What is the most important Fundamental Concept of Excellence?

The LinkedIn-debate on this question I started a few weeks ago among the members of the EFQM Network for Sustainable Excellence has really taken off! However some more debate is needed…

As mentioned in my earlier blog the EFQM states no preference, but to get the discussion going I argued that Taking Responsibility for a Sustainable Future is the most important Fundamental Concept of Excellence.

A variety of views have been shared by the members in this discussion group and have included:

• Nice “academic question sparking debate”, however there is no most important Concept, but an organisation needs to take care of all Concepts to achieve sustainable results;
• Depending on the organisation’s goals, vision and strategic challenges at a specific point in time an organisation might need to give two or three Concepts more attention;
• That business survival is key and as a consequence Adding Value for Customers and Achieving Balanced Results are the most important Concepts;
• Things don’t move forward without leaders Leading with Vision, Inspiration and Integrity first;
• Organisations are made up of people, little happens without them, so Succeeding through People needs priority.

I was particularly struck by an interesting comparative question: “What is the most important room in the house?” For me it is the bathroom, but it was a difficult choice as I have a number of rooms to choose from. However there are many people in this world that don’t have a choice in this matter. 

With proposing the Concept Taking Responsibility for a Sustainable Future to be the most important I aimed to direct the discussion towards taking a more global perspective. To discuss maybe whether our current way of moving forward with an "inside-out focus" on the needs and expectations of the stakeholders will help us to address the global ecological and societal challenges lying on our doorstep? Would even an organisation striving for Sustainable Excellence take a wide enough view towards “all their stakeholders”? We perhaps need some debate on this topic?

A dress to light up your Christmas

The Danish design duo Diffus have designed and made a haute ‘tech’ couture dress that reacts to the CO2-level in the air by lighting up. It needs to charge for an hour or two first, but after that the sensor incorporated into the dress will be able to measure the level of CO2 in the air. The higher the CO2-level the faster the LEDs on the dress will light up!

This dress is known as the Climate Dress and was designed for the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009. The dress was not really meant to be useable; it was all about the concept. The dress is in essence an art object and as such it has been travelling around the world to be exhibited at fashion shows and museums. Currently it is on show at the Designhuis in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, until the end of January 2011. 

Furthermore it seems there is a Swiss company investigating the possibility of mass-producing this dress!? Don't you think that is funny too? You see, I was wondering whether the sensor would also react to the level of CO2 of somebody wearing the dress would exhale...

After sitting next to a socket for two hours to charge up, just imagine wearing the dress while having an intimate conversation with an admirer at your company's Christmas party... Soon the LEDs on your dress would be lighting up, attracting some laughing glances from your colleagues! But who cares? It is Christmas and YOU will have lit up the party! 
Have a Happy Christmas and an enlightened New Year everyone!!!!

Ecoliners

Now that I have opened myself up to seeing the constraints in the sustainability of our current way of life the most amazing and interesting items find their way to my attention.

This time it concerned an article about three guys that asked themselves why sea freight is not transported by sailing ships anymore these days. The obvious answer is of course because we invented the engine. But engines need fuel, fuel costs money and creates CO2! For sailing you need wind. Wind is free and CO2-neutral, so why shouldn’t we use ships with sails to transport our freight across the seas?

This sparked their idea for a competitive hybrid freight ship, the ecoliner. The research showed that using ecoliners has several advantages. It is estimated that by also using wind the use of fuel can be reduced with 50 to 90 percent. This creates not only enormous cost savings, but also a considerable reduction in CO2-emissions.

To be able to promote the idea of hybrid freight transport over sea they build a freight sail ship called the Tres Hombres. With this ship they have been successfully sailing freight across the oceans for a year and a half now.

As they fully expect that the ecoliner will be able to compete with regular freight transport over sea, even without subsidies, they are currently looking for investors in their project. Within three years they hope to have the first real ecoliner in operation. Personally I hope they are able to do that sooner!

Fundamental Concepts of Excellence

What do you think is the most important Fundamental Concept of Excellence?

As I reflect on it at lot, I regularly ask colleagues what they think is the core Concept of Excellence.

When I ask experts at the EFQM the answer is always the same … all Fundamental Concepts are all equally important! Hence the Concepts are not numbered. As you can see in the diagram EFQM do not highlight a preference.

However the written description of the Concepts starts with Achieving Balanced Results. But how would you react if another Concept is presented first…? For example if Adding Value for Customers or Succeeding through People was put on the top of the list?

I believe it might make a difference which Concept is presented first, as perhaps you might?

As you may have guessed from reading my previous blogs I think Taking Responsibility for a Sustainable Future is the most important Concept. It is clear to me that if we do not put this Concept on the top of our agenda very soon, we will have more challenges then we can handle as a planet. It bothers me that the description of this important Concept is listed last. 

Would you agree with me that Taking Responsibility for a Sustainable Future is the most important Concept? And would it make a difference to put this description first in the list of Concepts?