How do you know if you’re doing something the best way if you only know one way to do it? Take a look at any important process in your organization and think about a way to change it. You might be surprised to find out the way you’ve been doing that process isn’t the best way. Try taking a different street to work. Maybe the distance is not as short, but might be faster. At least you’ll see different scenery.

You may ask someone (or yourself) to do something faster, more efficiently, at a lower cost, or with fewer errors, but is the system they are working in allowing them to accomplish any of these results? Trying one or more alternatives to a given process might produce the results you’re looking for.

At Red Wing Software, we never assume that there is only one way to accomplish a task. We constantly challenge our staff to find ways to improve what we do; make our software faster, easier to use, have fewer errors, etc. Sometimes we need to think outside the box and try some ideas that seem a little obscure. Quite often this exercise yields a result that no-one would have thought of without a group of us throwing out ideas and hammering through to a conclusion.

Try it. You might be surprised. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but a wise customer told me once, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be where you already are.”

- Ken Hilton, President