Which is better, good or great? I love the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, but I’m rethinking things a bit.
In professional sports great is about thirty percent better than good. But great players may cost ten times more than good players. And great players are often prima donnas that can be very hard to deal with.
The ideal would be to find great players before they know they are great… Good prices with great results.
It’s called leverage…
Then when they realize they are great, you trade them to your biggest competitor and make your competitor deal with them and pay for them. You have budget left, they don’t. And you go find more young great players masquerading as good players.
And perhaps even better, what if you could coach good players into great players, or at least very good players?
What if your process or system could create greatness out of good?
Then if your competitor steals them away, they pay for great, but without your system… they only get good.
Even more leverage.
Would you rather have a great sales rep that costs three hundred thousand a year and can deliver two million in revenue? Or a good sales rep that costs one hundred and twenty thousand a year and can deliver one million in revenue?
Ten great reps would cost you three million dollars to get twenty million in revenue: if you could find them and manage them.
That same three million in good reps buys you twenty five million in revenue… and far less headaches and hassles, and good people are easy to find.
Good people are all around you.
My friend Matt Dixon, from CEB, co-authored an amazing book called The Effortless Experience. He uses new research to debunk prevailing theories about great service as the ideal:
If everyone is great, that becomes the new standard of good. Great only stands out if it is surrounded by companies that are good. Consistent legendary service as the standard for all companies can’t be done by definition.
Matt also shows that statistically, legendary service makes no real impact on customer loyalty for most companies. And it is almost impossible to accomplish. The companies that can pull it off can be counted on one hand.
What about the rest of us?
Maybe good service is good enough, but make it easy. Make it effortless. No hassles, no headaches. And let me serve myself if I can.
It costs much less for good service that is effortless. It requires great process and systems. But it can be done at low cost and fast.
My friend Matt Dixon from CEB, who co-authored an amazing book called The Effortless Experience,... [+]
The world tends to classify “A” grade employees as great. And sad to say they often think of themselves as great. They often have high IQ, but low EQ. Great skills but they aren’t team players.
These so-called great employees are very hard to find and often come with baggage: Like student loans from Ivy League schools or playbooks and attitudes that they won’t change to fit your organization.
Truly great employees not only bring great results but also have great attitudes and are a joy to work with; we have several of them at InsideSales.com. They have greatness inside that shines out, not just greatness on the outside. You definitely want them on your team. Like Tom Sawyer, they make everyone else better. But they are even more difficult to find.
Stephen R. Covey taught the character ethic as true greatness. External greatness may be the counterfeit of internal greatness. Inside out, not outside in. Good here doesn't mean being good at what they do, but being a good person. You know good people by the goodness they bring to the team.
How do you know good people and great people? By their results over time.
How does it go? By their fruits you shall know them...
The best strategy may be to have a few great players, and lots of good players, with systems and process that make them very good, perhaps even great.
The best place to put your few great players is in the midst of your good players and in charge of analyzing, designing, implementing, and evaluating process and systems to make the whole team great.
People can be great. But great people aren’t enough for great teams.
People, process and systems are keys to great teams.
Maybe that is why a bell curve has fewer A’s than B’s and C’s by definition.
Maybe it is just the way things are.
Maybe a strategy of lots of good people, mixed with a few great people, leveraged with process and system that turns good into very good… is great!
