Excellence - What is Your Definition?

[Marc]

I see this word a lot in threads such as in Competition: A good or bad thing?

How do you define excellence?

[WALLACE]

Excellence may be defined IMO as; Natural Motivation
Wallace.

[Marc]

Originally Posted by WALLACE

Excellence may be defined IMO as; Natural Motivation
Wallace.

More details please!

[WALLACE]

The following is a portion of a paper on achieving excellence. I hope it gets this thread going.
Wallace.


Every now and then you encounter someone who demonstrates excellence on the job. It might be an exceptional waitress who anticipates your every need. Or a manager who generates both high performance and loyalty on his teams. It could be a teacher with a knack for unlocking the desire to learn in each student. Excellence, true excellence, is something we prize but seldom see. It's a joy to encounter someone who is truly excellent at what they do. Why is that so rare? More importantly, how can you become known as a man or woman who consistently demonstrates excellence?

One comment that is heard time and again about those who demonstrate excellence is, "He/she is a natural at it." They don't seem to struggle to be excellent; it just flows. That is always a sign of motivation, and therein lies the first key: Motivation is required for excellence.

Motivation is what we like to do naturally. It's like being right or left-handed. We don't even think about it. We just write. The same is true for people known for excellence. They have a group of motivations that work in concert to help them perform at a higher level. Like all motivations, these were inborn and are as much a part of them as being blue-eyed or tall.

But there is a second key: Motivation can be developed. People who demonstrate excellence have identified their motivations and worked hard to develop them. They have added knowledge, skill, experience and practice to consistently produce at the highest levels.

By the way, there is a flip side to these two keys, and it is this: The best we can be with low motivation is adequate. No matter how hard we work and desire it, in the long run we will never be excellent at something without high levels of motivation in that area. In other words, if we toil in areas where we have low motivation, we resign ourselves to mediocrity.

Who wants to be mediocre? Who wants to be known as "adequate?" Wouldn't you rather have a shot at excellence? The first step to unlocking your excellence is to know what you do well naturally. What are your motivations?

[Randy Stewart]

I agree that motivation is a major portion. However, without talent or skills, you may only achieve excellent comparable to your ability.

Excellence is a subjective measurment. A cold hamburger would be excellent to a starving person, whereas some people don't like leftovers. To run a 15 minute mile with only 1 leg would be excellent, but would hardly qualify for the olympics.

To achieve excellence you must have motivation, but to be considered excellent you must know what standard you are being graded against. Looking at the root of excellence, which is excel, we get the definition "to be better than", so you have to fill in the what - to be better than what?

[WALLACE]

Motivation is (As said in the paper) the "first" key.
There are more keys implied that make up the character of a person or group who display excellence.
Being measured against a standard? Well, try telling that to an eastern 3rd world person. It's very typical for the westerner to measure their capabilities against a standard, survival is excellence.
It's certainly not rocket science and we don't need to psychologize this area. People who are highly internaly motivated are the folk who display excellence, at one point or another.
Wallace.

[Rob Nix]

Excellence, like "quality", is hard to define due to its (as stated previously) subjective nature.

Nevertheless, I would define it as superiority to any alternative, where no fault can be found, and it results in pleasant surprise. It is one of those products or services that elicits the "tell all of my friends about the great experience I had" response.

[Mike S.]

As usual, Webster does a good job:

The state of being : 1: SUPERIOR 2: very good of its kind :
eminently good : FIRST-CLASS

Do we need more? (Serious question).