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: Over the last couple of years, I have seen our on time delivery of goods to customers slip to such a disrespectful level that I am embarrassed to say that we are a terrible company with which to do business. What can I do, we are growing but I have been trying to address this problem with no success? Comment: I like this subject. We see variations of this same problem in just about all of our clients. Your company has grown and more than likely newer people have joined your organization and they are not as tuned in to your business goals as you might want. To begin with, you are dealing with a situation where no amount of talking seems to work. Surprisingly, we have a very simple tool to raise this issue to everyone in the companies top priority and here is how we do it. It begins with a simple slogan that we have trademarked called, No Blame. Here is how it works. You need to fix the problem but it is irrelevant how it became a problem. You don't need to blame anyone, you just need to fix the problem. And the way we approach this problem is using a very simple measurement tool called a "Yes/No" Chart. This is coupled to the "No Blame" because the measurement of a "Yes/No" chart is exactly as it implies: Did something happen: Yes or No? There is no gray area. And there is a key linkage between "No Blame" and "Reporting of Honest Data;" they go hand in hand. We often initiate discussion of the importance of honest data by showing a vignette from "History of the World: Part 2". As you may recall, Moses (played by Mel Brooks) comes down from the mountain holding 3 tablets, and he speaks to the children of Israel, saying: "I bring you the fifteen --- ." Just then, he drops one of the tablets. and exclaims: "Oy!" He then begins again. "I bring you the ten commandments." So much for the reporting of honest data. It is quite clear, however, that honest data cannot be reported in an organization where blaming is prevalent. All employees learn to hide, avoid, and distort information in order to avoid personal blame and confrontation. When that happens, no measurement tool will be particularly useful, because it will be based on faulty data. We said earlier that simplicity in measurement is important. We can't emphasize this too strongly. Complicated measurement systems are fine for analysts, researchers and academics, but for the average employee who needs to know whether a process or work performance is improving, the measures must be easily understood and unequivocal. They must be simple. In your case, you can't get orders shipped on time. Before you get too far you need to get total agreement on what constitutes an order and who can O.K. the commitment of inventory to meet an order. That may be obvious but it isn't. In your case, the chart might ask a simple question: "Were any orders late that shipped today?" At one client, the results were reported by the person most likely to have the information, the guy on the shipping dock; he knew what had been shipped. A simple chart was prepared, and "no's" were recorded for four days in a row. However, on the fifth day, a "yes" appeared, indicating shipping success! From then on, to everyone's satisfaction, "yes's" appeared on the chart with regularity. This example drives home the main message of our measurement philosophy: Measure theproblem. Measure it simply. Post it for all to see. In the example just cited, no one, including the president, expected a "yes" to appear for several months. After all, the problem had been around for a long time. The fact that the "yes's" began on the fifth day was more than encouraging; it got everybody in the company excited that they could perform as a team to solve the problem. And they did. One by one, the problems came up and were dealt with by the company as a team and the business on-time delivery problems disappeared. Get everyone together and explain what you want to do with the "Yes/No" chart and see what happens. Remember, NO BLAME. "NO BLAME" is a registered trademark of The Bertain Consulting Group. 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 December 1993.