Organizations need to continuously improve themselves, not for capturing more market share but for maintaining the current share that it holds. However, most of the improvement efforts tend to focus on levels that are not directly contributing to creation and delivery of products and services. I don’t blame people for this, but if you are trying to improve too much without actually impacting the way the work is getting done then you will achieve too little.

If you don’t see the link, then try to think your organizations performance as a summation of performance of all individuals within it. This chart will probably help you think:

∑ Individual’s performance = Performance of the Team

∑ Team’s performance = Performance of Department

∑ Department’s performance = Performance of Organization

Now given the above relationship, look at what you need to do to improve the organization:

To Improve the Organization => Improve Departments

To Improve the Departments => Improve Teams

To Improve the Teams => Improve Individuals

Thus, before wasting a single dollar on any silver bullet solution, the most important questions to ask is - “Will it improve the way the individuals works?”. If you can’t say yes, then it ain’t worth doing it and on the other hand the smallest change that can improve the way an individual works, is worth doing right away.