Setting standards to achieve excellence in business performance
Excellence is a journey because every time you reach it, you realize that the original standards you set, which you believed were a measure of excellence, are naïve and immature as you look ahead from a higher position than the recent peak you have attained.
Listen to this podcast from The Money Show where Pavlo Phitidis unpacks excellence as a philosophy to deliver your legacy as a business owner.
It’s very frustrating. That future position, which today you view as excellence, will be disappointingly below par once you’ve reached it.
Heisenberg understood this. He called it the uncertainty principle and it stated that you cannot measure anything objectively because as you measure it and get the results, it and the circumstances around it have already changed.
It’s a wonderful conundrum if you embrace and appreciate it and if, only if, excellence is something that matters to you. So where does it begin?
If we appreciate that we have one life to live, our personal philosophy about that life matters enormously. Time starts at birth, and marches steadfastly and uncompromisingly to death. Within that very short period, what do you actively want to achieve? And once you’ve defined it, at what standard do you want to achieve it? Of course, this is ethereal and philosophical but then so is life as a whole. Most people are born and die and leave little impact behind but for a few family and friends. There is nothing wrong with that, or is there?
However, for a business owner, it might be different. A business is more than a few family and friends. It is, in effect, an incorporated party with a life of its own, birthed by your fortitude and care and often driven by your vision. A vision of the business but equally, one of yourself and your role in society. It’s more than just economy, it’s also a legacy.
A few antidotes to eroding time as you strive towards excellence include:
- Attain insights faster by setting more milestones rather than a few long-range big ones. Accelerate the cycle of evaluation and active questioning.
- Anchor your activity in a goal. A big one. Test your truth by stating it to people. Create a measurable frame to measure your standard of excellence.
- Get perspective. Draw off a source that can give a helicopter view and who can compare. Objectivity is key to prevent falsehoods or time erosion.
- Recognize the measure that’s simplest and most objective – in a competitive environment, it’s often number of clients.