Why 95% Of CI Initiatives Don’t Stick Long-term!

Wow!  Is it remotely possible that only 5% of companies are successful at creating a continuous improvement organization?  But, why?

According to a post by High Performance Solutions Inc., less than 5% of continuous improvement initiatives achieve long-term results and sustained improvement.  Through industry member problem solving they determined it was human factors and lack of management systems that lead to failures.  Actually, is this so surprising?  The question we need to ask ourselves though is, why?   After all, leaders want to improve the performance and efficiency of their organizations. 

From what I’ve seen and experienced, the main reasons seem to be one of, or in combination of the following:

• Weak or missing vision
• CI not integrated into the mission of the organization
• Not enough focus or experience to deliberately create a CI culture
• Impatience to invest long term, which is necessary to change and/or create culture
• Disconnect between words/desires and leader actions
• Management systems do not align or are disconnected from the desired CI culture
• Leaders don’t walk the talk
• Lack of or inconsistent leader standardized work at all levels
• Misaligned outcomes or benefits between the organization and the employees
• Poor or non-existent  “go & see” or gemba reviews by senior leaders to confirm the actual condition and gain engagement

Unfortunately, the list goes on….

Let’s learn collaboratively!  What has been your experience as to why organizations fail at creating long-term results and sustained improvement?  Leave a comment!  Let’s do this!