One of the most persistent questions across the Ask Us Anything series was deceptively simple:
Should continuous improvement be voluntary or mandatory?
It showed up in different forms. "Do we require everyone to submit ideas?" "What if managers don't participate?" "Should improvement be part of performance evaluations?" "Are we undermining engagement if we make this mandatory?"
These are fair questions. Continuous improvement is supposed to be about ownership, intrinsic motivation, and local problem solving. So does making it mandatory defeat the purpose?
The answer, as with most things in culture change, is more nuanced than either side expects.
Read more about the series and other blog posts.
There is strong research behind intrinsic motivation.
As Dan Pink describes in his book "Drive," (and talked about in a podcast with me) people are most motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Pink's work builds on Self-Determination Theory, developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, which identifies autonomy, competence, and relatedness as core human needs. Improvement work fits well within that model when it is done right. When people can identify problems in their own work, develop solutions, and see the impact, they experience the kind of ownership and purpose that Pink describes.
If improvement feels forced or compliance-driven, it can undermine that autonomy. It becomes one more box to check -- the opposite of what Pink's research says actually drives engagement.
That is the argument for keeping improvement voluntary. And it is not wrong.
But here is the other side, also grounded in research.
Organizational behavior studies consistently show that clear expectations shape culture more powerfully than optional invitations. If improvement is positioned as something "nice to do if you are interested," it will be treated that way.
Optional efforts tend to cluster around already-motivated individuals, fade during busy periods, and become dependent on local champions. Improvement becomes a side activity instead of part of the work itself.
What I have seen, and what Greg and I have discussed across the series, is that
if improvement is truly optional, culture does not change.
That does not mean forcing people to generate ideas on demand. It means establishing that improving the work is part of the job -- not an extracurricular activity.
Healthcare organizations that have sustained daily improvement for years almost always share this trait: participation is not random. It is expected.
When you look across studies on engagement, accountability, and behavior change, a pattern emerges. People resist arbitrary mandates. They respond to clear standards. There is an important difference.
Research on high-reliability organizations shows that consistent expectations -- especially around safety and problem identification -- create psychological safety over time. That might sound contradictory at first. Would mandates not reduce safety?
Not if the expectation is about participation, not perfection.
For example: "Every team will discuss improvement weekly." "Every leader will respond to submitted ideas within seven days." "Every unit will run at least one experiment per quarter."
Those are structural expectations. They define behavior without dictating outcomes. They do not say "you must save $100,000" or "you must submit five ideas a month." They say: improvement is part of how we operate.
That clarity reduces ambiguity. And ambiguity is one of the biggest sources of cultural drift.
There is a legitimate danger in poorly designed mandates.
If leaders track idea counts instead of meaningful changes, behavior will distort. If people are evaluated on quantity rather than learning, you get shallow suggestions. If participation becomes a scoreboard, trust erodes.
Research on goal-setting theory shows that poorly designed metrics can drive unintended consequences. When targets become the goal instead of improvement itself, people optimize for appearance.
I have seen this firsthand. When organizations say "everyone must submit two ideas per month," quality drops. People generate safe, low-impact ideas just to comply. The spirit of improvement gets replaced by administrative burden.
So the issue is not whether improvement should be mandatory. It is what exactly is mandatory.
Across the series, and across organizations we have worked with, the most sustainable model looks something like this:
improvement participation is expected, but idea volume is not.
That means leaders are expected to ask about problems regularly. Teams are expected to review and follow up. Barriers need to be addressed. Problems cannot be ignored.
But individuals are not punished for a quiet week. They are not shamed for low idea counts. They are not measured against arbitrary quotas.
The expectation is behavioral, not numerical. The goal is that we improve the work -- not that we perform improvement. That distinction matters more than most organizations realize.
One of the most consistent findings in engagement research is that direct manager behavior accounts for a disproportionate share of employee engagement variance. What the leader does matters more than what the policy says.
If leaders treat improvement as a compliance exercise, a reporting burden, or a cost-cutting mechanism, then mandatory participation will feel coercive. But if leaders treat improvement as a way to reduce frustration, make work safer, and solve real problems, then clear expectations feel stabilizing rather than threatening.
The same structure can produce two very different cultures depending on how leaders show up.
If the question is "should improving the work be part of everyone's job," the research and experience both suggest yes.
If the question is "should people be forced to manufacture ideas to hit a number," the research suggests no.
The organizations that sustain continuous improvement over time do not rely on enthusiasm alone. They build systems that make improvement normal -- not dramatic, not heroic, just part of how work gets done.
What has your experience been? Have you seen mandatory improvement programs that actually worked -- or ones that backfired? I would be curious to hear what made the difference.