A few weeks ago … I told you about an employee at a client company whose idea for something as ordinary as changing a cardboard shipping box is now saving the company more than $100,000 a year.

It was a big win, and everyone was excited about it.

But here's the important part of that story: Nobody went looking for a $100,000 idea.

The idea emerged from one of their regular team improvement huddles where employees routinely look at the work they do and identify ways it could be done better, faster, easier – less time, higher quality, less waste.

Few of those ideas will save $100,000. One might save 10 minutes. Another might eliminate a needless step. Another might save a few hundred dollars.

But all those little wins add up. And something else happens when you create a steady flow of small improvements: the odds of uncovering a big one go up dramatically.

Linus Pauling, two-time winner of the Nobel Prize, put it this way: “The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.”

That's the real power of Systematic Continuous Improvement (SCI).

Don't build a process to hunt for home runs. Build one that gets people routinely looking for ways to make things better with lots of base hits.

Celebrate the big wins when they come, but create the habits and momentum that keep people energized about making small improvements every day.

If you’d like to explore how SCI routines can become part of your organization’s routine operating system … Let’s talk.

Begin your improvement journey today!

Getting better at getting better.