Most directors will tell you they strive for excellence; that they apply best practice within their organisation to perform at world-class levels, and keep customers and employees happy. But some put themselves through the mill more than others to prove their worth. Any organisation that enters the British Quality Foundation's (BQF) annual UK Excellence Award, for instance, will have to measure itself against an excellence model used throughout Europe.

The entrance programme opens each January and organisations must meet 32 criteria of the excellence model. "Excellence" could be anything from outstanding practices in managing the organisation and achieving results, to leadership or innovation and improvement. In Joe Goasdoué's mind, it's about "outstanding practice in managing an organisation and outstanding practice in the results that it achieves". The CEO of the BQF says excellence is not about "luxury, as in top-end Rolls-Royce products" but differentiating your organisation.

He explains: "If you want to stand out from the crowd, you can't do it for very long just by being cheaper than the competition. Excellence tends to be contagious in an organisation—if you're excellent at one thing then you're excellent at the next. But I think there are still too many organisations that are comfortable with providing an OK service and it's probably a factor in the competitiveness gap between the UK and major competing nations."

When Goasdoué came in as CEO he was also required to examine the organisation and look for areas of improvement. In both of his previous roles (at British Airways and ICL) he'd been involved with customer service and performance improvement, so he was up to the challenge of changing the culture at the BQF and expanding its services.

"We are a not-for-profit organisation," he says, "but it was a question of getting across the message that not-for-profit also meant not-for-loss. I'm comfortable that we've changed the culture, and we now have more than just two products. We also help members with things like innovation, business continuity and [the performance improvement programme] Six Sigma." As there are just 13 people at the BQF, and the foundation is no longer funded by the DTI—"we've been left to our own devices since 1996"—Goasdoué says he sympathises with small firms. "There's an onslaught from all directions telling small and medium-sized enterprises how they should improve," he says. "I do recognise that they have lots of other things on their agenda." But, he observes, all organisations can learn from those that have been identified as excellent.

By identifying strengths and areas for improvement, he says, customer results, people results and corporate social responsibility objectives can all be built upon. "One has to look at the whole organisation, not just part of it," he says. "The organisations that win the award are truly excellent: in leadership; in the way they manage their people; and so on. Although the build-up is tense, seeing how happy people are when they win is the best bit—no question."

www.quality-foundation.co.uk