Daniel Ionita is not only passionate about business and organisational improvement, he’s got some serious credentials to back this up. A Director of The Lean Six Sigma Business Excellence Institute and a senior Lean Six Sigma facilitator working in partnership with the University of Technology Sydney, Daniel recently spoke to a room of Ambition guests on his experiences.

Specialising in Organisational Improvement (Master Black Belt) and with over 15 years’ experience in a variety of industries, he has a thing or two to say about what makes a business improvement program or strategy successful, and what railroads them.

Daniel identified to the audience why in his opinion, Business Process Improvement needs to fit into the strategy of the organisation at the appropriate level, namely at the top. He commented that in recent years he’s seen a greater tendency to ‘farm down’ organisational improvement to Operational level, specifically to middle management. This can cause problems which he outlined from his experiences, including a disconnect between the ‘As Is’ and the ‘To Be’ processes. Daniel went on to share his views on some of the top challenges with this approach where senior management is only involved in the entry and exit discussions.

1. Processes addressed are not simple. Some are downright complex.
2. No measure of any effect. No seeming interest in measuring outcome. The assumption seems to be that the change in the process was an improvement, in and of itself.
3. No obvious root cause analysis – solutions seem to appear directly from the As Is list of issues, and rising into the To Be, without any underlying analysis or rationale being revealed
4. No Change Management – people who would have to change the way they work were not involved beyond the initial “as is” interview.
5. Consultant seems to be the expert on content (not just on method/process) and the gofer. The Consultant does everything.

For further discussion and views, check out the attached slides courtesy of Daniel. He can also be contacted directly here LinkedIn or LSSBEI.

With the true emergence over the past five years of an online persona, the ability for individuals to craft a portfolio of information about themselves has never been easier. But with that ease comes a challenge for potential employers, not only to source the appropriate and current content but also to ensure to some degree, its authenticity.

The more official and traditional police and security checks remain popular within certain Industry sectors but for the remaining areas the challenge is growing to conduct due diligence of a significant nature. So what should you be looking out for when investigating the background to a potential employee?

Well the key areas of any checking today relate to two fundamental areas; We can term them the skill and the will to perform the job they’re being employed for.

The Skill:

Can the individual do the job they’re being considered for? Consider not only the skills they have listed on their resume or job application but also evidence they can provide to back up those claims. One of the double edged swords of the online world is the plethora of ‘friendly endorsements’ you will find praising the abilities of their friend or colleague. Similar to a telephone reference check where often an individual chooses a friend or past colleague to talk of their successes, the information is often painted with heavily positive bias. Look for objective feedback or evidence, perhaps from a third party customer whom you know, or even from a more traditional skill testing program that will probe an individual’s abilities. The objective is to take away opinion as much as possible and still to the facts!

The Will:

Does the individual have the drive, passion and enthusiasm to want to do the job they’re being considered for? This becomes a more difficult test as the motivators we’re looking to prove or disprove again need evidence. In this instance however, the test points can often do not appear as clear as when testing for skills. Consider you want to see just how committed an individual is to completing what they start. You may need to look for whether they completed their graduate studies; or whether they have any long standing commitments to particular hobbies or interests. If you ask someone whether they’re diligent and hard-working they’ll most likely tell you ‘yes.’ If the evidence is that they held down two jobs to fund their way on a trip around the world whilst learning a foreign language and volunteering at a children’s summer camp – you probably have the answer you’re looking for.

Overall the emphasis on background checking is that you need to be comfortable that the person who presents themselves to you is indeed the same person who joins you on day one. In today’s economic landscape the time, cost and effort in getting a hiring decision wrong, has never perhaps had such high status on a hiring managers agenda.

If the recent examples of resume embellishments (even at very senior levels) are an indicator of the lack of checking that’s actually taking place, then it’s a slippery slope we’re heading down in terms of quality of hiring decisions.

Harsh maybe, but I really do feel that in today’s competitive global economy we need to start addressing the fact that we’re ill equipping people for the expectations we have of them if we let sub-par performance go unchecked. Now I recognise that for there to be high performers there must be those who are not and indeed there then exists in-between the two poles a raft of average performers. Interestingly a speaker recently suggested to his audience of business professionals that most people in the room were probably good at what they did, but that being good was the new average. Quite simply he said, “you need to be exceptional, you need to stand out and you need to be very, very good”.

In the past ten or twenty years we’ve propagated at every opportunity from kindergarten through to the boardroom, this idea that doing your best is all you can do. Everyone is a winner if you’ve tried your hardest and thereafter you should just be proud of your efforts.

We increase the debilitating effect of accepting average performance with a social phenomenon known as Tall Poppy Syndrome (TPS) whereby people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticised because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their (more average) peers.

I suggest it’s now time to shake off the need to encourage everyone with false praise and recognise the realities of competitive markets. There are winners and losers; there are people who excel and those that don’t. We certainly need to help people identify their place within this sphere and we also need to help them develop (if they want to), but let’s not call everyone a success unless and until they actually succeed.

This one’s an interesting question because as a six year academic graduate myself, I would strongly advocate the need to pursue and attain formal recognition of your skills and abilities. These skills offer business grounding, they offer a learning framework for the future and they offer evidence of your commitment to see a course of learning through to completion. But those six years were quite a few business cycles past and when I reflect now on whether they currently aid me in my day-to-day job I would have to question at least some of the content I studied.

Today more than ever we live in a world that’s pacing itself for a sprint race and without doubt the drivers in attaining formal qualifications have changed substantially to those of past decades. Consider in the past, the essential requirement to hold a degree before any blue chip employer would consider you having the aptitude to work in their computing/technology department. Similarly business and trade qualifications were of a value that appears to be dropping year on year as employers place more significant value now on whether an individual has successfully demonstrated the skill rather than whether a certificate says they have that skill.

The telling marker in this story is perhaps best indicated by the fact that the learning landscape itself has changed. In the past knowledge was passed quite deliberately and structurally from person to person (think teacher, student) but today with all the available mediums this is no longer as doctrine a process.

Always on, self-serve, immediate access, instant gratification are just a few of the catch-phrases which embody the learning environment we now find ourselves within, and if you don’t believe me then go Google it yourself!

So are we beyond the academic measures of the past? Well we know Universities are struggling to fill places as they wrestle with a youth unconvinced of the value proposition for three of four years of degree level study. Perhaps its cyclical and once the learning Institutions create a new, modern approach to meeting the educational needs of today then demand will increase again. Perhaps indeed.

In the meantime for many today it appears more important to achieve the Foursquare Major of Starbucks than it is to hold a bachelor’s degree.

In the last week I flew with the supposed ‘World’s Best Airline’ and boy what a let down. To say the service was poor would be an understatement as flight attendants (I forget their exact title), dropped a tray of food on one passenger, advised another she only enjoyed short haul night flights where the passengers were asleep and she didn’t have to talk to them and to my amazement told another middle eastern passenger (rather loudly) “I don’t understand you, I don’t speak Arabic”.

The litany of customer service faux pas was as long as it was embarrassing and while I sat cooped up in my economy class seat, unable to escape yet reticent to complain for fear of no lunch, the irony of the situation grew. How many businesses yearn for customers attention? We measure customer attention with complex algorithms and technical software yet here was an airline, supposedly the world’s best, with a truly captive audience and apparently no desire to serve them or serve them well. Granted transatlantic airline competition may not be as aggressive as domestic but has the past five years not taught them anything about brand reputation? One equally disgruntled passenger asked me how I found the service but before I had time to answer advised me he’d waited over an hour for a drink.

To steal the tag line from the 90′s movie Field of Dreams: If you build it they will come. I’d like to add, if you then treat them (customers) badly, they will go!

And for everyone trying to win customer loyalty, a lesson in the obvious perhaps, or maybe a reminder that ‘world’s best’ anything requires ongoing and consistent focus on maintaining that title.

Have you had interesting customer service that you would like to share?

Something quite disturbing occurred to me recently while checking the weather on my iPhone and it wasn’t the usual disappointing forecast for Melbourne for once! Instead, I found myself initially lost in admiration for how far this device has come since Alexander Bell revolutionised communication in the mid 1870’s with the invention of the first telephone. The iPhone is impressive, that is a fact and is largely uncontested…But revolutionary? Hardly! It is after all, merely an improvement on something created in a time long forgotten. I became more alarmed when I realised that this is a reoccurring theme in our generation, where ideas that formed our political and social landscape are now just being regurgitated and presented to us shinier and in a wider range of colours. I racked my brain trying to think of the last time something radical was implemented in our lives, and all I could come up with was a headache.

The advancement of technology is undoubted, we are part of a generation that is entertained and our every whim is satisfied as a result of competition and knowledge. My issue is not the comfort of our everyday lives, but a fear for our future and sustainability. There was once a time when technology inspired the masses, now it seems it only serves to distract us. I am not a visionary, not a pioneer, and definitely not an inventor. Tonight, instead of drawing up blueprints or formulating scientific concoctions in a laboratory, I will be mindlessly entertained by my Playstation 3. I am therefore part of the problem! However, it is not my fault of course. I am part of a generation that is quite passive, even though we expect the world brought to us on a silver platter. Staying true to my generation, I will lay blame on others for our shortcomings, starting with ‘Back to the Future.’ That’s right, the popular Movie series from the 80’s. WHERE IS MY HOVERBOARD? And WHERE IS MY DELOREAN TAKING ME BACK AND FORTH THROUGH TIME? This was subtly promised to me during these movies, and I think it is safe to say that WE WANT THEM NOW!

Staying on the topic of frustrating movies, we arrive at ‘2012,’ a terribly acted out disaster movie that suggests the world will explode in 2012 with no real explanation. Let’s ignore the disjointed storylines and over- exaggeration that is rife in American Cinema and ask ourselves what if the earth really does explode this year? We have probably spent all our money and effort on these moronic productions, instead of research for a way to turn water into petrol, a sustainable way for us to migrate to another planet, a cure for cancer or a way to turn Lady Gaga into something useful!

Technology and ‘invention’ is now simply a business, entirely motivated by profit-margins and self-branding. What is potentially terrifying is that we are probably anticipating the new iPad more than something revolutionary like the wheel, air travel or electricity.

In past generations, inventions were born because they were a necessity and were almost a requirement to survive and prosper. Do we have everything now? Or have we become complacent? What happened to the visionaries and the pioneers? There was a time when we stared at the sky and it inspired us to travel to the moon. It now seems the moon was as far as we were prepared to go, so let’s sit back, relax, and wait for the habitants of another planet to pay us a visit.

Some will read this as tribute to our ancestors whose visions have created a utopia for us to frolic amongst. It may be received as celebration of humanity over the years, which over generations have turned inhospitable lands to habitats, which have literally created light amongst darkness, increased our own average lifespans, cured disease, and granted Paris Hilton fame for doing absolutely nothing! Earth can be viewed as an enigma for human beings, or a grand obstacle course. However, seriously aided by technology and invention, we have overcome everything and now stand at the top of a mountain, pumping our fists with ‘Eye of the Tiger’ ringing in our ears!

Others will read this as a grave warning, or a massive sigh of discontent.

What are your thoughts/concerns/ideas?

I’m sure we’ve all seen those job advertisements stating 10+ years relevant experience essential. But what does that really mean?
Learning and development models today no longer follow the same linear model they did twenty or even ten years ago. Classroom led training has been supplemented and sometimes replaced wholly by computer based training (CBT). What this has created is an ability for self-paced learning that can be accelerated, paused or protracted to meet the needs of the learner.

And therein lies the dichotomy with the traditional request for years experience when hiring employees. There is a diminishing correlation between the ability or skills of an individual and their likely performance, when based solely on years’ of experience. Put more simply a twenty-one year old who has a passion for a skill and who spends all his or her time bettering their ability with it, is often more capable than a forty-one year old with 10+ years’ work experience. It’s a notion backed by common sense in a lot of ways yet still somewhat perversely, far from commonplace as a method for employers to filter appropriately skilled candidates from the rest.

So what can you do about it?

Well as a recruiter I advise my team to probe for evidence of ability to perform the tasks to the required skill level, irrespective of how long the applicant has been practicing said skill. And for job seekers I’d recommend a strategic approach to any job search that pits your ability to actually do the job verses the employer’s belief in what they think you need to do the job.

Trust me it isn’t easy to change engrained and long-standing beliefs but the times they are changing and if my six year old can use MS Word now then he’ll be well equipped to tackle an office administration role in say two or three years!

I could start by qualifying these comments as specific to a job interview but in fact they’re not, they can actually be applied to any interview situation you face. You see an interview by definition is or should be a two-way flow of information between parties. The key element being the need for everyone involved to gain information from the process, save the interview (at best) be found lacking or (at worst) becoming a complete waste of time.

And in that first paragraph is the key to overcoming nerves for most candidates. Too many interviewees view the interview as a test which they must pass to be successful else fail under the guise of personal rejection!

Take a step back and re-read the first paragraph. The interview may still be a test but it’s a two-way test not one-way. If the interviewer doesn’t impress me with his job, or company information or even his personality then I may not accept his offer should he decide I’m the employee he wants in his business. On the more traditional view If I don’t represent myself in the best light, summing up skills and experience and demonstrating a personality matching what’s being sought, then I’m unlikely to be offered the position on offer.

Now with a more level appreciation of the process that’s taking place in an interview, I’d invite you to refocus your approach to interviews in the future. Sure you should prepare and invest time in performing your best at an interview but only in return for an expectation that your interviewer does the same. When you view the balance of power as equal you are much more likely to relax and perform naturally to your best ability.

There are volumes of study on what makes a high performer act the way they do and I’ve probably read most of it. As an addition to this research I’d like to offer a simpler model of my own which I’ve drawn from experience over the years of working with some outstanding individuals. In essence my view is that high performers exhibit something in their personality which is just a bit, how can I put it, to the left or right of normal!

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying these individuals are abnormal in any way, rather they’re extra-normal if you like.

I’ve worked with top sales consultants who demonstrated one or sometimes more of the following traits:

• Excessively customer service focussed – they believe in going the extra mile without even thinking of what’s in it for themselves. Often the positive results they achieve from their service focus, are in their minds at least, a surprise.
• Driven by a strong desire to be the best in their field – wanting to be known as an expert, a trusted adviser or the go-to person in an Industry or discipline drives people to constantly review their performance against that of their competitors and to then adapt their service or performance to improve.
• Brutally honest in all aspects of their work and life – wearing their hearts on their sleeves is common with these individuals who will build rapport, trust and loyalty with others quickly due to their straight talking and lack of personal agenda.
• Pure old fashioned hard work – for some the old adage ‘You get out what you put in’ means a bit more than words on a page and these individuals will live by the words of the mantra. Characterised by their no-excuses approach to work they feel that things need to be earned and are much less likely to look for short cuts or easy wins.

If you notice someone who has these traits, be sure to harness them and work within your business framework to get the best from them rather than trying to bend them back within the bounds of ‘normal behaviour’.

At a conference last week I was intrigued to hear the secrets of a successful venture capitalist. Now when I say successful he says he’s been successful about as many times as he’s been unsuccessful. And perhaps therein lies the biggest secret, his ability to distil truth from fiction and practical tip from time wasting tactic. It may have taken time to learn many of the items outlined but they present some excellent advice for anyone looking for success.

1. Hire people smarter than you – if you only hire people who are as good you as the success of your business in essence has a ceiling. Hire people who are smarter than you and you instantly improve your ability to grow the ideas and performance of your business.

2. Be a pain killer not a vitamin – when you’re a vitamin you may improve the health and well-being of the user over time…you also may not. If you’re a painkiller you go straight to the heart of the problem with a solution and therein provide your benefit.

3. Solve big problems – look for the biggest problem for a customer and then solve it, simple right.

4. Being different, be a specialist, be outstanding – very good is average today and average is bad.

5. Know your client/customer intimately – know what they do and when they do it – to know them at this level of detail will enhance your ability to solve their problems and deliver solutions.

6. Provide exemplary service – people are used to rubbish service so go above and beyond and do it consistently.

7. Fail fast and learn faster – perfect solutions or products never win, release or deliver something and then continuously improve it.