Do you need more improvement? Does it seem like you and your team
have hit the wall? Consider thinking of improvement as growth. Growth
has limiting factors and sometimes
more of the same will not create growth, or improvement.
A
long time ago in undergrad nutrition the lab assignment was to conduct
an experiment about growth in chicks. The experiment involved feeding
groups of chicks rations of varying composition. One element of growth
involves protein synthesis, which as you know requires amino acids. The
test diet on our trial was deficient in one of the amino acids. The
experiment showed that despite free access to unlimited feed, the
growth rate of the test group was stunted.
The professor used an analogy known as
Liebig’s law.
While originally conceived to explain soil nutrient composition and the
growth of plants, some such analogies are universally helpful. In the
chick growth study, the limiting amino acid was the shortest barrel
stave; the one that limited the rate of growth. Adding more of the
other amino acids or other dietary requirements will not improve
growth. You cannot fill the barrel past the limiting stave.
Complex
systems exhibit similar dynamic characteristics. The discipline of
systems dynamics uses archetypes or generic structures to help explain
difficult challenges when concerned with system performance. Liebig’s
Law is similar to the
limits to success archetype.
One key take away lesson from this archetype is that more of the same
things you've been doing does not necessarily give you more of what you
want.
What might be some limits to improvement? Number of people improving
quality? Time? Improvement knowledge and skills? Cultural
characteristics, such as an aversion to following standards?
You might apply this analogy to a specific improvement or your
unit’s improvement work in general. What is your limited amino acid for
improvement as growth… and what could you do about it?
Liebig's barrel image is in the wikipedia commons here.