Is your company exciting or perfect?

One of the thought models I use with leadership teams is the typical business development curve between the two dimensions “Enthusiasm” and “Perfection”. The typical life cycle of any business starts out with high enthusiasm and high imperfection of anything they do. 

Over the coming months and years, enthusiasm will decrease. If the leadership team doesn’t increase the performance of their entire operations, then the company will surely get out of business. Low enthusiasm + low performance = end of the game. 

When leaders implement systems to run a high-performing operation, they might well become profitable and can stay in business for a long time. However, as long as enthusiasm continues dropping, they always will operate only at a fraction of their possibilities. 

So, the key question for any sustainable peak performance is simply this: how can you keep up enthusiasm, even when the business becomes more “perfect”? 

Here are three proven ideas: 

1. Create clarity.Elicit at least once a year WHY people – including yourself – should be enthusiastic about your business. In my observation, 80 percent of leaders are only moderately or not at all excited about their business. This is amazing! Why should people spend most of their awake time for a job that is not emotionally appealing?
2. Resolve the conflict.Many people have a hard time to understand that high productivity and performance is NOT contradicting enthusiasm and creativity. The opposite is true. As a leader, you must clarify that you want an outstanding organization with both enthusiasm and high performance. Sounds obvious? Most leaders struggle with this point.
3. Get support.Yes, nobody is good at everything. To become outstanding, you must systematically enhance your worldview and capabilities with external expertise and perspectives. Otherwise, you’ll stay average. This, too, is a huge obstacle for many leaders.

If you are serious about raising the bar for your organization for both enthusiasm and performance, we should talk about my support options.