Many want a culture of excellence but is this about quality of work, behaviours or how one learns from another?

Over the last few days, we have had some very interesting comments in response to the “The Craft of You” article which talked of the need for many to work harder at how they present themselves to the market and the lack of confidence many have in being able to effectively network and converse with ease. Some of the comments include:

“The pandemic and home working has allowed standards to drop and with everyone having an easy excuse for poor behaviours. The piece was good but was not strong enough. For those companies who want to rebuild successfully, they need to have a culture of excellence at their cores which demand high standards of behaviours towards clients. Demand excellence in behaviour and clients will respond”

“Knowledge has fallen because there are no trusted sources of information anymore. People read more. It is just not accurate. The BBC is not trusted by its own fee paying audience anymore. It used to be the one source all could trust. People turn to twitter or the internet which is full of inaccurate information”
Many debates today on leadership, on diversity and inclusion, on sustainability or models often end up discussing the need today for people to have a culture of continuous learning.

“Great Hospitality skills can make any business behave stronger. We often play down the skills the industry has but they are the ones which make people feel comfortable and at ease, so yes there is much which can be learnt from great hospitality skills.”

“It is a good discussion. The view is that people today wait for the world to come to them as the internet brings everything to them. Is it their fault? We allow people to access everything from a laptop on their beds and behaviours have become lazier. How do you change that? How do you raise the bar so people aspire to greater? Yes I can see that those who do, will do better as it will be a point of difference”

All good points and the underlying concern is that much has changed. However, many agree that there is a real need for a culture within companies to seek excellence again, not just in work, but in how their people behave towards others. It is easy to see that such demand will have impact but it is also about knowledge and developing the ability for people to feel comfortable talking to anyone in any walk of life.

Many debates today on leadership, on diversity and inclusion, on sustainability or models often end up discussing the need today for people to have a culture of continuous learning. This is where networking has such importance which is often overlooked. The best learning comes from conversation with friends and colleagues; the more one talks, networks, the more one learns.

There is an American study that noted that the decline in employee productivity was in direct line with the fall in face to face contact with colleagues. Most analysis focuses on social interaction but it is also about ideas, inspiration, knowledge, and learning.

Many companies will talk about having a culture of excellence but excellence also needs people prepared to listen, interact and bring others to the table.