Why Being Good Enough is No Longer Good Enough

Leaders today are under the to perform, not just enough, but to be be remarkable - being good enough is no longer good enough.

Personal bests are not longer good enough. Top sports people know this - to them its gold or nothing. For most top sports people there really is no plan B - a top 10 certainly doesn’t cut it, I even had one sports person tell me "second is for tourists". For Olympic athletes its gold - they perform for one place only - to stand on top of the podium. If you are not there, you don’t want to be seen anywhere else. Better to leave people guessing that you may be better than the current number one, than to stand in the number 2 or 3 spot and have the proof visible to everyone.

The same standard is starting to surface in the business world in all areas - customer service, pricing, product development and of course, leadership.

Good Customer Service Is No Longer Enough

Everybody talks about the importance of good customer service, but few seem to follow through on it. Customers have more options than ever before-and feel less loyalty. They want products and services fast, cheap, and quick from whoever will provide them. The competitive advantage is now focused on your ability to KEEP customers and build repeat business. Social web makes it easy for customers to share their dissatisfaction - it takes mere seconds for bad press to spin around the globe.

Good customer service is no longer enough. It has to be superior, it needs that WOW factor of the unexpected. This means doing what you say you will, when you say you will, how you say you will, at the price you promised-plus a little extra tossed in to say "I appreciate your business."

Cheap Is No Longer Good Enough

Price is a very poor platform for competition - it’s definitely a short term strategy - unless you can back it up with other qualities. For instance WalMart’s success wasn’t because it provided goods cheaper than its competitors. This may have attracted the customers to buy, but if WalMart didn’t have the innovation to create one of the most cost efficient stock management systems ever, its profitability would have been in the ditch.

People today are time poor. They are working longer and harder to get the standard of living they now feel is the minimum. They want exceptional service and quality products. They don’t want any hassles. No returning products or waiting to deal with customer service. One of the primary benefits of any product is that it makes your life better somehow - and that benefit must be instant and easy to access.

Products Must Be Remarkable To Be Noticed

Businesses need to be remarkable and have remarkable ideas. As Seth Godin's said “in a crowded market, only those companies that stand out will survive. It is no longer enough to copy someone else's remarkable idea. Playing safe is too risky. The opposite of remarkable is Not "bad" or "mediocre" as you might expect - its "very good" or "good enough"..

Most companies limit their improvement focus on weeding out the bad and the mediocre ideas during development. But few go the extra distance to sort out the good enough from the remarkable?

So why aren’t more businesses churning out remarkable products - consider for a moment the typical product development process. You get out there and talk to customers to get insight into what they want, you turn those concepts into remarkable prototypes, possibly testing things no-one else has ever done before, and then You move onto the business case review. This is the crunch point where the CFO says: "great idea, I love it, but could you do it for less maybe?....I mean does it have to be so fantastic - good enough is good enough right?". Sound familiar?

Just how many remarkable ideas are dumbed down into good enough ideas, just to make them cheaper. A good enough product is WORSE than bad or mediocre, because it doesn’t get killed at prototype stage, meaning you lose the opportunity to launch something remarkable. Good enough fools you into thinking you are on the right track. Good enough keeps you investing in something that will never excite your customers. Ever.

The only way to transform your business is by being remarkable. Good enough is no longer good enough.

The Remarkable Leader

For leaders, an MBA is no longer good enough. Studies have shown that the value of MBA’s is dropping, with common criticisms amongst recruiters that business schools are failing to appreciate globalization, with graduates lacking cultural awareness and a refined global outlook. MBAs produce managers, not leaders. Leaders need high emotional IQ and strong communication skills to share the vision and energize their companies into action.

The message is clear. To be a leader:

Good intentions are no longer good enough
Good management skills are no longer good enough
Good enough is no longer good enough

Leaders today need to share the vision through actionable insight. They need to have analytical modelling tools that let them launch remarkable products, and provide remarkable service. They need reliable performance data that confirm they are focusing on the right things and divesting power with confidence. Remarkable businesses start with remarkable leaders.

If you are no longer satisfied with just being good enough and want to learn how to transform your business into being remarkable Click here to learn to Lead with SPI