In our book Reality, Perception and your Workplace Culture I discussed this point in detail. It becomes a case of looking at the world from the image in the mirror or looking at the world from what you see looking out the window.
To bring about genuine process improvement you need to be able to see the world from the point of view of the customer. Your customer sees the world as having a problem and it directly effects how they interact with you. Your responsibility is to see the world as they see it. I
understand that is a difficult undertaking. We all have our inherent biases which may interfere with this effort. but we have do it. From an Human Capital Management view, this means that we need to look at the existence of problems apart from the way we usually do things It means that we need to cease using stereotypes to determine whether a solution is worth considering. It means that in our recruitment efforts we need to expand the diversity of our human capital assets not only from a demographic point of view but also from a diversity of ideas. One of the arguments against promoting from within is that by doing so you eliminate the source for new ideas.
It is your decision as to whether you have real process improvement or whether you treat it as a fad.
Need assistance with planning your process improvement efforts, reach out to us at dan@dbaiconsulting.com