Moving from best to better and better

In a world of constant disruption, is consistent, sustained performance improvement even possible?

We believe it is—and to get there, we suggest a path based on frontline workgroups adopting business practices—focused on new value creation—that aim to help both workers and companies get better, faster.

We have identified nine key practices that can help frontline workgroups accelerate performance improvement:

1. Provoke:

• Frame a powerful question. Ask questions that focus on the learning opportunity—and can provoke and inspire others to change the game.
• Seek new context. Expand your exposure to a range of contexts to discover promising new approaches.
• Cultivate friction. Draw out conflict and learn from disagreements to generate new insights.

2. Propel:

• Commit to a shared outcome. Focus on the outcome that matters most to foster passion and amplify your actions.
• Bias toward action. Move from discussion to action as quickly as possible.
• Prioritize performance trajectory. Track trajectory of the metrics that matter and make trade-offs to accelerate performance improvement.

3. Pull together

• Maximize potential for friction. Assemble a group of passionate people who can challenge each other with diverse mind-sets, preferences, and perspectives.
• Eliminate unproductive friction. Seek ways to make friction as productive as possible.
• Reflect more to learn faster. No matter how fast things are moving, take the time to reflect on your experiences, supporting even faster movement.