Within a Culture of Excellence: The Embodiment of Pristine Operational Standards

Kenneth Wilbanks

September 2005

The prevailing condition that I encounter as an educator and advisor to the independent home channel is the failure to set and maintain high operational standards in an organization. For me - a self confessed neat freak - the benefits of living and working in a facility that is clean as a whistle is frighteningly second nature. I just feel better whenever I am in tidy surroundings. As a shopper I find the more pristine stores a pleasure to patronize. I just love to stroll through a store filled with neatly merchandised shelves. It appeals to my internal sense of order in the universe. I am uplifted. I am not alone in this regard. Nobody likes to shuffle through a mess to shop or work in a store. Nobody enjoys an environment where clutter and disorganization prevail. Nobody with high personal standards will consider aligning with an organization that emanates stress from a complete mess. Potential customers won’t. Neither will potential employees. The consequences of poor standards cut across the executive houses of finance, human resource development, marketing and operations like a razor. As you read on, consider these thoughts, “Where do these principles and situations apply to me and my company?” And, “What do I need to affect an immediate and lasting positive change in our own company standards?” For clarification, some of the features of an organization with disciplined execution are:

  • The absence of confusion and clutter throughout your stores, warehouses and yards, vehicles and equipment, with a particular eye on safety standards.
  • The obvious well executed routine of optimum daily maintenance.
  • A conscientious reinvestment strategy covering facilities, buildings, and equipment, evidenced through visible stewardship of immaculate properties.
  • Constant refinement of your unique merchandising and marketing vision.
  • The agreement among employees, from executives to the most humble entry-level staff, that both organizational and personal prosperity is at risk whenever standards of execution are allowed to slide.
  • The focus on creating a culture of excellence because it is the right thing to do.

Organizations with high standards APPEAR PRISTINE AND OPERATE PRISTINELY.

Image and substance are equal components of an evidenced culture of excellence. What’s the alternative? You could pursue potential customers and employees with a battle cry of, “Wait, wait! We really are a lot better than we look. I promise!” This is an interesting but obviously ineffective romance strategy. Face it, you can tell a lot about a book from its cover.

I instructed a client this past spring suffering from many of the ill effects of low standards. This full line building materials organization is a Benjamin Moore paint dealer in a protected market that is RIPE for tons of painting sales. With the product and marketing resources of a recognized national leader in coatings as a partner and a community that is ripe for interior and exterior remodeling, this company could be and should be dominant in this category. The owners and executives wonder why this isn’t the case. Imagine a set of warehouses and stores that haven’t seen a coat of paint in decades. Great chips of paint hanging off all the buildings including the store itself. Paint that is still sticking to the structures is encrusted with dirt, petrified cobwebs and road grime. There is a small BenMoore sign, not visible from the primary road but at least it’s up. On the particular day that I am there some pathetic issue with the hardware co-op partner has the sundries categories blown to the devil with a shotgun. The paint shelves are poorly stocked. Pegboard and empty peg hooks are the featured products. Poor execution and low standards are quite apparent. No need to wonder why you aren’t selling paint when your buildings need painting, you are out of paint and practically out of brushes, rollers and drop cloths, too.

If you have neither a vision, strategy, nor target of disciplined excellence, then consider these consequences. You will lose your best employees over time as your operational standards slide continuously downhill. You will also lose your best customers as your facilities, merchandising efforts and employees lose polish and appeal. Then you PERSONALLY lose energy and finally lose heart as your business falls in decline. Unexpectedly, some other player in your market wakes up first to the benefits of a vigorous standard of execution. Then a national player like Depot or Lowe’s enters your market aiming to kick your butt. What in the world’s happening? I’ll tell you what’s happening. Your organization isn’t getting polished every day. A series of small oversights culminates with insurmountable overhaul. Personal and organizational disciplines aren’t present. You think to yourself, “My stores are no worse than any of the other independents in the area so I am OK.” This particular market wide philosophy infers that you are secure resting within the comfort of communal mediocrity. It is anything BUT secure. You are dangerously at risk. Everywhere I see this mediocrity-driven worldview erode standards within every aspect of an organization’s operation. I see it in inadequate wage scales and benefits, in poor facilities upkeep, in weak merchandising, in the absence of powerful marketing strategies and everything missing in between. I see it when industry players honor seemingly sacred traditions with a battle cry of “That’s the way we’ve always done it” to the point of obsolescence. They continue to shout it right into extinction.

Strategy and discipline count in our game bigger than ever. Why? Because professional people crave professional surroundings and you will not win this game without high quality professional people who possess high personal and professional standards. Glowing standards that include pristine facilities count really big in attracting and retaining talent. Customers, especially pro customers, are looking for supplier partnerships that reflect high corporate esteem. Employees and customers have more choices than ever. People who value themselves and what they have to offer in loyalty and financial support will pick and choose. When they can choose an organization that is more professional they will do so. You do. We all do.

On three occasions in this past year I have worked with organizations where the employees hesitate to admit or hide the name of the place where they work because of the poor condition of the facilities and low professional standards. Can you imagine? I can, after seeing the companies concerned. I asked the owners and executives in each situation, “Would you have your children work here if you were not the owner?” They all answered, no they would not. I asked if they themselves had a viable choice to work somewhere else, would they. All were so despondent that they said they certainly would. These were the owners and executives of multi-million dollar regional organizations who admitted that they would recommend to their sons and daughters and would even choose themselves to go and work elsewhere because of the environment and the standards. What a story. What a sad and avoidable story.

If all those horrible eventualities don’t motivate you to pursue a higher degree of operational excellence in your organization, consider that each risk can easily be translated into a potential opportunity. Through superior standards you can attract and retain talented employees and superb customers. Your company can be refreshed and invigorated by an environment radiating orderly operations where clean is king. Greater morale, healthier P&L statements and abundant futures become far more likely with cohesive attention to detail. No matter what market changes occur, you will retain and extend market share, even facing tougher competition, when facilities are bright, your shelves well stocked and well maintained, and your employees filled with pride for being part of a visibly professional organization. The good news is that bad standards are easily remedied through developing a strategy and pursuing that strategy with discipline. While the most successful strategic initiatives for improving execution will naturally be extremely comprehensive across all areas of corporate structure, here are a few general points for focus.

Demonstrate Up Front Leadership Through Executive Involvement.

There is always a direct correlation between executive involvement and the degree to which an organization exhibits a standard of excellence. To meet a high standard of excellence calls for high frequency and intensity of thorough facilities inspections and active daily involvements in merchandising and maintenance. Remember those companies where the employees were ashamed to be recognized as employees? Those executives never had a practice of routine store walks where the leadership teams go together and “face the music” of operations. I took them all on THE WALK, several walks in fact, and opened their eyes to what their customers and employees were experiencing daily. This was not a fun experience. One executive said it was the worst two days of his career. I have heard that constantly. But as unpleasant as it was, once eyes were opened then the uplifting work of improvement began. If you don’t have a culture where your operational truths are continually expressed, then you probably have enormous problems. Hiding out in offices and worrying will not change them. It will make them infinitely worse. So be sure to routinely walk right into the middle of the operation, especially the “hot spots.” Basically the more involved your leadership style, the quicker, deeper, and more lasting the transformation to excellence will be.

Establish Optimum Operational Standards.

We have all heard and used the terminology of a “minimum acceptable standard.” I am convinced that in any venue of life if a minimum standard is applied high achievement will never be realized. The concept of optimum achievement may seem to be a philosopher’s trick. It is. It is a trick that works. Imagine a world-class athlete establishing a minimum routine of conditioning. Will that person ever become and remain a champion? No way! Champions become and remain champions by designing systems and habits that promote optimum and not minimum achievement. There is no “wiggle room” in a minimum standard. Human error and unexpected market occurrences have a tragic effect on achievement when the finish line is set shallow. Figure out how to express optimum performance goals in all the areas of operations. Develop a strategy that aligns your processes and your people from the deep place of values and vision. Instruct, reinforce, and draw your staff into the game, and then sustain peak performance through fostering disciplines and through celebrating individual and team successes.

Get Everyone Involved.

A compelling feature of high achieving teams is that all players are on the field and not on the bench. All players serve the established vision and mission because their personal values are in harmony with those of the organization. They contribute from their hearts. They really care. They contribute from an understanding of the personal and organizational benefits of great execution. They do it without being driven by a relentless authoritarian voice. Leaders that must drive the heck out of people to keep a company moving on an initiative don’t have a team. They have a flock of sheep, not a highly functioning, collaborative team contributing to a visionary mission filled with noble values. But some leaders prefer herding sheep to moderating proactive independent agents. Control is addictive and feeds hungry egos. Maybe your organization has been in decline so long that the only remaining employees are those who need to be heavily managed. Certainly an authoritarian component has its place. A no-variance voice is exactly appropriate in an emergency situation. You might consider just how often your organization suffers the drama and distress of an operational emergency. Does anyone really need constant drama or distress? Instead of pursuing the exhausting drama, devote renewed energy to refining vision and values, aligning your systems, establishing optimum standards and encouraging collaborative contribution. I can assure you that influencing and guiding a values driven organization is far more powerful, certainly more sustainable, and infinitely more satisfying than herding sheep.

Establish Routines that Support Achievement.

An excellent mentor and dear friend gently reminded me over twenty years ago that “the absence of a plan does not constitute a strategy. It ensures failure.” Your efforts cannot be catch-as-catch-can, random or wheedled as you go along. Your efforts cannot be hit or miss. It takes discipline in every area of operation. Discipline happens through patterned repetition. Do anything repeatedly and it will become a habit. Do anything repeatedly with passion and it will become an unshakable part of character. Do anything with passion and repetition that is in alignment with your mission and with your values and your vision of the future, and no force on this planet will encumber your achievement. The trick is always practice, practice and more practice. Prune away habits that interfere with excellence and substitute ones that do. Sacrifice traditional routines that no longer serve for ones that are current with today’s transformed market factors. If no systems exist to stay in stock, or to keep facilities fresh and safe, or to recruit and retain the finest employees, THEN CREATE ONES THAT DO. It is really no mystery. Start small. Build on your successes. Take contributions from everyone and you will make progress. I swear that you will. But you must have a process that you repeat again and again until your new initiatives become powerful new traditions.

Get Help.

A significant part of my practice as an educator and advisor is spent conducting tours for operational assessments and strategic planning. My buddy who teases me calls these educational tours “The Walk of Shame.” I am afraid that too often this title does fit the exercise. It is humbling to confront situations with a competent coach. You can come to work day after day and walk by the same issues until one day your eyes don’t even focus on the problems anymore. You need a jump-start if it has been forever since excellence has existed in your organization or if your leadership has been derailed for any reason. With my decades of experience sniffing out inefficient or even dangerous operations, it seems to me amazingly simple. I remind you that simple does not mean easy. It seems simple because I have the practice of seeing, the discipline of repetition, and the responsibility of teaching. I have conducted hundreds of these training walks in my career and the resounding consensus is that a new set of eyes and the guidance of an experienced industry coach make all the difference. I know it is so. Through masterful instruction old eyes can see again. It is a matter of re-sensitization. The expert review of standards is profoundly easy provided you know how to see. This more skillful way of seeing is a practice that must be passed from sage to student.

I recall a certain walk with a team where the entire warehouse and yard operation was not only ineffective but also unsafe. I mean really unsafe: Bare extension cord lying in a puddle of water at the 220 volt table saw; Holes in the floor of second and third levels in warehouses; Dozens of bent and cracked steel arms on the lumber trees, most of which were overloaded. The trouble was that everyone had been conditioned to overlook and ignore these points of friction in the system and was no longer able to see or respond to these potential catastrophes. What I saw was a totally disorganized yard taking way too much effort and too many payroll dollars to run it, to say nothing of pathetic service levels, and it was unsafe. More frightening is the likelihood that all of these points of friction will line up just right for disaster. Studies of severe mountain climbing accidents find that most tragedies are not because of one big issue. Usually scores of little oversights, all unrelated, all coalesce and BOOM! Tragedy strikes.

These or similar little points of friction can be found in various stages of devolvement in your operations and averted or avoided with the use of a business coach performing an operational assessment, facilitating strategic planning and conducting educational debriefings. Experienced eyes new to the situation and the skillful response from a business coach can engage your corporate members to see and correct problems before they become overwhelmingly large. This is extremely difficult to do for yourself without help.

I have been a martial artist for decades with the benefit of extraordinary teachers. Occasionally I get a new student who admits to never having had any instruction but is self-taught. As my highly trained students dominate the self-taught newcomer on the mat, I always shake my head and remember an old saying, “Do not suppose to teach yourself for surely you will be poorly taught.” Unconditioned talent is a waste. While inborn or self-taught talent is great, and while it may get you into the game, there is no substitution for delivering yourself into the hands of the teacher. Conditioned talent is indomitable.

The call to stewardship

As a leader, the call to stewardship requires that you both sustain the profitability of your organization and that you care for the people in your charge. The people in your charge include your customers, employees, and vendors. They all deserve pristine environments and abundant futures. Establishing and supporting high standards rises to that dual call. Failure to rise to that call means that you may be in charge, but you may not be the leader you imagine. It is unconscionable to expect customers and employees to spend any time in unsafe and ill kept environments. The inspiration is to run a pristine organization that accommodates sustainable profitability and also honors our humanity.