EP46: Creating Cultures of Continuous Improvement

Improvement measures are small and fast.

How do you turn passionate employees and leaders into people who have the ability to make a difference not only in their work, but in their communities? Janet is joined by Dr. Pat Greco today to talk about continuous improvement. Pat is an award-winning retired superintendent who served 38 years in public education and has been a champion of Evidence-Based Leadership℠. She shares her advice and experience on executing the process of improvement within organizations.

This episode addresses questions, such as:

If leaders want to start building an improvement mindset in their organization, where should they start?
How do you actually make the difference, and how do you help people make the difference in the organization?
How do you make improvements stick over time?

Related Resources

Systems, Sea Otters, and Soil
Going down the improvement road is hard work. In this video, Superintendent Greg Gibson tells us how his time on a ranch in Texas helped him develop a systems perspective. He transferred this learning to leading his team and is willing to ask, "Does that kill the good stuff, too?"

Phases of Organizational Change
Most organizations continuously experience change. The challenge for leaders and high performing teams is to keep systems moving at levels of excellence during change. As we become more aware of the phases of change, we can predict when setbacks might occur and proactively remove barriers.

PDSA Model
Organizations use data to improve and standardize individual processes and spread those standards for consistent use across the organization. After processes are standardized, consistent, and working well, our focus can turn to improving the entire system. System-wide improvement is a more continuous, long-term project compared to improving one process, a system can be made up of many processes.

Leading Change
Change is constant for all of us. This is true in our personal lives-I think about iPhone changes that send me into fits of frenzy. Changes also occur daily in our work lives. Because change causes us to adjust routines and thinking, it can be frustrating.