A Culture of Excellence

Are Your Employees REFLECTING the culture of your company or are they DEFLECTING it?

Hmmm… Ever thought about that? Does your company have a clearly defined culture? And a plan to thread that culture throughout your operations? —— so that your customers are firmly fixed on what they can expect from you and your employees on a daily basis?
Ever thought about that? —— as Yakov Schmirnoff says, “You VILL now!!”

Gone are the days when hap-hazard positioning can produce the level of excellence that is expected by the discerning customer. Make no mistake: ALL customers today are VERY discerning: they know they have choices and don’t hesitate to exercise that freedom. Look around you and see all your colleagues who didn’t believe that: they are GONE.
Cutting edge excellence is the only approach that is a sure bet.

While we are talking about that, please congratulate yourself for being good enough to have made it through the last purging. At the same time, caution yourself to know that what you did, got you to what you have today, but there is no room for complacency. Tomorrow’s challenges require the BEST from every member of your organization.

“All I have remaining is the A TEAM,” you say. But are you giving the A Team what they need in so they are equipped to deliver the A+ service that you intend and NEED to deliver?
Do you have a clear cut focus on what “ A+” service should look like coming from your company? Are YOU part of the “A Team”?

That’s right: EXCELLENCE is driven by a culture that comes from the TOP DOWN: by a culture that structures processes to insure a level of competency that cannot be left to chance.

Please note that there is no “I” in “TEAM” but there are 3 “I’s” in “DIVISIVE”, which is the alternative of having no positive plan guiding each team member. Just ‘expecting’ that they do their best in order to survive is not adequate to the task. Procedures are paramount to producing the desired performance.

TRACK. MEASURE. MANAGE….is a mantra that succinctly describes a path for as-close-to-perfection-performance as you could hope to get.

CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index) Ratings have been in vogue for over 2 decades, with good and bad connotations, depending on the circumstances. The CSI Rating of itself can be misleading if it is not acquired and accomplished with a carefully created culture behind it. CSI Ratings that are garnered through “leading” questions and intimidating interviews, might get you a plaque at the end of the year or kudos from whoever is above you in the pecking order, but they do nothing to assure your tomorrow.

A clear-cut culture statement must be at the base of the operations, with a method for all employees to buy into the culture, fully understand the process, and be given the ongoing feedback to know HOW it is all going on a daily basis, both good and remediable. REMEDIAL being the operative keynote for the change process that creates the constant seeking for excellence found in the culture statement.

Expecting without inspecting is fool-hearty. Tracking and measuring are only part of the trinity for top-level team output. MANAGING hones the daily efforts that will produce the long-term consistency of the kind of performance that excellence is made of.

Time was when a CSI rating of 100% on a continuum was just a dream. In today’s reality of TRACK, MEASURE, MANAGE, it is a documented experience. (99.84% = 100%) Call it a dream come true? No dream. Just daily diligence with a culture and a plan. It can be yours as well. Excellence is only elusive if it is left to chance.

Create a culture that has the clarity of a still lake, and create the processes needed to enable every employee to reflect that culture whether the lake be still or tumultuous.

Fran Olsen, CSI, Inc.
Tellcsi.com
folsen@tellcsi.com 800-TELLCSI.