What Inspires Sam? You Do!

I am the school's CFO and in this role I strive to be an effective collaborator. I also like to think that I can be both forward-looking and borderline inspirational at times (my delusion, but I like it). As we continue this Process Excellence journey together, I will work to open our thinking and tangibly encourage us to find better ways to meet and exceed our customer expectations. And in so doing, I wanted to share my enthusiastic support for what I witnessed at our most recent retreat.

Leading up to the July 29th DFA/unit leader goals retreat, I watched how my DFA and director colleagues developed and defined the core services that have significant cross-unit processes – those processes that when not optimal hinder value to our stakeholders and burn up our precious staff time. The work I witnessed in preparation for the retreat went a step beyond the concept of inter-departmental sharing of useful practices and instead got to the very heart of the core services we could and need to improve to provide value to our customers through optimally effective solutions/support.

What’s on the table – everything. What’s off the table – fear. We need not look for perfection. Making major advancements every day in value to our customers is perfection. If we don’t improve, the school will continue. But what’s a better story? What do you want your legacy to be?

At the retreat, I was further inspired as the participants formed and focused their discussion on strengthening and accelerating improvement efforts throughout the school, some that we have undertaken with less than hoped for impact in the past few years. This includes core services such as faculty affairs, workforce planning, sponsored research administration pre and post-award, training grants, clinical trials management, and financial management. Plus our IRT group continues its work with University IT to improve key systems, and Marcia is working with top central University administrators (APEx) to consider University-wide improvements.

The outcome from that retreat shaped the newly developed FY20 SoM Operations Goals that will be rolled out in the coming weeks, and now that the teams have formed, how do they get started and flourish? One more quote: "Real dialogue is where two or more people become willing to suspend their certainty in each other’s presence.” Thank you, David Bohm. The Process Excellence Team, under the leadership of James Ramos, will be there to assist teams with suspending their individual certainty by developing problem (opportunity) statements, lead process improvement launches, facilitate mapping processes, help teams to identify customer and process pain points, waste and rework, provide improvement methodology skills development, consult on visual boards and huddle best practices, and provide coaching. For me, I plan to practice the concept of suspending certainty more often, as well as celebrate successes, provide resources where possible, and listen to any director any time who wishes to share ideas, seek guidance, or just have a friendly ear moving forward. I know the plight of a DFA – new requirements every day, coming faster and faster, and the old tools not working so well. I know what it’s like to manage a department, and want to take that empathy and help directors turn their challenges into action, capitalizing on the trust and relationships we have and continue to build over time.

Did you know the school hires about 80 new staff each month? 880 thus far this year. 920 last year. I am hoping our improvement efforts will draw new process improvement ideas not only from the current front-line staff doing the work today, but will also draw energy and ideas from the newcomers to explore issues, define and select improvements ideas, and install workable and sustainable solutions with a new perspective. Why use new tools and new people? “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.” Thank you, Albert Einstein.

For a little light-hearted entertainment about what happened at the DFA Retreat, please click on this link, with compliments to Frank Topper for his creativity.

What’s on the table – everything. What’s off the table – fear. We need not look for perfection. Making major advancements every day in value to our customers is perfection. If we don’t improve, the school will continue. But what’s a better story? What do you want your legacy to be?

Tell your DFA if you want to be part of the process excellence continuous improvement cultural transformation.
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