposals, these are clearly laid out proposals from employees that are based upon a few simple principles. They are based upon the targeted objective established in class of eliminating business waste totalling a minimum of $100,000. The proposal establishes a solution which can be implemented for lesss than $5,000. This is a 20 to 1 ratio. The key to this process is that the employees are presenting their ideas and management is asked to respond. We make it easy for the executive in charge. We say that he only has to implement one suggestion. But, as you might guess, the smart CEO says that most of them are logically thought out and all of them should be implemented. This is an important step in the quantum leap. It sets the tone of change to the organization and the CEO can make or break the progress with his leadership at this point. As the projects are implemented, employees see their ideas turning into action. They get the message from the CEO that a perfect implementation is not mandatory. The important issue of concern is action. Get the project going, make adjustments to the implementation as it progresses, and most importantly, encourage more of the same. This starts the ball rolling and very soon a number of bothersome problems have been eliminated. As these projects are implemented, people get the feeling that the CEO is serious in his attempt at changing the culture. As part of the quantum leap phenomena, the project implementation is integral to the success of the quantum leap. The speed of the quantum leap is directly proportional to the activity of the CEO in this area: more involvement means a faster jump. The reason for the CEO's involvement at this point sets the stage for the follow up action that flows from this early involvement. But the real reason for this early involvement is actually selfishly driven. Why get involved in the first place? You get involved because when employees are involved in the decision making activity of the business the company has a higher productivity. This is not idle chat, this is fact. A GAO survey in 1987 found that companies that had employees more involved in the decision making activity of the business, were more profitable. They were 52% more profitable. And that is a significant reason for getting involved and encouraging the project implementation phase. It gets people moving and it gets them heavily involved in decision making activity. The interesting fallout of this early project implementation is that profits and cashflow start to improve almost immediately. Overtime goes down, inventory goes down, late shipments go down, cash flow increases, and so on. These indicators crank up the organization and everyone feels good. And what suddenly happens is that the CEO begins to think about the ideas that he/she has had for getting the business rolling in a new direction: the new project that couldn't be done because there was no money available; the new market opportunity that can now be pursued because cash is available for a marketing budget. In other words, a whole host of ideas can now be considered because these projects were implemented and they improved the profit picture of the company. In the next column, we will explore the characteristics of these projects and why they are integral to the quantum leap. After today's column, we have added a fourth characteristic of the quantum leap and that is that the CEO must be intimately involved in encouraging the implementation of new ideas that flow out of the class structure of the Value-added Analysis Process (VAP). That involvement sets the stage for the continuous improvement culture that is the objective of our efforts. Dr. Elbie's Corner is copyrighted by Leonard Bertain, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998. Dr. Elbie's Corner is a monthly article published by the Bertain Consulting Group, in the CEO University Website @ Bertain.com or CEOU.com. This article is reprinted from April 1994.