When everything is going well, and your business problems aren't biting at your heels, continuous improvement might not seem like something that is essential.
When the situation is reversed, when you are being bitten, it can seem like having done some form of improvement would have made sense.
One of the keys to avoiding this flip-flop situation is to be aware of when the continuous improvement conversation is being 'minimised'. Those are the times when we come up with all the reasons that we don't need to improve, when we play down the importance of making changes.
Minimising the importance of constantly getting better really cripples the process of change. If you become aware of this happening in your business then you will have taken a significant step forward in terms of actually making change happen.
Keep your ears and eyes open!
Giles Johnston
...optimising MRP systems and re-engineering business processes