Leaders continuously challenge the status quo, seldom satisfied with what they have achieved. They strive for excellence in everything they do. And they expect the same from others. They also realize that there is no secret to success. Instead they understand that the key building blocks for top performance include:
- Focusing on the Customer. Success comes not from being all things to all people but from picking areas where unique value can be created for customers. Customers are valued above all else.
- Creating the Right Organizational Structure. Leaders build their organizations not around themselves but around the customer. In order to create consistently reliable, fast service, they structure people into teams that control and ‘‘own’’ each key product or service to ensure that processes flows quickly and flawlessly.
- Making Management Lean. The fewer the layers, the better, simply because the alternative will encourage more bureaucracy, meetings, policies, poor coordination, and withdrawal of power from the people who need it—those who serve the customer.
- Aligning Measurement and Reward Systems with the Mission. Most organizations have a mission, but few actually measure whether they are doing what they profess to want to do. Fewer still use measurement to motivate employees. By involving employees in the following, measurement will become a motivational force, not a tool for control and punishment:
- identifying the critical indicators
- allowing them to collect data
- displaying results for all to see
- meeting regularly to review results
- celebrating improvements
- involving employees in finding new ways to improve performance