Early warning systems

The other day, a light went on in my auto's dashboard, warning me that tire pressure was low. Fortunately, I was near a car service station. An inspection revealed the culprit, a nail in the tire.

60 minutes and $29 later, I had a tire all ready for the travails of transportation.

Imagine me hurtling down the highway without knowing about the nail in the tire, unknowingly putting lives and property at peril! Not to mention the loss in productivity because a pile up brought traffic to a halt. The warning light and my acting on the light prevented a tragedy. Just the light alone would have achieved nothing.

There are many aspects of your strategy execution that will benefit from having and acting on warning lights. Out of the infinite warning lights that are possible, you have to select the ones that matter (use the 80:20 rule, align with customer outcomes and definition of success). Build the capabilities to display the light (this is so hard to do sometimes that it is often not done) and educate stakeholders/teammates on the appropriate action to take when the light shows a specific color (yes, history has shown that warning signs are ignored!).

Six Sigma calls these 'leading indicators'. The first step is to define the problem/opportunity and then build the capability. This is one of the areas where 'build it and people will use it' is expensive and frustrating.