What we think < Becoming World Class
Companies have always used a bit of hyperbole in presenting its aims and objectives.

Statements of corporate position and ambition are unapologetically thrown about by sales teams as a way of getting potential customers to buy from them. The strategy was that by portraying the company as a market leader, the customer would feel as though they wanted to benefit from the association. The claim could usually be verified, though often it was based on an obscure bit of market demographic that made the company look good. “Hey, we may be seventh in the market overall but we’re # 1 in this bit”!

The trouble was that everybody knew it for what it was – sales talk. Nobody really bought into it (neither customers nor the company reps themselves) but in the absence of being truly great it was the best the company had to go with.

The irony was that the better the company was regarded, the less it needed to resort to hyperbole.

When selling the Financial Times as an advertising medium, we never had to resort to “we’re the number 1 business newspaper in the world”; our clients already knew the FT's position in the market and what it meant to be placing their advertising in the salmon pages.

This sales talk has evolved and can now be found in corporate mission statements; “world class” seems to be the big aim for many.

Becoming “world class” does not happen just because the words appear on a company’s website; or are on each slide of the CEO’s annual presentation to staff. Becoming “world class”, or achieving any other corporate positioning definition, only happens over time by doing lots of little things great.

Manufacturing good products; providing good service; having good people and a positive internal working environment; being conscientious of others and adopting a professional and credible style of communicating with the outside world. Oh, and doing all of the above better than anybody else in your field.

There are only a handful of truly world class companies out there. Companies who reached the top of the ladder not because they had a stated aspiration to become world class, but because they ran all aspects of their businesses really well.

So, some advice to those who have world class transformation programmes and world class ambitions – concentrate on the business at hand instead.

World class is a very exclusive club. Your aim should be on being very good at all aspects of the business. After doing this consistently over time and motivating others to follow your model, if somebody wants to refer to you as world class then all the better.