Excellence is the only standard

if you look up the definition of excellence you get a stream of superlatives that describe something between superior and the absolute best. These definitions don't help much in the real world. They don't provide anything other than a highly subjective measure. Maybe that's why so many businesses reference excellence in their values - because as a concept it's easy to relate to but hard to define or measure.

I am going to use a real-world pragmatic benchmark for excellence which is "pretty damned good". If the man in the street would attribute this description to a process, performance, product or service then that's excellence as far as I am concerned. It's pragmatic and (highly) achievable. All be it, not a common achievement in everyday business or life.

Context is vitally important. An F1 racing team will not survive against an everyday benchmark of "pretty damned good" ordinarily - however if Christian Horner opined that Red Bull Racing's recent Grand Prix performance was "pretty damed good" we might assume that the team excelled. Should you ever need one, you might wish that a brain surgeon will operate at a level beyond "pretty damned good". In context, a peer description of pretty damned good however, may well mean excellent. So, context is everything.

Excellence is not the "best you can be". That's something different, measured against a different yardstick: A great target but attaining this level may well fall far short of the excellence mark. For instance, if I was an aspiring athlete (unlikely I know), after training and bucket-fulls of dedication I might be able to run a sprint in the best time that I could achieve; the reality is that anyone who knows me would collapse in a heap of uncontrollable laughter should I show them this result. Uncontrollable mirth is not a promising sign of excellence in this context - even with my pragmatic definition - not even the kindest most supportive friend is going to describe my athletic prowess as pretty damned good.

So why do I talk about excellence? Well, it's at two levels....

Corporate statements

....Where aspirations of excellence are liberally scattered everywhere like confetti blowing in the wind after a wedding. Most companies give prominence to a commitment to excellence in some form, referring to quality, continuous improvement and overall business operations. At a corporate level they are all too widely used but the winners are able to convert them into culture and actions in the day to day business. They deliver excellence in what they do. sometimes not universally, but its always an absolute joy unearth real excellence ( think Apple product packaging as an example) Failure to convert such corporate aspirations into reality demotes the values to mere blah, blah. Excellence is not a point on the horizon to aim for. Its real, it applies to everything and importantly its now!

Do your customers and/or your teams describe your business process or product or service as pretty damned good? If not then it's time to take a long hard look at where you start - today - to make it so - step by step, fix what needs to be fixed. It might start with that automated telephone greeting (that drives people nuts), or the onboarding process for new recuits that leaves them confused....

Individual actions

This is where excellence becomes more relevant for many people. I always go back to Tom Peters comment "Excellence is the next five minutes" (dive into his thoughts on www.tompeters.com). He focusses on the here and now - it's what you do in the next five minutes (constantly). It's making the next phone call effective and structured, its making your next presentation BRILLIANT, its putting some thought into your next team discussion to make it motivating, its doing the next thing on your list with way more thought and investment in time to make it "pretty damned good".

Look back at the last piece of work that you completed. Maybe a ppt, or a piece of analysis, or a coaching discussion or even a disciplinary meeting. Whatever. Was it excellent?. Same thing for the last piece of work you received. Maybe a letter, proposal, plea for investment, a spreadsheet. Were they excellent? If not, why did they not measure up to the standard of Excellent? The journey starts here...

Maybe now is the time to make a resolution - to never do (or accept) stuff that is not excellent again. Make it your standard, your mantra ...... Or maybe not... your choice.