Building high reliability organizations is our passion. One of the six core principles of improvement states, “Variation in performance is the core problem to address.” And we know that integrating front line workers into improvement work is critical for delivering reliability results. In education, that means teachers—the front line workers—have a respected, meaningful, and constant place at the table when solving systemic problems. To learn more about cultivating a high reliability orientation in organizations, we’re reading Steven Spear’s The High Velocity Edge. Spears describes how to foster high reliability:

1. Build a system of “dynamic discovery” designed to produce ultra-high-speed learning within an organization;
2. Attack and solve problems when and where they occur, converting weaknesses into strengths;
3. Disseminate knowledge gained from solving local problems throughout the company as a whole; and,
4. Create managers invested in developing everyone’s capacity to continually innovate and improve.