Innovation vs. Continuous Improvement: Choosing the Right Path and the Right Tools

When everything feels urgent, it’s tempting to keep changing things: reorganizing, relaunching, rolling out the next initiative. But not every problem calls for change, and not every change is improvement. Aimed at the wrong problem, even the right tools produce the same result: exhaustion, confusion, and teams working hard without seeing it add up.

Many organizations use “innovation” and “continuous improvement” interchangeably. In practice they solve for different things, and treating them as the same is how progress stalls. A common pattern: teams reach for familiar improvement tools on a challenge that actually needs a more fundamental shift, or they label incremental change as “innovation” without creating new value. A third, quieter mistake gets less attention. It’s launching change when the smarter move is to stabilize: hold steady, standardize what’s working, and protect the gains a team has already fought for.

In this session, Justine Hinderliter of Partners in Public Innovation will help you step back and make more intentional choices about whether to change, and how. Drawing on her work with public sector organizations operating under real constraints (tight resources, public scrutiny, limited tolerance for failed bets), she’ll share practical ways to:

• Tell the difference between stabilizing what works, improving an existing process, and making a more fundamental, value-creating change

• Recognize when a team is reaching for familiar tools in a situation that calls for a different approach, or for no change at all right now

• Match the problem to the right method: structured improvement, exploratory innovation, or deliberately holding steady

• Move forward without overcomplicating the effort, or exhausting the people doing the work

For those working within performance excellence frameworks, the session also takes on a common sticking point: what actually counts as innovation, and what doesn’t.

Throughout, you’ll apply these ideas to a real challenge of your own, so you leave with a clearer lens and a starting point you can use right away.

About the speaker

Justine Hinderliter is Co-Founder and Principal of Partners in Public Innovation, where she helps local and state governments turn ambitious priorities into operational reality. Drawing on a background that spans executive public sector leadership and large-scale organizational change, she is known for helping agencies modernize how they hire, lead, govern, and deliver services.

At PPI she leads strategic planning, organizational improvement, and training that builds internal capacity for lasting change. She previously spent more than a decade with the City and County of San Francisco, including as Chief People Officer for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, where she led the transformation of HR from a transactional function into a strategic business partner.

JOIN US FOR THIS FREE PERFORMANCE EXCELLENCE NETWORK (PEN) WEBINAR

Date: Thursday, July 23

Time:  9:00 - 10:00 am (ET)

Location:  On-line, via Zoom

Cost:  Free to GRQC members and non-members

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