Are you an OXO firm or an XOX one?

Years ago I attended a session on Business Growth at Warwick Business School.  We were asked the question:  Are you an OXO firm?  We were all puzzled and asked for an explanation.

It turns out that OXO is a formula -

Ordinary systems + Extraordinary people = Ordinary results. 

If you want extraordinary results, you don't need extraordinary people but you do need extraordinary systems, i.e.

Extraordinary systems +Ordinary people = Extraordinary results.

More recently, I've been working with the Business Excellence Model and Investors in Excellence (IIE).  Organisations that wish to achieve the Investors in Excellence standard and/or achieve an IIE award must make a submission which shows how their organisation meets the business excellence model.  For those of you new to the model, it shows 5 factors labelled enablers and 4 factors labeled results.  The tried and tested theory is that if you get the enablers right, good results will follow.  In going for the award, companies are scored against the model and each of the 9 factors carry a different weighting.  The highest weighting goes to Key Results, which along with people results, customer results and society results make up the 4 Result factors.  Processes, i.e. systems, leads the weighting table for enablers, followed by leadership, people, partnership and resources and policy and strategy. Thus, decades of research with Business Excellence backs up the XOX formula.