World-class organizations focus on customer, employee

Work Process Improvement Today, Dec 1997 by Powers, Vicki J

How would you describe a worldclass organization? The American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) invited its International Benchmarking Clearinghouse members to share their definitions for a "high-performing, worldclass organization" in a brief survey. Many respondents created long narratives to capture the many sides to "world class." For company examples, 50 percent of the companies that respondents named as world class were mentioned only once. This illustrates the variety of companies and definitions that people assign to this term. Overall, five categories emerged as the most common characteristics of a worldclass organization: employee focus, customer focus, leadership, profit, and process.

HAPPY EMPLOYEES

Organizations that focus on their employees create invigorating environments where employee participation and development are key. This category, which significantly outweighed the other issues in the survey, illustrates the emphasis organizations are placing on cultivating and maintaining happy employees.

Some of the key phrases that respondents mention include:

* "continuing education investment;"

* "well-informed, self-motivated, highly trained employees;" and

* "happy employees."

Several of the organizations that respondents listed as world class in this area include Federal Express, Sewell Cadillac, and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Corp.

The term "happy employee" became a recurring idea expressed in many definitions from respondents. Organizations are experimenting with the right mix of training, benefits, empowerment, and alternate measures (such as flextime and child care) necessary to attract and retain the best employees. Unfortunately, some organizations give lip service to the concept that "employees are their greatest asset." Organizations that can communicate this message through their actions will be the ones to effectively achieve world-class levels in this area. As one respondent so aptly describes-"A worldclass organization always recognizes employees as essential to its success."

CUSTOMER FOCUS

Fifty-four percent of the respondents mention "customer" somewhere in their definition of a world-class, mature, quality organization. Customer focus is not new for many organizations-today it's just more outwardly expressed as a key focus. People are realizing that without customers, organizations can't exist. Several of the companies that respondents mention under world-class customer focus include Wal-Mart, Federal Express, and AT&T Universal Card Services.

"A world-class organization delivers what customers want, when they want it, with an appearance that enhances the customers' perception of the product/service," one respondent says. "This is accomplished by an organization that is continually focused on the customer and on continuous improvement in all aspects of the organization."

Customer focus can only be effective if the organization decides to truly listen to the customer. Employees who project that they know the customers' wants better than the customer will never survive in a customer-focused environment.

Other definitions focus on partnering with customers as an effective way to define customers' needs. Until organizations communicate with customers, they cannot be certain they are meeting or exceeding their customers` needs. Organizations first must understand their customers' needs, translate those needs into new products or services, and create new levels for service expectations.

LEADERSHIP

Without inspiring leadership, organizations have a difficult stretch to reaching world class. Respondents quote several phrases in the leadership category:

* "Visionary leadership"

* "Operates with integrity"

* "Leaders daily demonstrate quality commitment"

"A world-class organization has top leadership that provides, communicates, and demonstrates vision, direction, and a sense of teamwork." All of these verbs-"provides, communicates, and demonstrates"-from one respondent are key terms that are essential for a world-class organization. All three words go hand in hand. If a leader provides a direction for an organization but does not "communicate" or "demonstrate" its message, the message is lost. It boils down to that overused, but often overlooked, phrase-"walking the talk." Employees are proud when they can say their organization's leader uses actions to support its verbiage about quality.

Members also say leaders of world-class, quality organizations must be visionary to move the organization in the right direction. "It is an organization whose leaders create the future vision, dedicate themselves to delighting their customers, and anticipate their future needs," says one respondent. Leaders need to possess such an instinctive nature to know the organization's needs. Milliken, 3M, The IAMS Company, and Corning all are mentioned by survey respondents as having top-notch leadership.

PROFIT

Without profit, organizations cannot survive for the long term. But to be world class, organizations cannot allow profits to be the focal point. As one respondent says, "A balance must exist between profits/employees/customer satisfaction." If a focus on profits tramples the customer focus, the organization will make decisions for the wrong reason-strictly financial, rather than customer oriented.