Continuous improvement isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about building a culture that asks how we can be better tomorrow than we are today.
Most companies fix problems when they break.
At The Heritage Group, we’ve spent years building something different. A culture that asks a harder question before anything breaks: Why?
Why this process? Why this system? Why not something better?
That question is the foundation of what we call Business Excellence. Not a department. Not a set of templates imposed from the top down. A mindset, one that trusts the people closest to the work to see what needs improving and gives them the tools and confidence to do something about it.
“It’s not a one-time fix,” says Jim Massoels, who leads Business Excellence across The Heritage Group. “It’s about cultivating a mindset that continually asks: how can I make this better?”
You see what that looks like in practice at Envita Solutions.
When Envita rebranded in 2023, leadership used the moment to ask a bigger question: Were they built to grow? To reach their goals and better serve customers by working toward their own sustainability targets, they needed to look honestly at how the business operated day-to-day.
What followed wasn’t a top-down restructuring. It was something more fundamental.
“At its core, this transformation was cultural,” says Nicole Goodnight, Senior Director of People & Culture at Envita. “Our frontline workers had unique insight into our pain points and inefficiencies. We wanted to turn their insights into real improvements.”
They did. Entire systems were rewritten. Real-time feedback mechanisms were built. Infrastructure that could actually scale with the company’s ambition replaced what had come before.
The results: major customer growth over the past few years and $10 million in operational savings.
But Melissa Jaeger, VP of Business Transformation at Envita, points to something beyond the numbers.
“It changed the way we think. We went from a post-separation startup to a leaner, scalable enterprise. We can serve our customers better, faster.”
That’s what Business Excellence produces. Not just efficiency gains, but a different relationship between people and the work they do. One where the person on the floor has as much standing to improve a process as the person in the boardroom.
Since 2019, more than 325 people across the Heritage portfolio have been trained in these principles. More than 300 projects completed. But the number that matters most is harder to count: how many people, at how many companies, now carry the habit of asking why into work every day.
Getting better isn’t a project.
It’s a habit.
Not all at once. But every day.
