Preparing for Greatness
(As first published in the November 2007 Capital District eBuilder electronic newsletter)
By Tom Ganse
Governor-elect
Perhaps you heard Kiwanis International CEO Rob Parker speak of moving Kiwanis from good to great, or maybe you read it in a Kiwanis publication. Perhaps you heard one of our Capital District leaders paraphrase it during some presentation. Perhaps many of you do not know that this phrase, “good to great”, is now a mantra in corporate America, and that it originated from the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins.
In his book, Mr. Collins made a clear distinction between “good” companies and “great” companies. He set specific criteria, culling over 30 years’ worth of Fortune 500 companies and comparing them to specific benchmarks. From the list of thousands of companies, only eleven met the criteria for “great”. Not even Lee Iacocca’s Chrysler or Jack Welch’s General Electric made the “great” list. Both met the criteria for “good” companies, but neither one could sustain those criteria long enough to qualify as “great”.
What Mr. Collins wanted to understand was how a company makes that transition from being “good” to meeting the criteria for “great”. He did this by employing an army of analysts to dissect the eleven companies that qualified as “great” – interviews, every report, every news article – whatever they could get their hands on – to develop a list of common characteristics. The balance of his book explores and explains those characteristics. I won’t regurgitate the book here, but suffice it to say, the underlying qualities that define “great” companies go beyond corporate America to define great organizations of any variety, including Service Organizations such as Kiwanis.
This is what Rob Parker is speaking about when he talks about moving Kiwanis from “good” to “great”. This is what the Kiwanis International Board and staff are striving for to support that goal, and this is what your Capital District leadership is using as a benchmark to develop a meaningful Strategic Plan for the District, which I discussed during last month’s article.
Even as many of you are reading this, your District Board of Trustees is debating and shaping that Strategic Plan, and developing the embryonic first steps for this ambitious journey. Several critical initiatives are already bearing fruit. Our eBuilder was overhauled last summer to present a modern, user-friendly resource. The District website is currently being re-evaluated and will soon make a similar leap into the 21st century. Our District Growth Team is coordinating with District Trustees to host Growth Seminars in each region so that resources can be tailored for best return on invested effort. Also, they are developing a series of interactive training DVDs and are already presenting the first of the series, “Closing the Back Door”, at the Division and Club level.
Our Training Committee is refining a Leadership Training Continuum that aligns Club leadership training, Division leadership training, and Club support committee training to the District Strategic Plan. I personally challenged the committee to find a way to move all but three hours of interactive training to computer/web-based media so that we no longer have to interfere with your free Saturdays. The proposed approach allows leaders-in-training to complete their training whenever it is convenient for them, and it allows the training committee to monitor progress and identify potential problems early on.
These are just a few examples of positive steps toward transitioning our Capital District from “good” to “great”. Others include further refinement to the District Shaping Initiative and overhauls to the District Bylaws and Policy Statements with an eye toward “enabling” doctrine versus the current “restrictive” doctrine.
Truly, these are exciting times to be a Kiwanian in the Capital District. I am excited about moving forward to greatness with you and encourage each of you to share in this journey.
With a Kiwanis servant’s heart,
Tom Ganse