I recently heard a story that made me laugh … and think.

A woman cut both ends off a ham before putting it in the pan to bake. Her husband asked why.

“That’s how my mother always did it.”

She asked her mother, and she said the same thing. Then they asked Grandma.

Grandma said, “Because my mother only had a small pan, and she couldn’t afford to buy a new one. So she cut off the ends, and saved them for later. I just got in the habit of doing the same thing.”

That’s it. A workaround born of necessity became a permanent “process” long after the problem disappeared.

How many things happen in organizations for the same reason?

Forms no one needs. Reports no one reads. Approval steps that add delay things, but no value. Rules built for problems that no longer exist.

And when someone asks why, a typical answer is, “We’ve always done it that way.”

That’s why systematic continuous improvement (SCI) is so vitally important. That’s when people stop clinging automatically to inherited routines – and start examining how to make them work better.

And it doesn’t happen by chance. It takes conscious intention. What’s more, you get the biggest impact with routine processes where all employees are engaged in regular sessions to offer ideas on how to make work safer, faster, easier, higher quality and more consistent with less friction, tension and stuff falling through the cracks.

When teams have structured opportunities like that to share ideas, challenge outdated practices, and make improvements, hundreds of small gains accumulate into remarkable results.

The biggest waste in many organizations isn’t what people do wrong. It’s what people have grown accustomed to doing that no one thinks to question.

So ask yourself, “What ‘ham ends’ are we still cutting off in our organization?”

If you'd like to explore how routine processes for systematic continuous improvement can help your team uncover them, let’s talk.

Begin your improvement journey today!

Getting better at getting better.