During a career in which I devoted a large portion to developing and implementing improvement programs, one thing became crystal clear. Improvement programs with a focus on sustained improvement were more valuable than speed of implementation.  

In an early assignment, we were stuck in a mediocrity cycle. When making recommendations to senior management, the group agreed that we were stuck in a cycle that needed to change. 

One advantage I had was addressing a group of managers who had recently attended training focused on Dr. Joseph M. Juran’s teachings, so they were allies who supported a new direction.  

At the center of our new roadmap was Dr. Stephen R. Covey’s Upward Spiral which is connected to Dr. Juran’s “spiral of progress in quality” model. This model describes a growth process that is not linear but cyclical, where challenges are revisited at a higher level of understanding.  

To simply restate the concept, as organizations take action to make improvements in their products, the performance and success of the company spiral upward in improvement growth. Each completed improvement action is a step up a spiral staircase. Each additional improvement builds upon the previous one.  

This model is a very powerful and effective quality improvement approach. Adoption of the model was a turning point in our journey. It was so successful we used similar approaches in other areas to make significant gains. It wasn’t easy or rapid, but the growth rate was significant.  

As my team gave an update on our journey to a group of quality professionals, we were asked what speed of improvement (or spiraling-up) is needed for an organization to be successful. As team spokesperson, I found the question difficult to answer. I related that our breakthrough came when realizing the most important issue was not how fast continual improvement was happening, but if it was happening at all. 

Most organizations are convinced that the faster changes are made, the better the outcome. My experience, however, does not support this belief. There are several factors to consider in how fast change should occur. 

I think that few organizations truly have an effective corporate corrective and preventive action (CAPA) system. Sure, they have a system that is shown to their external quality assessors during audits, but few companies really leverage their CAPA system to make big-picture changes that have a major effect on the bottom line.  

If a company truly has a CAPA system that is used at a corporate level, it is probably one of the few that does. If this is the case, it is not a matter of how fast improvements are being made, but that the quality system is delivering major value to the organization while the competitors’ quality system is not. In most industries, even slow long-term improvement will be a major strategic advantage that the quality system contributes, if the improvement efforts are high-level changes that truly will affect the organization’s results. 

If an organization really is making significant business improvements that drive “spiraling-up,” then the issue of how fast to go remains. I’ve always been a proponent of the slow and steady approach over the fast and heroic method. That approach seems to work best in the long-term. 

Continual improvement involves making changes, and changes are usually disruptive and uncomfortable. If change were perfectly comfortable, we would be living in a state of chaos. Managers have a vital responsibility in their organizations to drive improvement, but also to gauge what rate of change their groups can effectively tolerate. If the rate of improvement and change is high, the employees will be so uncomfortable and disoriented that any efficiency gains from process improvements can be lost with unproductive employees. 

It’s also been my experience that most employees respond well to gentle, constant pressure to change over time. Giving employees time to settle in and get comfortable with a recent change to one process while applying gentle pressure to improve a different, older process works well toward spiraling-up the performance staircase. 

I’ve known many managers try the heroic, rapid approach to improvement and it is usually only effective for a short time. People burn out, turn on the manager, lose passion for what they are doing or just quit. Long-term results are rarely achieved even though these managers are often seen as successful, and rewarded, for their short-term, short-lived results. 

If your organization’s improvement systems are not working at a high level, consider moving the focus of that direction so the quality system can deliver greater results. Once that is achieved, work to balance the rate of change so that products and processes are getting better all the time, but employees are not disoriented with the rate of change. This will cause a consistent climb up the continual improvement spiral staircase that few, if any, competitors will be able to match. 

Dr. Covey said, “Renewal is the principle – and the process – that empowers us to move on an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.” The journey is not easy, but the reward is there for the taking.