As more than a casual observer of the PITT process, I have come to appreciate its value as I have directly seen its results – results that engage employees around accomplishing the things that matter most to an organization. Isn’t this the desire of nearly every organization? Yet in practice, this seems so far out of reach for companies large and small.
Peter Drucker says one of the great challenges organizations are facing today is “improving the abysmally low productivity of knowledge workers” (Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself, Leader to Leader, Vol. 16., Spring 2000).
Another shocking article identified that “Seventy percent of strategic failures are due to poor execution. It’s rarely for a lack of smarts or vision” (Rom Charan and Geoffery Colvin, Why CEOs Fail, Fortune, June 21,1999).
How are organizations surviving with such poor focus and execution? It’s easy to see that many companies are downsizing, losing market share, or going out of business – and it is not only because of the economy – though it is convenient to blame poor productivity on the economy alone. Traditional solutions do not seem to solve traditional problems like poor communication, poor execution, poor and inconsistent leadership across the organization, lack of clarity around direction, mismanagement of people, and poor overall results.
As we are well into the 21st century, leaders are faced with change like never before. Today, more progressive leaders are looking for pragmatic, simple ways of leading change through to greater productivity and profitability. Many are finding the answer in the PITT process as an important catalyst for sustainable change and profitability.
As I observed the Benchmarking Day, it became clear to me, again, that those leaders who have had the courage to call a halt to the craziness, and take a different look at how they engage people within their organizations, are experiencing significant personal and financial results in their businesses.
PITT is a non-traditional, pragmatic approach to improving business results. It is all about engaging the creativity of the workforce, opening up effective communication across the organization, competently leading change, and overall teamwork and collaboration. The beauty of the PITT process, as we saw in the ConEd teams’ report, is that these behaviors are integrated and implemented at the process level of the organization – where the work gets done. It is refreshing to see that the results speak for themselves – sustainable cultural change and clear financial results.‡
- Dwight Hansen and Glade Tuckett, Renaissance Partners, LLC
“I really related to what the presenters were saying. The enthusiasm of the PITT teams was quite apparent, proving to me that people at the front line have good ideas and if we at PSE&G could figure out how to implement them, we could really save money like ConEdison.”
John Cottrell, Manager—Customer Service, PSE&G
