It is a valid ques­tion.

In the T&T busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment, is there a lead­er­ship prob­lem, or a medi­oc­rity prob­lem, or both? When I in­ter­act with busi­ness­es in T&T, I am struck by the vac­u­ums that ex­ist in both ar­eas. Of course, there are busi­ness­es for which this ques­tion is ir­rel­e­vant. They are mas­ter­ing the me­chan­ics of great lead­er­ship and sus­tained ex­cel­lence. As a re­sult, both their cus­tomers and their em­ploy­ees feel seen, heard and val­ued. This is the foun­da­tion on which busi­ness growth and sus­tained rev­enue streams are built.

Truth be told, I be­lieve that we face both a lead­er­ship prob­lem and a medi­oc­rity prob­lem. The lat­ter, how­ev­er, has es­ca­lat­ed to con­ta­gion lev­el. Medi­oc­rity is not on­ly a busi­ness is­sue, but a na­tion­al fea­ture that has seeped in­to the fab­ric of en­ter­prise. T&T, like many oth­er coun­tries, has not ful­ly em­braced ex­cel­lence as a way of life. There has been no cul­tur­al or so­ci­etal move­ment fo­cused on em­bed­ding ex­cel­lence as part of a na­tion­al char­ter, to which cit­i­zens, busi­ness­es and wider com­mu­ni­ties are sig­na­to­ries.

Across the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, the out­come has been a se­lec­tive fo­cus on what at­tracts the badge of ex­cel­lence, based on equal­ly se­lec­tive pref­er­ences. This is dri­ven pri­mar­i­ly by in­di­vid­u­als and en­ti­ties that be­lieve deeply in the sig­nif­i­cance of ex­cel­lence as a force for good. The na­tion­al im­pact is un­even. Ex­cel­lence ap­pears not as an en­dur­ing lever dri­ving so­ci­ety, but as a val­ue cham­pi­oned by a few right-think­ing in­di­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es.

There is a need for a na­tion­al call to em­bed ex­cel­lence as a “lived val­ue” from womb to tomb. Imag­ine the trans­for­ma­tive im­pact.

Many ills would dis­ap­pear or be­come dis­placed by the emer­gence of whole­some­ness as a so­ci­etal mark­er and mak­er. Na­tions that ex­cel and are ac­knowl­edged for their em­i­nence are those for which ex­cel­lence is a na­tion­al pre­cept.

An­oth­er re­al­i­ty is that lo­cal cit­i­zens who em­i­grate adapt quick­ly to the rules, laws and stan­dards of their host coun­tries. Why? Be­cause en­force­ment is ro­bust and com­pli­ance is non-ne­go­tiable. As new im­mi­grants, ad­just­ment with­out vis­i­ble com­plaint be­comes the norm. The point that I’m mak­ing here is that the achieve­ment of ex­cel­lence as a so­ci­ety is not an un­reach­able tar­get.

On the lead­er­ship front, far too many busi­ness­es are pop­u­lat­ed with lead­ers who are fire-fight­ers, rather than ar­chi­tects of great­ness.

Ex­cel­lence is not a way of life or a lived ex­pe­ri­ence. These lead­ers tol­er­ate medi­oc­rity and pre­vent their busi­ness­es from mov­ing from good to great. To the out­side world, these busi­ness­es may ap­pear to be growth-dri­ven. In re­al­i­ty, what oc­curs at times is sim­ply the scal­ing of out­put, while sys­tems re­main un­changed. Left unchecked, out­dat­ed sys­tems will even­tu­al­ly fail to sup­port growth. With­out in­ter­nal shifts, up­grades and cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion, death by fire­fight­ing be­comes in­evitable. On the cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence side, rep­u­ta­tion­al harm will fol­low.

While dri­ving rev­enue is crit­i­cal to busi­ness longevi­ty, some busi­ness­es al­low their in­fra­struc­ture to fall in­to dis­re­pair. When in­fra­struc­ture is treat­ed as sec­ondary to rev­enue gen­er­a­tion, many un­for­tu­nate out­comes re­sult.

Mul­ti­ple cul­tures run­ning ram­pant, in­stead of a sin­gle, in­ten­tion­al­ly cu­rat­ed cul­ture, is one such out­come. Where mul­ti­ple cul­tures abound, dys­func­tion thrives.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, quick fix­es are favoured over per­ma­nent so­lu­tions. This is es­pe­cial­ly com­mon in cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence man­age­ment. Root cause analy­sis is by­passed and repet­i­tive cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence train­ing be­comes the band-aid. Go­ing the ex­tra mile for the cus­tomer is seen as a bur­den, rather than a stan­dard.

The bot­tom line is that lead­er­ship must in­ter­sect with great­ness, not medi­oc­rity. De­ci­sions should not be made to pre­serve com­fort over ex­cel­lence. Busi­ness­es must aban­don the prac­tice of nor­mal­is­ing medi­oc­rity where it ex­ists and where it has be­come a de­fault op­er­at­ing sys­tem that is re­sis­tant to break­through.

In the new world or­der, lead­ers must chal­lenge medi­oc­rity, el­e­vate stan­dards and be­come ar­chi­tects of great­ness who refuse to al­low “av­er­age” to de­fine suc­cess.