Four Guarantees of Excellence: Leadership, Innovation, Trust, Learning

Complex geopolitical relations, the post-industrial age, climate change, birth rates, (in)just distribution of goods, the return of the Asian economy to its former glory…, all of this creates a need for entirely new macroeconomic theories and models, and these are significant challenges for individuals and entrepreneurial organizations in finding their own concepts of excellence necessary for long-term and sustainable survival.

The most pronounced characteristics of the current global economy are uncertainty, unpredictability (‘low visibility’), and an abundance of unusual events, global interdependence, exceptional bargaining power of customers to impose their rules of the game, strong competition, integrated supply chains of services and products, dependence on technology, digitization, and the internet. In such conditions, it is crucial in entrepreneurship to be guided by Darwin’s theory that ‘it is not the strongest or the smartest that survive, but the excellent’, those who are capable of changing, understanding, and balancing the interests of all stakeholders, playing their game, and thus sustainably growing and developing in the long term.
How to know what will be ‘in’, how to ‘stay in the saddle’, survive, and satisfy all stakeholders? In entrepreneurship, there are four important areas of interest in creating prerequisites for success and excellence: leadership, innovation, trust (love), and lifelong learning.

Vision is not just a dream The new task of leaders in modern times has long been clear. The small-big ‘just’ remains, which is to apply principles more consistently in practice. For now, the traditional ‘hero’ leadership style prevails, consisting of clear guidelines and benevolent manipulation, remaining focused on short-term events rather than systematic solutions and collective learning. Leaders have not yet focused on taking on subtler and more important tasks (construction, serving, learning), i.e., the responsibility for building the organization by inspiring, breathing life into a learning organization, defining the true perception of reality. Usually, ‘reality’ as seen by most means pressure that must be endured, crises that must be reacted to, and limitations that must be accepted.
With such a reality, vision remains a useless dream, not a goal that can be achieved. Leaders in an excellent, creative organization focus primarily on purpose and systemic structure, and they teach others to do the same. They manage creative tension and thus energize the organization. This changes the view of reality, seeing it from various angles and feeling that it can be influenced collectively.

‘What’ is more important than ‘who’ In order to call something new, a good idea, an innovation, proof in the market is needed. Innovation is not a matter of chance, creativity, luck, or inspiration. For an organization’s ability to innovate, it is necessary to develop planning scenarios, i.e., methods of summarizing alternative trends in the future. Planning transforms from preparing information on which managers decide into mental preparation and assistance for managers to think about how they will navigate in the new order and environment. The degree of openness and honesty (freedom of thought) in the organization is important for innovation. In traditional organizations, ‘who’ is more important than ‘what’, and people do what is asked of them, not what is needed. There are not great prospects for innovation and excellence here. Where a common vision dominates, where personal interest is not in the first place, where participatory and reflective openness are integrated, the prospects for success based on innovation or the development of excellence are significantly higher.
For innovation as a component of excellence, it is important to have a precise and simple answer to a simple question: What does your customer value most and why do they buy from you?
Is it the quality of the services or products you provide or deliver, the advantages of the commercial-financial terms of your contracts, your pricing policy, relationships, services and maintenance, pre-sales and post-sales activities, or something else? The correct answer is the product of the proper use of knowledge and information. The development of knowledge and skills that, through persistent practice and repetition, turn into competencies allows for a growing hunger for information from the environment, their understanding, use, and communication.

Love in Entrepreneurship In entrepreneurship, the word ‘love’ can be translated as ‘building trust’. Trust is a strong factor that influences how a company is perceived and evaluated. Intensive and sincere communication, dialogue, and that in all directions will allow the level of trust to grow, that important information is exchanged, understood, and respected. Thus, the organization effectively and efficiently produces added value and the best solutions for all stakeholders. In today’s age, under conditions of developed communication and available technology, the basic quality of products and services offered in the market is somewhat balanced. If the differences in what we buy are small, what remains important is from whom we buy it, from what kind of organization we want to buy or collaborate with in some other form, what kind of people work there, and whether we want to identify with them in any way?

Intellectual Capital What was imaginary until yesterday is already a reality today. But that does not mean that some changes or innovations happened in 24 hours like in a popular TV series. Important and significant changes occur and arise slowly, with exponential acceleration. Their timely recognition and treatment as an opportunity or threat depend on the level of development of intellectual capital. In the commentary on Leif Edvinsson’s book ‘Corporate Longitude’, Nordstrom and Ridderstrake (‘Funky Business’) stated that the human brain is the most powerful weapon on planet Earth, which in synergy with structural capital (a network of users and customers, innovation, and perfectly organized processes) creates intellectual capital and further maximizes its power and excellence.
For people to satisfy personal interests, the interests of the organization they work for, and the interests of all stakeholders, in order to accept motivation systems as a fair measure of their work, it is necessary for them to feel ready and responsible for the challenges of the tasks assigned to them. People who can be said to be excellent, who know how to work appropriately to the challenges of today and the near future, are those who are capable of seeing the whole, not just parts of the process or system, perceiving their position as active creators of their reality, participating in creating the future instead of just reacting to events from the past or present, building and then accepting a common opinion.
In addition to the above, they must confirm their excellence in the dimension of team learning: they must think about complex issues so that the potential is discovered whereby several minds will be more intelligent than one, be innovative in coordinated action, perceive others as colleagues and develop synergistic relationships with other teams, apply the technique of dialogue (approach to the repository of common sense), thereby creatively strengthening team learning.
You will know that the organization succeeds in developing excellence when you see that people who were insecure two or three years ago and had a narrow view of the world and their possibilities now consider complex ideas and evaluate different perspectives without problems and with responsibility. Line management (operational executors) has transformed from ‘satisfy the boss’ to ‘serve customers’, middle management from ‘control and play it safe’ to ‘encourage, train, empower’, and top management from ‘focus on the daily’ to ‘focus on creating the future of the organization.’