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Intentional Leadership — D4, W3, M3 — Excellence

In today’s business climate, competition is fierce; but I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. Maintaining the status quo in terms of performance is a sure-fire way for your business to not be in business very long. What do you think will happen to your team or business if you aren’t striving to exceed expectations?

What do you think the outcome would be for you, your team, your organization, your customers, and your competition?

Seems like a simple question, but the implications could be staggering.

Spend some time with this one today and let me know what you come up with.

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Intentional Leadership — D3, W3, M3 — Excellence

Wednesday is work with your team day! Take some time with your team, today, to create a strategy for exceeding your customers’ expectations. Ask each person to share a brief story of a product or service experience that exceeded their expectations. Then, as a team, evaluate current expectations and satisfaction with your product or service.

First, have each person answer this question: What do our customers expect from our product or service?

Then: Are we currently meeting these expectations?

If the answer to the second question is “no,” you will first need to make changes to meet those expectations, before you can exceed them.

Next, gather ideas on how you could exceed your customers’ expectations for your organization or team going forward.

Ask: What could we do to exceed our customers’ expectations?

Then: How will we implement these ideas?

Be realistic, and pick two to three ideas you can begin to implement right away…What will they be?

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Intentional Leadership — D2, W3, M3 — Excellence

Today, let’s consider organizations you believe have exceeded your expectations with products or services. What did they do to impress you?

With that in mind, let’s now spend some time on a self-evaluation. Does your performance consistently go beyond what others expect of you?

On a piece of paper, make two columns. Title the left column: Top Five Responsibilities. Title the right column: Rating

Now, list your top five responsibilities in the left column — and you can do this for all the various roles you play…Leader, direct report, peer, mentor, coach, partner, or even roles you play in your personal life. Then, in the right column, rate your performance in each responsibility as Average, Above-Average, or Excellent.

Once you’ve done this exercise, I encourage you to spend some time thinking about why you rated yourself as you did in each area.

What one thing could you do right away to improve any of those rankings?

What can you do to exceed the expectations of your employees?

What can you do to exceed the expectations of your manager/leader?

Remember…your effort, in your leadership role, sets the standard for excellence in your team/organization. I encourage you to be intentional about what it will be.

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