If You Need Inspiring Words, Don’t Do It

Be so clear about the organizational vibrancy you want to architect, build, and grow that nothing can extinguish your fire.

Burn the ships.

If what you’re doing doesn’t make our world better, you’ll know it because you’ll keep hitting your snooze button.

And if hitting the snooze button is your modus operandi (yes, it’s criminal), no amount of inspirational quotes and anecdotes will ever move the needle.

Positive, uplifting quotes are wonderful. They give us the same warm and fuzzy feeling a shot of whiskey provides to an alcoholic. But you’ll never see anyone world-class doing shots before they do important, inspiring work.

Our goal is to literally jump out of bed at the first chiming of our morning ringtone and welcome the brand new day like we’re welcoming the most important day of our life.

Is boldness genius?

You could Google it to research who said it (like it even matters), or you could say it and get to work – like you mean it (which matters more than anything).

Disconnect From Hope and Enthusiasm

Connect to hard work.

The only way to excel at business excellence – and maintain it – is to outwork your previous self.

The others around you aren’t your competition, although we are tempted to live in that paradigm.

Our old habits of banking on hope and enthusiasm, yet not being willing to .think .differently will fail us.

We must become an insatiable student and a remarkable teacher of business excellence.

Then we’ll come full circle and we can again embrace hope and enthusiasm.

Be A Yes Person

We understand the ready, fire, aim concept.

But do we live the essential essence of the opposite; intentional and proactive thinking and doing?

Years ago one of my favorite Disney colleagues, Dennis Frare, shared a statement that is one of the most profound truths i’ve ever heard.

To know is to do. To know and not do, is to not yet know.

The value of the following yes-or-no questions is self-evident and irrefutable.

Have fun answering.

1. i have read at least 24 business excellence books?
2. i am the most passionate student of business excellence i know?
3. i subscribe to, and read, at least two daily business excellence blogs?
4. i have personally written extensively (subjective) about the leadership chain of excellence ripple effect?
5. i teach business excellence to others?
6. i live and breath a balanced business excellence approach?

These questions are the ticket to the dance. They are in no way all-inclusive. The road to excellence has no finish line.

Ready, Fire, Aim

Before you go any further, ask yourself some honest vibrancy questions.

If you are unable to answer yes to every question, you should rethink your motivation.

Our leadership excellence is vibrant?

Our employee engagement is vibrant?

Our customer service is vibrant?

Our brand reputation is vibrant?

Our creativity and innovation is vibrant?

World-class Organizational Vibrancy is our goal?

Six yeses?

Stop piling it on

Do an inventory of your business book collection, business email subscriptions, self-improvement Facebook pages you’ve liked, and people you follow on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Quit buying business books you’ll never read.

Quit listening to podcasts.

Quit reading blog posts.

Quite surfing LinkedIn and Twitter for the next business excellence nugget.

How much business excellence information do you need before you can convince yourself you’re confident in your business excellence convictions?

Fear is a Liar

We admire legendary corporate cultures. Companies like Apple, Harley-Davidson, Southwest Airlines, and of course, Disney, come to mind immediately.

If we are honest with ourselves, would we say, deep down, we’ll never be as good.

i mean, seriously, how could we possibly create a business excellence assembly line that actually manifests itself as organizational vibrancy?

We can’t.

And we believe the script we tell ourselves.

What if i challenged you to .think .differently?

To imagine being able to draw up cultural blueprints; to architect a foundation that you can’t wait to show and tell others about.

This book illustrates the five foundational business excellence building blocks for world-class corporate culture.

It’s just a dream and a drawing, but guess what?

Now you have a drawing.

You never had a blueprint before.

You’re welcome.

The Law of the Business Excellence Chain Reaction

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

An object in motion tends to stay in motion.

Pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other end too.

Ripple effects have a natural, unforced way of reaching exponentially farther from the center of the action.

Imagine negative cultural ripple effects.

Terrifying, right?

As if your world isn’t busy and chaotic enough.

Now imagine nothing but positive cultural ripple effects.

Exciting, right?

Leadership, good, not so good, or great has corresponding cultural ripples.

When you understand that leaders impact the employee experience, and employees impact your customer experience, and customers impact your financial experience, and creativity is the DNA of every great company, you have learned to embrace the Organizational Vibrancy basics.

Never get bored with basics.

Focusing on the basics makes your organization vibrant. Neglecting the basics will destroy it.

Become the Business Excellence Category

Lead the category or be the category?

Striving to lead your industry isn’t entirely bad if you’re ok with waiting for someone else to beat you to the next breakthrough.

Why does that sound ridiculous?

Why is it important?

Because some ridiculously important (some would say game-changing) events have happened, are happening now, and will continue to happen.

It’s called disruption for a reason.

Waiting for it to happen can destroy an organization (and sometimes an industry).

Making it happen can launch competitive immunity and have your competition scrambling to recover.

Remember how the music industry let Napster reinvent music file sharing?

Music executives got blind-sided.

As if that wasn’t enough, the music industry never saw a computer company coming either.

Apple, iPod, iTunes, and now, Apple Music.

Apple is a category of one.

The music industry had their chance to become the category.

Kodak had their chance too, but they held so tightly to film, they suffocated themselves.

How does this train of thought affect Disney?

Easy, we have learned to be intentional with harnessing the positive ripple effects created by synergy, cause and effect, and culture.

We over-focus on the same things others under-focus on or ignore. We see the power in being intentional versus being unintentional.

Focus and discipline are our masters.

One good turn deserves another.

Leaders impact employees who impact customers who impact business results and creativity is the DNA of the entire business chain of excellence.

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jeff noel Deconstructed Disney to reconstruct Business Excellence, for your future enjoyment

If you’ve visited a Disney Theme Park, the odds are high you’ve seen at least one sign like this:

Please pardon our appearance while we refurbish this attraction for your future enjoyment.

Walt Disney Attractions

Why are the odds high?

The odds are great because Disney is always working to improve the Guest Experience.

Consider the effort, though. Every Attraction is unique, and each one comes with a different set of issues, opportunities, and strengths.

Closer inspection then will yield you a quick, and much deeper, appreciation.

Now imagine the difference between one closer inspection versus a lifetime of seeing it under a microscope.

When you see the actual DNA, the smallest pieces that hold the Disney Culture together, everything you believe in, and why, changes.

When i saw the Disney Institute participants struggle with our Organizational Vibrancy content, which focused on what we do and how we do it, i set out to find a breakthrough for those struggling business professionals.

i was on a mission to crystallize why, and how, we do what we do.

The why took me to the microscope, which led to brilliantly simplistic discoveries.

The Business Chain of Excellence Gospel According To Walt Disney

Gospel: gos·pel, noun: Something regarded as true and implicitly believed: to take his report for gospel. A doctrine regarded as of prime importance: political gospel.

The good news, Disney’s Approach to Business Excellence is simple and serves as the world’s business gospel.

The bad news is it’s not easy.

When i first discovered i had high cholesterol, the doctor recommended two simple steps to lower the risk of heart disease.

Diet and exercise.

Simple.

Not easy.

Disney’s Approach to Business Excellence, you’ll see in a moment, is ridiculously simple.

And yet finding an organizational culture of overwhelming leadership excellence is roughly as statistically similar as finding a large number of vibrantly healthy American adults.