Modeling Excellence

One way to attain excellence fast is to model the behaviors and mindsets of people who are already successful in that field. You could model the business architecture of the market leaders too.

I have been fortunate to work with several top consultants, while leading organization initiatives in organizations such as TCS, FutureSoft and Aricent. In TCS, I worked with Ron Radice, a key architect of CMM, for a CMM Level 5 initiative. For ISO 9001, I worked closely with several consultants from KPMG. For People CMM, Srinivas T of KPMG did the assessment for us; I had interactions with Bill Curtis too. For developing the Sales System, I got inputs from Phaneesh Murthy, the legendary Sales Head of InfoSys and now CEO of iGate. For leading the Knowledge Management initiative, I got inputs from the Chief Knowledge Officers of the top IT companies, especially from Raj Datta of MindTree. For the OD initiative and the Balanced Scorecard, I got inputs from Raghu Ananthanarayanan of TAOKnoware. Rajesh Naik of QAI did the CMMI assessment for us (The best leaders are known for developing new leaders and by-the-way Rajesh Naik is in the Advisory Board of CXO Dashboards).

I have been trying to figure out what makes a great consultant, by observing these top notch consultants in the IT industry. Some of their attributes are

• Mastery of the subject
• Brings insights of high value
• Coaches well; they raise the bar every time they visit.
• Explains concepts in simple terms with analogy, metaphors and their own experiences which we can relate to easily; talking with them or attending their training sessions often generate ‘Aha!’ or ‘Wow!’ feeling.
• They command high respect and influence industry in several ways.

Modeling Excellence is a technique followed by several successful people. It is not blind copying, yet it involves some intelligent copying. Even in Innovation, you copy some ideas/practices to your own situations and get improved/break-through results. Modeling is a powerful learning technique for achieving personal mastery.

You can even model the business architecture of the market leaders to catch up with them fast. Balanced Scorecard gives a framework for modeling your business architecture. The methodology helps you to get crystal clear clarity on your business vision, mission, strategy, objectives, goals, and lead indicators of success. It helps you focus on what is strategically important for you from the four perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal Processes (operational efficiency), and Learning & Growth (capabilities). It gives you an approach to track your strategy and achieve business results with certainty.

Read more on Balanced Scorecard and CXO Dashboards at http://cxodashboards.com/

Beach Castle on the Marina Beach

I used to go to the Marina beach (Chennai) with my family usually in the evening. Once we decided to go in the early morning. We were all there before the sunrise. This was altogether a different experience. There was no crowd and no parking problems; the beach was calm and serene. Some people were meditating on the beach. On one side I could see a group of people, belonging to a laughter club, laughing in rhythm and exercising.

As soon as we reached beach, we started playing some games. I introduced some games to the kids; I learned them in the previous week in one workshop on NLP & Personal Mastery. My daughter showed her photography skills by taking some excellent photos of sun-rise (shown above). Hours have gone by in seconds!. When the kids were tired with games, they started building a beach castle. This time it was bigger than in the past, that probably showed their heightened enthusiasm.

It was nice watching how they built the castle; they didn’t start with any plans, but finally it evolved into a beautiful piece of work. Just by putting pressure on the sand, they could build the walls of the castle. My thinking was this. I know several small companies thriving and doing great even without any proper organization structure and processes. It is beautiful like the beach castle and is nimble. But, as the organization grows it requires more than the creativity and juggling of the entrepreneur. You can’t build an organization the way a beach castle is built.

When you want to grow your organization, you need active participation of many people in your ecosystem. Balanced Scorecard is a powerful tool for scaling up your organization. The methodology helps you to get crystal clear clarity on your business vision, mission, strategy, objectives, goals, and lead indicators of success. It helps you focus on what is strategically important for you from the four perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal Processes (operational efficiency), and Learning & Growth (capabilities). It helps you to build accountability at the next levels. It gives clarity to your employees on what to celebrate. It gives you an approach to track your strategy and achieve business results with certainty.

Balanced Scorecard is a great tool to build a sound architecture for your organization. Read more at www.cxodashboards.com.