Recently, before a baseball game that I was coaching, I asked my leadoff hitter, “What is your primary job as leadoff hitter?” His response was simple. “Get a hit.” While he did not specify what type of hit, single, double, triple or home run, I can assure you he was talking about a single.

Why only a single? Doesn’t every player want to hit a home run? It’s exciting! However, home runs are hard to hit. Home runs without anyone on base do not produce as much “punch”. What I’ve tried to teach the players on my team is that a sustaining rally in baseball starts with singles, walks, errors, etc. Basically, the rally begins with getting on base. The “punch” is brought by those intermittent home runs, the ones that are fortified with runners already on base. In fact, home runs hit at the wrong time can actually kill a rally.

So before I get off my baseball diatribe, let me ask you this: If you needed to score three runs, which route do you believe would give you a better chance of success?

1. Back to back to back solo home runs? Or

2. An error, followed by three singles and then a double?

Is there a commonality between baseball and continuous improvement? If not, in my opinion, there should be. I believe that, often times, continuous improvement programs have forgotten about the single. To me, that’s a problem.

Continuous Improvement programs are much too focused on hitting the home run and, at some level, we need to get back to the basics. In order to make the program “continuous” improvement, don’t we need to get a few hits, followed by a few wins and to do it incrementally? If so, does that enable sustainable improvement? Of course, just like in baseball, there is the time and place for home runs and they will occur. But, there are a lot more singles out there that can have real impact.

A client of mine (an executive at a major food company) recently said, “I’m not so concerned about the big hits (the home runs). It’s all these singles we’re getting that are making a difference.”

My leadoff hitter’s primary job is not to get a hit. It is to get on base. His job is to start a rally.

What is the job of your continuous improvement initiative?