Excellence. This seems to be the order of our days, not only in business, but predominantly there. A lot of terms go with excellence: operational, project, leadership, organisational and change, to name but a few. A coherent approach to excellence, however, is still sought after. A systemic perspective and a dedication to practice advances what is needed to calm down and refocus all these ideas of change, innovation and disruption. Business excellence integrates what is there already and adds what is still missing. The goal is a sustainably successful business that is viable for all stakeholders involved: those who own it, those who do it, those who benefit from it and those who have to live with it. And the surprising thing is, it is all in place like in a picture puzzle. If we shift the perspective a little bit, we can see it always consists of the following 6 elements:

1. Practice comes first. Business excellence is not a matter of the next management model or the next change tool. It is not about theory, it is about acknowledging what is already there and discovering the opportunities that come with it. Is not a question of deficits, it is a question of underutilised potential. Of course, this is different from company to company, however, contemporary management is embedded in a multitude of successful practices which can be built on and combined towards new ends.
2. Operational excellence, the rich tradition of Total Quality Management (TQM) and the excellence models that came with it like EFQM or Baldrige, can be seen as the foundation of anything that shall be called business excellence. The Lean approaches are the most popular today, and they have left the mere operations on the shop floor quite a while ago. Any kind of organisational activity became subject to a) process thinking and b) the insight that the standardisation along the famous 20/80 rational is universally beneficial. This accounts for volume as well as for criticality. Standardising 20% of the business activity grants effortlessly 80% of the achieved success.
3. Project excellence was the answer to low volume/high value production in infrastructure industries like energy or railways. Project excellence models like those of the Project Management Institute (PMI) or the International Project Management Association (IPMA) had been a great advance in establishing a very successful performance baseline. On top of that Agile became the decisive extra which sprawled into all corners of the organisation. The practice of reintroducing common sense to bureaucratic stiffness of projects was catchy and is generally needed to innovate and improve organisational practices.
4. Leadership and governance excellence are similar to the underlying ideas of Agile approaches overcoming the bureaucratic tendencies of management. Besides the management of operations, entrepreneurial practices as well as the provision of orientation and direction are needed. We may call it Captainship if the requirements of operational management, strategic entrepreneurship and normative leadership come together. In addition, the term “governance excellence” shall remind us that we are not only looking for excellence in the daily business of executives, but that a well designed and implemented organisational governance structure allows for smooth business activities. It allows for B-players delivering an A-team performance.
5. Organisational excellence benefits from the integration of operational excellence, project excellence and leadership excellence in the frameworks of organisational governance structures. Organising for performance lies at the very heart of organisational excellence. Reinventing organisations certainly benefits from Design Thinking as to remember that organisations are the result of organising. Any organisation can be designed, innovated and improved to realise viability beyond survival, to not only adapt but to lead an industry.
6. Change excellence is not what the consultants alone should bring to the table. The ability to manage change constantly is a key feature of any organisation. It is the ability to match internal capabilities and external opportunities. Which is to say that change is not a question of creating a burning platform or to implement a so-called best practice model. Systemic Change is more about realising what is there already to facilitate the next step towards a next practice, rather than never to arrive at the so-called best practice. Change excellence builds on continuous improvement and innovation at the same time. It creates an interplay between improving what you do to benefit from the learning curve and to do new things to advance when the learning curve flattens.

Business excellence is the systemic integration of all of the above. Yet, the ultimate challenge lies with meeting the social complexity that comes with it. It is not so much a question of technical aspects of integrating the activities of a business, and it would neither hit the mark nor do justice if we blamed it on the people. It is the micro politics and the culture of the organisation which need to be taken into account; it is the dynamics of the various interests and the beliefs in and of the organisation that need to be explored carefully and navigated skilfully.

In the 21^st century the digital transformation adds to the challenges, however, as all technologies digitality is primarily an accelerator, not a driver. It magnifies what is there already. It is an accelerator for change and failure as well as it is for growth and success. An excellent business will thrive, the others will perish.

It is a minor shift in perspective to see and understand, that what we need to meet business excellence is not a matter of venturing the unknown. All lies openly in front of us. It is a picture puzzle that flips from challenges to opportunities. What ought to be done, we hold it in our hands already.