***Change Checkpoints and Improvement Milestones

"When you arrive at a fork in the road — take it." — Yogi Berra, major league baseball Hall of Fame player and coach Many paths lead to higher performance. The high performance route is individual and unique for every person, team, and organization. There is no one or best way. What works for me, or anyone else, may not work for you. We can't follow someone else's path. We need to blaze our own trail. While no route is exactly the same, successful organization change and improvement efforts cover similar territory. Highly successful organizations have passed most of these change checkpoints and improvement milestones as they move toward ever-higher performance levels: __ Clear and compelling reasons for changing and improving __ Balanced focus on people, management, and technology __ Strong ethic of self-determination __ Comprehensive and balanced improvement model __ Clear and compelling picture of our preferred future __ Three or four core values __ Definitive statement of purpose, business we’re in, or why we exist __ Rich and continuous customer/partner performance gap data __ Intense exploring and searching for new markets and customers __ High levels of experimentation, pilots, and clumsy tries __ Robust process for disseminating team and organization learning __ Three to four strategic imperatives for each annual improvement cycle __ Direct links between all improvement activities and strategic imperatives __ Comprehensive and balanced improvement plan __ Improvement planning structure, process, and discipline __ Well designed, proven approach to process management __ Clarity on the preferred types and focus of all teams __ Well trained team leaders and members __ Intense levels of technical, management, and leadership skill development __ Simple customer/partner, innovation, capabilities, improvement, and financial measurements __ Active feedback loops that foster learning and improvement __ Flat, decentralized, and team-based organization structure __ Systems that serve and support customers and partners __ Extensive and continuous education programs __ Effective communication strategies, systems, and practices __ Partner-designed reward and recognition programs within a vibrant appreciation culture __ Strong development of change champions __ Support for local initiatives __ Annual progress reviews and improvement assessments __ Frequent celebrations of major breakthroughs and small wins __ Annual refocus and planning for the next year's improvement cycle Management teams can use this list in a variety of ways. It could be a simple checklist for the development of improvement strategies and plan. They might have everyone on the team rate how well the organization and/or team is doing in each area now. Or they might have everyone rate the improvement urgency of each of these 31 areas. Another possibility is to have everyone do both rating exercises to provide performance gap data.