Consistency, time, and patience build momentum

Gene Mage

Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness. (Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist)

Hey buddy, want to buy some magic beans?

While some deride poker as a waste of time, if not an outright moral failing, I believe the game teaches many lessons. If it teaches us nothing else, it illustrates that we cannot, consistently, beat the odds. On the contrary, our knowledge and understanding of the odds, and the discipline to make a series of small decisions based on that understanding, can produce a very large pot indeed.

While Emerson observed that, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” those little minds often end up with the big bank accounts. Consistency does little to wow our friends and neighbors, generate media attention, or fuel our rising star. Consistency just quietly, persistently, and inevitably gets results.

In the world of poker, you often run into people who think they have a way to “beat the odds”. In business, quick-fix peddlers abound all the more. The quick-fix types chase after every new management fad in their quest for a dramatic “turnaround” or “break-out” strategy. They chase after “e-business” boondoggles and spend millions on “branding” initiatives. They go after gargantuan acquisitions as a short-cut to growth. Then, when those fads prove to be no magical elixir, they embrace “transformation” or “rightsizing”. Does the word “sucker” mean anything to you?

“The Flywheel and the Doom Loop”.

Over the past six weeks we have been exploring Jim Collins’ best-selling book “Good to Great” (Harper Business, 2001), and how the “Good to Great” principles harmonize with the Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria. The last principle, which Collins calls “The Flywheel and the Doom Loop”, ties each of the seven “Good to Great” factors together into a coherent whole.

Surprisingly, “Good to Great” companies eschewed flashy management strategies in favor of an agonizingly consistent day-by-day commitment to doing the right things. Not exactly the stuff that wins headlines or Fortune Magazine covers. But by exercising tenacity, and faithfully staying the course, these companies beat the pants off their competitors. Momentum gathered gradually, with evolution giving way to revolution only after long patient years of preparation. The flywheel stores many small efforts into one big force. The doom loop finds leaders lurching from strategy to strategy searching for a magic pill in reaction to each new failed “program”.

Echoes in the Baldrige criteria.

What do the Baldrige Award criteria have to say about “The Flywheel and the Doom Loop?” The Baldrige “Leadership” category “focuses on the actions of your senior leaders to create and sustain a high-performance organization.” The Baldrige assessment leaves the choice of those actions to the judgment of the reader. The criteria do, however, inform those choices in some important ways.

In the “Strategic Planning” category, the Baldrige criteria emphasize the importance of considered action based upon a solid understanding of the market, rather than reactions to events without understanding. We also read an explicit imperative to achieve “alignment and consistency” through processes and measures. The “Market Focus” and “Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management” categories also make clear the need to act based on understanding. In these ways, the Baldrige criteria very much echo those articulated in “Good to Great”.

One important difference.

But the Baldrige criteria and “Good to Great” part ways in one very important dimension. Good to Great companies never explicitly focused on “alignment” and “motivation”. These worthy organizational goals were implicit in consistent leadership behaviors. As the “Good to Great” organizations began to gain momentum and put “wins” on the score board, motivation and alignment happened naturally.

By contrast, I fear the Baldrige emphasis on leadership communication and processes as the means to achieve “alignment” lead some to adopt a “program” approach. Similarly, the Baldrige treatment of “motivation” places particular emphasis on education, training, and “staff satisfaction” strategies that are usually interpreted by employees as flavor-of-the-month initiatives.

Conclusion.

The Baldrige Award process can serve as a detailed, informative tool for creating lasting change, or it can become just one more “Doom Loop” initiative. The character and choices of the leaders involved will be the deciding factor. And when it comes to the topic of leadership character and choices, you will not find a more eloquent or compelling book than Jim Collins’ “Good to Great.”

Got a business or leadership challenge? Ask Syndicated Columnist Gene C. Mage at http://www.makingitwork.com .

For more information on Jim Collins visit http://www.jimcollins.com . For more information on the Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award, visit http://www.quality.nist.gov .