GREATNESS IS THE PRIZE
No one ever says they want to achieve mediocrity.
FranklinCovey has dedicated itself and its resources to understanding the challenge of greatness at perhaps an unprecedented level.
We have been deep within the operations of hundreds of different organizations. We have analyzed detailed survey data from hundreds of thousands of individuals, from thousands of teams, and facilitated thousands of team and individual discussions about this data and what gets in the way of achieving greatness.
We’ve partnered with great organizations such as the Coca-Cola Retail Council where we researched greatness throughout the retail industry. And we’ve built long lasting relationships with leading minds on the topic such as Jim Collins, Ram Charan, Clayton Christensen and Fred Reichheld.
What we found in all of our research is that everybody wants greatness, but few ever achieve it.
Greatness is possible. We’ll show you how.
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Learn the Barriers to Greatness
Everyone wants it. Hardly anyone gets it. This failing is due to three primary barriers to greatness.
Barrier 1: Greatness is not defined correctly. To many, greatness is a vague, open-ended term meaning exceptional financial performance. But greatness is much more than that—it's a term that should encompass your whole organization. Four distinct outcomes outline the definition of greatness, and each are required.
Barrier 2: Greatness is not measured effectively. Progress will only truly begin when a consistent measurement system is in place allowing everyone to "know the score." Your people are the catalyst in achieving greatness, as such it is essential they all know your organizational goals and are working toward them. A practice of effective measurement will create a goal propulsion system, where everyone is clear about the target results and where they stand in relation to the goal's success.
Barrier 3: The challenge of achieving greatness is underestimated. Although there are pockets of greatness in every organization, the key is to clone best practices and implement them with your core workforce. Variability between your high performers and your core groups needs to be reduced. This task can seen overwhelming but through team execution led by skilled managers, you will see great progress.
Next Page: Learn the Outcomes of Greatness
Through in-depth research and analysis we have identified and validated four immutable components of great organizations. We have found that each of these elements are required in order to build a great organization. They frame an ecosystem where, if even one is missing, the chances to succeed at the others becomes extraordinarily difficult.
Outcome 1: Great organizations outperform financially relative to the "strategic hand" they are dealt. The potential of a unit must be factored into the equation because once external factors such as store location or intensity of competition are stripped away, you will tend to see where your real talent lies.
Outcome 2: Great organizations earn not just customer satisfaction, but true customer loyalty. This type of loyalty drives true growth because customers enjoy doing business with them.
Outcome 3: Great organizations earn not just employee happiness, but true employee loyalty. When employees give their heart to an organization, magical things can happen. Barriers are brought down. Synergy is rampant. Trust is escalated.
Outcome 4: Great organizations don't just exist; they make a distinctive contribution in their community or the world. A good question is, "Would the world miss your organization if it disappeared?"
What would it mean to you if you could beat your competition in each of these categories? Organizations that do will experience a transformation unlike any known before. There will be a monumental shift from good performance today to great performance tomorrow.
Next Page: Learn the Inputs of Greatness
After you decide on your strategy and the people to execute on that strategy, the next most important decision is how your workforce executes – how they help push your organization toward greatness. The four inputs necessary to achieve greatness all lie with your people:
Input 1: Workers at all levels of the organization must be clear about and committed to the outcomes that define success—your organization's top goals.
Input 2: Workers must understand which of their actions will have the greatest impact on your organization's top goals.
Input 3: Mechanisms must be put in place to propel goal achievement, allowing workers to know whether or not they are winning or losing.
Input 4: Workers need to have a regular "cadence" of accountability and engagement around the goals. In xQ research, the very best teams meet regularly—weekly or daily.
Great execution is not about picking a perfect path and staying on it. With a focus on the inputs of greatness you are able to course adjust quickly if needed, keeping your people flexible and determined to win.
Next Page: Move Your Core Workforce
To unlock the potential of your organization, you need to focus on institutionalizing best practices throughout your workforce.
Everyone has top performers—the 20% that make enormous contributions—whether they’re defined as stores, sales people, or even different shifts within a department. To truly become great, you need to change the habits and traits of the 60% that make up the core or your workforce closer to the top 20%. No matter what else happens, if the bulk of your organization performs at an average level, they will bring down the entire organization, despite the efforts of the top performers.
To move the core of your workforce to a position of high performance, you must eliminate variance between the two groups. In other words, infuse consistencies from the top performers to the middle. Reducing this variance strikes at the lowest unit of productivity—an individual's personal contribution. Simply reducing this variance by half will propel you toward greatness.
The key to this whole process is the manager. This person’s paradigms must be changed from: average financial performance to superior financial performance; from stated customer loyalty to true customer loyalty; from average employee commitment to true employee loyalty. When the manager has the understanding of what greatness entails, they will be able to set better goals—aligning with the corporate strategy.
But greatness isn’t achieved solely at the individual or management level. It is achieved when everyone is focused and executing on the organizations top goals. Institutionalizing this discipline within every workgroup will help organizations able to take enormous strides, launching them past the competition. The focused horsepower of a team, once unleashed, is able to increase the amount of collective pulling weight, minimizing waste and speeding the journey toward greatness.
Next Page: The Next Step
Greatness is achievable and we’re ready to help you do it. Our consultants and representatives will be able to smooth the road ahead, and help guide you through the maze of questions yet to be asked.
We take each client engagement as a discrete assignment, applying our expertise to your unique situation.
One of our representatives will contact you about your goals and identify ways in which we can help you achieve greatness. Click Here
