Sustaining a Continuous

Improvement Deployment

By
J. Kenneth Feldman, PhD
Director Rapid Continuous Improvement
Dr Pepper Snapple Group

Copyright 2014, J. Kenneth Feldman

INTRODUCTION
For decades now, organizations around the globe have attempted to implement a
myriad of continuous improvement strategies. Whether it is called Six Sigma, Rapid
Continuous Improvement, Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen or Total Quality, the fundamental
concepts are the same. Most deployments start off with lots of excitement and
involvement. Senior leadership delivers great speeches motivating the Early Adopters
to charge ahead and change the world. While it is the Early Adopters that drive the
early successes, it is the people on the fence that need to get involved and stay engaged
for the deployment to be successful long term. While there will always be those that
will resist any change, that group is usually small. The question to ask is what do we do
about the fence sitters - our key to sustainment?

In a primer published by the Human

Development & Leadership Division of
the American Society of Quality (2013)
entitled “Deming’s Profound
Knowledge for Leadership” Dr. Brooks
Carder and Ms. Marilyn Monda discuss
the relevance of “Profound knowledge
st
for the 21 Century”. They point out
that although Dr. W. Edwards Deming
was a larger than life figure in the early
days of the improvement and
leadership world, he hardly generates
any widespread recognition today. The
same may also be true for such notables as Joseph M. Juran and to a lesser extent Dr.
Mikel Harry. We might ask the question “Where Have All Our Heros Gone?” the title of
a song written by Bill Anderson in 1971. There haven’t been any groundbreaking
approaches to managing a change and improvement strategy for decades. Possibly the
answer to long term successful implementation of a continuous improvement strategy
may be found in the past. Deming’s Theory of Profound Knowledge consists of four
elements, the fourth of which is Understanding of Psychology. Carder and Monda
describe the element of psychology as addressing the issue of interaction between the
work system and people. In the context of the present paper, the fourth element will be
examined from the perspective of specifically how people relate to change and what
motivates them.

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MACRO FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE
Despite the early fervor and excitement, almost all continuous improvement
deployments eventually hit the wall-of-complacency and the question of how to sustain
the effort is raised. The challenge of these deployments is to engage those “on the
fence” and then to sustain the effort for all. More speeches and videos won’t
accomplish the necessary engagement. Training more people won’t provide the
impetus. I would like to present some thoughts on how to analyze a deployment and
how to implement changes to create an environment for sustaining a continuous
improvement deployment. I will also present some thoughts on changing and
sustaining individual behaviors. Let’s start with changing and sustaining behaviors at
the macro level.

Four Elements for Sustaining Change

In order to sustain your change process, four elements must be present in the mind of
those we wish to engage and sustain in the deployment. They are:

1. Have we told people what they need to Do with respect to what needs to be done?
2. Do they have the Skills to do what needs to be done?
3. Do people see Intrinsic value in doing what needs to be done?
4. Has the organization clearly provided the Extrinsic motivation for people to do
what needs to be done?

Let’s look at each element.

Do - Has the organization made it perfectly clear and communicated exactly what new
behaviors, roles, attitudes, skills, changes and knowledge are needed to successfully
implement and sustain the deployment? Organizations love to say they want to
“change the culture”. You can change behaviors. You can’t change culture. Until
people are clear on what the needed changes are and what the organization means
when they say “we are changing the way we manage our business” it is unfair to expect
people to commit to the unknown and undefined. Unless the expected new behaviors
are clearly understood, people will sit on the fence or worse, resist the change.

The organization has complete control over the first element. How is your organization
doing? Have you clearly explained the WIFM (what’s in it for me?) to all employees?
Have you clearly defined what it means to work or manage in a continuous
improvement (CI) environment? While most organizations do Champion Training and
possibly some minor education of Team Members, do the vast majority of leadership
and other employees understand what they will have to do differently?

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Have you painted a picture of the role of the C-Suite, EVP, SVP, VP, Director, Manager
and Individual Contributor in an organization that fully embraces CI? Are leaders clear
on how they will manage differently in the “new order”? Senior Leadership needs to do
some reflection now on how their actions can begin to prepare the environment for
expanded and sustainable implementation throughout the organization.

Do: How to engage the organization in CI behaviors - Senior Leadership along

with CI Leadership and Human Resources collaborate to develop and publish a
clear description of the skills and behaviors that are required at all levels of the
organization to facilitate change and maintain/sustain the current CI
deployment. The skills and behaviors can be an integral part of the job
description for all levels and all functions. The job descriptions containing the
desired skills and behaviors are distributed, reviewed and explained to staff
members by the respective managers. Include these desired skills and behaviors
as an integral part of everyone’s expected performance.

Skills – If people understand what they need to do, do they have the skills necessary to
make the change? Do people know what to do and how to do it? Has the organization
imparted the knowledge and skills to its people to be able to carry out change even if
they know exactly what needs to be done? This element is usually accomplished
through training. This would include a continuum of training, using simple awareness
videos through to extended multi-day training classes. We can’t expect people to
change and do what we need them to do if they don’t have the skills to do it. Again, the
organization has complete control over this element. How is your organization doing
with this element? Have you done an analysis to identify gaps? Have you imparted skills
to your Champions, Belts and Team Members? Do people have the knowledge to be
able to execute the deployment plan for your CI effort?

Skills: Partner to ensure optimized CI training is in place. – HR /Training needs

to develop awareness level training, using CI personnel as subject matter
experts to ensure that the content and message are appropriate. Special
emphasis should be placed on providing varying degrees of training for Project
Champions and Senior Leadership. “Walking the Talk” through certification of
senior leadership goes a long way in demonstrating desired behaviors, and
reinforces that this is truly the way you will manage the business. Making this
part of their required performance expectations will show that you are serious
and that everyone is embracing CI, not just the CI staff and team members.

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How to Facilitate and Support
Intrinsic Motivation
1. Begin with a meaningful purpose.
Unlike other aspects of the
organization, you simply can’t
mandate the development of an
“intrinsic reward system.” Creating
an environment to foster intrinsic
motivation is largely the
responsibility of the person’s
manager, although HR can offer
considerable help. It begins with
spelling out a meaningful purpose
for why the organization is deploying
CI. To be meaningful, this purpose
usually needs to involve more than
profit, tapping directly into how the
CI effort contributes to the well-
being of the organization and its
people as well as customers,
suppliers and other stakeholders.
Whether intrinsic motivation will
occur is highly dependent on
whether the person feels that their
participation in CI will aid the
organization in the attainment of its
goals
2. Build intrinsic motivation and
engagement into management
training and executive coaching.
To create an environment conducive
to the development of participants
and their engagement in CI, it is
important to incorporate training on
intrinsic motivation and employee
engagement into management
development programs. In addition
to training, coaching is an important
part of embedding intrinsic
motivation and engagement into the
organizational environment
Intrinsic – Even if people know what
to do and have the ability to do it,
unless they find personal value in the
change they will not be intrinsically or
internally motivated to make the
needed changes. While most people
will remain passive resisters, the end
result will be the same. They will
smile and tell you what you want to
hear but they will not commit to
change nor fully engage in the
deployment. The bad news is that
this element is not within the control
of the organization. The good news is
that it can be influenced.
Understanding and changing
individual behavior via intrinsic
motivation is difficult. It requires
leaders to understand and exercise
the levers that allow it to flourish.
Let’s explore intrinsic motivation a bit
more.
Intrinsic motivation is defined as “the
doing of an activity for its inherent
satisfactions rather than for some
separable consequence.” (Ryan and
Deci, 2000)
Deci and Ryan identified three needs
that, if satisfied, should lead to
intrinsic motivation (Deci and Ryan,
1985).
 Competence: succeeding in
what you do
 Relatedness: connecting
with others
 Autonomy: being in control
of your life
4

How to Facilitate and Support
Intrinsic Motivation, continued
3. Focus conversations on
meaningfulness, choice,
competence and progress.
All levels of leadership need to
send the message that the
organization values what people
do. When communicating about
CI, leaders must reinforce the
importance of people’s
contribution by discussing these
basic questions associated with
intrinsic motivation:
 What improvements can we do
that will have meaning?
 Can we use “out of the box”
thinking to reach our goals?
 Are we doing the right things
the right way?
 How do we know whether we
are having the desired impact
on change?
These questions bring people’s
contributions to the foreground
and highlight intrinsic rewards.
4. Engage the “middle.”
We have mentioned the Early
Adopters who find value in any
change and are quick to rush and
engage and the Naysayers who say
“over my dead body”. Then there
is the large middle often called the
“absorbing layer”. They are the
fence sitters. That’s the group to
build intrinsic motivation in. If we
can engage them then we will
have the critical mass to really
move the needle
This is echoed by most researchers in the
field of intrinsic motivation. Kenneth
Thomas (Thomas, 2009) expanded on
the needs described by Deci and Ryan by
describing the four key steps of the self-
management process or intrinsic
motivation process:
1. Committing to a meaningful
purpose – This involves the
meaningfulness or importance
of the purpose you are trying
to fulfill. You feel that you
have an opportunity to
accomplish something of real
value – something that matters
in the larger scheme of things.
You can change your
organization and make it more
secure and viable for future
generations. You feel that you
are on a path that is worth
your time and energy, giving
you a strong sense of purpose
or direction.
2. Choosing the best way of
fulfilling that purpose - You
feel free to choose how to
accomplish your work—to use
your best judgment to select
those improvement projects
that make the most sense to
you and to perform them in
ways that seem appropriate.
You feel ownership of your
work, believe in the approach
you are taking, and feel
responsible for the outcomes
and impact.
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How to Facilitate and Support
Intrinsic Motivation, continued
5. Provide missing building blocks for
intrinsic rewards that you need to bolster
Each reward has its own unique set of
actions to accomplish. Building a
sense of competence involves actions
that are different than those used in
building a sense of choice. The
following is a list of key actions that
we may use.
Sense of Meaningfulness:
 A caring non-threatening
environment
 Insight into what is important to the
organization
 A vision of what CI looks like and
will look like in the future
 Connect what people do with the
bigger picture
 Accountability and responsibility for
something they can control
Sense of Choice:
 Delegate appropriate decisions and
actions for CI
 Promote Trust
 Encourage some risk taking and be
sure learning comes from mistakes,
not punishment
 Know what needs to be done
 Provide openness and transparency
as appropriate
Sense of Competence:
 Make sure people know what to do
and how to do it
 Provide feedback
 Acknowledge & recognize success
 Use stretch goals and challenge the
status quo
 Maintain high standards and
expectations for performance
3. Making sure that one is
performing work activities
competently - You feel that
you are identifying and
executing projects that meet
or exceed your personal
expectations, and that you are
doing good, high-quality work.
You feel a sense of satisfaction,
pride, or even artistry in how
well you handle these
activities.
4. Making sure that one is
making progress towards
achieving the purpose - You
are encouraged that your
efforts are really accomplishing
something. Change is taking
place. Improvements are
being seen in your business
area and across the enterprise.
You feel that your work is on
track and moving in the right
direction. You see convincing
signs that things are working
out, giving you confidence in
the choices you have made
and confidence in the future.
6

How to Facilitate and Support Intrinsic
Motivation, continued
5. Provide missing building blocks for
intrinsic rewards that you need to
bolster, continued
Sense of Progress:
 Encourage collaboration & team work
 Utilize milestones to measure
progress
 Celebrate the achievement of the
milestones
 Communicate progress across the
organization
 Develop and monitor the key metrics
of success
6. Adopt a change and implementation
process that is itself engaging
Drive your CI effort through the
organization. Make participation
inclusive, not exclusive. Actively involve
as many people as you can in the
process. Listen to what people say.
Nothing will create excitement more
than listening to their ideas and acting
on them to make a change.
Each of these steps requires
people to make a judgment about:
the meaningfulness of their
purpose, the degree of choice
they have, the competency of
their performance, and the actual
progress being made toward
fulfilling their purpose. These four
judgments are the key factors in a
person’s assessment of the value
and effectiveness of their efforts
and the contribution that they are
making.
When their thinking is positive,
there is a positive emotional
charge. These positive charges are
the intrinsic rewards that
employees get from the actions or
behaviors they do and can range
from a simple and subtle
acceptance that things are going
well to an enthusiastic fist pump.
This acts to facilitate the
continuing engagement and
driving of the Continuous
Improvement deployment

Intrinsic: Facilitate and Encourage Intrinsic Motivation – This requires a

multi-pronged approach. Senior leadership needs to link the engagement
in CI with the larger purpose of the organization and its long term success.
This needs to be conveyed frequently and openly. While the selection of
strategic imperatives should flow downward, those willing to engage and
stay engaged should have a choice as to how to fulfill the strategic goals
through their selection of projects. Public recognition of individual and
team success should be communicated often. The ongoing monitoring of
key metrics will show how much progress is being made.

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Extrinsic – The last element in our macro approach relates to whether the organization
has made it very clear that participation and engagement is important. While intrinsic
motivation is the preferred way to engage people, there may be a need to be a little
more aggressive, at least at the outset. Various forms of extrinsic or external motivation
may need to be in place to move people to want to participate in the deployment. A
strategy of consequences, both positive and negative, needs to be employed to
encourage and sustain behavior change. This strategy will include both monetary and
non-monetary options. Making 30% of a Senior Vice President’s discretionary
compensation contingent upon support, engagement and successful implementation of
continuous improvement in their function might be a powerful extrinsic motivator when
accompanied by knowing what to do and how to do it. It might even influence their
intrinsic motivation.

Most organizations are constrained in giving large monetary rewards associated with
supporting and sustaining a CI deployment. A meaningful and creative array of
approaches is best.

1. Demonstrate the seriousness of the organizational commitment by rewarding and

promoting those who are the best advocates of the change process and making it very
clear to those that don’t lead the effort that continued lack of support and leadership
may be career limiting.

2. Clearly demonstrate that the organization is committed to the long term success of
the CI effort and make sure it is communicated throughout the entire organization.

3. Be sure that senior leadership models the desired behaviors.

How are you doing with this element? There is a seemingly counter-effective
relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is a
stronger motivator than extrinsic motivation, yet external motivation can lead to a
reduction in intrinsic motivation. This is known as the “over-justification” effect. The
over-justification effect occurs when an external motivator decreases a person's
intrinsic motivation to perform a behavior. Researchers have found that when tangible
extrinsic rewards are given for actions and behaviors that people already find
intrinsically rewarding; they will become less internally motivated to pursue those
activities in the future. For example, if an employee is passionate about participating in
a Continuous Improvement deployment and the company now starts to link monetary
rewards to participation it will likely cause a degree of disengagement which is the
opposite of what we want to accomplish.

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What seems to cause the over-justification effect? According to some, people will tend
to pay more attention to the external rewards rather than the original reasons that they
chose to willingly participate in the activity. As a result, people start thinking that their
participation in the activity is the result of the external rewards rather than their own
internal appreciation of the behavior. Another explanation might be that people will
perceive the external reinforcement as coercion and bribery.

Extrinsic: Use with Caution! – This action needs to be utilized carefully.

While the company controls the use of extrinsic rewards and it may work
for some, beware of the over-justification effect and the possibility of
countering the effects of intrinsic motivation.

ANALYZING AND INFLUENCING INDIVIDUAL CHANGE

What if, upon analysis, you have concluded that people know what to Do, have the
Skills to do it and the organization has made it clear why it is important and have
provided adequate elements of Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation, as appropriate, to
entice people to do the right things. If this is the case, but people are still NOT doing
what needs to be done, what do you do?

Dr. Aubrey Daniels has done some great work in this field. Daniels defines his
Performance Management approach as “In simplest terms, it's a way of getting people
to do what you want them to do and to like doing it.” The core thesis of Daniels’ work is
that behavior cannot be separated from the influences that come before the Behavior
and the Consequences that come after as a result of that behavior

Antecedents come Behaviors are the things Consequences come

before a behavior and that people do and say. after the behavior and
signal what is to be can be both positive
done. Common and/or negative.
antecedents are signs, Whether they are
policies, training, perceived as positive or
emails, CEO speeches negative is a function of
and videos, posters, etc. what is meaningful to
the person

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Antecedents come before a behavior and have the following characteristics.
According to Daniels, Antecedents:

1. Communicate information – if an antecedent is effective it will communicate

to a person what to do, how to do it and what is the desired performance.
This is consistent with our previous discussion on Do and Skills. Posters telling
people to “Lift Carefully” is an antecedent. Attending CI training is an
antecedent. Job descriptions are antecedents. The quality of that antecedent
influences how well the desired performance can be accomplished.

2. Have short term effects – training, posters, motivational speeches and other
antecedents only impact behavior for a short time before they lose their
ability to influence the behavior. They will kick start a behavior but will not
assure its continuation. Unfortunately, when the desired behavior is not being
seen, an organization will usually rely on more antecedents to try and
motivate the desired behavior. They will send people for more training or give
them another speech or send out emails and other communications.
Unfortunately, that will not work. While antecedents get a behavior going, it
is consequences that maintain that behavior.

3. Antecedents are linked to consequences – an effective antecedent will also

tell a person what will happen if they do the desired behavior or what will
happen if they don’t do the behavior.

4. A consequence can become an antecedent – if an antecedent directs a person

as to what to do and how to do it and they actually do the behavior and
receive a meaningful consequence then the knowledge of that consequence
can serve as a further antecedent for the continuation or discontinuation of
that behavior.

The Behavior element of Daniels’ work relates to the ability to actually exhibit the
desired behavior. The Antecedents may have been properly applied so that the person
knows what to do, how to do it and what happens if they do/do not do it. The problem
arises when they do not possess the skills or capability to exhibit the desired behavior
no matter how hard they try. This would be akin to an athlete who knows how to block,
when to block and what will happen if they do or don’t block. But, they are
uncoordinated and weigh only 140 pounds going against a 280 pound tackle. Golf may
be a better choice for them. We will discuss this in a little while.

The controlling factor in modifying behaviors is the Consequences. All behaviors have
an associated consequence. Consequences come after the behavior and do more than
simply influence that behavior but in fact control that behavior. Why do we need
consequences?

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Recall that when people don’t do what we expect them to do, it will be for one or more
of three reasons; they don’t know what to do (Do), they don’t know how to do it (Skills)
or they don’t want to do it (Intrinsic). Remember earlier we said that everyone’s
behavior makes sense to them even if it appears irrational to someone else.
Consequences for behaviors happen all the time whether we mean them to or not.
Doing nothing is a consequence. Since everyone’s behavior makes sense to them then
the impact or perception of a consequence is in the mind of that person no matter what
we think is going on.

In simplistic terms, if someone is not exhibiting the behaviors we want, yet they are
capable of doing them, that means that the consequences, in the mind of the person,
for doing the behavior have less impact on them then the consequences for not doing
the behavior. In other words, they perceive more positive consequences for NOT doing
the behavior then they perceive the negative consequences for not doing the action.
Daniel’s ABC (Antecedent, Behavior and Consequence) methodology can provide a
method for reversing this perception.

The ABC Analysis can be done as an 8 Step process. Let’s use a specific example to
illustrate its use.

Step 1: Describe what and who is the problem – Company X has embarked upon
a CI deployment and after about a year is noticing that some of the Champions are not
fully engaging and doing what they have been charged to do during the transformation.
Mr. Green is one of those Champions whose behavior seems out of synch with what
Company X expects of a Champion. He is not attending Project Meetings, developing
Charters, meeting with the Black Belt or providing any coaching to the Teams in his area.

Step 2: Describe the desired behavior – It is expected that as a Champion, (a) Mr.
Green would take the first step to draft project Charters and subsequently meet with
the Black Belt to refine them (b) that he frequently meets with the Black Belt to get
updates and provide feedback and input (c) attend as many Team Kickoff Meetings and
Tollgate Reviews as possible and (d) provide signoff at the conclusion of the project.
Since the role of the Champion is to be responsible for the Project, it is expected that
Mr. Green play a leadership role for the Team and Black Belt. Hint: Be very specific in
the description of the desired behaviors.

Step 3: Determine the magnitude of the problem – While it is understood that

situations may arise whereby a Champion may not be able to attend a Tollgate Review
or meet with his/her Black Belt. In Mr. Green’s situation, he has cancelled the last three
scheduled meetings with his Black Belt and has been a no-show for the last two Tollgate
Reviews. The Black Belt has been forced to bring this situation to his Master Black Belt
and also to the CI Leadership Team who also noticed Mr. Green’s errant behavior since
he had attended all previous Tollgate Reviews.

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Step 4: Assess the Antecedents that are currently in place – As we have said before,
the first question we need to ask is whether the person knows what to do and how to do
it and whether the Organization has provided sufficient extrinsic motivation. If those
are missing then we need to stop, take a step back, and get them done. For example, if
Mr. Green had not attended Champion Training, it would be unfair to expect him to
know how to draft a good Charter or know his role in the Tollgate Review. It was
determined that Mr. Green did attend Champion training. It was also determined that
Company X had done a good job in communicating expectations about the role of the
Champion and the specific desired behaviors and actions. Continued analysis of other
possible antecedents led to the conclusion that a reasonable effort has been made to
provide Mr. Green with the ability to perform as a Champion.

Step 5: Observe the behavior – Earlier we said that even if people know what to do and
how to do it, they sometimes don’t possess the skills to do it. For example, a Sales
Representative may have been trained on the product and how to sell but when you
observe them in the presence of a customer, they are awkward and socially clumsy.
They try hard but still need some additional coaching and practice on how to interact.
We might conclude that the Sales Rep is not cut out for the job and suggest some
alternative role in the organization. Or we might be able to hone some of those skills. In
Mr. Green’s case, his Manager observed that, when Mr. Green actually participated in
the process, he was quite good and did possess the wherewithal to be successful.

Step 6: Determine the Consequences for the desired and undesired behaviors – This is
the most critical step of the methodology. For each of the desired behaviors, identify all
the consequences that exist. These will be consequences for both doing and not doing
the behavior. The tricky part is now to determine whether the consequences that you
have identified are actually meaningful to the person being analyzed. This will require
getting some direct feedback from the individual.

Eliminate those consequences that are not meaningful to the person even though you
might feel that they are important. Remember, being meaningful is in the eye of the
receiver of the consequence. Now we can analyze the remaining consequences
according to three criteria; whether they are positive or negative, immediate or future
and certain or uncertain. Daniels uses the designations as P/N, I/F and C/U. The most
powerful consequences will be Positive (P), Immediate (I) and Certain (C). Negative (N),
Future (F) and Uncertain (U) consequences have reduced impact on affecting behavior.

As a result, if the consequences for NOT doing the desired behavior can be classified as
PIC and the consequences for doing the behavior are NFU then it should be no surprise
that the desired behavior will not take place.

To continue with our example, an analysis of consequences was done for Mr. Green. It
was determined that one consequence for writing Charters and attending Tollgate
Reviews was that it took him away from his job which was exceptionally busy due to an

12
understaffed department. Therefore, NOT writing Charters and attending meetings was
positive in his mind, immediate and certain, a PIC. He had extra time to do his job, could
go home to his family at a reasonable hour and didn’t have to worry about the team.
NOT attending had a very strong consequence.

The negative consequence for NOT writing Charters and attending meetings was that his
manager might get upset and that, at his next evaluation, he might receive negative
feedback about his behavior. While that consequence might be negative, it is also
future (next evaluation in 7 months) and uncertain (maybe he will get negative feedback
or maybe not). Another consequence for NOT doing what is desired is that the
Company might experience some financial downsides if they don’t dramatically
improve. Again, while that is negative, it is also future and uncertain. The NFUs are not
nearly as meaningful to Mr. Green as the PICs for not doing what is desired. His
behavior makes sense to him.

Some may argue that the above cognitive process may be obvious to the person while
others take the position that this thinking is not occurring at a conscious level but is
working in the background of the person’s mind. It is likely that the person is NOT fully
aware of why they are acting the way they are until someone does the analysis and
points it out to them.

Step 7: Summarize the antecedents and consequences – Now that all the relevant
antecedents and consequences have been analyzed, a summary should be done. This
should give great insight and understanding as to why Mr. Green may be doing what he
is doing.

Step 8: Develop a strategy to reverse the polarity of behavior – If an undesired

behavior has been assessed as having many consequences classified as PICs and the
desired behavior has considerably weaker consequences, then actions need to occur to
reverse that. The PIC for not writing Charters and attending meetings needs to be offset
by a stronger PIC for writing those Charters and attending the meetings.

Correspondingly, the PIC might be replaced by something strongly negative. In Mr.

Green’s case, possibly his manager could provide some additional resources for Mr.
Green as well as having a less than pleasant conversation every time he misses a
meeting or fails to carry out the desired behaviors expected of a Champion. This now
makes missing a meeting a Negative, Immediate and Certain. Providing resources will
become a positive immediate and certain and his attendance, followed by a positive
conversation makes that a PIC. Bottom line is that we either need to make doing the
desired behavior very positive or NOT doing the desired behavior very negative. The
preferred strategy is to make the consequences for doing the desired behavior positive .

13
Below is a model of possible consequences. The top two will increase and sustain
behavior and are referred to as Positive and Negative Reinforcement. The strongest
consequence is the positive reinforcement. In our example, Mr. Green would get
numerous accolades and a promotion for driving Continuous Improvement. That might
drive his behavior and leadership of the CI deployment. A negative reinforcement
would be to remove his roadblocks to driving change by offloading some of the less
desirable and non-value added work that he is doing. That might also drive and
reinforce his behavior.

The bottom two consequences are both classified as Punishment. If Mr. Green
continued his errant behavior, he might get reprimanded and written up which he
certainly wouldn’t want. Or, he might be passed over for promotion or raise which is
something that he would want but wouldn’t get.

Each person views consequences in their own unique way. For example, if a Black Belt
did a great job collecting some hard-to-get data she might be rewarded by being asked
to present it to the Senior Leadership Team. One Black Belt might think that is great
while another might dread the experience and perceive it as a punishment. Be careful
about a generic application of this analytical technique.

14
CONCLUSION
If your organization is or has been deploying a CI effort then it has expended a good deal
of time, resources and effort to do so. If you haven’t hit the wall yet, you will. Start
thinking and planning now so that you don’t lose any momentum when the time comes.

In summary, any continuous improvement deployment wishing to increase the

engagement of its people and sustain their efforts should analyze, evaluate and have in
place the four elements of change, Do, Skills, Intrinsic and Extrinsic.

Even if people have the skills, believe in the change and the organization has clearly
shown that change is important, change will not occur nor be sustained if the
organization hasn’t clearly described what behaviors are expected. Likewise, if a person
knows what is expected, believes in the process and the organization has demonstrated
the importance, sustainability will not occur if the skills needed to make the changes are
not present. Additionally, if it is clear what needs to be done, the skills have been
imparted and the organization has made the importance clear, sustainability will be
challenged if people do not personally believe in the process.

Striving for the intrinsic motivation of people is critical. Yet, if the other three elements
have been skillfully applied, they can act as a strong influencer of the intrinsic
motivation.

Finally, if people know what to do, how to do it and believe in it but the organization is
remiss in communicating importance, change will likely occur but sustainability would
be in jeopardy. An organization controls the means to apply the Do, Skills and Extrinsic
elements. Properly done, the Intrinsic element can be influenced. If you are raising the
issue of sustainability then it is time to evaluate your organization and execute actions
and strategies relative to the four elements and the application of ABC Analysis to
create an environment of sustainability NOW before the momentum starts to decline.

15
REFERENCES
Carder, B and Monda, M. (2013). “Deming’s Profound Knowledge for Leadership”
Human Development & Leadership Division of the American Society of Quality,
http://asqhdandl.org/uploads/3/3/3/8/3338526/leadership_and_profound_knowledge
_final_b_opt.pdf

Daniels, Aubrey and Daniels, James E. (2004) Performance Management: Changing

Behavior That Drives Organizational Performance 4th edition. Georgia: Performance
Management Publications

Deci, E. L. and Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human

behavior. New York: Plenum Press

Ryan, R. M. and Deci, E. L. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and
New Directions, Contemporary Educational Psychology 25, 54–67 (2000)

Thomas, K. The Four Intrinsic Rewards That Drive Employee Engagement, Ivey Business
Journal November / December 2009

16
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ken Feldman is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and RCI
Director. He has more than 40 years of experience helping
organizations improve quality and performance. Ken has
worked in such diverse industries as healthcare, steel,
corrugated containers, printing, higher education, chemicals,
food products, and paper, U.S. Military, financial services,
electronics, automotive, paint, ink, and others.

Prior to joining Dr. Pepper, Ken was a Principal with Accenture

Consulting. Previously, Ken was a Technical Director for the
George Group who provided the foundation for much of our RCI process. Ken was a
Senior Vice President in the Quality and Productivity Group at Bank of America and
District Director of Performance Improvement at the North Broward Hospital District,
the sixth largest tax supported health system in the US. While at GE Capital, Ken
traveled extensively throughout North America, Asia and Europe training Master Black
Belts as well as teaching and coaching teams in the US. He is a sought after presenter at
Lean Six Sigma conferences and other professional gatherings.

Ken has a dual Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Psychology with the distinction of
having Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the esteemed quality Guru on his Doctoral Committee.
He also holds a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering, a Master of Business
Administration, a Bachelor’s of Science in Industrial Engineering and a Certificate in
Occupational Safety and Health.

17
This primer is brought to you by ASQ's Human
Development & Leadership Division. Our
mission is ‘to be the community of choice for
everyone by making human potential a global
priority, an organization and personal imperative
‘.

We serve the community by providing

publications like this, education, webinars,
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and professional growth and for leadership skills development.

To learn more about us, and to see our entire library of primers and webinars you can
visit us at http://asqhdandl.org/

Please contact me at Bill Barton barton.bill.e@gmail.com if you need more information

or are interested in working with our team as a member leader!

Bill Barton, Chair, HD&L Division, ASQ

The Human Development and Leadership
Division
Helping you reach your potential
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