A wise man (Dominique Bourget) once reflected that “the tree of process improvement must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of people not following the processes.”   I believe this is an extension of a maxim attributed to Thomas Jefferson, “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” The statement and the thought behind Dominique’s re-interpretation strikes at the heart of why organizations start and succeed in the transformation process that is process improvement.  Over the years I have compiled a long list of signals that suggest that an organization can succeed in changing course (foreshadowing a paper, perhaps).  Over and over the clearest signal of success is an organizational near death experience.  An impending failure acts as lightening rod to focus attention.  Focus is a major factor in ensuring constancy of purpose (One of Deming’s 14 Points – see Deming, “Out of the Crisis).  While this might be the clearest signal, “there be danger here!”  Leveraging a near death experience as a catalyst for change is dangerous on at least two levels.  The first is that the cumulative weight of failures can drive changes toward purely expeditious and potentially less effective solution.  Secondly it might be too darn late and the penalty of failure is always extreme.

Happy New Year . . . remember, change is most effective before the tree of process improvement must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of people not following the processes.  Change now and be a leader.