This is the final week of competition at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. My family and I have watched the broadcasts and enthusiastically cheered on the athletes every night. Regardless of the sport. Regardless of who is competing. Regardless of the nationality of the athletes.
This week as we were watching the men’s 15km mass start biathlon event, I thought about how strange that really is. It’s not like we watch a lot of biathlon in the normal course of our lives. We don’t have a fantasy biathlon team or follow the Instagram accounts of famous biathletes. If I ran into Martin Fourcade at the grocery store, even next week, I’d probably walk right past him and not recognize him, completely oblivious that I was in the presence of one of the greatest biathletes on the planet.
And yet, there we were, fully engrossed, holding our breath, groaning at penalty laps, and cheering two biathletes from France and Germany across the finish line. I don’t think there was even an American competing in the final, but there we were, glued to the event.
Which made me wonder why.
I think it comes down to excellence. I like to witness excellence. Excellence in any form is attractive and interesting and enviable. Excellence in compelling. We’ll watch any sport, any athlete, in the winter or summer Olympics, because we are drawn to the power and inspiration of true excellence.
I feel the same way as a contractor; nothing is more important to me than excellence. I want excellence for our customers, excellence in our every day work, and excellence in our finished projects. I expect excellence from the people we hire and we strive for excellence as we work together as a team. Excellence is always the goal.
But do we really know how to measure excellence in our companies? Where is the finish line and are we winning? Do our employees know whether they had a gold medal day or if they are in an endless cycle of penalty laps? That is a question our executive team has been asking for the last year and a half, trying to determine what are the best predictors of success.
For us, we have seen that KPI’s are like magic. Pick the right KPI’s and get your team energized to hit those metrics and the results are nothing short of awe-inspiring. Having measurable goals–knowing where you really are in the race–makes all the difference. And it has been producing excellence that’s truly exciting to watch!
Xcelerate has the power to bring out excellence in your team and in your results. Whether it’s measuring and tracking KPI’s or seeing exactly where you can be more profitable, the unsurpassed analytics built into Xcelerate’s software will help you win the day…every day.
Learn how Xcelerate can restore your power to succeed.
