The Kynection Inspirational Sides of ISO Series
In the previous article we looked at some ways to lift your business through innovation and customer focus. We discovered what buttons an organisation needs to press in order to move above their competition and achieve a sky scraping market-share using the example of KONE Elevators.
This week, as we are getting closer to the end of our series on the Inspirational Sides of ISO9001, we’ve decided to “kick some balls into the net” in a true crowd-thrilling manner! So, if you are curious about how you can take your game to a new level by focusing on your objectives and goals, join us and let’s see how they are doing it in Manchester!
To set the scene…
Imagine this story being told to you on a cold rainy day, at a local pub. You are holding your beer, your favourite team’s scarf around your neck with a matching beanie in your jacket pocket, you are surrounded by your close friends, and you are discussing a football match. Everyone is busy chatting and laughing and maybe, as it often happens, arguing a little over who’s favourite team is the best, when someone pipes up and says “My favourite team is Newton Heath LYR!”. This conversation could take many turns! But the most likely scenario is that you would have to Google “who is Newton Heath”?
Luckily today we have Google!
Officially formed by Newton Heath in 1878, the railway football club did not look either special nor particularly promising at first. It struggled financially and faced numerous rejections and defeats… The club members had little faith in their survival – until a miracle happened and their saviour appeared. His name was John Henry Davies. John’s investment in the club quickly led to the appointment of the club’s first manager and many other key figures, and the wins started coming! And in 1910 the Club was renamed to Manchester United.
It certainly was not an easy path and rather a bumpy road, which included internal club conflicts, two world wars and a horrible plane crash! And if that was not enough, the club changed owners, directors, and players almost as often as boots in a changing room.
But one thing is certain – focused strongly on their objectives and goals, they became unstoppable! And In 1968, England’s favourite Football club won its historical victory in the European Cup, making its growing fans around the world roar even louder ever since!
Manchester United is a Victorious Football Club! Their Trophy room contains some of the greatest prizes ever won in the history of football. These include the FIFA Club World Cup, the International Cup, the UEFA Super and Winners’ Cups, the UEFA Europa League and more.
But why are we even talking about football? Aren’t we supposed to talk about more relevant things – like stock control, delivery time, net profit and ROI etc? Well… Let us show you how the example of Manchester United can be very much relevant to the success of your business!
Clause 9 of the ISO standards 9001:2015, 14001:2015 and 45001:2018 is talking about Performance Evaluation – a matter of high importance in any form of professional sport.
The competition in the sports industry is immense; players have to compete all the time, and the benchmarks escalate so rapidly that for most of us they would simply seem out of grasp.
Players have to continuously improve their performance to be better than they were yesterday, better than challenging upstarts, and opposing team members, etc. And because of their popularity and that of their fans, they have to not only work on impressing the crowd with their physical appearance and performance – but also with their personal qualities and reputation – because the more likable the team is the more support it has, and the more successful a team member is – the more likely they will see contract extensions and improvements.
The power of setting objectives and goals
So the pressure on Performance Evaluation, setting-out of objectives and goals and internal and external benchmarking in professional sport is simply phenomenal!
In the ISO world, Performance Evaluation means monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation, customer satisfaction, internal auditing, management review of inputs and outputs and more.
So as a quick link between your business and football let’s take a moment to reflect on Leading and Lagging indicators. Lagging indicators in football will be points, fails, wins, losses, injuries on the field, number of supporters, revenue, environmental impacts etc. Lagging indicators come after the fact – therefore they are viewed as outputs and are mostly easy to measure.
Leading indicators in football can be:
- Training provided
- Players’ experience
- Players’ fitness
- Potential scenarios
- Stadium capacity
- Experience from previous games
- Weather forecasts
- Opponent knowledge
These are leading indicators – they will require a collection of information before an event takes place.
A business owner always has to re-evaluate and develop their strategy, and this is no different to a sports coach. They always have to keep focused on their objectives and goals – which does take an ongoing assessment.
So let’s assume, for a moment, that all the companies in your industry (or challenging sports teams) had the same level of preparation, training, skills, and fitness and had equal chances to play on their own field and always had perfect weather. What would be some of the things that could give them a competitive advantage?
The sports industry has a variety of ‘crowd-thrilling’ moments. There are little things that make watching a game a remarkable experience, like making a Slam Dunk in Basketball or hitting a Penalty Strike around the defencise wall. In more abstract terms our metaphor to business that defines remarkable might be a particular management approach, a technological advantage, a quality testing process or even your company’s values and public relations.
There are many things that make fans or customers choose you out of a large list of similar services. In the 70s Liverpool was more successful than Manchester, but Manchester was still a lot more loved and supported by the crowds. So the learning here is to find your ‘crowd thrilling’ attributes, add them to your leading indicators and regularly review and improve them with your teams in line with your objectives and goals!
And while you are doing that, we want to invite you to consider doing that with ONE SYSTEM, because we believe that ONE SYSTEM is your quickest long shot to success! Stay with us for the closing article of the Inspiration ISO Series where you will learn all about ONE SYSTEM for ISO by Kynection.
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