"If you're any good at all, you know you can be better." -- Lindsay Buckingham, British musician.
Maximizing ROI: Continuous Improvement as a Core Value |
Good enough is good enough, right? Perhaps that's true for cleaning your house or writing an email, but as a leader, you know that can be a dangerous attitude. Complacency kills companies, much more quickly and thoroughly than ever before. You and your team must always strive to get better at what you do, because as Oliver Cromwell put it, "He who stops being better stops being good."
If Cromwell's name rings a bell, that's because he was a master at bettering himself. He rose from relative obscurity in his 40s to become one of the chief politicians of early 17th century England. He participated in the English Civil War as a member of the Parliamentarians or "Roundheads," rising to a key position in the New Model Army. He helped remove King Charles I from power in 1649---and signed the king's death warrant soon after. By 1653, his peers had appointed him Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. He reigned until his death in 1658.
Cromwell may have taken it to extremes, but continuous improvement definitely has its benefits. It's become one of the guiding strategies of many modern organizations, in the form of Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma, and similar philosophies. If you can install the "always work to be better" mindset as one of your team's core values, you'll be a step ahead of those who are content to stand still. How do you do it?
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1. Deploy it carefully.
Overzealous application of continuous improvement strategies can stifle innovation, if new ideas don't get the time and resources they need to mature and blossom. Furthermore, one-size-fits-all approaches never work for everyone. Rather than force them to fit, tailor the initiatives to each team member. Realize also that applying such an initiative can and probably will disrupt existing processes, so ready your folks for the significant changes coming.
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A Special Message from Laura |
Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich made a profound impact upon me as a young adult. So when I was asked to be featured in an interview on "The Power of Self-Discipline" with his grandson, J.B. Hill, and fellow speaker Jim Cathcart, I was thrilled. That recording, along with 16 other recordings with experts such as Ken Blanchard, Brian Tracy, and Harvey Mackay, have been compiled into an album called "17 Principles of Success" and released by Nightingale Conant.
As an introduction to this amazing resource, Nightingale is offering the complimentary "Napoleon Hill 17 Success Principles Reality Plan." It will motivate and inspire you, while giving you added focus, as well as the action steps that will propel you to greater levels of achievement, contentment, and successful living. Each component of this download serves a different purpose. One will give you the focus you need to change your life in dramatic ways. The next will present high-impact ideas that will keep you motivated and on track. And the last will reinforce Napoleon Hill's amazing principles, so you can improve who you are and what you accomplish. Please feel free to share this gift with friends and loved ones.
Laura
Thanks for reading! Make it a productive day.™ |
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All Articles (C) 2013 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. This information may not be distributed, sold, publicly presented, or used in any other manner, except as described below. Permission to reprint all or part of this article in your magazine, e-zine, website, blog, or organization newsletter is hereby GRANTED, provided: (1) The ENTIRE credit line below is present, (2) the website link to www.TheProductivityPro.com is clickable (LIVE), and (3) you send a copy, PDF, link, tearsheet, etc. of the work in which the article is used when published.
This credit line MUST be reprinted in its entirety to use any articles from Laura Stack: (C) 2013 Laura Stack. Laura Stack is America's premier expert in personal productivity. For over 20 years, her speeches and seminars have helped professionals, leaders, teams, and organizations improve output, execute efficiently, and save time at work. She's the author or coauthor of 10 books, most recently, What to Do When There's Too Much to Do. To invite Laura to speak at your next meet or register for her free monthly newsletter, visit www.TheProductivityPro.com. |
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