Principle 1: Senior Executives as Role Models (Item 6)
The senior executives' constant role modeling of these Business
Excellence Principles and creation of a supportive environment are necessary
to achieve the organization's potential.
The Business Excellence Principles are extremely important for the
success of the company. You should have strategic plans to increase
your scores on all 10 Business Excellence Principles.
As we described in the Introduction, these Business Excellence Principles
are as fundamental to business as gravity. The better you are at applying
them, the better your company will perform. If you choose to behave
as though they do not apply to you and your company, you will perform
less well and possibly fail.
If you like, you can think of them as extremely important infrastructure.
That is, something in which you must invest in order to do well. The
more you invest, the better your company will do. If you don't invest,
you could fail.
Most companies are faced with a conflict. You are trying to run a successful
company and make money now and in the future. In order to do make money,
you have to spend time looking after your customers and the daily running
of the company. If you are looking after your customers and the daily
running of the company, you do not have time to work on building the
infrastructure needed to improve your company.
 On the other hand —
in order to be successful and make money now and in the future, you
have to build the infrastructure needed to improve your company. After
all, we know that organizations that get fewer than 300 points in
the Baldrige, European or Australian Business Excellence Frameworks
are going backwards and will not survive! So you are going to have
to make time to invest in improving the company, or in the long term
you won't survive.
This is a normal time-conflict situation for all companies.
The best way to resolve a conflict about allotting time is to elevate
the importance of the issue. That is
- make Business Improvement as important as daily operational issues
- determine an objective for each Business Excellence Principle
- determine what you must do most urgently, ie were you are weakest
and would make most gains, or where you are most exposed
- prioritize your objectives
- develop strategies and plans to achieve those objectives
- conduct cost benefit analyses and make your investment decisions
- allocate time and resources to implement the plans
- implement and project manage these plans
- measure that you are implementing the plans (ie, that time and resources
are being allocated and not being soaked up by other projects such
as daily operations)
- measure that you are meeting your objectives and getting the benefits
promised
If you do not do this then your business will not be aligned with the
Business Excellence Principles. If you do not make time to improve your
business, then your company will fail.
We often hear people say "I am already doing it". That may
be true – in one of the Principles or in some parts of your company.
Our experience and that of every evaluator for each of the major national
Business Excellence Awards is that very, very few companies are doing
any of this well. None are doing all of it well.
Can you take the risk? At the very least, do an assessment against
the Principles using the Questionnaire. Then you can see what you need
to do most urgently.
People also say, "I don't believe that the Principles are valid".
OK. But that is like saying, "I don't believe in gravity".
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