This Note situates a roundtable discussion hosted by the University of California, Irvine School of Law Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources and the Environmental Policy Innovation Center into scholarly discourse. The Note identifies the three most important areas that the Endangered Species Act must improve to maximize conservation outcomes: promoting recovery, protecting habitat, and managing change. Within these areas, this Note highlights the importance of offering clearer guidance to the implementing Agencies, providing additional flexibility for working with private stakeholders, allowing for change and risk adaptation, increasing ecosystem-management implementation, and enabling proactivity.