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: For the last several months you have been preaching about the characteristics of the Quantum Leap. It sounds to me that you are very excited about this. How will I know that I am getting to be a Quantum Leap company? What signs are there that I have arrived. Signed. Anxious in Oakland. Comment: As you have aptly noted, I do get excited when I talk about this subject. After all, that is my business. When I see that one of my clients has succeeded in becoming successful, I want to talk about it to others. But more importantly, I want to know why? Why did one of my clients become very successful and another not so? What can I do to make them all successful? Of course, these are the roots of my consulting practice and my understanding of one success will allow me to repeat the process. More importantly, if I know why one project or assignment failed, then I can make adjustments in future efforts. And this is what the quantum leap analysis is all about: Knowing how it happened. As one of the final characteristics of the quantum leap, we see the CEO's finally having the time to do those things relating to furthering the vision of the business. In other words, the CEO of the quantum leap company has time on his hands. He has time to spend doing those things that he should be doing to position the company to compete and to execute the overall plan of the business. Fine, you say, isn't that the job of the CEO anyway? And my answer is absolutely! That is what the CEO is suppose to do. But you know what? Most CEO's spend their time putting out fires. They are mired in the detail of their business and don't have time for anything but making sure that the fires are under control. That CEO never has time he tells you but the quantum leap CEO has plenty of time. Why? The CEO with the fire hat who manages the fire drill process of the business probably has some system in place to run the business but they don't work. They are either too complicated, inappropriate or non-existent. Whatever the reason, the business systems have flaws and waste time. They make work for everybody so that at the end of a day everybody has worked hard. These employees feel that they have given the company all that they can. In these companies, most of the employees have worked hard, but, have they worked smart. Normally not. So what we try to do to fix these companies is get them to look carefully at the systems that they have in place. By treating all the waste in the system as "evil", we are able to declare a war on waste and gradually eliminate the obvious inefficiencies in the system. That's how we get there. Once we arrive in this new environment, the CEO is dealing with a different organization. And that is where his free time comes in. He no longer needs to deal with the minutiae of running the business. That is left to others whose skills are more appropriate to those tasks. He can even throw away his fire hat. One CEO we worked with found that he was able to take a vacation for the first time since he founded the business 10 years earlier. Why was that? From his perspective, after our training program, his employees understood what he wanted to do and he was able to communicate his objectives more clearly. Our process provided him a number of instruments of communication which he didn't have before. He finally had the organization that knew what was expected of it. All participants knew what he expected and they delivered. There was no mistaking that fact. It was clear to everyone. So why did he take a vacation. Because he knew that he could. And the business wouldn't fall apart without him. When we look at these quantum leap companies, the clarity of the mission is visible, the objectives of the organization are clear, communication is precise and the vision is established and controlled by the CEO. Our final column on the quantum leap phenomena will occur next month and we will wrap up a summary of the characteristics of the quantum leap company. 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 June 1994.