The Journey to Improvement Book and Newsletter
Improvement Collective
We believe in a systems approach to continuous improvement that organizes people to work collectively to get results.
The three of us met almost 15 years ago at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Improvement Advisor course. Alicia and Sandra, both former teachers, were tasked with learning about this thing in health care called “improvement science” and figuring out how to apply it to education. Brandon, who had already been an improvement advisor in health care for a number of years, was a faculty member for the course who patiently guided them through their first projects, which were basically a hot mess. Just ask him. Alicia and Sandra are lucky they graduated.?
Six months later, we came together again at the Carnegie Foundation to launch one of the first networked improvement communities in education - Building a Teaching Effectiveness Network (BTEN). Sandra served as the director, Alicia the improvement advisor, and Brandon, a much needed coach. However, while Brandon came with improvement expertise, he was new to education and needed guidance navigating a new sector. So our learning journey began.
Since then, we have led and supported various improvement initiatives, coached hundreds of teams, enjoyed many successes, and fallen flat on our faces more times than we can count. During the pandemic, we decided to use our time sequestered at home to reflect on and consolidate what we had learned over the past decade with the hope of providing practical guidance to other teams working tirelessly to better serve their communities.?
Those early conversations led to the book we are excited to share with you today - Journey to Improvement: A Team Guide to Systems Change in Education, Health Care and Social Welfare. Its central message is simple – redesigning systems for the improved well-being of our communities requires collective learning. This means deliberately leveraging the creativity, knowledge and expertise of everyone in the system to enact real and lasting change.
While a simple idea, we know that many organizations aren’t set up to work this way. People toil away in silos. Leaders reward silver bullet solutions rather than committing to the long game required to change complex systems. Power dynamics limit the knowledge and expertise, especially that of the frontline and the communities we serve, that could be brought to the table.?
To address these challenges, we provide a roadmap for organizations and teams interested in making this shift to collective learning. While we hope this book will interest anyone intrigued by the application of improvement science in the social sector, our primary audience are front-line teams – nurses to social workers, teachers to doctors, front office staff to community members - working to improve the systems in which they work and live. ?
Journey to Improvement represents a culmination of what we’ve learned thus far, but it also serves as an open invitation to all of you to share with us and others what you’re learning on your own improvement journeys. As you’ll see in the book, we draw on many examples from the field that have had a profound impact on our learning over the past decade. Your stories help all of us get better, faster!
OUR ASKS...
Over the coming months, we will continue to highlight key ideas and learnings from the book and hopefully, launch a book club for all of our fellow improvement nerds! As always, thank you for your ongoing support as well as your hard work and commitment to the students, patients and families you serve. Let’s do this!
Order Journey to Improvement online
You can order Journey to Improvement online from several different retailers- here are a few:
I have my book and I am excited to get started! Is there a book club or study guide in the works? Our team is planning a book study this summer. Thanks!