Opening Pandora’s Box:
Prerequisite for Excellence

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Center for Public Excellence’s 2015 Excellence conference in Orlando. It truly was inspiring to be among people who are striving to ensure their fire departments provide the highest quality of service to their communities, and to be the best possible leaders. Here are three of my take-aways from that experience.

1. The quest for excellence and continuous improvement requires steadfast resolve. It is not for wimps.

   In Greek mythology, Pandora was given a box by the god Zeus, who warned her never to open it. When her curiosity got the best of her and she peeked inside the box, all the evils that had been missing from the world rushed out. Many leaders are afraid to open their Pandora’s box because they are afraid of what they will find. Yet not facing all the facts means you cannot address what’s wrong, or improve what you do well.

2. Honest self-assessment is the cornerstone of excellence.
   
   One need only consider the case of the Charleston Fire Department (CFD) to see that no matter how dire the situation, facing the facts can effect transformational change. Captain David Griffin told the story of the nine firefighters who lost their lives on 6/18/07 because the department refused to recognize and address the on-going serious issues that caused this predictable and preventable tragedy. As one of the first firefighters on scene that day, Captain Griffin was so mired in the dysfunctional culture that even the devastating loss of so many of his colleagues and the public opening of the CFD’s Pandora’s box by outside investigators didn’t stop him from leading the resistance to change. Yet over time the department found courageous leaders who enabled their personnel to face their individual and collective deficiencies and effect a huge culture change. Today, as an advocate of change, Captain Griffin reported that the CFD is on track to earn the fire service’s coveted credential for excellence in 2015.

3. Excellence and continuous improvement are processes, not events.

   One does not “achieve” excellence; it is something that must be earned over and over. As one speaker noted, the status quo supports mediocrity. Because your customers and your employees deserve better than mediocrity, you cannot afford to rest on your laurels. There must be a culture of excellence, a strategy that provides a systematic way to achieve it, and an infrastructure that supports it over time. You elevate performance by hiring smart people and ensuring your leaders are the best of the best, by establishing a robust audit system to help you stay the course, by catching people doing things right and reinforcing those behaviors, and by uncovering the causes of bad behaviors, then taking steps to stop them.

There are many reasons why you may decide against leading your organization through a formal accreditation process. However, there is no reason why you cannot establish a self-assessment process to identify what you must do to provide the level of excellence that your customers and your employees deserve.

What steps will you take today to increase the level of your performance?

To find articles and resources that may be of value to you, I invite you to visit my web site at www.BusinessAlignmentStrategies.com and my blog at www.OptimizeBusinessResults.com.

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