Beyond process

How do companies thrive in a world of increasing and rapid change? For many leaders, it's about improving performance-this quarter and next quarter and the quarter after that-that's what keeps us up at night. Yet for all the attention it gets, we may be missing a big opportunity: There's a new approach that can help companies break out of the diminishing returns trap of cost-cutting to not only improve performance but accelerate it.

In the Center for the Edge's latest report, Beyond process: How to get better, faster as 'exceptions' become the rule, we focus on a part of the organization that is largely invisible today: the workgroup-three to 15 people working interdependently on the operational work of the organization to deliver a shared outcome that could not be achieved without the group working together. These workgroups may be the key engine of future performance and value creation for the organization. To unleash the potential, organizations need to move beyond just "high-performing teams" and "process optimization" to support the practices that can help workgroups learn faster and deliver better in an environment of rapid and unpredictable change.