Just because nothing’s clearly wrong with the way your company works does not mean everything’s going right.

The need for change can creep up on you.

And all too often, a crisis is the first way people realize something has gone too far.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The need for improvements In your products and services, or the way you get work done in your company can be apparent much faster if you pay attention to subtle signs.

Like the subtle indications of changes in the weather, subtle signals can be leading indicators that something is slipping, sliding, declining…and the loss of customers can’t be far away.

“Why change it if it isn’t broken?” is a common line of thought.

Well, the reason to change something that doesn’t appear to be broken is that it may be heading that way.

If you have a lot riding on one part of your business, or one group of customers you serve very well, protect that valuable asset.

The gulf oil disaster is a dramatic example of the need to pay attention to the basic controls of the business, as well as subtle signs that something might have been going wrong.

It’s very possible the oil spill could have been prevented if the right indicators had been well-monitored, the warnings heeded and acted upon by people who had the responsibility and authority to solve problems when they were far smaller.

The tough thing is that if you’re watching the subtle signs, when you see indications that problems may be taking shape, no one really wants to be the person to say, “I think a bad situation might be happening.”

People don’t really want to be doomsdayers and naysayers (well, most don’t).

However, instead of moving away from troubling trends, build the instinct to move closer in. Look more deeply into what might be happening.

Changes in customer satisfaction, for example, are just one indicator of changes that may be underway.

As you consider this indicator of changes, consider that many companies view complaining customers as a problem they wish would go away.

But complaining customers can be a rich source of information, if you gather and use the information they provide in a substantial way.

Consider this: customers who complain still care enough to try to help you become better. And changes in the types of complaints they make, the frequency of them, and other aspects may be an early indicator of problems that are cropping up that you might not have noticed any other way.

Learn to monitor and use both obvious and subtle signs of change in customer satisfaction, among other possible indicators of problems that may be taking shape.

It can make a big difference in your being able to catch and then prevent significant problems for your business and everyone affected by it.

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In contrast to the Saints’ great 2010 Super Bowl story, how did Toyota get it so wrong?

Here are five key ways they’ve created their current situation:

1. They believed their own press.

Observant, in-control Toyota.

Invincible, untouchable, always high-quality Toyota.

Or so we were led to believe.

Their cars have been, in so many ways, customer-pleasing (they have been for our family, too – we own two Toyotas).

As a result, Toyota and Lexus owners thought their cars were as safe as the company wanted us to believe.

Until we heard the terrified 911 call from the off-duty California Highway Patrol officer who died with three other members of his family in a Lexus he couldn’t stop.

2. They ignored the facts.

Perhaps Toyota saw what was going on with various product quality problems.

And perhaps they didn’t even look, or they couldn’t see.

Whatever the case, seeing the facts and responding appropriately to those facts could have helped them prevent the mess they’re in now. And to do that means they’d have to be able to see facts – whatever they are – as a good thing, ultimately.

3. They counted on past performance as an indicator of current performance.

Toyota has learned, hopefully, that you can’t just rest on your laurels, and your past performance.

A reputation for quality based on past performance does not guarantee quality in current performance.

You still have to check what the quality is on the production line, and coming off the line and going out to customers.

And you have to correct errors, whenever they are found, whatever is causing them.

4. No news was better than bad news inside the company.

The more we learn about the culture and dynamics at Toyota, the more it appears that when the waters were troubled, they didn’t go below the surface to see what they could see.

Bad news wasn’t wanted, or allowed.

Customer frustration and safety were, it seems, lower priorities than keeping internal peace, and supporting decisions that had been made by consensus.

Cage rattlers were not encouraged, even if customers’ safety was at risk.

5. They didn’t create a system that could support their growth goals.

The more we learn, the more it is apparent that Toyota’s success in the past had a lot to do with their system of careful apprenticeship, with new employees’ learning from others who had prior experience.

In recent years, the growth they sought did not allow them to maintain that careful system of learning, appropriate and attentive oversight and skill mastery.

They’re paying the price for trying to grow beyond their readiness to perform consistently and safely at desired volumes.

There are other problems in play in the mess that Toyota has made.

Hopefully, they’ll be able to resurrect their once-legendary quality, and rise above the now low expectations they’ve created.

The steps ahead for Toyota will surely focus on creating a system and processes to once again ensure that product design, testing, production, quality control and customer-responsive service and support are worthy of the customer loyalty that they took so much  for granted.

They will have to work very hard to earn customers’ business and referrals again.

It’s an important lesson, and a cautionary tale, for many companies and industries.

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Close to the finish line on a problem-solving process?

If so, make sure you don’t forget one easy-to-miss step that many problem-solving teams skip.

That’s when you create measures and other ways of knowing if the solution works, and continues to.

Consider this:

If you’d had better measures in place before this problem happened, could you have avoided all this clean-up work now?

Maybe not…but it’s worth a moment’s thought.

As you create the right measures, imagine you’re an archer, shooting your arrows of action at the bullseye of a target.

Create ways that enable you to know that you’ll hit the bullseye - instead of being off-center or possibly missing the target, at all.

Take the following steps to create strong measures and other management guideposts:

1. Select
2. Collect
3. Check
4. Refine or carry on

Here’s more detail about each phase:

1. Select

Having good measures means they’re well-aligned to what’s important to customers of the improvement you’re making.

You may have several types of customers for your problem-solving work. Each group probably has their own needs.

Take all these different – and perhaps competing needs – into account and prioritize them.

Here are a few thoughts about where to start:

Do customers of the improvement care about timeliness? Then establish measures of product or service delivery cycle time or delivery timeliness.

Is profit important? Create measures that focus on income and cost management.

If ease of use is significant, try customer satisfaction indicators, such as a customer survey or interviews.

2. Collect

Figure out the easiest way to gather the information you need, and to do so, consistently.

Then find the easiest way to present the information to those who will use it.

Information must be easy to get and easy to use if it is to work effectively as a significant management tool.

3. Check

Periodically evaluate the system of information you’re collecting to see if it works as well as you hoped.

Understand if you have the right early warning system in place to tell you what you need to know about whether the solution to the problem is working well – or working at all.

4. Refine or carry on

If the data and information guideposts you create show you that you need to change again, or continue to problem-solve, do so.

If you don’t, you’ll lose the goodwill and engagement of your team.

No matter what else is going on, you need the power of a unified and fully-invested team behind you.

Cap off the hard work of problem-solving.

Put good measurements in place to help you manage the problem-solving outcome to strong and positive final results.

Recall a thorny problem you once faced, and thought you could eliminate easily, but that was far from the case.

Why did solving that problem take so much time, effort and energy?

The odds are pretty high that problems with the information available to do the problem-solving job proved to be a barrier to understanding the issue, fully, and getting it resolved.

These are some of the things that may have gone wrong:

- You had no data or information
- Information was inaccurate or incomplete
- Information was very hard to get and reconcile
- Information wasn’t presented in the right way to make the problem easy to grasp

Whether you like this phase of problem-solving or not, fact-finding is a fact of life.

Consider these things the next time you must gather data for problem-solving or problem prevention:

1. What questions are you trying to answer with the information you collect?

2. What are you afraid of finding out? Why?

3. Who will use the information?

4. What are they likely to do with it? When do they need it?

5. What information do you have now?

6. What information do you still need?

7. How can you gather that information in the most effective way?

Let’s consider each of these issues separately:

1. What questions are you trying to answer with the information you collect?

Let curiosity about the problem be your guide as you decide what information to gather, and how to use it (if you ever wanted to be a detective, the time is now to use those skills).

Be specific, however, about the questions you’re trying to answer before you begin the information quest or you may find yourself far afield, and quickly, without the right information in tow.

For example, these are some of the issues you may be trying to understand about the problem and the pattern in which it occurs:

- Timing and frequency of the problem
- Sequence of actions that precede its appearance
- Physical or other circumstances in which the problem happens compared to circumstances where it doesn’t
- Training taken by those who don’t experience the problem compared to those who do

2. What are you afraid of finding out?

Here’s a fact we must face: at many companies, there’s a lot of fear about data and information, and how it may be used.

That makes gathering and using data, and doing so effectively, far harder than it would be in a fact-friendly environment.

Be honest about what you’re afraid of finding out. It’s better to know, than to pretend that fear isn’t, in some way, in play in your information gathering process.

Even if the thing that you fear happens – or already has – the problem isn’t going to get better, and is likely to get worse, the longer you avoid uncovering and understanding it.

Consider this: the actual circumstances you find may be far better than you imagine.

And the faster you find that out, the better off you will be.

3. Who will use the information?

As you decide what data you need to collect, and how you will use it, be aware of who the customers for that information are.

Find out what makes it easiest for them to use the information as they try to understand and solve the problem now underway.

For example, one group of customers may need a glossary of terms to be fully-versed and able to use the information you provide.

Another group may be so familiar with the information that providing such a guide would be a waste of time (although you might be surprised).

4. What are they likely to do with the information? And when do they need it?

Consider what may happen as a result of the information you’re providing.

Giving estimates and trend information before final information is available can be helpful to some groups so that they can keep moving while you complete your data-gathering.

On the other hand, providing a “rough cut” of what the data show may be exactly the wrong thing to do if someone is likely to make assumptions and decisions that are ultimately incorrect, and add problems on top of the problem you now have.

5. What information do you have now?

You may already have the information you need.

It may even be hiding in plain sight, presented in a different format or location than you expect.

Check to see what you already have, before you start a data-gathering project.

6. What information do you still need?

Take into account how you will gather the information you still need.

For example, you may obtain it in some of these, or other ways:
- Observation
- Surveys
- Interviews
- New analysis of existing data
- Trying to recreate the problem and experience it yourself

Your answers have a lot to do with how much time you need to allow, how many resources you need, and what type of skills they must have to provide the type and quality of information you need to understand and solve the problem completely.

7. How can you gather the information in the most effective way?

Figure out the most effective and timely way to get the information you need, and to use it well for problem-solving.

You may need to bring in experienced outside resources, provide training to employees, or in other ways supplement your current readiness to handle the type of situation you now face and, in the future, want to prevent.

However you do it, get the facts you need to understand the problem you face and its cause, or causes.

And then, let the facts you gather speak for themselves.

Does the idea of taking on the information planning, gathering and analysis make you want to run?

Give me a call. We’ll work together to get it done.

*Getting the facts – moving well beyond initial assumptions, impressions and opinions about the issue you’re facing – is essential for effective, efficient problem-solving. You can read more about the problem-solving process in a recent blog post, Take the problems out of your problem-solving process.

In the midst of the noise, uncertainty and fear that often surrounds problem-solving – especially if the problem is a big one – you need to find or set a clear target.

Figuring out who the solution is really for and what they want is one of the main steps involved in solving any problem. You can read more about the problem-solving process in a recent post, Take the problems out of your problem-solving process.

To do so, consider these things:

1. Who are you solving the problem for?

2. What do your problem-solving customers consider success to be?

3. How will they recognize a successful solution?

Let’s take a closer look at each of these points:

1. Who are you solving the problem for?

When you’re solving a problem, someone’s work or life will be improved by the work you do (if not, there may not be a problem to solve, at all).

The person whose work or life is better because of your work is your customer – and there may be several whose needs you must meet.

Let’s look at an example:

Imagine you’re responsible for recruiting students to a college.

Now imagine that the current problem you’re trying to solve is that students who are entering the college are not as successful there as you, or they, hoped they would be.

These are some of the people whose lives will be improved if you solve this problem successfully:

- Prospective and future students at the college
- Parents of these students
- Prospective employers and graduate schools who may hire/accept the graduates

There are other customers in this problem-solving example, but for now, let’s consider just these three groups.

Of these, which are your top-priority customers?

2. What do these customers consider success to be?

Your problem-solving customers have different wants and needs in the solution you create.

Using our example, the three different groups of customers may want an application and selection process that’s effective in some of these ways:

- Accurately portrays the experience at the college
- Accurately assesses prospective students’ likelihood of success at the college
- Efficient
- Consistent
- Fair
- Cost-effective
- Complete
- Easy to use

Of these and other possible improvements, what are the most important ones for your customers?

You can try to guess what they want, of course.

But you will be most successful with your problem-solving efforts if you ask what they want.

Use a survey or interviews.

Have them prioritize what they want and need in the solution you are creating.

You can also observe your problem-solving customers using the product, service, or process that now needs to be improved.

As you observe, pay close attention to what they do and say to understand where and how the problems occur, specifically. This can provide invaluable information for creating the best solution, and doing so most easily.

3. How will your problem-solving customers recognize a successful solution?

To address this issue, find out specifically how your customers will recognize a successful solution to the problem, after you have made the change.

What will they measure to tell them that the problem has been solved?

Using our example, here are some of the ways that prospective students may measure the success of an improved application and selection process:

- Satisfaction with the ease of finding the information they need (online, social media, e-mail, phone)
- Accuracy and completeness of the information
- Ease of completing the application (technical ease, time to complete, reasonableness of the questions asked)
- Value of the experience in helping them to evaluate the school as one they would like to attend and where they would succeed
- Comparison of their experience with other college application processes they are completing

Their parents may be judging these types of things about the application and selection process:
- Customer satisfaction with the ease of finding the information they need
- Accuracy and completeness of the information
- Their child’s ease of completing the application
- Overall quality of their family’s experience in interacting with the college throughout the selection process
- Comparison of their experience with other college application processes they are completing

Again, you don’t know for sure how your work and solution will be judged until you take the time to ask.

Prepare yourself for a successful, efficient problem-solving process, as much as you can.

Take the time now to save time and money later.

Create a clear, customer-focused target in order to produce a successful result for you, your problem-solving customers, and the problem-solving team.

You know the moment.

We all do.

It’s the moment when you feel the sudden, sinking feeling that something’s . . . not . . . right.

And, in fact, perhaps you sometimes discover that the situation is far worse than you originally guessed.

Mistakes happen. Problems crop up. Errors, despite one’s best efforts, sometimes get through.

Almost always, though, you’re better off to discover problems early, when they’re less expensive and relatively easy to fix, and easier to prevent in the future.

The first signs of a problem are sometimes impossible to miss.

Imagine the volume, velocity, and vehemence of the feedback Google gets when gMail is down, as it was for a few hours last week. They rapidly found and fixed it.

On the other hand, the first signs of trouble can be subtle. They’re sometimes easy to miss, and dismiss.

There are many large and small examples of this.

The financial market meltdown is just one high-impact example.

Early signs of problems with lending practices were widely disregarded. Industry and oversight practices were not made until major damage was already done to many people, in many ways.

How can you learn to notice the signs of problems early, before the cost of errors, rework and customer relationship recovery is high, if it is possible, at all?

Figuring out that there is a problem, and assessing what’s really going on is one of the primary skills involved in solving any problem. You can read more about the problem-solving process in a recent post, Take the problems out of your problem-solving process.

Here are a few things you can do to improve your problem-discovery skills:

1. Tune up your powers of observation

Start with what’s very clear.

What do you see, hear, and observe that shows you something needs to be fixed?

Pay close and regular attention to your key indicators of cost, quality, timeliness, new customer requirements, and customer satisfaction results so that you notice and can look into changes early.

Look carefully at the details and trends in customer complaints. They are information-rich, providing feedback to guide improvements. They may also give you ideas for new products and services you can offer in the future.

Notice, as well, the subtle signs that something bad may be brewing.

These often fall into the category of, “It’s probably nothing, but I think we should just check.”

You’re right.

Just check.

2. Move closer, learn more

The natural inclination with problems is often to want to move FAR away from them.

Fight that instinct.

Instead, go closer.

Let your curiosity and any natural detective skills you have be your guide.

Move in.

Learn more.

3. Share information with others who have a different point of view

Make a picture of what you think may be happening. Find other ways to make the issue explicit, if something warrants more investigation, or requires more insight.

Share your information with others who have a different perspective. See how the picture adds up, viewed from multiple points of view.

Frame the possible problem and understand the context from your customers’ and other stakeholders’ perspectives, as well. What you believe is not a problem may be a significant one for customers, employees, and more.

4. Learn to distinguish what’s important – or could be – from what’s just noise

Go where the problem (or possible problem) is actually occurring – or have someone who can look at the problem with “fresh eyes” do so – to see what they see.

Set aside your assumptions about:
- What you’ll see
- What things mean
- What you’ll do if there is,
in fact, a problem

Just check.

Learn to discover problems early.

Solve them when they’re still small.

Problem-solving is, well, it’s often a problem, itself.

Remember a time when something happened that wasn’t planned.

And it wasn’t good.

You didn’t have extra time to clean up the mess the problem created for you, or for the customers you work so hard to get, and keep.

And yet, what choice did you have?

Much better than getting to that point, of course, is keeping problem-solving skills fresh, and solving problems while they’re still small.

That requires paying attention to the signs that there is a problem - seeking signs of trouble, if you will.

And it means taking a little time now instead of a lot of time later, when the problem and its impact on you and your customers may have grown out of control.

If your problem-solving skills need a tune-up, try these eight steps:

1. Know what it’s about

Generally, what’s the problem?

Who seems to be involved?

Who needs to be involved in designing a solution and implementing it?

What’s the impact of the problem on you and your customers?

2. Know who the solution is really for, and what they want

In the midst of the noise, uncertainty and fear that often surrounds problem-solving – especially if the problem is a big one – you need to find a clear target.

Who is the solution for?

What would they consider success to be, when you’ve solved this problem?

Are there other customers or stakeholders whose needs you need to consider as you create the best solution?

3. Get the facts

You need facts to fully understand the problem you face, and the magnitude of its impact.

What information do you have, or can you get, to help you understand the problem completely?

4. Figure out what’s really causing it

If you miss the real cause of the problem, you may, in fact, create more problems with the solution you plan to put in place.

Using the “five whys” to discover the root cause of the problem.

Ask yourself or your team why something is happening.

Now ask yourselves why that is happening…and why that is happening.

Do this until you discover the real cause of the problem.

It may be that some group or individual needs training to do a job consistently, and up to the customers’ expectations.

Maybe a process is now too complicated, or technology is out of date.

Or perhaps communication isn’t good between different parts of your company, and it’s showing up in problems that get out to the customer.

Whatever it is, the root cause of the problem is what you need to reduce or eliminate.

Until then, you’re largely wasting your time and money, going through the motions of problem-solving, rather than getting the job done.

5. Find the easiest way to make the cause go away

Envision the easiest way to make the cause of the problem go away.

Can you implement that solution, just as you envision it? If not, what’s in the way?

Take those constraints into account and create the solution that works best for your overall situation and resources.

Figure out, too, who needs to be involved in implementing the solution.

Bring them into the problem solution process early enough that they have high ownership of the solution they need to help create.

6. Know how you’ll know if the solution is working

How will you know if your solution is working while you try it out, and before you take the time and bear the expense to implement it fully?

What can you measure or observe that will let you know if the problem is actually going away with this improvement effort?

7. Give your idea a try

The only way you’ll know if your solution works is to try it out.

Pay close attention to signs of success or failure of the test, and get others to pay close attention, too, to what they see.

Evaluate the results that you find, collectively.

8. Celebrate…or try again

If the test worked, capture the process improvement or other changes you’ve made.

Then fully implement the solution throughout your company or organization.

And celebrate, if appropriate, in a valued way.

On the other hand, if the fix didn’t work, go through the process again.

It’s a safe bet that if you don’t, the problem won’t just go away. And it’s likely to grow, faster than you might imagine, affecting things in ways you might not guess.

Your best best:

Solve today’s problem today.

Problem-solving doesn’t really begin until “What if…”

And “There has to be a better way…”

And “I wonder if…”

Curiosity is the key.

Curiosity leads you down the path of inquiry. It leads to problem-identifying, cause-seeking, pattern-finding, cause-removing, improvement-making, future-creating.

And it all has to start somewhere.

It starts with, “I wonder…”

Here are a few more thoughts along those lines from the king of curiosity, Albert Einstein, and others:

Never lose a holy curiosity.
Albert Einstein

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
Albert Einstein

I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.
Albert Einstein

A sense of curiosity is nature’s original school of education.
Smiley Blanton

I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
E. E. Cummings

Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance.
William Wirt

If you give people tools, [and they use] their natural ability and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.
Bill Gates

One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.
William Lyon Phelps

Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.
Dr. Linus Pauling

If you or your leadership team need a reminder about some of the primary things you should be able to communicate well, start with the following questions.

If you don’t have the answers to these questions yet, take the time to work them out – or give me a call and I’ll help you work through them as a team.

Clarity and consistency, as leaders, about these essential issues is more important than you know:

1. Who are we, as an organization? Why do we exist, as a company?

2. Who are our customers? Who do we serve with our primary products and services?

3. What do our customers want from us, specifically? What’s excellence, from their point of view?

4. How are we doing, compared to what our customers expect of us? How do we know?

5. What values guide us when we make decisions – particularly the toughest calls?

6. What’s our long-term vision?

7. What’s success to us this year?

8. What are our priorities right now?

9. What measures do we use to know how we’re doing at any given time, compared to our goals?

10. What’s important in our company culture? What terminology, behavior and communications are a “big deal” here? What are we casual about, as a company?

Clarity is one of the top ten characteristics of leaders who excel. These are the people about whom stories are told long after they’ve led their organizations through
extreme circumstances or uncertainty, and met great challenges well.

Why is leadership clarity so important? It’s because people can’t follow what they don’t understand.

And because circumstances are constantly changing, ensuring clarity, as a leader, is a never-ending job.

Think of leadership clarity this way. Trying to follow a person who’s not clear about where he or she is leading a group is like trying to follow someone while driving in
thick fog.

People on a team, in such a case, don’t know where the road is, or if there’s one at all. They don’t know where the dangers are. They don’t know if they’re still traveling together, or by now, alone.

They proceed nervously, slowly, trying to move as safely as they can. Or, metaphorically speaking, they pull over to the side of the road, idling, waiting for the fog to lift, the way to become clear, safety to be ensured.

In the meantime, time and opportunities are lost. Costs increase. Profits fall.

Being clear, as a leader, may sound easy to achieve. It’s not.

It requires clear thinking in every circumstance – when the best way forward is apparent, as well as when – as has been the case for many companies in recent months – the best path is not yet known and must be created, as you go.

To reach this level of clarity, a leader and his or her team need good information, effective collaboration, clear and effective processes for prioritizing and decision-making.

Great leaders build strong organizations, which may include many people. The work of all these people must be integrated and coordinated in some way. Perhaps that’s done somewhat loosely, organically, or it may be accomplished in much more formal, structured ways.

The net effect, however it’s done, is that with the right direction, information, and other signposts along the way, individual employees can make the right decisions and choose the right actions in the daily flow to create continuing progress for all on shared company goals.

Combined with the other top characteristics of great leaders,leadership clarity turns good intentions, and precious resources focused on challenging goals into the best results possible for all company stakeholders.