Well, Ford Motor Company has done it again. The 2013 Fusion
was named Green Car of the Year by the Green Car Journal. To me this
represents the results of a process that
Toyota calls kata
or another variation on kaisen — persistent continuous
improvement—finding your way into a better and better future product through
small continuous increments, learning as you go.
What does this have to do with leadership? With good
leadership—Everything. Ford, once discovering continuous improvement
as the process toward excellence in the future, stayed the course for 15 or
more years now. That takes determined and knowledgeable leadership. GM was
herky jerky regarding CQI, on and off, and it proved seriously damaging. They were the
one, along with Chrysler, who needed a Federal rescue and a remake. Ford did
not, even through the toughest of times.
Excellent leaders seek excellence, if not perfection (think
of Steve Jobs for all his distractions as a personality—he gave Apple a
culture of perfection to the absolute extent possible). And seeking excellence takes a long view.
Strangely, governing boards, who would never tell their
managements not to seek excellence, don’t seek it themselves in their own
governance. I commonly hear the old saw, “Well, I believe if it isn’t broke,
don’t fix it,” from board members who are perfectly happy doing what they
have been doing for decades.
There are three areas that boards need to continuously seek
the most effective way, the structure, or shape, of the governance
(size, committees, membership, input structures, officers, dates and times, etc.), the
process the board uses to achieve creation of the governing "products"
(decisions, policies etc.), and the dynamic of the board (its manner
of conversing and decision-making). All three must be optimized. This takes
persistent learning and diligence, not something the average board is used
to being or doing.
(This was originally posted on our website Dec. 10, 2012)
RMB
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