Category: Business Chain of Excellence

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Newton’s Law of Gravitational Culture

Gravity is a law, not a theory.

An intentional business excellence culture versus an unintentional business excellence culture is a theory.

A theory that is, for all practical business purposes, as valid as the law of gravity.

On Earth, gravity is unmistakable.

Gravity is also irrefutable.

Without gravity, Earth would be chaos compared to how we currently know it.

A science fiction movie like we’ve never seen.

Here’s why i told you that.

Culture is like that too.

An unhealthy, unfocused business excellence culture creates unlimited chaos for leaders, employees, customers, financials, business excellence, as well as creativity and innovation.

When a corporate organizational vibrancy culture is architected with the equivalent of construction blueprints, the results are extraordinary.

Another simple analogy…

What would happen to a person who has neglected the seven basic wellness tactics: cardio, strength, core, flexibility, nutrition, rest, motivation?

What would happen if all seven were managed well?

It’s the stunning difference between thriving versus surviving.

Given the choice, none of us would pick surviving.

So, back to your business excellence culture.

Why would anyone settle?

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Newton’s Law of Culture In Motion

A culture in motion tends to stay in motion.

We can say this with confidence, every company has a culture.

And every culture has motion.

Focused motion, a culture by design.

Unfocused motion, a culture by default.

Building a culture worth defending is the most important long-term priority for a business owner and CEO.

And if it’s not, it should be.

Here’s an easy way to see the obvious yet often invisible.

Compare the organizational benefit to building a personal wellness and personal vibrancy lifestyle.

All able-bodied adults know personal health is important. How many actually live like they believe it – as if their life depends on it?

Five percent?

Less?

Now apply this analogy back to organizational health.

How many CEO’s make cultural vibrancy their number one long-term priority?

Like physical wellness, corporate Organizational Vibrancy culture must be a daily focus.

Well, it doesn’t need to be a daily focus, just like regular exercise, balanced nutrition, and adequate rest don’t need to be a daily focus.

We reap what we sow.

As surely as gravity keeps us grounded on Earth.

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Not until it’s something everyone wants to defend

If you’re the business owner or co-owner, you’re either  the CEO, on the Cabinet, a silent partner.

Your stakes are as high as they get.

Owner.

You own the business.

You’ll defend it with every fiber in your mind, body, and spirit.

Right?

Now imagine you’re not the owner.

How invested are you in the issues, the challenges, the opportunities, and, the problems?

Not very.

Why should you be?

Do the math, what if 99.9% of your employees (at all levels) would be willing to walk away if times got too tough?

Do the math a second time. What if 99.9% of your employees (at all levels) would NOT be willing to walk away if times got too tough?

A striking difference to be sure.

Why wouldn’t they abandon ship?

Because they believe in what you do in such an unexplainable (and wonderful) way that they can’t imagine doing anything but protecting your Organizational Vibrancy culture, your Organizational Vibrancy brand.

Why?

Because your Organizational Vibrancy brand is a huge part of their personal vibrancy brand.

It’s in their DNA to be on the (your) mission that makes the world a better place.

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It’s an organizational vibrancy trap

The waiting.

The doing nothing.

It’s an organizational vibrancy trap.

We’re caught in this profound, literally hopeless dilemma.

So we entertain, distract, and medicate ourselves to make it through another day.

Wait.

Step back from your daily routine and elevate yourself high enough to look down and see the whole show – to see what you never see.

You’re too close to see it.

But if you were an experienced business advisor and executive coach, you’d see it easily and clearly.

Here’s the good news, the fear you feel from a brutally honest assessment is the catalyst you need – a glorious gift – to rethink your situation.

It’s important to level set the premise here: You have to find your own motivation to invest the time and effort to .think differently and begin to .do .differently

Otherwise, the next sentence will go in one ear and out the other.

From deep and personal rethinking, you will evaluate your priorities. Odds are good you have the right priorities, however, odds are high your priorities need some reshuffling. This reprioritization is the key to unlocking an intentional future.

Try that on for size: Intentional future.

Imagine how easy it is to recommit to your future with the recalibrated set of business excellence priorities.

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Confused by abundance and easy access?

We can access all the business excellence information in the world.

At anytime, from anywhere.

The cost?

Free.

So why are we stuck?

Why are we still battling the whack-a-mole reality?

Sound familiar: Your day is filled with one pressing operational issue after another. Most of it is stuff that wasn’t on your calendar.

Here’s why.

We are desperately in over our heads and unwilling to publicly admit our lives (professionally and personally) are taking a toll on our business excellence effectiveness (and, by the way, on our health).

The antidote?

A better set of business excellence blueprints to build a better, healthier corporate culture.

Your next step is to identify several world-class organizational culture architects and hire the best fit.

Wait, i get it, you’re in charge and you don’t need to do anything you don’t want to, especially when the price is high.

Waiting and doing nothing are the twin siblings of organizational (and personal) decline.

Let that sink in.

Okay, the ball is in your court.

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Radically ask for better business excellence blueprints

What you know about business excellence comes from what you’ve done, read, experienced, taught, written, thought, and dreamt about.

Even with all that going for you, odds are high you’re still yearning for better, simpler, more profound and actionable information.

Have you considered asking for more, and for better?

Have you considered being radical in your asking?

Some say, “Ask and you shall receive.”

i say .think .differently about organizational vibrancy.

Keep your questions ridiculously simple and be radical in asking for better blueprints.

No one builds a cathedral without blueprints.

Why would your organizational vibrancy legacy be any different?

Why would your company’s business excellence culture be any different?

Why?

How’s that for a radically simple question?

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Looking Back, Now Will Have Been A Bargain

The cost for adding business excellence enhancements always seems expensive at the time.

The price you pay for all those years living without the enhancements is literally impossible to recoup.

This so-called price you pay takes the form of lost growth and revenue, unrealized organizational vibrancy, turnover costs, unintentional transfer of intellectual property to your competitors, and the slow and steady erosion of an already unstable foundation.

What would it take for you to see – and act on this reality – that it’s such a bargain to begin transforming now.

Now.

As in there’s no time to wait.

One small step forward.

Right now.

Awareness is the first step to recovery.

Simply admit, right now and unequivocally, your business excellence culture is unhealthy and needs a doctor.

The cost for an architect to draw a new set of blueprints is exponentially less costly now than what it will cost you in the future.

You cannot build from a plan you can’t see on paper.

Why would you settle when it’s not necessary?

The only limitations you have are those you impose upon yourself.

Struggling to achieve, sustain, and enhance a vibrant business excellence culture?

Challenged to create a vibrant business excellence culture where at least 80% of your leaders are rated by employees as very good or excellent at balancing the business chain of excellence?

Challenged to create a vibrant business excellence culture where at least 51% of your leaders are rated by employees as excellent at connecting all the dots – leaders-employees-customers-brand-innovation?

Do you have a personal conviction that good and very good aren’t good enough?

Do you understand the dramatic difference between an excellent business chain ripple effect and its ability to get excellent results, compared to a very good ripple effect getting very good results and a good ripple effect getting good results?

Can you articulate the difference between a good chain and an excellent chain; and the difference between a very good chain and an excellent chain?

If you can, and i’m assuming you can, why would you settle?

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Busy Doing Nothing

Being good at doing things well is often seen as success.

Really?

Think about it.

Yes, we are good at things.

But are we good at the right things?

Who’s coaching us about business excellence priorities?

Who’s holding us accountable?

And what if our boss is the same boat as us?

What if our boss has business excellence priorities that we are good at delivering on, but what if all of us are focused on lower level priorities?

What if we are the boss? What if we’re passing this on down to our direct reports?

The business excellence mission critical stuff, often the soft stuff, is left alone because it’s too hard to see and measure improvement.

It’s analogous to trying to lose weight instead of trying to lower our resting heart rate, our cholesterol, BMI, and triglycerides.

There are a lot of fake business excellence problems in our world. Fake problems are issues we spend time managing that have disproportionate value to more important priorities.

Fake problems are convenient for medicating our lack of a clear, concise, and compelling vision.

Organizational health (and personal health) is priority one.

Never get bored with the basics.

Spend time doing nothing.

Quiet time, void of distractions, void of deadlines, meetings, initiatives.

Spend time there and you’ll be astonished, if you really open your heart, at what you can accomplish when you’re busy doing nothing.

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Business Excellence time out, Disney-Style

Five world-class business excellence basics i learned from 30 years at Disney.

Do the basics brilliantly.

Never get bored with the basics.

Leaders, employees, customers, reputation, improve.