Winning in the marketplace means many things. Some define it by corporate growth, profitability, and market leadership. Others look to employee loyalty, industry honors, and favorable media headlines as evidence of their accomplishments. Given recent media coverage about extreme examples of corporate malfeasance, some leaders today define success as running an organization with shipshape governance and squeaky clean corporate ethics.

No matter how you define a win, the cornerstones for creating a successful organization include:

Bold aspirations for success
Clearly-defined and commonly-shared goals
Team behavior governed by strong ethics and core values
Leaderships attention focused on the success of team members

This requires a corporate culture to which people are excited to belong and perform within. Combined, these ingredients create the secret sauce that positions any organization to succeed in the marketplace. So, whats the secret sauce that holds your team together? Ask these questions to find out:

Is the vision clear? To achieve a goal or grow a business, there first needs to be a clear vision for what success looks like so leaders can walk the talk and serve as engaged change agents throughout the evolution. Determine what it is that your organization does best and how you want to be recognized, and craft a vision statement anchored to this.

Are core values integrated at each level? Core values will vary depending on your mission and need to support and honor attitudes, practices, and service standards that are a part of the broader vision. Integrity, respect, quality, teamwork, and winning are all examples. What fundamental values are necessary to bring to life the vision or your organization? Does this require extra focus in a particular area?

Are the right players in place? Building a winning team is all about the people within an organization who adopt and demonstrate the vision and mission. Invest adequate time and resources to coach, train, and prepare future leaders. It is vital to match talents with opportunity and consistently question whether or not employees are working to their maximum potential in their current positions. If not, the company is better served by identifying where they could perform most optimally. As Good to Great author Jim Collins says, Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

Are stretch goals and accountability practices in place to keep the team motivated and productive? It is essential to set high performance standards and expectations, provide leadership with proper coaching, track progress, and make mid-course corrections to ensure goals are achieved.

In his book, Winning, Jack Welch explains the importance of evaluation systems with purpose. No evaluation system is first rate unless it is constantly monitored for integrity, he says. Consider the following questions to evaluate whether or not your process of goal-setting and accountability are working:

Are specific performance goals included in the business plan?

Is progress tracked and reported on a regular basis to ensure growth?

Are employees held accountable for meeting goals and taking the necessary steps to get there?

Employees will be well-equipped to achieve goals if they are well-informed of their responsibilities, understand current performance and growth expectations, and offered ways to track and understand the steps necessary to achieve them.

Is success throughout the organization celebrated? The quickest way to lose performance momentum is to hold back praise and recognition. Share the glory, and offer liberal recognition and great performance incentives so employees are motivated to invest in the success of the company at an even deeper level. When employees are made to feel like an integral part of any success mission, they will show up and perform that way.

Secret sauce may be challenging to define, yet it is experienced and demonstrated in priceless ways that are well worth the effort.