Culture of Excellence

By Jason Daley

It means something different for every company, but for all of them the key to success is the same: the person at the top.

Ever since Tom Peters introduced the word excellence into the business world, companies have been madly scrambling after it. His 1982 book, In Search of Excellence, spawned a whole industry of excellence–management gurus and cultural consultants invading the workplace with formulas for total quality control, going from good to great, breaking all the rules, getting things done, busting e-myths and moving cheese.

But in the end, it turns out the quest for excellence is a little like stopping smoking–there are hundreds of plans, but in reality none of them work very well, at least without a strong commitment from the top. According to research by IBM and others, between 60 and 90 percent of organizational change initiatives fall flat. It’s no wonder. Making the changes that lead to excellence is not an overnight pursuit–it’s a long process that often means rewiring a company’s fundamental DNA.

That’s something Atlanta audit firm Porter Keadle Moore learned early on. In 1995, PKM was a typical stuffy auditing firm, with dark wood paneling, a command-and-control system and overworked employees. When Phil Moore and his colleagues split up, though, Moore decided to make the new incarnation of PKM very different. “At that point in time, we wanted to have a firm that had a culture that embodied our hearts and minds,” he says.

Fifteen years and countless initiatives later, PKM is Atlanta’s top accounting firm, with a 98 percent positive rating, 11 percent turnover rate and awards for being one of America’s psychologically healthiest workplaces.

How did PKM do it? Its approach to excellence isn’t off-the-wall. In fact, PKM has followed fairly conventional strategies to make it to the top. It’s just that it has implemented those extremely well, stayed focused and learned that managing people is the key. PKM also had the essential element in place with Moore: The chief motivator of change in an entrepreneur-led company is the leadership.

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