At ABS, we are going through an exercise to clarify and evaluate our Core Values from a performance perspective. This exercise is based upon a book by Natalie Dawson, TEAMWORK How to Build a High-Performance Team. The values that we selected are meant to be actionable and drive our decisions on hiring, rewarding high-performance, and firing. They are intended to guide our individual and company performance.
Excellence is a value that we all agreed on. At first glance, it might seem to be too vague or only a catch word to pay lip service to. In the context that we define Excellence, it is directly actionable and quantitative. It means doing what we say we are going to do when we say we will do it every time. This is simple. It is also a major challenge. Its scope includes dependability, reliability, and quality. It means developing more efficient processes so that we deliver quickly on our promises and ideally exceed expectations. It means zero tolerance for errors that impact our clients. All these things are directly measurable and critical to our growth.
Excellence is essential and difficult to uphold. For every service and product, we are continually reviewing our processes and the metrics to measure the deliverables for those processes. Each employee is responsible for a scorecard that quantifies performance on each metric and alignment with our values. All of this is done with an eye on improvement. The scorecards then become part of each employee’s annual performance review. Group performance and company performance on key metrics are regularly analyzed.
Performance analytics are also reviewed at Team meetings, quarterly Management Reviews and Companywide Quarterly meetings. We seek ways to increase reliability along with shortening timelines. We have formed an Advisory Board to monitor and improve our performance. Likewise, we continue to maintain our ISO9001:2015 accreditation with ongoing internal and external audits of our processes.
We work in an industry where what we do matters. There is very little tolerance for errors. A single mistake can delay projects and impact our clients. Every sample is valuable and timelines matter. Ultimately, our work and the work of our clients can save and improve lives. This perspective reinforces our commitment to Excellence.
In addition to Excellence, we have selected four other Core Values that direct our performance. These will be discussed in subsequent blog posts along with how they align with our mission to increase the speed and reliability of drug and diagnostics discovery.
