Continuous Improvement and Your Organization: Taming the Beast

After an almost 30-year career spanning military service and civilian occupations, I observed the implementation of continuous improvement (CI) activities in many challenging times. I witnessed the sentiments of “we tried that before,” “that is not how we do things here,” and more recently, “we are different than everyone else so that does not apply to us.” All these sentiments are erroneous, and the root cause is simply “I do not want to change, and therefore I will not, and there is no immediate risk to me if I do not.”

So, how does a continuous improvement professional implement a process improvement initiative in this environment?

There is a path I learned to follow and pitfalls I came to avoid. Let’s start with the pitfalls.

First, leave the continuous improvement vocabulary at home. It only triggers a defensive posture from those who have heard it before, and it confuses anyone who has not. Truthfully, neither cares anyway. Speak in the common language of your organization. If you are leading a process improvement event, verbally walk the participants along the journey of the process in the organizational vernacular without the vocabulary test.

The second is the lack of senior-level support. As with all process improvement endeavors, ensure you have a champion at the appropriate level. Even though you may see the benefit and the staff clamor for a change, without first ensuring there is a champion of sufficient influence to support the change, the process will return to status quo before it ever gets started.

Finally, do not be impatient. The cliché phrase is “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and it is very applicable to the continuous improvement journey. The organization’s members will likely need to feel comfortable with the change, ensuring there is a low personal risk, before supporting and implementing the changes regardless of acknowledging the benefits. Rushing an improvement process can be fatal to implementation and taint the organization against trying again in the future.

So, what is the path?

The path to implementing continuous improvement initiatives involves starting small, focusing on small victories, and keeping your eyes on the horizon because this is the long game. I was taught in my Black Belt course that one-tenth of an improvement every day over a year is greater than a one-time 20 percent improvement. A common place example I usually give is that more Super Bowls are won by short passes and advancements than by the glamorized “Hail Mary” pass.

Identify a small issue, well within your realm of influence, that you can improve on. Once completed, keep it moving until it becomes the new norm. Then start again on the next improvement topic. I was given a portfolio requiring much improvement. The irony is every supervisor complained about the process but was not about to change the process. Each year I picked one small issue within the portfolio well within my sphere of influence as my improvement initiative and worked on it to fruition. The second year I picked another, and while reinforcing the first one, I worked on the second one. When the second initiative was completed, I started a third, and so forth.

Each time a supervisor positively commented on one of the improvements it reinforced the process. Every critique became the focus of my next improvement for that initiative. Over time the small initiatives became “the way.” With each improvement and compliment, I gave credit to my senior supervisor. This slowly reinforced support for more improvements. Some of which required senior-level support.

After three years of following this pattern, the organization started receiving outside praise for its efficiencies and effectiveness, and other organizations called me to learn our processes.

I did not do anything spectacular. There was no grand Hail Mary pass. What I did was acknowledge the culture of the audience, kept my CI intentions quiet, left the jargon and vocabulary at home, and played the long game one little victory at a time.

So, how do you bring continuous improvement process to your organization? Remember, it is a big move, so work slowly and intentionally. Speak quietly and without jargon, leading one success at a time in the direction of continuous process improvement.