Manufacture Your Day by STRIVING FOR EXCELLENCE

The tagline in my business is “Operational Excellence is not a Skill. It’s an Attitude.”

It is easy to speak about manufacturing excellence but in reality, manufacturing excellence starts with personal excellence.

Excellence doesn’t mean perfection. If something isn’t working, you must have the behavioural flexibility to do something different.

Do you work in an environment where excellence is a clear expectation? 

I grew up in a household where my parents reinforced certain rules over and over again:

• Be on time (= respect other people’s time)
• Look after the environment (put the garbage where it belongs, don’t idle the car, and clean up after yourself)
• Be polite at all times (say hello, please and thank you)
• Save energy (by turning off the light if you’re not in the room)
• Apologize if you did wrong to others (get over yourself and say “I am sorry”)
• Do your best in whatever you do
• Show initiative and challenge the status quo
• Smile more than you frown
• Do what you promise you will do
• Take responsibility for your actions

I grew up with so many rules in Austria and especially my mom was pretty strict to have my brother and me live by these rules. As a child (and at times even as an adult) I tried to bend these rules as much as I could but today I know that this strict education for personal excellence has shaped me into who I am today.

What does this mean for you and the people at work?

If there are no rules or rules that are not reinforced, people will make their own rules. 

It is interesting for me to observe how people walk late into meetings, not even apologizing for being late – and nobody says anything. Some people even walk into the office in the morning without acknowledging the people around them and think this is o.k.

Is it true that everything we teach our children seems to have lost significance at work?

Shouldn’t there be standards for excellence? Standards define certain expectations that eventually determine the level of performance in our personal and professional life.

Time to wake up.

When have we stopped acknowledging that it pays off in life to be a good human being?

Food for Thought:

How do you demonstrate excellence on a daily basis?

Please read the following article:

To be an extraordinary achiever, commit to daily excellence