The Stuff We Can’t Ignore, But Do

There is probably a long list of things that fit the title statement above, I won’t take time to make a list for you, you are already doing it yourself. I’ll just give you one for us to think about today: process improvement.

We do work every day and it becomes routine. We have even gotten good at it, and not just from our own measures, but from feedback and results that tell us we are doing well. And because of that relative success and the habit and the comfort, we don’t see a need to move, change, grow or improve.

Did I just describe any part of your life, your work or the work of your team or organization?

I know I did.

And in all those words are the reasons we don’t look at our processes, we don’t strive to improve, we don’t want to change. We could blame comfort and complacency or human nature, and you could rationalize that.

But you are a leader, which means you must think differently, higher and see a picture that others don’t see.

The world around your organization, team and work processes is changing. Processes that were fine yesterday, won’t be (nearly) enough tomorrow. You will have new forces that change things and, if you aren’t changing, your status quo will not be enough.

I know I’m not telling you something you don’t know — remember the title of this section acknowledges that. I’m trying to spur you past the intellectual awareness that we must be continuously improving the processes of our work — to the gut, intuitive understanding that you can’t ignore.

You have the tools in your toolkit. Now you have to use them.

Don’t take process improvement as “common sense” — because while perhaps the idea of process improvement is common sense, it certainly isn’t common practice, and until leaders like you stop ignoring it and start taking action, nothing will change.

Listen to your very wise inner voice and take action — your organization, team and Customers deserve it.