May 2024
ABOVE & BEYOND
"It’s never crowded along the extra mile." — Wayne Dyer
Is your organization going the extra mile?
When you reach certain levels of success, it can be difficult to maintain. There are countless stories of companies that rise to the top, only to crumble in the years to come. Often when we personally reach a target goal, related to fitness or health, we revert to our original state months later. And in sports, teams that win a championship have an even harder time defending it and winning it again the following year. The danger of perspective is that we look back at how far we’ve come and give ourselves a pass when things get tough. It’s easy to say, “Well, what we are doing now is way better than what we were doing a few years ago.” This may be true, but it doesn’t consider where you want to be moving forward. It takes tremendous discipline to make it better every day (MIBE) and not settle for mediocre, just ok, or good enough.
Discussion:
As the landscape gets more competitive and budgets get tightened, it is more critical than ever for companies to protect the position and reputation they have earned. They must work hard to stand out in positive ways by going above and beyond what is expected of them. This month, we encourage you to have a discussion among your team about what makes your company unique. Think about all of the stakeholders that you serve, and what each department can do to create experiences that leave people saying, “Wow, that was awesome!” If you have done work answering the question: Why do we exist as an organization? It will be helpful to reference that in this discussion. You can either do a large brainstorming discussion with the whole group, or break into small groups to answer the questions and then bring everyone back together to recap. Small groups could be sorted by department so they can think about how they collectively go above and beyond.
Questions:
What makes us unique? What do we offer that no one else does?
Hint: It’s not great food and service
What are some examples of when you’ve experienced a company going above and beyond what you expected?
Seek out sources of inspiration for what your company can do.
Who are the people we currently serve? Is there anyone we should be serving that we currently are not taking care of?
Think beyond clients and guests i.e. venues, other vendors, team members, community, etc.
As a company how can we go above and beyond without changing our value proposition?
In other words, what can you do without spending a lot of money or charging customers more?
What could each department do to enhance the experience for the people we serve?
Are there things that are currently good, but could be awesome?