It’s what we put into our products or services that makes the difference. We don’t remember the products or services that were a bargain, but we do remember those that stood out from the rest. Excellence isn’t about spending less time and money, it’s about putting quality into your product or service, and making a difference.
Quality is what a customer senses right away. It’s what makes work fun because you know you’re doing something great. I hope you had the pleasure from time to time to feel the energy when you realized that you just made, or did, something amazing. It’s that feeling that makes putting in the effort worthwhile. Quality makes people proud to be part of the team, and customers want to come back.
Often quality just happens when people start building something new together. They can make it work because they all want it to work from the bottom of their hearts. When the setting is not new or when you work in larger companies it gets more complicated. The will to stand out reduces rapidly when people are just trying to earn an income.
When we don’t seem to be able to put quality in our product or service, this is usually managed by trying to make every part of the process replicable and by making every person that’s part of the process replaceable. That’s perhaps ok to save time or money, but it will never make your product or service stand out, and people will never feel the energy of doing something great.
I’ve often been in situations where the energy was gone and where all there was, was saving time and money rather than focussing on quality. So that made me wonder: Is that it? Is that what to expect? Or can there be more? Is there a way to change this? Is there something we can do to bring back the energy?
In fact, the answer is simple. You should always focus on quality. It makes work fun, and it means you’re taking your customer seriously. But of course, in practice, it is harder, especially in large organizations. It requires working in small teams instead of working on large scale. And people need to have responsibility for their work and the result.
The road towards excellence is to offer the possibility of being proud, of being able to say:
“Hey, do you see that? That’s what I accomplished together with my team. We worked our butts off, and it was worth it.”
See you on the next one!
