With the Olympics coming to Vancouver next month the excitement is building. It’s always fun to watch elite athletes compete for the gold medal. I sometimes wonder what it takes to get up on that podium. Olympic athletes can make it look so easy. I did a little research and found out that it’s common for athletes to invest four to eight years training in a sport before making an Olympic team. At that level most athletes treat training as a full-time job and train three times a day or more, six days a week or more. When they’re not training they’re resting and eating to get ready for the big event. So much for being easy!

As I dug deeper into the regime of an Olympian, I began to see some nice parallels between world-class athletes and world-class organizations. Every year NQI recognizes the best Canadian organizations with the Canada Awards for Excellence (CAE ). An Olympic medal recognizes athletic excellence in a similar way that a CAE trophy recognizes organizational excellence. There are five key similarities between these journeys to excellence.

1) Raw Ability
2) Training
3) Planning
4) Constant Feedback
5) Vision

Let’s not be overly optimistic, not everyone can get an Olympic gold medal. No matter how much I train, plan, and have vision, I’m not getting one! You don’t wake up one morning and say “I’m going to try some high flying freestyle aerial skiing today.” The raw ability has to be there. Organizations need raw ability too. Great organizations handle this problem with world-class hiring and selection processes. NQI’s Progressive Excellence Program (NQI PEP®) is a four-level progressive implementation path to excellence with linkage to the Canada Awards for Excellence program. The NQI PEP® Level 2 Criteria requires an organization to have a human resource plan to support the organization’s goals and objectives and a method to recruit and select people for mutual success. Over time this raw ability can be developed into world-class excellence for both athletes and organizations.

Training is the second thing that world class athletes have in common with world-class organizations. As previously noted, athletes don’t get to compete at the highest level without putting in years of blood sweat and tears in the training gym. For organizational excellence it doesn’t have to be so exhaustive but training is certainly important. In NQI PEP® Level 3 organizations need a solid method to determine and address education and development needs to support both organizational and individual goals. World-class organizations therefore commit to a strategy to help people reach their full potential. It often starts out with the basics (like how to ski down a hill) and progresses to more tactical and strategic applications (like doing aerial flips while skiing down a hill).

The next overlap between CAE Awards winners and Olympic medalists is a strong commitment to planning. As they say: “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Olympians usually set annual goals and develop a schedule and plan for a four year period leading up to the games. These plans include specific performance targets with clear milestones. Similarly in NQI PEP® Level 2 an organization is required to establish and implement a plan that identifies, prioritizes, and incorporates a balanced set of objectives, measures, and initiatives necessary to support the strategic direction. In NQI PEP® Level 3 an organization needs a method to monitor and review effectiveness of the plan, using a performance measurement system that is linked to appropriate action. The greats don’t fail to plan. They do lots of planning and, in turn, do lots of succeeding.

The need for constant feedback is the next similarity. Olympic athletes need constant feedback on how they are progressing towards their training targets. They surround themselves with coaches and equipment that help them understand their strengths and weaknesses. They then adjust their diets and training techniques to build on their strengths and overcome their weaknesses. Organizational excellence works the exact same way. Organizational assessments are conducted at least annually to understand the organizations main strengths and opportunities for improvement. In NQI PEP® Levels 2 and 3 the organization establishes methods to gather feedback from employees, customers, and suppliers to determine current and future requirements and expectations. Every year gaps are identified and strategies are implemented to reduce those gaps. For an athlete the gaps might be related to body composition, heart rates, and oxygen output and for organizations the gaps could be low customer satisfaction, low morale, and slow processes.

Although there are more similarities between great athletes and great organization the last one I’ll address is the importance of vision. Vision refers to a picture of the future with some implicit or explicit commentary on why people should strive to create that future. Many athletes use visualization techniques where they literally picture step-by-step what they want to do and how they plan on doing it. I’m not sure how many organizations use visualization techniques but I am sure that world class organizations have a strong focus on a shared vision. A shared vision in an organization establishes a constancy of purpose which is critical. A common theme throughout all the Levels of NQI PEP® is the importance of establishing a vision and communicating it to all levels of the organization. Just like the athlete visualizing the event, a front line employee can be more focussed with an understanding of what the organization wants the future to look like.

Raw ability, a relentless approach to training, planning, constant feedback, and vision are five things that Olympic medallists have in common with Canada Awards for Excellence winners. Unfortunately most of us will never know what it feels like to stand up on the podium at the Olympics. Organizational excellence and recognition through the Canada Awards for Excellence on the other hand is a target which all of us have within our reach. The choice is yours you can A: put on your skis and perform a quadruple back-flip with five twists before landing on a 39-degree inclined landing hill about 100 feet in length; or B: learn more about the NQI PEP® program and implement excellence in your organization leading to national recognition with a Canada Awards for Excellence Trophy. Personally, I’m taking option B and I’ll watch option A next month in Vancouver.