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: I heard you talk about culture change in a recent talk about productivity improvement. In the presentation, you mentioned that there was a "magic" associated with the process of culture change and that the "magic" sets the stage for a "quantum leap" in business performance. Could you expand on this? I haven't heard anyone else talk about this. Comment: Lest anyone think that I have suddenly moved my consulting practice into the occult, I agree, those terms do need some explanation. These issues are the subject of my second book, which is unfinished at this stage, but enough information has been collected to substantiate the claim that something unique or "magic" happens when we begin a successful engagement with a client. We have been very successful in making companies aware of major things that they can do to improve their performance. Not only are they aware of these things but they implement them with their employees' involvement. Let me remind you that our approach to business improvement is based upon listening and acting on the ideas of the employees. We get them to move ideas from the suggestion stage to actual implementation and measurement. All of that has worked at each of our clients. During the last two years 26 of our clients have seen $28 Million in savings with costs of implementation of projects of $735,000. A 3800% rate of return isn't bad. Although this is terrific and we certainly are excited about the results, we find something even more exciting. Roughly 20% of our clients go even further. And we of course want to know why. Why do some clients make better progress than others. I think that it is "magic". And here is what I mean. Obviously, the CEO or owner needs to be committed to make the program successful. That is clear. But we do something more. We strip away the "mystique" that management folks have been hiding from workers since "Scientific Management" was invented by Frederick Taylor at the beginning of this century. We go through a rigorous, well-thought out process of re-culturing which also strips away the "mystique" of management. Maybe our ability to strip away the management "mystique" is part of our own magic. Business schools have put their "mystique", their "magic" around the running of a business and insisted that the business of understanding strategy, numbers and measurement were the province of management. We think otherwise. We think business should be made simple so that everyone understands. And we believe that measurements of performance are intended to help those people in the business who are adding value understand what they can do to add more value and thereby improve their productivity. That is a pretty simple thing to understand. And because we are unveiling the mystique of managing a business and giving the workers a clear view of what management is about and what values can be achieved, we are dealing with the "magic" of management. Now there is one key ingredient that needs to be added. The vision of the CEO. The CEO has a vision in most companies but the culture that exists is not able to respond to the demands that the CEO may put on his culture to achieve his vision. The "magic" addresses this because if the process that we advocate clicks, a new culture is achieved: culture that responds to change, that thrives on changing to improve the business. He is able to improve his control in an employee involved organization. One of our clients used the following analogy to describe the process. We stretch the organization like a rubber band. We uproot one anchor pin of the company and stretch the organization to improve. As we leave, the measure of our success is the degree that the new organization resists the tension to pull it back to the way it was before we started. After a while, the CEO picks up one of the pegs and relieves the tension by moving the old anchor peg to the new one. Now here is where the quantum leap occurs. As the CEO drives the new changed culture to a new point of improved performance, the organization is ready for it this time and responds more quickly. These second and third steps of the organizations improvement will place it in a performance level, orders of magnitude better than it was when we started. This is the quantum leap. It is a quantum leap because it happens quickly, weeks not years. It is a major jump in the performance of the organization. And it will have happened and be fully documented by the end of the first year of our efforts. As my next book is about this subject, I will spend a little more time in the next several columns talking about the characteristics of the quantum leap. I hope this helps. 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 February 1994.