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I never get why so many of us in business look for easy answers - a black or white declaration of where our business focus should be resting.

“It’s either productivity or excellence - which do you believe is the most important?”

Here’s what I think: it’s both.  And the tension of insisting on putting the emphasis on both forces us through the easy answer to find true insight.

Let’s set the parameters of this debate in the areas of:

• Managing results
• Activity management

Numbers or quality? The Two Sides

Managing results: No one is going to argue that results are essential and that it is critical that we set objectives and manage/measure to them.

The argument is that too often results are the only measure that gets focused on.  Basically, custodians of these businesses are driving while only looking in the rear view mirror.  It’s uncomfortable, you can’t go as fast, control of the car is harder to manage and you can only see where you have been.  Who knows what is in front?

Activity management: Business is quantitative, correct?  So let’s set numbers goals for activities.  The more activity, the more likely we are to get the desired results.  And as a general rule, that is the case. 

The risk, however, is two-fold:

• The team goes out with results-focused activity… every contact is a nail and they are the hammer. Ouch! Always being the “nail” in a conversation with a “hammer” leads to the risk of conversation-averse clients and potentials.
• Lots of activity…but is it the right activity?

Numbers or quality? The Pat Riley Approach

Pat Riley was a NCAA basketball player who was schooled at the University of Kentucky by Adolph Rupp.  Rupp was one of the most successful college coaches ever.  He was evangelical about excellence through fundamentals.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Rupp

Pat had a journey man career including playing with the Lakers, winning the NBA championship and finally playing with the Suns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Riley His coaching career was much more successful.  He has coached five NBA champions and is currently president of Miami Heat, who won the championship in 2006.

Pat had several key beliefs that framed his coaching philosophy:

• Players want to play at their highest level
• A good coach can count on players’ pride and their own drive to excel
• Every player knows their results, the league and the sporting press has reams of results data and statistics focused dominantly on results
• An unswerving commitment to focus on the fewest things that make the most difference

So his strategy fell out like this:

• Coach to the playbook
• Measure and reward “on target” performance and attempts
• Let results follow - professionals will succeed more than fail when they make attempts or “effort” at the right activities

He built a philosophy around “effort statistics”.  Once a team had the playbook down, he knew that solid, quality attempts would make the difference in end of game results.  Results and Activity. Productivity and Excellence.

So to get the most drive out of activity, he measured and rewarded:

• Attempted assists
• Attempted rebounds
• Attempted shots
• Attempted steals

Pat knew that the drive, competitiveness and professionalism of the players would be channeled through quality effort and as a consequence would drive results. If he gave positive feedback on the attempt, quality would eventually win out and results would follow.

Results are essential, but they follow. Excellence is driven through quality effort.

The key is knowing what to measure and not getting hung up on staring backwards at the results.

Smart attempts to steal the ball or bring down the rebound will pay off!

Put good things in and get good results out

I just read a Fortune article based on Q&A with Jim Collins of “From Good To Great“.It reminded me of something I had forgotten.

Who remembers this?: Eighteen of the companies Collins’ research team studied were Depression companies. FIFTEEN of them are still independent operations.

Timely to quote another key piece of work by Collins: something he calls Level 5 Leadership. It highlights a key component of the leadership required to create sustainable greatness.

“Level 5 leaders want to see the company even more successful in the next generation, comfortable with the idea that most people won’t even know that the roots of that success trace back to their efforts. As one Level 5 leader said, “I want to look out from my porch at one of the great companies in the world someday and be able to say, ‘I used to work there.‘ ”

To explore this further, read more at Jim’s Website