The easiest route to financial stability is to train employees how to identify and solve problems. A thousand small ideas from employees can make a local government organization more valuable to its residents without the risk of big organization-wide initiatives.

Here are some effective ways to help employees and solve problems:

1. Turn misleading metrics upside down so you can zero in on the ugly and rattle the status quo. The metrics used by most organizations focus on successful achievement—i.e., customer satisfaction rate or voter turnout. Even though focusing on the failed side of the equation is mathematically the same, our minds react differently when we focus on the negative. This phenomenon is why the FDA started requiring meat to also be labeled with the percentage of fat as well as the percentage lean.

2. Stop using benchmarks as an excuse for accepting the status quo. Organizations benchmark to get insights into how they compare to peer organizations and which practices they should possibly emulate.

Sometimes, however, benchmarks are used to justify the status quo of “we’re above average already.” Or, if organizations are below average, a common excuse is “we’re so different from everyone else, it isn’t fair to measure us against them.”

The differences may in fact be valid and might include “we serve urban areas not rural” or “we provide customization and our peers don’t.” But no unit is perfect and striving to improve is always the right action.

3. Get a new perspective with an interdepartmental job swap to find hidden problems. Swapping employees from different units is an excellent way to improve collaboration and to build an understanding of the work that each unit “causes” the other.

4. Avoid “gold plating.” This means doing the best job when a good job will suffice. Sometimes doing one’s best is necessary, but often a good job is good enough.

Here’s an example: A manager sends an e-mail to finance staff asking for a cost estimate. Several days are spent building the best projection possible. The manager, however, just wanted an estimate that could have been completed in an hour. The gold plating wasted time the organization will never get back.

5. Embrace conflict to eliminate bad decisions caused by “executive exuberance.” Elected officials and managers can fall in love with an idea—sometimes their own. Everyone quickly learns that revealing flaws in the beloved idea is not welcome.

One example: a CEO who became the exuberant advocate for a huge IT project. When the project failed to deliver on all its promises, the CEO wanted to know why no one had argued with him about it.

6. Replace typical meeting agendas that are lists of topics with game plans that require preparation before, specific actions during, and follow-up after.

7. Avoid the “unintentional squelch” orinadvertently killing ideas with subtle but easily misinterpreted body language. A few examples: raised eyebrow; grimace; looking away from the speaker mid-sentence; rapt checking of e-mail on a cellphone while being spoken to; and a knowing look to a known opponent of the idea. You probably have seen all of these only to find out later that the person you were talking to loved the idea being proposed but was unaware of his or her body language.

Tips like these can make organizations of any size more efficient and productive. They can also boost the morale of employees as they participate directly in improving an organization’s operations.