Armin Cruz on A
Streamlined Methodology to
Solving Business
Problems
Armin Cruz is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt that specializes
in LEAN methodologies in the financial transactional industry. Armin Cruz received his MBB while serving as
a Vice President at Bank of America’s Process Excellence division. Armin currently serves as Director and Head
of Continuous Improvement for a public firm in the financial real estate and
property management industry. Armin Cruz earned his MBA from the University of
Phoenix, and his BA from the University of Texas at Dallas. Armin Cruz lives in north Texas with his
wife, three dogs and is anxiously awaiting his first baby boy in December.
With this background Armin Cruz provided contextual
background, details, and advice on “Solving Business Problems.”
As the executive of your organization or line of business
you must ensure a concise and precise leadership strategy to solving the
business problems your division faces.
Regardless of the problem, at the strategic level, a simple four-step
process will help you to break the issue down into bite-size and solvable
components.
This provides two significant keys. First, the repeatability and predictability
of your leadership style and plan. Your
team must be able to understand your leadership philosophy and approach. Without this, the team will view your
leadership as transient at best, and at worst inadequate. Second, clear communication is foundational
to trust and performance. Performance
requires trust in leadership, and trust requires communication. In summary, simply solving the business
problem is not good enough. At the
senior executive level you have to ensure you solve it “the right way”
according to business consultant Peter Drucker.
Therefore, if you have a business problem, you have to view
this as an opportunity. Not just an
opportunity to create a corrective action plan.
This is your supervisor’s or manager’s job. Rather, an opportunity to create additional
and value-add communication to enhance your consensus building stylized
leadership.
The first step to ‘Solving Business Problems’ is to define
the environment. This includes your SWOT
(Strength Weakness Opportunity Threats) analysis, as well as a concise problem
statement. Ideally, you should break the
problem statement down to one or two sentences.
If you cannot describe the problem concisely, you probably do not have a
clear vision and definition of the problem itself.
The second step in ‘Solving Business Problems’ is to define
the objective. Once you know what is not working, you need to determine what
the future state looks like. Is it a
return to normalcy, or do you intend to re-engineer the process? Before you start fixing the issues,
understand precisely where it is you want to go and how the desired state
should function at a high level.
The third step in ‘Solving Business Problems’ is to create two
or three avenues of approach to success.
The adage “One is none, and two is one” rings true when planning
solutions to complex problems. Never put
all your eggs in one basket. It is
always a prudent practice to possess a back-up plan in the event of a failure
to execute.
Finally, the fourth step in ‘Solving Business Problems’ is
to measure your success and document an after action report. This is arguably
the most important step because it starts to create culture shifts. If we examine and measure the changes at each
step, and compare those changes over time then we start to create the
foundation for continuous improvement.
This leads to an open consensus-building environment where problems are
surfaced quickly and resolutions adopted organically.
For more information about this topic, please read my Slide Share
title “4 Steps to Solving Business Problems.”
You may also reach out to me on my personal website and request more
detailed information.
Point of Contact:
Name: Armin Cruz
Phone: (972) 333 – 9502
Email: armin.j.cruz@hotmail.com
Website: www.armincruz.us
SlideShare: www.slideshare.net/ArminCruz
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ArminJCruz
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