Is your company's latest improvement program viewed as part of a consistent strategy or just another acronym being piled upon the backs of an already weary organization? The answer to this question can be the difference between your ability to positively affect long term performance versus your employees constantly scrambling to meet apparently conflicting short term goals.
Deming discussed the importance of maintaining a "constancy of purpose" in providing employees confidence their actions and values are aligned with the company's goals. Peter Block also indirectly referred to this principle in describing the foundation of strong, effective leadership. I can usually identify a company without an understood constancy of purpose by the fact that their performance mirrors the recent rate of inflation - pretty much treading water.
Often I find even top management can be confused between their long term purpose and the strategic path they've selected to achieve their objectives. Obviously, if the leadership is confused the employees will typically be frustrated, stressed and eventually disengaged.
What is your long term quality objective? Is it to continually improve? Satisfy the voice of your customers? Achieve world class performance? Maximize return to your shareholders? Each of these simple statements might easily describe what your business is trying to achieve. Would your employees recognize any of these sentences?
Many times management describes their quality objectives as: "Implement Lean Six Sigma"; "Drive 5S throughout the factory"; "SPC"; "Achieve ISO Certification". If they would step back and listen they would recognize their describing individual programs, not a long term focus. Given the number of tools in the quality management toolbox, the list of possible programs is endless. It can easily overwhelm your employees.
Unless you continually reinforce your constancy of purpose your employees will develop a frustration with each seemingly unrelated program that you introduce. People need to have confidence that their mission hasn't changed and the latest initiative is yet another tool to help achieve success. Every new program (or smart acronym) needs to be framed in the context of how it will further help pursue the overall goal. As a leader you need to both understand your quality objective and the strategic importance of the program you are about to introduce. If you can't explain that connection to your employees you need to revisit your roadmap for improvement.