Category Archives: Client Service
How Successful Companies Achieve Excellence
I’ve been a business owner and consultant for nearly 25 years. Over the years, I’ve become a keen observer of businesses and love to learn what makes them tick. I find myself filling out a mental evaluation card on just about any business I encounter. I’m particularly inquisitive about what makes a company great (or not) and what the key drivers of the business are. In other words, how companies achieve excellence.
Every once in a while I encounter a business that really catches my attention for the excellence they exude. I know for a fact that excellence doesn’t happen by accident. So, when I see an organization behaving in this manner, I immediately start looking for root causes and asking questions:
- What have they done to make themselves different?
- What is their hiring philosophy?
- Do they have discipline?
- What is their company culture?
- Are they really successful or just pretending?
- Are they investing in building something extraordinary or just playing for a payout?
If you learn to look for the nuances, the answers to these questions are often right in front of you.
Small Improvements Make a Big Impact.
“If you take care of the small things, the big things will take care of themselves.” -Emily Dickinson.
Little things, when done with rigor, can have a big impact. Working thoughtfully, instead of reactively, shows that even the small things are important. We don’t want to be just fixing and responding to issues and requests; we want to turn those issues and requests into product and process improvements.Read More
Smudge Control: 6 Tips for Taking a Good Company to Great
by John Toepfer
I spent time at the Chicago Auto Show this weekend. I enjoy getting a look at all the latest feats in automotive engineering; the new Corvette’s design, the economy of the plug-in Focus Eco, the luxury of the Jaguar XF. Finding a billion dollars of R&D on display for close inspection under one roof is pretty close to heaven for me. I also enjoy studying merchandising and marketing of cars. There is enormous effort put into the presentations at this show and what we see tells us a lot about the manufacturers and the market.
As I wandered the rows of gleaming and carefully positioned vehicles, I couldn’t help but notice how many of those pristine polished paint jobs were besmirched by smudgy hand prints – sometimes in the oddest places too. (Timmy, did you have to smear your churro on that rocker panel?)