Improve or Perish

If your organization isn’t improving, it’s dying.

This is the reality! ...Well, actually…

If your organization isn’t improving FAST, it’s dying FAST.

“We’ve long believed that when the rate of change inside an institution becomes slower than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight. The only question is when.” – Jack Welch

In other words…you can even be on the right track, but if you’re not going fast enough you’re still going to get ploughed over.

Improvement must be a fundamental part of your strategy, formal management system, daily management process, employee development program, leadership process, talent management…it needs to be a part of everything you do! And it needs to be continuous!

To those that are best in class, improvement is the essence of their culture. It’s prevalent and excites. They love change. It’s an investment priority – a business imperative; it’s more than strategy – it’s sustainability. It’s fundamental to the future vitality of the organization.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” – General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, US Army

Those organizations deeply invest and incessantly train and coach their people.

“When we open a new store we give every hourly employee 120 hours of training. Someone said, ‘What if you spend all that money and time and they leave?’ And I said, ‘What if you don’t and they stay?’” – Pal Barger, Chairman of Pal’s Sudden Service

Those organizations teach their people the tools of improvement, they support them in leading improvement projects, and they empower them to lead change over and over again.

The best in class organizations create sustainable performance improvement by strategically aligning their business, focusing their processes and engaging their people to drive improvement and change.

For those organizations, it’s simply improve or die – they choose improve
(and they improve fast!).