Every company aims to stay profitable and relevant. To achieve this, it must constantly evolve, adapt to market variability, and deliver solutions that increasingly meet customer needs. But how can a culture of continuous improvement be fostered to keep up with all this?

The behavior of any group is guided by its culture. According to Edgar Schein, culture is "a set of basic assumptions that a group has invented, discovered, or developed to handle external adaptation and internal integration problems, and that have worked well enough to be considered valid and taught to new members as the correct way to address these issues."

In other words, lasting changes generally arise from within, as a response to key challenges. Thus, transformations imposed externally or from the top down within an organization tend to fail.

Here, the issue is not about "those in power making decisions." We are talking about human behavior, and as much as we may be inclined to order improvements, we must seek the best approach for them to be genuinely implemented and sustained over time. If changes aren't f ully executed or fail to address true challenges, the issues will persist. And we know that managers and business owners want the best for their company above all else.

How to Foster Evolution?

Let's think, for example, of a sedentary person. No matter how much others highlight this as harmful, if that person doesn't perceive it that way, they will probably take no action to improve. Conversely, when it starts impacting their life, they will be motivated to take action.

Similarly, when a company enforces an adjustment without people perceiving it as an appropriate response to a real issue, they either won't do it or may pretend to, which won't yield effective results. However, if we can develop strategies to find the root causes of problems and mobilize people, we can achieve a change that integrates with organizational culture and leads to improvement.

The Three Factors of Evolution

Every lasting change occurs through three factors: stressors, leadership actions, and points of reflection.

Stressors

Stressors These are like warning signs, aspects, or situations that create an appropriate level of discomfort, motivating people to take action. Returning to the example of a sedentary lifestyle, noticing shortness of breath during tasks, constant fatigue, and the real impact on their life will drive the individual to take action.

Leadership actions

With the perception of the right stressors, people tend to mobilize, seeking solutions to address the problem. These initiatives are leadership actions, such as starting physical exercise in our example of sedentary behavior.

Reflection points

As actions are taken to solve the problem, it's also essential to measure progress. In the example, it might be about being able to walk or run for a longer time or distance (if these are actions taken), or even in daily tasks, like feeling less tired.

What about organizations?

Imagine a company facing a scenario of unpredictability, missed deadlines, and dissatisfied customers. What stressors can be introduced to drive evolution?

A good starting point may be visual management. By mapping service flows and their demands, bottlenecks (steps with an excessive workload), demands approaching the delivery date, and other challenges become visible. When this is made clear to teams, employees will feel inclined to act. If management supports the teams, people will start taking actions to improve what's not working.

Here, we begin to create a stressor (visualizing the flow and demands, as well as their bottlenecks) and foster leadership actions among employees. Then it's time to implement the third factor. We can, for example, measure delivery time (the period between a customer's order and receipt). If this starts to decrease, it's a good sign that things are on the right track. Otherwise, it raises the need to consider new strategies and learn from what didn't work.

When do transformations fail?

It's very common for managers and employees to attend training on agile methodologies, for example, and return excited to implement them comprehensively. By doing so, a common failure pattern known as "overreaching" likely occurs. This happens when companies try to implement overly large changes that go beyond the most urgent issues, resulting in a need for relearning, confusion, and excessive stress, which leads to a negative efficiency curve before achieving any benefits (if it reaches them at all). Change management first involves managing stress and people's commitment to the necessary evolution.

The principles do change management

An effective way to manage this situation and achieve the desired results is to follow the principles of change management, as introduced by the Kanban method:

Start with what you do now

Understand the current reality, map flows, record important demand information, and everything that reflects how the company operates now. A journey begins from the starting point: no one travels from one city to another without first knowing where they currently are.

Agree to pursue improvement through evolutionary change

As we mentioned before, it's pointless to try to solve everything in one day. Begin with the main issue, the one everyone perceives as a significant problem, and aim to resolve this first with team commitment.

Encourage acts of leadership at every level

Leadership acts are any actions toward improvement, whether asking for help, reporting a problem, or making a suggestion. When people feel they can bring “bad news” without punishment, problems get resolved in a timely manner rather than being discovered too late. Allow and encourage employees to contribute not only by following orders but also by thinking and suggesting possible actions.

Conclusion

Change management is essential to maintain competitiveness and relevance in a dynamic market. By creating a culture of continuous improvement where all employees play an active role, changes become responses to organizational needs rather than imposed actions. With leadership support and practices focused on visibility, stress management, and result measurement, companies can evolve sustainably, avoid failure, and overcome obstacles. Ultimately, promoting effective change is more than just applying new methodologies: it's about building a culture where adaptation and improvement are embedded in the company's DNA.