What Is Excellence?

It is fitting that my friend and colleague Julie van Amerongen contributed this reflection on Excellence for the eBook, 26 Principles of Working for Good. Julie just sent me an "assignment" to review, which she wrote as part of a job application process–she is one of two people left in a precess that began with 250. her work was most excellent! Truly inspired, creative, and right on the mark. There is something profoundly powerful about excellence–watching Kobe Bryant deliver a game, Tiger Woods sink a long put, Dustin Hoffman capture a character, and Julie nailing a marketing assignment!

Conscious entrepreneurs, intrapraneurs, and other change agents through work are especially called to excellence, as they have to deliver results on multiple metrics–e.g. people, planet, and profit. Through a deliberate commitment to excellence, we can set new standards of performance for ourselves and our businesses, and the implications of excellence are, well, excellent!

Yours in Working for Good,

Jeff

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle

When you were a student did you ever study really hard for something and get an A+? When companies or organizations work hard, and hit it on the mark, we call it excellence. (Why we reserve the word excellence for business these days is for another conversation!).

One of the biggest selling business books of all time is Tom Peters’ In Search of Excellence in which he explores management used by leading companies to distill their commonalities. From the years 1989 to 2006 it was the most widely held library book in the United States! Seems we all want to have it, yet it also seems to mean something different to everyone.

What does excellence mean to you? How will you know when you get there? Are the habits you cultivate on a daily basis going to get you there? Time’s a wastin.’ Better get Working for Good.

“Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.” ~ Pat Riley

Jeff: A few years ago my friend Brian Johnson shined a light on the essential meaning of competition for me. The Latin root, competere, means “to come together” and apparently, in the original meaning of the word, to compete meant to excel to the limits of my ability, to stretch you to reach and go beyond the limits of your ability, and on. So, we come together and take turns excelling, so as to stretch each other to continue the process of extending the boundaries of our excellence.

When embodied with the right spirit, this is a tremendous gift we can give to each other, especially when we do so explicitly, with clear ground rules, and occasional time outs!

In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies
by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman

Practice makes perfect