Improvement Is Useful, But It Must Lead Somewhere
You may recognise the situation: your team is improving, processes are getting cleaner, and people are putting in more effort, but the business results still feel ordinary. Work gets completed, yet opportunities are missed. Meetings happen, but decisions move slowly. Customer issues are handled, but repeat problems remain.
For a small business, steady improvement matters. However, improvement alone may not be enough if your team lacks urgency, discipline and a clear desire to achieve something bigger. The recent comments from badminton great Datuk Seri Lee Chong Wei about Malaysian singles player Leong Jun Hao offer a useful lesson for business owners: progress must be matched by hunger, focus and consistent execution.
TL;DR: Better performance is only valuable when it produces stronger outcomes. You can build this by setting clear targets, reviewing behaviour as well as results, and creating disciplined follow-through across your team.
What This Means
The source article reports that Leong Jun Hao is improving in training, while Lee Chong Wei believes the player needs more hunger and discipline to compete at the highest level. Jun Hao is ranked world No. 27 and, according to the report, had not reached the quarter-finals in the 12 tournaments he had played that season. Source
In plain language, this means effort behind the scenes must eventually appear in measurable performance. A staff member may attend training, learn a new system or become more organised. Those are positive signs. But you still need to ask: Are customers receiving faster replies? Are sales enquiries being followed up? Are errors falling? Are projects finishing on time?
“Hunger” in business does not mean pressuring people to work endlessly. It means having a clear standard and the determination to meet it. It shows up when a team member takes ownership, prepares before a customer meeting, follows up without being reminded and looks for the cause of a recurring problem instead of merely fixing the latest symptom.
Improvement shows that your team can get better. Hunger shows that they are prepared to turn that improvement into results.
Why Discipline Matters More Than Occasional Effort
Lee Chong Wei also described discipline as essential for anyone aiming to reach world-class level. The same principle applies to an SME. A business cannot rely on one strong month, one motivated employee or one successful campaign. It needs repeatable habits that work even when the owner is busy.
Discipline can be simple. Every sales enquiry is recorded. Every quotation has a follow-up date. Every customer complaint has an owner. Every weekly meeting ends with named actions and deadlines. These practices may not appear exciting, but they reduce dependence on memory and personal supervision.
Without discipline, your business may experience what looks like a people problem but is actually a process problem. Staff forget tasks because responsibilities are unclear. Customer information sits in personal chat messages. Managers ask for updates because there is no shared view of progress. You then spend time chasing work instead of improving the business.
How This Applies to Malaysian SMEs
For a Malaysian trading or distribution company, hunger may mean responding quickly when a retailer asks for product availability. If your team takes two days to confirm stock while another supplier responds within an hour, improvement in internal knowledge will not be enough. You can set a practical standard: every enquiry is logged, assigned and answered within an agreed response window. A simple customer relationship management system can help your team see which enquiries are new, pending or overdue.
For a service business such as an agency, contractor or professional practice, the issue may be follow-through. Your staff may produce better proposals, designs or reports, but projects can still suffer when approvals are late and handovers are unclear. You can introduce a project checklist covering briefing, quotation, approval, production, review and delivery. Assign one person to each stage and use automatic reminders so the next action does not depend on someone remembering it.
For a restaurant, clinic, tuition centre or other customer-facing business, discipline can improve the daily experience. Staff may already be friendlier and more capable, but customers still face long waits because bookings, stock updates and service requests are handled separately. A shared workflow can show who is responsible for each booking or request. After a busy period, review the records to identify where delays occurred and what should change before the next peak period.
For a small manufacturing or workshop operation, hunger means taking quality seriously before a customer discovers a defect. Your team can record inspection results, rejected items, machine issues and corrective actions in one place. If the same error appears repeatedly, the right response is not simply to remind staff to “be careful”. You need to identify whether the work instruction, training, materials or approval process is causing the problem.
For a family-run business, this approach can also make expectations less personal. Instead of saying that one employee is not committed, define the required behaviour. For example, customer enquiries must be updated before the end of the working day, purchase orders must be checked against delivery notes, and unresolved issues must be escalated during the weekly review. Clear standards create fairer conversations and make coaching more specific.
A Simple Performance Structure
You can translate the lesson into four areas of measurement. Keep the numbers relevant to your business and review them consistently rather than creating a long list that nobody uses.
| Area | Question to Ask | Example Measure |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | How quickly does work move? | Hours to respond to a new enquiry |
| Quality | How often is work done correctly? | Percentage of jobs completed without rework |
| Ownership | Are responsibilities visible? | Open tasks with a named person and due date |
| Consistency | Does performance hold up each week? | Completed actions from weekly reviews |
Do not use figures simply because they are easy to count. Choose measures that reflect what your customers experience and what your business needs next. Every target should have an owner, a review rhythm and a clear response when performance falls short.
Practical Takeaways
- Define what “better” means: Replace vague expectations with observable actions and results.
- Set a small number of targets: Begin with three to five measures connected to customer service, sales, delivery or quality.
- Track behaviour as well as outcomes: Review follow-ups, preparation, documentation and ownership, not only final results.
- Use one shared task view: Make overdue work visible so you do not need to ask every person for a separate update.
- Hold short weekly reviews: Discuss what was completed, what was delayed and what decision is needed next.
- Turn mistakes into process changes: Record recurring issues and update the checklist, workflow or training.
- Recognise responsible initiative: Praise staff who solve problems early, communicate clearly and protect the customer experience.
- Coach directly: If improvement is visible but results remain weak, explain the gap and agree on a specific next step.
How Automation Can Support Discipline
Automation does not create motivation by itself. It can, however, make disciplined behaviour easier to follow. When a lead form creates a task automatically, the enquiry is less likely to disappear. When a due date triggers a reminder, staff are less dependent on memory. When a dashboard shows pending approvals, you can act before a delay becomes a customer complaint.
Start with one workflow that causes repeated friction. Map the steps, identify who owns each step and decide what information must be recorded. Then automate reminders, notifications or status changes where they remove routine chasing. Keep the workflow simple enough that your team will actually use it.
Before introducing any system, ask your staff where work gets stuck. Their answers may reveal that the problem is unclear approval authority, duplicated data entry or missing information from customers. Fix the process first, then choose the technology that supports it.
The Bigger Picture
The long-term lesson is that performance is built from standards repeated over time. Competitors can copy a product, promotion or service package. It is harder to copy a team that consistently responds, follows through, learns from errors and takes ownership.
As your SME grows, informal supervision becomes less reliable. You cannot personally check every quotation, booking, delivery and complaint. The business therefore needs a culture where people understand what good work looks like and have a practical way to complete it.
The question for you is not whether your team is improving. Ask whether that improvement is visible to customers and whether it is producing stronger business outcomes. If the answer is not yet clear, choose one important workflow, define the standard, measure it for several weeks and coach the team around the results.
That is how hunger becomes practical: not through louder speeches, but through clear expectations, disciplined habits and a team that cares enough to finish well.
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