Doing the RIGHT Things busy fools

I inherited a call centre that had no business being as good as it became.

The previous setup wasn’t broken in an obvious way. People were showing up, doing the work, and hitting roughly the expected numbers. But roughly was the problem. There was no real standard. No clarity about what good looked like. And when there’s no standard, people naturally drift to whatever level feels comfortable rather than what’s actually possible.

I set the bar high. Deliberately, visibly high. At one point, I withheld a bonus from someone who hit 99% of their target. The variance was one. One. And I know how that sounds — but the point wasn’t punishment. The point was that 99% and 100% are not the same thing, and if you let that slide once, the standard stops being a standard. It becomes a suggestion.

We focused on culture, clarity and purpose. We made it clear what we were here to do and what doing it well actually looked like. The result was 400% growth in key areas. The new sales director said he couldn’t believe the attitude, focus and drive from the team — that they were better than any team he had ever had.

Standards did that. Not talent. Not luck. Standards are held consistently.

When how things get done isn’t clear, consistent or held to a real standard, the business becomes dependent on the individual rather than the system.

Quality varies by who’s in that day. A great member of staff leaves, taking their knowledge with them. A process exists because it always has, long after the reason behind it has gone. New people can’t get up to speed because nothing is written down, and the only way to learn is to watch and hope.

It doesn’t feel like a crisis. It feels normal. Until it isn’t — until you scale, or lose someone critical, or a customer notices the inconsistency before you do.

Examples:

• Competing priorities
• Goals open to interpretation
• Busywork over impact
• No clear view of what's working

• Effort without payback

The way things get done needs to be defined, not assumed. That means being explicit about what good looks like — not micromanaging the how, but being clear enough that anyone in the team could tell you whether something met the standard or didn’t.

It means building the routines, habits, and processes that make consistent performance possible — and then holding to them. Not roughly. Not most of the time. Consistently.

The businesses that scale well aren’t the ones with the most talented people. They’re the ones where the way things work doesn’t depend on any one person to hold it together.