What does right look like? While the question seems easy enough, the answer is often missed. All too often our human nature is to focus on what is wrong to the exclusion of what is right. Some years ago, I spoke at a Carnegie education conference. One of the featured presenters was Chip Heath. He and his brother, Dan, are noted authors. This was right after their book Switch, that spent 10 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, had come out. In his presentation, Chip shared that a key to achieving better results is to spend more time on what is right versus what is wrong.

One example he used is that in studies of high school graduation rates, a tendency is to spend most of the time researching the children who drop out, not the ones who don’t. He shared that yes, more children in poverty drop out than those children who are not in poverty. So, study the children who live in poverty who stay in school. Find out what’s different about them and how it can be duplicated in others.

This rang a bell. Years ago, I was in a leadership role at Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago, and we had very low patient satisfaction. Of course, we came up with all sorts of reasons why our patient satisfaction was low, and most were things we felt we could not control. We let ourselves off the hook. Then one day we noticed one patient care unit had much higher patient satisfaction than anyplace else in the hospital. So we studied the manager of that unit, a woman named Michelle.

We noticed that Michelle started each day by going into every patient room. She made sure everything was good. She came out of the rooms and complimented the staff on what she heard that was positive and coached staff when things could be better. We said to her, “We notice you visit every patient every day.” She replied, “Doesn’t everyone?” The answer was no. After learning from Michelle, we had her teach all managers how to visit (round) on all patients. Soon we had some of the best patient satisfaction in the country.

Since then, I have found we leaders are much better off looking for and learning from what’s right rather than just what is wrong. This approach has many benefits. It helps us learn what drives success as well as taking away excuses.

Also, it’s far more efficient to benchmark techniques and processes that have been proven to work than struggling to reinvent the wheel. Back in 2010 I read an article in the Harvard Business Review, written by Oded Shenkar, on why imitation is a better business practice than innovation. The article made the point that “97.8 percent of the value of innovations goes to imitators.”¹ It just makes good sense to find and imitate what’s working well inside your own company.

A few years back I was asked to speak at an organization’s sales team meeting. They had a goal to increase sales. So I started the meeting by asking the vice president of sales to point out the best of the 20 or so salespeople in the room. He quickly zeroed in on two people. I then spent time asking them several questions. Soon other salespeople did, too.

Often the answers are right in the room. Yet leaders can face a number of challenges in identifying best practices and applying them to other areas of the business.

One challenge, as I’ve already mentioned, is that we tend to automatically focus on who is not doing well. This is a fundamental mind-set shift that needs to happen before we can move forward.

A second challenge is that we allow barriers like ego or fear to stand in the way. Our ego often stops us from asking for help. Along the same lines, fear—whether it’s fear of being uncomfortable or fear of not being able to execute—has the same effect. I have found that senior leaders in particular face this challenge.

Third, we tend to relate more than compare. We think that what works for one division won’t work for another. Perhaps we rationalize that the other division has better customers, better employees, a more ideal location, and so on. This is what I call “terminal uniqueness,” and it’s an attitude that will prevent you from improving and growing. Yes, there are always differences, but there are more commonalities. The key is to take time to observe until you see what is either being done differently, more consistently, or more skillfully.

Finally, most employees don’t get to observe the more successful people in their organization. I’ve spoken to educational leaders on occasion and I always note that most teachers rarely get to observe other teachers. This is true in many work areas. So, as a leader, it is imperative to study the bright spots, learn from them, and then scale them throughout the organization.

Here are some tips for finding and moving those bright spots (best practices):

• Talk to your high performers—or customers of your high performers—to figure out what’s going right. You will probably have to dig deep to find out what the superstars are doing differently from others. Sometimes it’s a small nuance.
• Once you’ve isolated the best practice, give some thought to how to transfer it. What outcomes do you want? Can you back up your desire for people to change with metrics? (Specificity tends to be more convincing than vagueness/generality.) What processes will help you move the practice? What training needs to happen? Can the high performer take on a teaching or coaching role to help colleagues and coworkers embrace the practice?
• Expect some pushback. Sometimes the person who originated the best practice may be reluctant to share it. Sometimes others in the company don’t want to change how they do things because their egos get in the way (or just because people naturally resist change). Other times people believe they are “terminally unique,” and this new way of doing things won’t work for them. In this last case, I find that often a slightly modified version of the best practice will work. Relate; don’t compare.
• Connect employees to the why. For example, you might say: “On our last customer satisfaction survey, customers said when we do it this way it makes their lives easier” or “This process consistently generates 30 percent more revenue for Jill’s department” or “When Bob did it this way last quarter, he cut expenses by 19 percent.” Often knowing the why behind what you’re asking people to do is enough to push them through their discomfort enough to change the way they do their job.
• Make the change a requirement, not a suggestion. Hold people accountable for results. This will greatly increase the likelihood that they put the new behavior into practice.
• If someone isn’t mastering the new practice, determine if it’s a will or skill issue. Then deal with it accordingly. Generally, skill can be taught if the will is there. If the will isn’t there, it might be time to make some tough decisions.
• Reward and recognize those who stand out. What gets rewarded gets repeated. Public praise or even a small reward like a gift card to a local restaurant or movie theater go a long way. When others see those who adopt new behaviors being rewarded, they’ll want in on the action, too.
• Teach everyone to look for best practices and bright spots. It’s not just a job for leaders. Often frontline people are more in touch with what’s working well. Make it clear that you want people never to stop searching for ways to do their job better.

As leaders, we set the tone for culture. We need to get in the habit of focusing on what’s going right, leveraging it, and looking for ways to do things even better. When we do this consistently, others “catch” our attitude and emulate it. Over time, this can spark a powerful turnaround for a company.