Exceptional Organizations (#54)

Organizations are everywhere – in sports, in the military, in the corporate world, and the non-profit sphere. Yet, few are ever considered exceptional. Think of the exceptional ones that you’ve been a part of or witnessed — I’m sure there were very few that were truly exceptional. From the exceptional organizations that I have seen over the years, I have come to believe that all organizations are constructed upon four components: leadership, teams, culture, and process. Because people make up each of these unique organizations, no exceptional organization is comprised of the exact same amount of leadership, teams, culture, and process. Even organizations that are exceptional at several stages of their lifecycle (think Netflix) may use a different combination of the four components to gain a competitive advantage. Getting the combination exactly right to turn a solid organization into an exceptional one is an extremely tough challenge for a leader and the people in the organization.

The four components — leadership, teams, culture, processes — forge an exceptional organization

To dig a little deeper into the four components, leadership is the action of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the task and improve the organization. Great teams are a group of people who work together effectively to achieve a common goal. Superb culture is defined as the beliefs, values, and behaviors that determine how an organization’s people interact and behave both inside and outside the organization. Finally, an operational process is an organized set of activities or tasks that produces a specific service or product, while a business process is a set of activities or tasks that produces a specific service or product. Together, these four components forge an exceptional organization.

I’ve talked about all four components during the last seven months. Here are some of the most popular posts to help you think deeper about each component:

• Leadership

  • The core of leadership — https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/the-core-of-leadership

  • The back brief — https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/the-back-brief

  • Written decisions — https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/written-decisions

• Great teams

  • Great teams — https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/great-teams

  • Great teams in the Tour de France — https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/great-teams-in-the-tdf

• Superb culture

  • Superb culture — https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/superb-culture

  • Four types of corporate culture — https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/four-types-corporate-culture

  • The After Action Review — https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/after-action-review-2

• Processes

  • The OPORD — https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/the-opord

  • Planning Process — https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/planning-process

What exceptional organization were you part of? What was its strongest component? Weakest?

Future blog posts will take a deeper look at exceptional organizations and not-so exceptional organizations to try to figure out what makes them so special.