Definition Excellence - What is Your Definition?

W

WALLACE

Excellence may be defined as?

Excellence may be defined IMO as; Natural Motivation
Wallace.
 
W

WALLACE

Excellence

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?
 
R

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?
 
W

WALLACE

Excellence

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.
 
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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.

Happy to be Alive
Trusted Information Resource
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).
 
C

Cathy

Like Rob says quality and excellence are both hard to define.
Like quality, excellence is not just the end result. It is process of acheiving it. Yes, you do need motivation to acheive excellence but motivation alone will not acheive excellence.

Excellence is a jigsaw made up of many pieces. If we talk about a high performance car as being excellent, then excellence went into the process of creating that car. A designer with expert knowledge and excellent tools to design the car. High specification materials made to the highest standard. Highly trained engineers who have achieved excellence. Excellent test programmes designed especially to push the car to tis limits etc. Excellence cannot just be the end result but the entire journey of achieving it and you can achieve it with the right processes and materials.

Does anyone else feel it is more of a process?

Cathy
 
W

WALLACE

Excellence

Cathy,
You're on the right track when you say that:

Excellence cannot just be the end result but the entire journey of achieving it and you can achieve it with the right processes and materials.

I firmly believe that excellence is created, managed, expressed and shared by systems thinking (Processes).
Excellence has a foundation that contains many materials (Factors) and, it has been my personal experience that, the vehicle that transports us throughout the creative levels of excellence is "profound knowledge". :D
Wallace.
 
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