Organisational Report

Combining PDCA and 4Sight The 4Sight methodology complements the established Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) methodology (Demming, 1986). Whilst PDCA provides consistency (see Figure 7) and works well for continuous improvement of existing systems and processes, 4Sight provides the flexibility to deal with the big, complex issues that abound in modern business. Figure 7 summarizes the differences between PDCA and 4Sight.

PDCA

4Sight

Approach

Approach

Plan (defining your policy, objectives and targets)

Foresight (Anticipate, predict and prepare your future) Insight (Interpret and respond to your present conditions) Oversight (Monitor and review what has happened and assess changes) Hindsight (Learn the right lessons from your experience) Act (Respond to and create disruptions and opportunities)

Do (Implement your plans within a structured management framework) Check (Measure and monitor your actual results against your planned objectives)

Act (Correct and improve your plans to meet and exceed your planned results)

Works well when the challenge:

Works well when the challenge:

Is easy to identify and define

Is difficult to agree; easy to deny

Is resolvable using current expertize and known solutions Has a definite stopping point – when the solution is reached and can be judged as right or wrong

Requires new ways of thinking, beliefs, roles, relationships and approaches to work Has no stopping rule – how much is enough? No right or wrong, just better or worse outcomes

Leader’s role: Leader’s role: Agree goals, build commitment, provide answers Identify the problem, connect people’s interests to the work of solving it and ask searching questions Clarify roles and responsibilities Empower people to act Keep emotions out – “we can solve this” Let people experience threat – within a productive range of distress Fit solutions around current ways of working (culture, practices) Challenge norms—“we could be very different” Seek consensus and reduce conflict Embrace diversity of opinion and scepticism Focus on “making what we do better” Focus on “doing better things” A core function of leadership involves helping people understand the nature of the challenges confronting the organization and selecting appropriate responses. Einstein is reputed to have said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” Yet many organizations struggle with identifying the nature of the real problems they confront and jump straight into solutions. Many organizations fall into the trap of solving a problem the same way every time, particularly when successful results have been produced in the past and time is short. For example, a product Figure 7. Comparing PDCA and 4Sight for Organizational Resilience

“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” Albert Einstein

Organizational Resilience | BSI and Cranfield School of Management

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