Constant Improvement

Constant improvement is a topic one of my supervisors brought up in a staff meeting many years ago. It’s a philosophy. It’s about making things better. It’s a good idea. I’ve tried to make it a habit in my life because it works.

For example, years ago I started a contracting business and needed a way to provide prospective clients with a written quotation and contract when they accepted my bid. A number of my customers complained that other contractors gave them hand-written estimates. I agreed. This is not very professional.

Some contractors would mail their bids or revisit their customers to deliver bids. I did not want to spend my valuable time driving to a customer’s site a second time just to deliver a bid after having met with them a day or two before. Nor did I want to hand my customers a handwritten bid. My customers liked the fact that I handed them a professional bid the same day. It worked well for them and me as well.

I started off with a laptop and wrote a simple program to crunch a few estimate numbers and print out a professional looking estimate that also served as a contract when both I and my customers signed it. It worked great! But on many occasions, it would occur to me that my program would better if I did this or that. So, I would often improve my estimating program.

After just a year, my simple estimating program had turned into a rather elaborate, but very functional system that made my life much easier, saved me time, and made a good impression on my clients.

So the next time you think about something you could do to make something better, don’t just think about it! Do it, and then watch what happens over time. You may learn to enjoy the philosophy of constant improvement!

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