Get it Done, Make it Better, or Both?

What's your job?

Is it to rise to the challenge, overcome obstacles, fight the daily fires, and make sure the the job gets done? Or is it to improve the process, work on the system and figure out ways to make it better? Or is it to do both - to balance the need to operate your company on a daily basis with the need to improve it on a daily basis.

I was impressed this morning by a breakfast presentation at NSBA Club Connect from a man of action, Rick Langlais of Hands On Street Ministries, who works with Saskatoon’s inner city street people. He does things for the destitute, addicted and violent that most of us would never risk. For twenty years, he has taken direct, daily action to help those who live on the streets, people with nowhere else to turn for respect or a meal or a place of refuge. Rick's language is passionate and direct, and you get the impression he'd lean more towards four letter words, given the choice.

In another world, you have the Urban Public Health Network (UPHN), a group created by the Chief Medical Officers of Health from Canada's eighteen largest cities. This group, though far removed from the individual heroin-addicts and sex-trade workers on our streets, is working on the same problems. They are developing strategies to address common urban public health issues and reduce the health disparities between socio-economic classes, with reports like Health Disparity in Saskatoon: From Analysis to Intervention reporting their findings and pointing the way to a better future. The language is analytical, tending to four-syllables rather than four-letters, and the research is statistical and evidence-based.

In comparison to the possible long-term benefits of high-level policy interventions by groups like UPHN, the daily efforts of Hands On Street Ministries seem tiny. Yet, the impact of Rick Langlais' daily action is far more immediate and valuable to the people on the streets than some high-falutin' report put out by a bunch of doctors. So we need both - we need daily immediate action to get the job done today, and we need high-level systems thinking to eliminate root causes of the problems tomorrow. And how much better would it be if we could get them together, with immediate daily action coordinated with long-term continuous improvement of the system.

This is what a culture of continuous improvement is all about; operating today, and improving for tomorrow. And it applies to helping street people, improving public health, addressing povery, and running our businesses. As Red Green so aptly put it, "we're all in this together."