We are proud to share the next in our series of TRE’s cultural “roots”, guideposts that have been identified by TRE as critical to our work. Read more about this organizational effort at www.tre.org/blog-tre-roots/.
TRE Root #16: IMPROVE RELENTLESSLY
Regularly reevaluate your work to find and share ways to impact and drive improvement and achieve consistent results. Find simplification in processes wherever possible to improve the customer’s experience. Be innovative. “Because we’ve always done it that way” is not a reason to continue doing it.
Improve relentlessly as a Root for TRE is about continually pursuing improvement of our processes and systems as well as improvement of the individual contributions each of us makes towards driving success for the people we support. Each of us inherently strives to become better at the things we do. It makes them simpler, easier, or faster to do typically and it builds our satisfaction with our accomplishments and our view of ourselves.
Improving relentlessly means to be steady and persistent in our efforts to improve, never ceasing our efforts. In an organization like TRE, improving relentlessly brings together the wisdom of long-standing experience, the freshness of new learners, the ability to see what is working well and why, and the ability to Look Ahead and Anticipate. It takes diverse perspectives being discussed in an environment that supports Speaking Straight and Listening Generously. It also takes individuals owning responsibility for their personal efforts toward improving.
Real people are impacted by our ability to understand their individual needs and desires and then coordinate a system well to address those needs and desires. We must consistently navigate complex systems and work to align them with the complex needs of these people. This requires ongoing problem-solving, learning from what works and what doesn’t, and then improving on our own skills and knowledge as well as our team’s processes and the organization’s operations.
Because we are always interacting with change, whether it be state contract changes, society changes (like the pandemic or economy), changes within our team, or personal changes, being relentless in our efforts to improve supports us to proactively interact with change. We have a tendency to say, “this process works really well right now and we do not need to change it.” However, if we are not looking ahead and anticipating what could be coming, we will miss opportunities to be proactive in our efforts to improve relentlessly. History has proved to us repeatedly, that continuing to do what you have always done, will not continue to produce the good outcomes it once did. You must be relentless in your efforts to improve in order to adapt to our ever-changing world.
As you go through your work, consider the following:
- Talk within your team about the processes you use and how they could be improved. What would improvement look like? What would it take to create it? Whose perspectives will be important to drive that improvement effectively?
- Reflect personally on the skills or areas that you would like to improve. What do you need to support you? Who can you connect with to help?
- Share examples of where you see your team or peers pursuing improvement relentlessly.
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