Leadership Institute

Taking Action® to Solve Problems

Learning Format: Classroom

Order No. TQ66

Organizations can’t just maintain status quo in today’s competitive marketplace. They need to be vigilant about improving product and service quality to meet or exceed customer needs.

The Taking Action® program is a flexible, consolidated way to introduce continuous improvement and provide people with the tools to guide them through the process.

Do You Face Any of These Issues?

  • Do employees know how work processes affect customers?
  • Has your organization ever lost customers because of a defective product, late delivery, or inefficient or unsatisfactory service?

Performance Objectives

Helps associates:

  • Identify opportunities for improvements that will have an impact on customers.
  • Pinpoint areas of frustration in their jobs and take steps toward eliminating them.
  • Gain the support of internal partners to successfully implement the improvement.
  • Select the best solution to eliminate problems, not just fix symptoms.
  • Generate creative ideas and break from “that’s the way it’s always done” thinking.

Primary Competencies Developed

  • Continuous Improvement
  • Decision Making

Secondary Competencies Developed

  • Information Monitoring
  • Quality Orientation

Course Overview

The ACTION cycle is taught as a continuous improvement process.

  • Assess the Situation: Learners examine chronic problems, identify customer requirements, and seek improvements with process maps.
  • Causes: Learners see how and why to distinguish between causes and symptoms. They learn how to avoid common pitfalls and how to use cause-and-effect diagramming and Pareto charts to identify possible causes and select ones to eliminate.
  • Target Solutions and Ideas: Learners write problem statements and learn creativity strategies to generate solutions that they apply to a case study. They use a solution/impact diagram to analyze effects of possible solutions for an on-the-job problem.
  • Implement: Emphasizing the “Plan It” step, learners use tools to ensure companywide support and build action plans. They discuss the value of testing, measuring, and evaluating solutions.
  • ONgoing: This final phase shows the ongoing nature of continuous improvement. Learners develop plans for an improvement.

Video Segment Summaries

  • A jogger preparing for a race shows Assess the Situation steps.
  • A team models how to use a process map.
  • A detective reveals steps to determine the causes of a problem.
  • A team identifies and eliminates causes of a problem.
  • A family picks the best solution to a travel problem.
  • A team analyzes possible solutions to a problem and selects one.
  • A basketball team implements improvements to its game.
  • A team plans how to get organizational support for its ideas while another team develops a plan to put its solution into action.
  • The basketball team shows how it keeps a competitive edge.

Course Details

  • Target audience: All employees up to mid-level leaders.
  • Course length: 8 hours, 10 minutes, or 4 hours, 11 minutes Fast Track.
  • Facilitator certification: DDI-certified facilitator required.
  • Prerequisites: None.
  • Series: Service/health care and manufacturing.
  • Group size: 10 to 20 people.
  • Prework: No.

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