Tick-tock, tick-tock, the clock never stops. Neither does your business, and you don’t want to waste a minute of it. But what if the very time you're afraid to "waste" could be your ticket to big savings and surprising bottom-line impact?

Let's face it, we're all time-starved. The idea of pulling employees away from their daily duties for continuous improvement activity can seem like a luxury you can't afford. Fact is – you can't afford not to.

Start by thinking small to win big. We're not talking about week-long retreats or day-long workshops. Just 30-45 minute bursts of sharing ideas, systematically sprinkled throughout the regular work schedule. These micro-moments of continuous improvement can make the difference between stagnation and success.

Here are some tips on how to get the most out of your team’s time working on improvement:

1. Calendar It: Schedule team improvement sessions and treat them as sacred. Adjust if needed to deal with crunch times, but never cancel them altogether.

2. Subtraction, Not Addition: Focus on eliminating waste and making existing processes more efficient rather than piling on new processes and activities.

3. Allow Micro-Improvements: Let employees make small improvements in their own work areas without lengthy approvals. Then share them with other team members so the ideas can snowball into widespread gains.

4. Align with Priorities: Channel your team’s improvement efforts towards key company goals. That helps ensure every minute spent produces targeted returns.

5. Track and Celebrate: Maintain a running tally of improvements and their impact. Few things motivate people like visible progress.

Click on the link below to learn how you can make systematic continuous improvement a habit rather than a hurdle. It will help ensure you're investing in a future where your organization isn’t just keeping up, but it’s leading the pack.

6-Week Program for Systematic Continuous Improvement

“Great is the enemy of better”

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If you have a story that illustrates the power and potential of employees engaged in continuous improvement, we’d love to hear it – and share it with our readers.