Everyone likes to be part of a winning team.
This is true for sports, business and throughout life’s activities. The old ABC’s Wide World of Sports quote during the program introduction summed it up well, “the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat.”
I believe there are four factors necessary for winning and achieving excellence at all times: leadership, people, systems and culture. I’ll focus on culture and some of the concepts that help to establish a culture of excellence.
Many companies are good at one or more of the four categories listed above. However, the truly superior companies master them all. If you are mediocre in any one of them, you will never achieve world-class performance on a consistent basis.
To win in any organization, you must be the best and strive for excellence in safety, profitability, reliability, quality, efficiency, consistency, cost management and customer satisfaction, as well as ESG objectives — all of these. Excellence in performance for all of these areas of an organization may sound overwhelming, right? But it doesn’t have to be; keep the approach well organized and clear for all.
One of the foundations for achieving operational excellence is establishing a strong culture in which everyone actively participates. Zero defect, a way of thinking and doing that reinforces the idea that defects are not acceptable, is a powerful leadership tool and if approached on a personal level, each person can clearly understand the concept and live it every day.
A considerable number of companies use terms for the zero defect concept and these terms are all good. The point is the theme should be memorable, actionable and become engrained in everyone’s minds daily. The theme should impact behavior. Pick one that works for your company and stick with it. I like to use the term “Goal ZERO.”
Goal ZERO is actionable and impacts every individual in an organization. Goal ZERO becomes a global code word for “doing the right thing at all times.” Vitally important, it is about compassion and caring for your people. A Goal ZERO mentality is powerful and provides simple clarity of expectations across the entire organization, becoming a way of life for an everyday approach to safety, reliability, quality and everything else.
In the beginning, you will hear from people, “It’s impossible for such a large company to have ZERO defects.” However, that isn’t the point at all. ZERO is possible for each of us individually on any given task. Goal ZERO is not about the company as a whole, it’s about you and me individually, task by task. For example, if each person works each day error free, the entire company will operate error free, one day at a time. People begin to say, “Goal ZERO begins with me.”
Undoubtedly, Goal ZERO changes the entire mindset of every person in the organization. People are smart and can accept principles if they understand “why” the principles are important and have some data to back them up. People begin to change their belief about their behavior. They know and believe they can achieve Goal ZERO performance and expect everyone around them to do the same.
Within a short time, as Goal ZERO catches on, you can see the passion and pride in people as they begin to personally live it. Injury rates rapidly decrease and so do operational and quality incidents. A Goal ZERO culture impacts everything throughout the organization. People work with a Goal ZERO attitude because they want to, not because they have to.
Sadly, many companies that experience a series of problems or a major safety or quality incident hear leadership say, “We need to get back to the basics.” Why do organizations have to keep learning the same lessons over and over? You can be proactive in your organization by creating a good, simple management system and an effective Goal ZERO culture that becomes the foundation for your organization. This then allows leadership and people to focus entirely on flawless execution. Once you have an effective management system, a strong culture, well maintained assets, strong leadership and competent, well-trained people, you’ll never have to “get back to the basics” again.
Sam Smolik is the author of the new book, "The Daily Pursuit of Excellence." For more information, visit samsmolik.com or email info@samsmolik.com.
