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Does your business have an aggressive enough mindset to take on competition? Are you preparing to reopen your business? Or have you already started? If you are like most others, cost control is very likely your key priority. As a leader, what is your preferred way? “Excellence” or “Survival”? If you answered either of them as your choice, you have been tricked!!
It is true, you do not necessarily need to choose between excellence and survival. Don't believe me? Read on...
Today we face the challenges of shrunken markets, shortage of resources, and heavy competition. To survive, you need to surpass the competition and customer expectations and win customer loyalty. This requires you to excel in areas that competition cannot. Today, aggressively building your capabilities is the safest survival strategy.
It is in the times of crises that excellence moves from being “good to have and flaunt” to “must have and deliver”. Excellence in real terms is a mindset, a mindset that is not satisfied with “good enough”. As Jim Collins, the famous author says- “Good is the enemy of great”. Mediocre is the enemy of Excellence. To execute your business with excellence, you need employees who LIVE excellence. If your employees get satisfaction from achieving mediocrity, your business will have a hard time excelling.
Do you recognize that in these times, retaining talent will be a key challenge? You will be under great pressure to reduce cost. Do ensure that your top talent is ring-fenced. This is the time to build employee loyalty. You do not want your employees focusing on individual survival at the expense of organization. People taking decisions out of fear (survival instinct) are more likely to take myopic viewpoints.
How do you identify people who have an excellence mindset? These are the people who don't necessarily take the “word of management” as the final commandment. They usually come up with alternatives and options. They don't come to you with a problem and ask for solutions. They come to you with a possible solution and ask for your agreement. Many of them may be silent performers. You may not interact with them very often as there are not many “fires” in their area. As a leader, you are almost always short of time and may not have considered all the alternatives. You want some people around you who can be used as sounding boards to help de-risk your decisions. They may not be many in your organization but these are your best bets.
So how do you retain them? A practical way is to select your best bets and engage them with your long term vision. Current hardships become more bearable when there is faith in future. Create tasks that strike a balance between easy short term achievements and ambitious long term goals. It is important that your employees get a sense of achievement in the short term but do not become complacent.
Use your preferred excellence frameworks to build common purpose and common ways of working. Make it facilitative and easy rather than bureaucratic and difficult. Excellence is not in methodology. It is in your intention to surpass. Use excellence to surpass your current problems. Use excellence to fill the gap in business before your competitor does it. Use Excellence to gain customer and employee loyalty.
In words of Aristotle: Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.
In words of Aristotle: Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.
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