Jeff Porter 12/19/2014
I’ve been told by business owners and managers that “If I focused on excellence, I’d go broke!” If I choose to engage in the discussion on this subject, I challenge them to consider that if they don’t focus on excellence, they may well end up in the same situation. What are your competitors doing? It only takes one to excel in your market to lose your competitive edge.
So if you don’t focus on excellence, what are you aiming for? Maybe it’s mediority? Is just good enough your standard?
“The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.”
- William Arthur Ward
As individuals, if we choose to aim for mediocrity, we mostly just influence ourselves, but as business owners, leaders, and managers, we have a greater responsibility. Our attitude toward our work impacts our team and ultimately the success or otherwise of the business.
The pursuit of “excellence” is a personal attribute and has a different meaning for every individual. But, as William Arthur Ward says in the quote above, excellence requires discipline – that constant habitual approach to going above and beyond “good enough” to be better—it requires a Mindset of Excellence.
This mindset is infectious; it transcends the individual and influences the culture of the organization. I’ve observed many leaders and managers involved in projects and initiatives big and small. Those that speak in terms of long-term success and paint an image of achievement are drawing from their Mindset of Excellence, going above and beyond what is generally accepted as good enough motivates their team. Their pursuit of making a situation “better” helps them bring “excellence” into view.
Conversely, when I get the chance to coach someone who emphasises the difficulties of achieving success, I realize how much their mindset influences the way they speak and act, and, despite their well-meaning empathy for the team, they are unconsciously demotivating them and setting them up for failure.
My counsel in these situations is to encourage them to think and speak in terms of “we can, we will”, rather than apologetic terms of “we’re not sure, we can’t”. I suggest that they ask themselves, do they want to succeed? Can they picture and describe that success? If you don’t believe it, neither will they! Develop a Mindset of Excellence, a state of knowing that business can always be better. Get yourself to a state of picturing what better looks like; reach further to envision what excellence looks like, by breaking the long journey into smaller parts.
Three Points to consider for a Mindset of Excellence
To develop a mindset of excellence, the first step is to go back to the fundamentals of excellence itself—what it is and what it is not. I believe the three truths of excellence are:
1. Realize that Excellence is not simply a skill set
For me, this realization came from some quotes I heard from Earl Nightingale years ago. Now I can’t attribute these to him, and I may be misquoting, but the message is sound.
The first:
Don't sit in front of any empty fireplace and ask for heat.
The next:
Do your work, not only your work but a little more for the lavishings sake, that little more that makes all the difference.
Packed inside the first is, don’t feel entitled to success if you haven’t done the work. A lyric from John Fogerty comes to mind:
If I only had a dollar, for every song I sung, every time I've had to play, while people sat there drunk...
Overnight success is rare; success takes work, and excellence takes discipline, repetition, and habits and eventually, your mindset takes shape. Build the fire, light it and give it the fuel it needs, then feel its heat.
The second part of building a Mindset of Excellence is going the extra mile – A little more for the lavishings sake… Doing more than expected, or delighting your client is a powerful concept. It moves the individual beyond “good enough” toward better, and ultimately excellence. Managed appropriately, this doing a little extra can overcome the “…I’d go broke!” protest in the first line of this article. I say managed appropriately because it can be a slippery slope between a little extra and going beyond scope.
2. Excellence is journey, not the destination
Like any journey, it takes planning. Do you know where you are going? Do you currently know where you are? What are the steps in the journey? What do we need? So many questions, no wonder people avoid excellence!
“If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else.”
- Yogi Berra
This is the work of strategy. Whether it’s for your personal accomplishments, your business idea, or the major corporation your a helping lead. Excellence, or even small improvements are rendered moot in the absence of strategy. Like a metaphoric game of Chutes and Ladders (or Snakes and Ladders for my Australian, New Zealand and British readers) progress can and will fall back if your strategy is not sound, or not being executed.
If execution is not focused through principles of quality management, your progress toward excellence will stall. To maintain progress, be consistent, persistent, plan, execute, and adjust your course through a trusted framework of strategy and quality management systems.
3. Don’t conflate excellence and perfection
Okay, one last quote I promise:
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.
- Vince Lombardi
Excellence can be a pursuit of perfection, but realize that some measure of errors and defects are a normal part of business. Organizations seeking excellence implement a Quality Management System (QMS) to detect and eliminate waste, reduce defects, and minimize variation in their processes. These systems of management acknowledge that perfection is not practical, but they do measure and manage the degrees of business excellence according to the quality policies of the organization or industry standards as applicable.
At the personal level, we are less rigorous in terms of how we apply excellence to our work, but the fundamentals from above apply. We are human, we cannot be perfect. As individuals we need to recognize moments in our work and life where we could have done something better, learn from the situation, and correct our actions.
Excellence is achieved through prevention of errors, not inspection and correction.
Making Business Better LLC provides coaching, consulting, and advisory services to individuals and organizations seeking excellence in their work. – www.MBBcc.com
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