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Intentional Leadership — D2, W1, M3 — Excellence

If you talk with or listen to me for any length of time, you will hear me say this: The two keys to success are self-awareness and intentionality.

As we focus on excellence, these two keys are still important. Achieving superior quality requires your commitment, intentionality, strategy, and hard work.

What does your team/organization produce or provide?

What thought have you given to the “Five P’s of Marketing”: Product (goods or services you provide), Price (profit and competitors), Promotion (communications), People (employees), Place (channels of distribution). Get out a piece of paper and make three columns. This first is your Five Ps, the middle column is your Existing Strategy, and the third column is your Focus on Excellence.

Now, go through each item and summarize your effort in each area with respect each of the Five P’s. Reflect on your current situation in each area and what you could do to move further into excellence.

As you know, we can focus on only a few things at a time, and do them well. So, pick a couple of your P’s and really dive into what you can start doing or do differently to really move those facets of your business into Excellence.

What changes will have to take place within you to move to that next level?

You see, you are the driver, and where you’re at internally will permeate where you are with your team/organization. So be clear with yourself, so you can be clear with them, as well, and you can then move forward together into Excellence.

Back to self-awareness and intentionality.

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Intentional Leadership — D1, W1, M3 — Excellence

If we begin with the premise that excellence requires superior quality, first we must define what that means…to ourselves and to our customers — both existing and potential, and for each of us this may be very different.

For me, it requires ongoing education and keeping up with the latest developments and thought-leaders in the areas of personal growth, leadership development, team building, and communications. It means being solely focused on the success of my clients. It means being an outstanding listener — which we all know is an active process, requiring my undivided attention and ability to tune out my own thoughts as I listen to what my clients need to discuss. It means functioning intuitively and perceptively to discern what the true issues and challenges are that my clients face. All of these things will allow me to tune-in to my clients and really understand their unique needs. Then I must be able to tailor what I have to offer to be able to actually help them move through, around, or past these obstacles and challenges to perform at higher levels and achieve their goals.

There are a lot of other factors at play here, other actions I need to take, other behaviors I need to demonstrate, as you can imagine. But for purposes of getting your thinking started, I think this is a good beginning place. Clearly, your inputs and outputs are likely very different than mine, but the thought processes around what excellence means and how you demonstrate it are the same.

The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. — Vince Lombardi

What edge could your organization gain by committing to, and delivering, superior quality…at a level higher than that of your competitors?

In what areas are you already known for superior quality — at your team’s level or for that of your entire organization?

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Intentional Leadership — Month Three — Excellence

Beginning tomorrow, we will begin Month Three of our Intentional Leadership journey, focused on excellence. According to Merriam-Webster, excellence is the state of being excellent — superior, first class.

In practice, it is the difference between average and exceptional. It is the ability to not only meet, but to exceed, the needs of your customers (both internal and external), consistently delivering superior quality in whatever services or products you provide. This is how you — as an individual or an organization — stand out from the competition. But it doesn’t stop there. Truly excellent performers understand they must embrace a continuous improvement mindset, knowing that excellence is not a destination!

Think for a minute about organizations you would classify as excellent; there is likely one in at least each category of business and industry. In the hotel industry, it’s long been the Ritz Carlton. They strive to give every customer a “Wow” experience every time; pampering customers more than they could have possibly imagined. If you think about it, this philosophy requires everyone in the organization to be in top form at all times, thinking about what more they can do to out-do what they are already doing. It’s an on-going quest, requiring creativity, consideration, intentionality, and close attention to the wants, needs,  and desires of its customers, as well as staying in-tune with the changing of the times in terms of tastes and preferences of luxury travelers.

As we prepare for this next leg of our journey, take a little time to consider these questions:

What level of excellence do you/your organization provides today?

How can you improve the level of customer service you/your organization provides today?

In what areas of your business do you need to be continuously improving to succeed?

How do your team members define and demonstrate excellence in your organization? Does their definition of excellence match yours?

This will be another revealing month of exercises, if you are willing to truly dive deep and examine your thinking and behaviors.

“See” you tomorrow.

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