Where is your bar?

No…not your Cheers from days of old. No, I mean your performance bar. When I work with clients, the first question I ask to begin the discovery of how I can best help them unlock excellence throughout their organization is:

“How do you measure the fulfillment of your mission?”

Every industry, and most especially healthcare, has KPIs that drive understanding of how one is performing – particularly against the market. Some of these measurements are even required by outside entities as a part of doing business. Whether tied to reimbursement rates or regulatory readiness, there are certain assessments that must be administered and responded to simply as a part of doing business. Unfortunately, they often end up lowering organizational expectations from where they can and should be. Organizations begin to suffer from what I call “Good-enough Syndrome.”

Those close to me are well-versed in my mantra: do not let anyone else set your bar. Sure, you may have to address some of those outside benchmarks but your real bar, the one you always hold yourself to, should always come from within. For people and organizations alike, it is ideally tied to your mission and always pegged at perfection. That posture has multiple implications:

1. An organization’s stated mission must align with its actual mission. A mission designed to read well with a target audience but that fails to reflect the ultimate calling of an organization or individual will always lead to a failure state…it is just a matter of how deep.
2. People, most especially leaders, should have their own mission statement. Doing so gives the individual clarity in times of challenge and confusion. It also enables others to better understand them and what they hold dear.
3. You must measure success so that you can adjust course as needed. If the mission is patient-centered, create an experience measurement system that gives you real, digestible, and, most importantly, actionable data. If your mission is financial in nature, ensure that you have a mechanism in place to assess key indicators. In any case, whether as an individual or an organization, be transparent in what your mission is and how you measure performance.
4. You will never reach perfection and that is okay. It is the constant pursuit of knowledge and understanding that ultimately drives success against one’s mission. Nothing more complex than the adage of learning something new every day. (Ask me about absolute, relative, and moral success and why all three matter.)

My personal and organizational missions are critical. When I am at a crossroads and need to make a choice, it never fails that I can look to those two statements and find the answer that I seek.

Personal – “To live a worthwhile life by risking failure in the pursuit of success, influencing the world for good, and honoring my moral compass.”

Mustang Innovations – “To unlock unparalleled personal and organizational excellence for our clients.”

As long as I honor those two statements, pursue perfection of meeting the goal, and constantly measure my success in doing so, I know that I am the best version of myself that I can be for my clients, my loved ones, and me.

James