In Pursuit of Great – World Class

“Good enough has become the enemy of great. Routine has become the enemy of desire. Easy has become the enemy of sacrifice and hard work.”

Kevin & Jackie Freiberg
Boom!

I’ve Been Thinking. . . about what it takes to continually move a company to higher levels of excellence.

How can a company go from ordinary to extraordinary? Why do some companies seem to remain “average” forever while others are on a continual quest to be exceptional? What are the time-tested, secret, practical business philosophies that could transform a company?

In the book, CEO Road Rules: Right Focus, Right People, Right Execution, 50 CEO’s of primarily privately held companies were interviewed. The success patterns the authors observed in their interviews and in their work with entrepreneurs and mid-size companies fall into three broad areas:

Right Focus (having a clear and concise mission, vision and values along with knowing what you can be best at);

Right People (attracting and retaining talented and emotionally intelligent people and providing them coaching and rewards along the way);

Right Execution (defining key result areas and measures, implementing your plan and “living the values” while holding everyone, accountable for results).

In my humble opinion, the authors ‘nailed’ a simple, strategic approach for attaining greatness. In short, pursuing great is about selecting a visionary set of ambitions and expectations aligned with a compelling mission and values, engaging the commitment of dedicated people and developing an aggressive plan and set of actions that position us to become exceptional.

First off is focus. World Class companies are renown for being passionate and steadfast in living their principles and flexible in the continual review of how they do things.

Southwest Airlines understands the pursuit of world class. Their mission is “a dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.” Southwest was conceived as a company who would attract passengers in secondary cities with a fun low cost option. The company deliberately decided to fly only 737s to save on maintenance, offer no assigned seating or booking (the part I don’t like), and hire only fun people who made flying an experience different from what people were accustomed to (the part I do like).

That is their simple business strategy and needless to say, it is working quite well. Interestingly enough, Southwest has decided to buy new, larger planes. When asked about the change from their long term decision to fly 737’s, the company responded it was good to challenge their long held processes to find something better.

Every organization must identify strategies that work for them. It’s not about trying to duplicate other’s efforts, or being something we are not or pursuing angles outside of our mission, vision and values. It is about determining what we believe is critical to our success and maintaining the course.

How about the right people? There is never an excuse for not surrounding ourselves with talented people who support our vision, values, growth, development, and mission.

Somebody once said, “Love is blind, but hiring shouldn’t be.” Are we selecting people who encourage us to go to new heights by aligning themselves with our vision? Are we surrounded by people who endorse our values and are passionate about doing something extraordinary? Do we model how we expect other Family members to behave, think, dream, and serve?

Pursuing great will require us to surround ourselves with people who can support who we are, what we believe in and where we are planning to go. Otherwise, we should be eliminating potential candidates as fast as an American Idol audition.

Allow me to suggest another ‘people angle’ to consider. Personal growth precedes organizational excellence. Rare, or even non-existent, is the organization that can move to higher levels of effectiveness without leadership who are committed to re-thinking, re-evaluating and re-inventing their effectiveness on an ongoing basis. Those who endorse, no embrace, this way of living will do uncommon things in uncommon ways.

Execution. It’s the final link in our pursuit of world class. Plan. Follow thru. Evaluate. Measure. Reinforce. Adjust. Track. Team members hold each other accountable to achieve what has been planned and tenaciously hold fast to our beliefs. When it’s done, we celebrate. A worthy goal is to find more and more things to reward and more ways to reward it.

Pursuing world class is about putting our vision and values into action in extraordinary ways. It’s the daily display of treating others as the most important person in our lives. Pursuing great understands how the vision propels us to new levels of quality. Are we doing things that make a difference in people’s lives? Are we doing them in a way that is consistent with our values, in line with the mission and capable of moving us toward our vision?

Extraordinary companies do ordinary things extraordinarily well. They are continually developing or have already mastered the strategies, ideas, and tools needed to achieve extraordinary success. Excellence is exemplified in every area of operation.

Building a world class company is an exciting, open-ended, fun pursuit that will never be quite complete. It’s a wonderful path to enhancing our reputation, attracting compassionate, competent team members, and succeeding in ways we never thought possible.

Right Focus. Right People. Right Execution. A winning combination that moves us to World Class.

“At the end of every day of every year, two things must remain unshakable our constancy of purpose and our continuous discontent with the present.”

Robert Goizueta,
Coca-Cola