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The Center for Business Excellence
What is Business Excellence?Asking ourselves this question is the first step in making it a reality. Excellence is, first and foremost, an inquiry into its own nature. What is excellence is a question we always need to return to.
Yet in our time it can be given a very practical definition. Our economy is not sustainable: it is not what is best suited for the planet, and it is not what is best suited for humans, either. As long as we do not have a sustainable and life-affirming economic system, there is still important and useful work to be done to bring this about
Redefining Business Excellence for the 21st Century
Our definition of business excellence revolves around the questions of responsibility and accountability in the major areas that companies have to deal with.
Being responsible and accountable for outstanding achievement in these areas:
Treating employees right
Giving customers real value
Producing quality products/services profitably
Being environmentally responsible
Being socially responsible
Persistence and Progress
A Conversation about Business Excellence
The background to this definition was a discussion amongst the members of the CBE's Leadership Team as to how to define business excellence for our time. Here are some of the highlights of this discussion:
Eric Balinski writes:
To me, what is still missing for CBE is our definition of what is Business Excellence?While the CBE website and the previous short CBE overview presentation tells a lot about what CBE is and does, there is NO definition of Business Excellence. As CBE starts to grow, it is my concern that without clearly articulating CBE's definition of Business Excellence, CBE will be influenced by whatever popular view or idea that comes our way. On the surface many of these will seem good, but without our ability to compare these views and ideas to CBE's standard of Business Excellence, we really won't know. What I'd like to suggest is developing stating the core values or principles of Business Excellence.
I have attached some sections of an article by Jim Collins which I hope will stimulate everyone's thinking about defining Business Excellence, including why we need to define it.
What Do we Hold to be our Core Values?
"Imagine a President of the United States wrestling with the challenge of a rapidly changing and increasingly chaotic world&emdash;among them, new global competitors rising in both the West and East, fickle and unpredictable voters, government bureaucracy whose systems are fast becoming outdated, information technologies fomenting upheaval in virtually every aspect of the society. At a Cabinet meeting, the President's top advisors are handed a memo that begins:
We no longer hold these truths to be self-evident. We can no longer afford to hold the belief that all men are created equal….
The Commander-in-Chief then speaks: "We need to take a hard look at the Bill of Rights. We certainly can't let those outdated values get in our way. Nothing is sacred anymore --- not freedom of religion, not freedom of the press, not the right to a trial by jury. We're in the Third wave now. We must change."
Of course, this is an absurd scenario. But I've created it to drive home a point: Reengineering and the other prevailing management fads that urge dramatic change and fundamental transformation on all fronts are not only wrong: they are dangerous. Any great and enduring human institution must have an underpinning of core values and a sense of timeless purpose that should never change. Give up the bedrock principles &endash;the "what we stand for" and "why we exist" &endash; of a great nation, and it will eventually cease to be great.
The critical question to ask is, If the world changed such that you were penalized for this tenet, would you continue to hold it? If so, then it is probably part of your core ideology. You will likely only find a handful of truly basic principles that you want your company to hold forever &endash; any more than five, and you're probably mixing up core ideals and business practices. Answer this question with clarity, and you'll know what you should not change. And that crucial knowledge, in turn, will then free you to alter everything else."
--- Jim Collins, Fortune Magazine, May 29, 1995; page 141
Ron Bell responded (Sunday, March 28/04):
Dear CBE Colleagues - a top of the Sunday Spring morning to ye! Some more thoughts:
A GRAND VISION FOR CBE &endash; beyond definitions of "business excellence" (both broadly and individually defined).
I think that the conversations we are having about defining business excellence, etc. have surfaced some good usable stuff, including Erik's and Mike's PowerPoint slides suggestion depicting:
1) CBE &endash; Supporting business people striving for sustainable growth
2) The Need between Business and Communities
3) How the Need can be Fulfilled
4) What is the Center for Business Excellence?
5) How does CBE implement its mission?
6) CBE's Collaborative Structure
7) The Direction of CBE
I agree (with Jonathan) that strategically and practically it's best for CBE to offer (a) a very broad definition of excellence, and (b) an invitation to other business leaders to define excellence as they perceive it and aspire to it in their companies. The only thing I might add for now is that any definition(s) include reference to "a responsibility of business for the whole by defining its own interest in a wider perspective of society"(cf. World Business Academy).
My sense is that we're laying down some sound practical/functional conceptual foundational track (that can be refined and fine-tuned) for carrying CBE forward into the future. My most immediate felt concern is for CBE developing a GRAND FUTURE VISION that can inspire, act as a "strange attractor" for individual and collective "entelechy", and freight the full meaning, depth, breath, and weight of humanity's desired collective future - ... what Jonathan referred to as his "broader philosophical framework" stating: "In the end I try to view things in terms of what I call 'the human project' &endash; the social and cultural evolution of the species &endash; and trying to think about the future of human civilization, e.g., over the next hundred years."
Crafting and displaying a CBE Grand Vision, (a sort of myth-adology) which is intentional, inclusive, comprehensive, global and futuric is akin to beginning with the end in mind. Ideally, it would have a "Wow!" visionary compelling edge quality to it, be capable of evoking dreams, and human hope and spirit and act as a transformational magnet for passion. Not everyone would or need be drawn by or to it, but many for whom "the pupil is ready" could resonate and align (and CBE could so align, network and partnership with resonating organizations and persons across wide geographical and related interest borders).
Buckminster Fuller's words are suggestive:
"You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."Many existing business and world woes are due in part to our living in a sort of global crunch-time, in a time "between the parenthesis", a time of transitional shifts, in between the-no-longer and not-yet. A colleague says we are called to be "edgewalkers." Joel Barker speaks of "leadershift" and uses bridge building as a metaphor, saying the 21st century leader will build bridges built of hope, ideas, and opportunities that help us move from where we are to where we need to be.
Some Suggestive Sample Statements to put into our "creative stew-pot:"
Heartland Institute: Vision = To fuel the evolution of leaders who choose to contribute to sustaining life (body, mind and spirit) in ourselves, our organizations, and the world.
Wisdom Business Network: Mission = The Wisdom Business Network delivers global learning, networking and support to business people who value work that is deeply meaningful, creative, profitable and fun. Inspired by these core values, we ignite their passion to build companies that meet the enduring needs of customers, employees and stakeholders. By achieving profit with meaning, our members become the model for 21st century business.
World Business Academy: (Dr. Willis Harman) In the latter part of the 1980's I joined with other businesspersons to found the World Business Academy. I did so as a result of two convictions &endash; convictions that I had developed as a result of 16 years spent working with strategic planning and research on the future. One of these convictions is that the modern world is undergoing a period of fundamental transformation, the extent and meaning of which we who are living through it are only beginning to grasp. The other conviction is that the role of business in that transformation is absolutely crucial. The Academy is basically a network or business executives and entrepreneurs who have come to similar conclusions, and who find a personal motivation to help this transformation come about smoothly in the process of discovering deeper meaning for their own lives.
...What is the task? If the action is to be pertinent to the needs, we must address the question: What are the tasks to which enlightened business is called? It is essential to realize that they are functions of history; they change with time. Right now, the most important task may be to promote broader understanding, and maybe some enthusiasm about, a change in paradigm that will be good for ourselves, good for relationships, good for the environment, and good for the planet....
If we are indeed approaching the point of "critical mass" where people suddenly realize ...that in some fundamental way the legitimacy of the present techno-economic system, and the values and beliefs that underlie it, has to be challenged, then the task shifts (from the awareness-raising task of the 1980s)....
Business has become, in this last half-century, the most powerful institution on the planet; it is crucial that the dominant institution in any society take responsibility for the whole ... This is a new role, not yet well understood and accepted. Built into the concept of capitalism and free enterprise from the beginning was the assumption that the actions of many units of individual enterprise, responding to market forces &endash;what Adam Smith called the "invisible hand" would somehow add up to the desirable outcomes. But in the last decade of the 20th century, it had become clear that the "invisible hand" is faltering. It depended upon consensus of overarching meanings and values which are no longer present. Given our present conditions, business has to adopt a new tradition of responsibility for the whole by defining its own interest in a wider perspective of society. Every decision that is made, every action that is taken must be viewed in light of that responsibility. This requires more than incremental adjustment; it calls for a fundamental redefinition of business as a social partner.
And that is what the World Business Academy is really about. It is not just another association of businesspersons to exchange information and foster collegiality. It is about investing ourselves in a task of historic proportions. Some will be called to this task and many will not. Those who are will find it extremely gratifying and fulfilling.
I firmly believe that there is no single factor more critical in influencing whether or not we achieve a humanely, ecologically, and spiritually satisfying future for this society and for humanity, than a free, aware, responsible and vital private sector &endash; profit and nonprofit. In all the ways discussed above, and more, business will have a shaping effect on the future. The Academy's self-imposed task is to bring as much enlightenment as possible to that shaping.
In conclusion, I hope we will create a future-oriented CBE CONTEXTUAL VISION (e.g. "the human project"), which is broad enough and long enough to freight the multiple potential evolving meanings and dimensions of CBE's intent, purpose, programs, people and related organizations.
It is said that, "once a mind expands, it never returns to its former shape."
What is the shape of a (comprehensive, global, futuric?) vision which evokes (y)our heartfelt dreams, hopes, and passion and is worthy of (y)our commitment of precious life energy? And is it something best kept for CBE internal communication/alignment and use or can it be incorporated into a public CBE statement? Are you satisfied with the existing for-public good stuff already on CBE's website, etc. or think we need something "more" which incorporates, yet distinguishes CBE from most other business-related orgs and is also "grander" in vision",...even though it might be more "background" than foreground in terms of day-to-day emphasis and operations (which may be more a felt need now and in the near term)? What, if anything, is still missing conceptually for you?
"Think globally, act locally."
Ron Bell
March 2004
8 Revere Drive, Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
908-306-9074 info@cbe-nj.org