In 2020, ImpactTulsa was charged with developing an in-depth coaching program that could help nonprofit and education partners integrate continuous learning and improvement (CLI) into their organizational culture. Historically, the ImpactTulsa team had supported the use of CLI through cross-sector initiatives where partners worked to use CLI as a mechanism to understand and disrupt educational disparities in the Tulsa area. However, this was the first time ImpactTulsa’s goal was to not only coach a team through using CLI to address a problem but to also support them with understanding the fundamentals of creating space for CLI as a lens within an organization. Hence, ImpactTulsa created a six-month program called Learning and Improving for Transformation (LIFT).

Since piloting LIFT with the first partner in Fall 2020, ImpactTulsa has gone on to run this program three times. Fortunately, ImpactTulsa’s partners offered grace and feedback as they knew ImpactTulsa was looking to refine the program. Throughout each iteration of the LIFT program, there were a lot of learning curves. To potentially lessen the learning curve for others looking to support the integration of continuous improvement into their work culture, here are five things that are helpful to know from the start (from the perspective of the ImpactTulsa CLI lead, as well as the LIFT point persons from the partner organizations).

1. Make clear and meaningful connections to existing frameworks and values 

During a time when people feel overwhelmed by endless professional development opportunities, new technology, and new approaches to doing their work, we wanted to emphasize that the continuous improvement model is not a totally new framework for most organizations. In fact, many of the tools and steps were aligned with how the organizations we worked with approached problem-solving and process improvement already. For example, many teams already have some mechanism for doing root cause analysis, they just may call it something different. So when possible, we made direct connections between the stage in the framework and existing practices. One specific example of when we made this connection is when a team conducted project debriefs and asked each team member their opinion about what created barriers for the project. That conversation was already natural for the team, so when we explained root cause analysis, we talked about the alignment related to gathering multiple perspectives from those that are directly impacted. Making this clear from the onset helped prevent “framework burnout.” It also helped cultivate more immediate buy-in when the essence of continuous improvement was tied to existing organizational values. When we worked with teams to make explicit connections between existing values and CLI, they identified equity and community power as two of the most clearly-aligned values between their organization and the CLI framework.

2. Be intentional about equity

Because CLI is built upon making data-informed decisions and infusing community authority, it’s well-positioned to be a tool for equity. However, without keeping equity at the forefront of the work, it can easily be overlooked. Several tips that resonated with teams included:

• Being intentional about proactively looking for opportunities to disaggregate data in ways that can show variance in impact. For example, identifying specific aspects of identity or experience such as race, gender, age, sexuality, geographic location, education level etc).
• When making decisions, take time to think through who benefits and who is burdened by each option. For example, when choosing between which disparity to address first, ensure there is clarity that focusing on this issue will actually bring benefit to those who are most negatively impacted.
• Using the factor validation process (which is where teams work to do a root cause analysis to determine which factors are actually contributing to the problem) as an opportunity to bring more stakeholder voice and community power into the decision-making process, by inviting students and family members to take part in the factor validation process itself.
• Organizations with an existing value on racial equity and systemic change found tools such as the Systems Thinking Iceberg and racial equity assessment helpful in integrating that lens into daily processes rather than just in their mission and mindset.

3. Tackle multiple problems of practice at the same time

In the first iteration of LIFT, ImpactTulsa had the improvement team focus on a single problem of practice and work through the cycle together. As this was launched during the first peak of COVID-19, it felt like asking too much for the team to focus on anything more than their primary problem of practice. However, it’s since become apparent that this focus on a single problem made it harder for the team to translate CLI into other contexts. Outside of the LIFT chairperson for the partner organization, folks just were not sure how to integrate CLI into their own work streams because they had only experience using CLI as a cross-department improvement team leading the work.

Thus, while it may seem counterintuitive to have folks learning CLI and working on multiple problems of practice at the same time, it’s now clear to see that it’s essential to helping teams feel confident in applying CLI across a variety of problem types. For organizations to adopt CLI, they need to understand how it can be used as a tool at the individual, team, cross-department, or cross-sector level.

Incorporating individual coaching sessions to support LIFT team members in implementing CLI into their workflows also proved to be a useful addition. Coaches found that this was a space where there was more vulnerability in team members sharing where they were lost or in need of additional support.

4. Focus on organization-level policies and structures, not just tools 

In thinking about organizational change that integrates CLI into the workplace culture, there needs to be more than just having access to tools. Organizations also need to implement policies and structures that set continuous improvement up for success. For example:

• Mechanisms for integrating data-driven decision-making. In order to make decisions based on data and hear from a variety of stakeholders, organizations need access to data and stakeholder feedback. One team learned that their approach to obtaining key stakeholder feedback didn’t produce the results they needed—the specific group they were hoping to hear from was the same group that didn’t respond to their surveys. Thus, they had to pause the problem of practice and turn their attention to developing different methods for connecting with representative stakeholders.
• Time and space to reflect on outcomes. Without holding space for the team to hold after-action reviews, some of the lessons gained from various stages of the work were lost or not applied at subsequent steps. Key questions in the after-action review included:
  • What went according to plan and what did not?
  • What were glows and grows?
  • How does that impact our future work (within this workspace and outside of this workspace)?
• Stipends for community participants. Infusing community power means asking community members to share their time and expertise. In order to properly honor that time and expertise, many teams offer stipends or other monetary incentives. That requires having a budget to support those offerings.

5. Plan for Cultivating Both Adaptive and Technical Skills

In learning a new framework, it can be easy to prioritize bolstering technical skills in order to ensure team members both understand and can effectively utilize various tools. However, integrating CLI into an organizational culture requires recognition and support of both adaptive and technical challenges. Whereas technical skills include things such as knowing how to use disaggregated data, create factor validation plans, and create driver diagrams, adaptive skills focus more on supporting team members in being able to navigate the changes that come with integrating a new framework. This includes navigating uncertainty that arises when working through the cycle, as well as being able to manage potentially difficult emotions that can arise from the insights that the tools surface. For example, in our training we discuss that when doing a root cause analysis, sometimes it can make people feel defensive as data begins to surface various factors that are contributing to the problem. In working to understand why there are fewer high school aged students participating in an afterschool program than anticipated, a root cause analysis may reveal that the marketing for the program does not resonate with that particular population. That realization may bring about uncomfortable feelings for the team responsible for marketing. Thus, by supporting adaptive skills as part of the learning process, teams can also begin to understand how to develop tactics and mental models that assist in navigating the learning process.

Both adaptive and technical skills require ongoing practice and coaching to support the evolving needs of the team. Thus, it’s important for teams to have a solidified plan for sustainable CLI training (both refreshers for current staff and onboarding for new staff).

Teams found it especially helpful to create “LIFT handbooks” that utilized their perspective to outline the CLI cycle and the tools used at each stage. LIFT encourages each team to create their own handbook (rather than ImpactTulsa creating it for them) because it serves to help teams internalize the content, thus setting them up to be well-equipped to teach their colleagues how to use CLI. It also provided examples for each tool and did so using language that is accessible to folks who do not use continuous learning and improvement language on a daily basis. One LIFT team noted that through the handbook, they have been able to share the tools with leadership team members who have integrated elements into full staff training. Because of being able to reference and apply content from the handbook, many of their data processes and staff committees use CLI tools even if the staff doesn’t necessarily know them by name.