Beholder 2 Competitive Environment 1.0.1
Dhara Lyford
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I was directed to build a high performance team that can deliver excellent results. My first thought was WHY? When I looked at the environment, culture, people, documentation, policies, procedures, processes and technology, my reaction was to wonder whether this team could make a difference.
Why was I being asked to do so when it seemed that the standards of excellence were A) not measurable, B) not achievable, or C) not defined? Then I wondered what does excellence mean in today's business environment?
Given the images of excellence that we see in art, architecture, sports, and fashion, how can there be a single definition of excellence when it can take months to years to decades to build a team that delivers the expected results. The ability to deliver excellence also depends on the person or persons judging the level of work and the results therein. One person's excellence can be another's average. The competition to achieve, climb the corporate ladder, build the next disruptive technology, and make a billion dollar product is rife with internet trolls and jealous co-workers that will dispel any thoughts of excellence with a single snarky remark or "throw under the bus."
I did not disagree that I could build a high performance team, but questioned whether the efforts of the team would be truly understood and whether their results would be appreciated for the work performed because within the culture, excellence was not the norm but the exception. As a consultant, I have worked in numerous companies where due to my expertise and knowledge, the expectations are that I can deliver excellent results more so than the employees. However, the irony is that while my experience may be broader and deeper in certain areas than the employees, I must rely on the collective knowledge of the employees from the break room to the board room to develop my recommendations and approach. Thus, the solution lay within and sometimes I believe I was hired to cull the solution from the collective subconscious of the internal experts. What prizes await when you ask the staff for their input on how to create excellence in their workplace.
Given the legacy talent that exists in corporate America, companies succeed or fail based on the level of excellence expected. How often are employees told to deliver excellence only to be able to deliver mediocre results due to the tools provided? What I have found is the mentoring needed to achieve excellence does not exist. It is not enough to be told to deliver excellence, but to also have a mentor who has actually experienced it and then is able to guide others to do so. This is a significant gap in talent management and development, having mentors to develop resources who can deliver excellent results.
There is a remarkable musical prodigy, Usman Riaz, who learned to play guitar by watching and listening to better and more experienced guitarists on YouTube. While he was not directly mentored by his idols, he nonetheless used their techniques to train himself. How often do you take the time to become a better manager or team member who can deliver excellence by learning from the greatness of others? My point in regard to my environment was that I believed building a high performance team may not matter because excellence was not an expected behavior of the people.
Don't get me wrong - achieving excellence was a guiding principle within the employee handbook and written on posters in the halls of every floor occupied in this company's headquarters. However, not every employee had the passion for delivering excellence nor could anyone define what it truly meant to deliver excellence. They were very comfortable with average.
I had remarked to my manager colleagues that I didn't believe the internal team wanted to work that hard to achieve the expected excellent results, thus we needed to outsource our excellence-based initiatives. The existing team was doing what was expected of it; however, management wanted the team to do more. The question was whether management wanted more of the same or more that was better? More of the same was certainly not a hallmark of excellence because status quo does not breed excellent behavior. Doing more that was better required investing in the team with training, tools, and information that would enable the members to perform at a higher level. Ironically, management did not want to invest in employee development, but chose to hire Excellence Execution Experts (EEE), aka management consultants.
What does it mean when a company's goal is to be a world class organization built on fiscal and operational excellence? By its very nature, excellence is not a commodity nor ubiquitous. It is evaluated subjectively by the person judging your performance. The opinions of others will be influenced not just by your results but by your boss. If your boss says you achieved excellence, by golly, you have, regardless of the opinions of others. But is it really so in this world where political correctness has gone overboard and every child in AAA little league goes to the playoffs regardless of the fact that scores don't matter at this level.
How are we teaching our children the concept of excellence by creating an environment where everyone is excellent? It used to be there were gradations of excellent, good, average and poor marks on a report card proving whether you did the work, tested, and performed in relation to your peers. More recent school grading systems determine whether a student needs improvement or meets standards which have proved more successful in maintaining a child's self-esteem because the top level of excellent has now been replaced by outstanding. Jack Welch's Vitality Curve and other evaluation models have been criticized for being counter-productive.
To me the solution is simple - look in the mirror. We can either be our best or worst judge of performance. However, I truly believe if you make an honest assessment of your performance, you will either determine you're performing in the top 20% or the lowest 10%. Would you actually tell yourself you're just average? Talent Management applications have a plethora of tools to assess employee performance, but because of company policies and manager bias, not everyone can be rated excellent or receive the highest raises. Everyone will be ranked and not everyone will be excellent. The premise being that everyone being evaluated will not be judged at an excellent level. While this may seem harsh, it's the reality of nearly every job evaluation process in existence today. So while you may have busted your butt, worked from dawn to dusk, sacrificed your personal life, and ignored family and friends, the awarding of an excellent attaboy is truly subjective and based on the eye of the beholder.
The process can be disheartening and enlightening, but I ask you to believe in yourself, look in the mirror, and tell yourself to have an excellent day. No one can take that from you and you'll realize that excellence is in the eye of you. Here are five steps to live an excellent work life:
1) Increase the assessment communication between you and your boss, rather than an annual evaluation request a quarterly or project-based time period. If your boss is a great manager, there should be frequent and constant feedback regarding your performance that brings out the excellence in you.
2) Seek out a mentor (should not be your manager) in the organization that will be open and honest with you regarding your performance. The mentor should be someone you can trust who can guide and lead you especially around office politics and culture.
Within this quote, Will Durant was interpreting Aristotle's philosophy which was the belief that the purpose of life was to attain happiness. That the way to happiness can be achieved through personal excellence. So if you repeatedly perform an act until you achieve your personal excellence in that act, you would then be excellent in that act. We can't all be number one or in the top 20%, but we can all be happy by achieving our own personal excellence. So go out and live an excellent life.
Headlines from the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal may be swirling in your mind. In that textbook case of greenwashing, a major company made claims of following certain government and industry standards while not actually doing so.
For instance, after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP promoted steps it was taking to become more environmentally conscious and safe. Did these steps represent real corporate culture changes, or were they surface attempts to rescue a tainted brand? Without the tools to make an informed judgment, consumers could do nothing more than react on instinct.
Yet, Lenox points out, one can hardly imagine an economy without chemicals, and by nature, the production of consumer goods has some environmental impact. But what kind and how much? And how does one company compare to others in the same industry?
First, information asymmetries between producers and consumers must be overcome so that consumers can know when they are purchasing sustainably oriented products. This is done, in part, by standard setting, which offers consumers credible backing for claims.
Another solution for spurring sustainable innovations and practices is involving activists and NGOs as partners in business. Environmental activists are more often viewed as adversaries who come in and shame companies for their non-green practices. Blocked by political gridlock in attempts to get legislation passed, many activists are resorting to private politics to push their agenda. They take to social media to expose non-green practices and apply pressure for companies to change their ways.
Lenox is a prolific author; his most recent book, Strategy in the Digital Age: Mastering Digital Transformation, examines how digital technologies and services enable the creation of innovative products and services, as well as identifying new competitive positions.
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