I borrowed the title of this piece from the book authored by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. The bestseller tried to scrutinize laudable “lessons from America’s best-run companies.”
What the two authors found surprised them. They wrote: “Tools didn’t substitute for thinking. Intellect didn’t overpower wisdom. Analysis didn’t impede action. Rather, these companies worked hard to keep things simple in a complex world. They persisted. They insisted on top quality. They fawned on their customers. They listened to their employees and treated them like adults. They allowed innovative product and service ‘champions’ long tethers. They allowed some chaos in return for quick action and regular experimentation.”
That’s what excellence is all about – in business. In 2004, I was part of the editorial team of the regional office of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to come up with a book with the same idea but related to forestry. The following year, the book – In search of excellence: Exemplary forest management in Asia and the Pacific – came out and became one of FAO’s most requested books.
Orison Swett Marden, founder of Success magazine, once wrote: “People who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others do them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, this little farther on. That counts in the quality of life’s work. It is constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence.”
“We are what we repeatedly do,” philosopher Aristotle said. “Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” American President Abraham Lincoln knew this well. “I do the very best I know how, the very best I can,” he was quoted as saying, “and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way,” said Booker T. Washington. And that’s the secret of joy in work, according to award-winning author Pearl S. Buck. “To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.” It is by writing well also that I find joy in my work.
Excellence is when love and skill work together. “Expect a masterpiece,” declared John Ruskin, if the two are present. Take the case of Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian artist and one of the great masters of the High Renaissance. He was also celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist.
“His profound love of knowledge and research was the keynote of both his artistic and scientific endeavors,” someone wrote of da Vinci. “His innovations in the field of painting influenced the course of Italian art for more than a century after his death, and his scientific studies—particularly in the fields of anatomy, optics, and hydraulics—anticipated many of the developments of modern science.”
At present time, I can think of Hollywood actress Meryl Streep. Before making it big, she was a waitress at The Hotel Somerset in Somerville, New Jersey. Now, considered by many movie reviewers to be the greatest living film actress, she has been nominated for the coveted Oscar award 14 times. She gave an outstanding performance in her first film role, Julia, and was Oscar nominated for her second film, The Deer Hunter. She went on to win the Academy Award for her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie’s Choice, in which she gave a heart-wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a Nazi death camp.
A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her preparation for her roles, Streep turned out a string of highly acclaimed performances in the 1980s. Her career declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her performance as Clint Eastwood’s married lover in The Bridges of Madison Country. A realist when she talks about her future years in film, she remarked that “…no matter what happens, my work will stand…”
“Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better,” commented Pat Riley. To which American writer Warren Bennis added that excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. “The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere,” he explained. “Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.”
If you have to do things, do more than what you can do. Commit to excellence, urges Robin Sharma, author of The Powerful Secrets for Getting to World. Become massively innovative and wear your passion on your sleeve. They might call you different or weird or even crazy. But please remember, every great leader was initially laughed at. Now they are revered.”
Lots of Bible characters come to mind. Noah was considered a deluded engineer for he designed and built the ark in the middle of a desert. Moses was touted as a magician who turned water into blood. Nehemiah was a waiter for he was a cupbearer to a king. Elijah was a beggar asking a widow for food. King David acted insane to escape his captors. Mary was considered an improper woman for he conceived a child before marriage.
Jesus Christ Himself was willing to look foolish. Coming into a town on a donkey, having to fish to pay your taxes, and forgetting to bring the wine do not seem like ingredients for success. Crying like a rejected lover, passing out invitation to a feast that largely go unanswered, having to stand on front porches and knocking hardly sound like a job description for a king.
“My new favorite word is ‘awkward.’ The reason we need to be in search of awkward is that awkward is the barrier between us and excellence, between where we are and the remarkable. If it were easy, everyone would have done it already, and it wouldn’t be worth the effort,” Seth Godin said.
Do not be afraid to do more than what you know. An unknown author tells us: “Risk more than others think is safe, care more than others think is wise, dream more than others think is practical, expect more than others think is possible.” And that is what excellence is all about.
For comments, write me at henrytacio@gmail.com
What the two authors found surprised them. They wrote: “Tools didn’t substitute for thinking. Intellect didn’t overpower wisdom. Analysis didn’t impede action. Rather, these companies worked hard to keep things simple in a complex world. They persisted. They insisted on top quality. They fawned on their customers. They listened to their employees and treated them like adults. They allowed innovative product and service ‘champions’ long tethers. They allowed some chaos in return for quick action and regular experimentation.”
That’s what excellence is all about – in business. In 2004, I was part of the editorial team of the regional office of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to come up with a book with the same idea but related to forestry. The following year, the book – In search of excellence: Exemplary forest management in Asia and the Pacific – came out and became one of FAO’s most requested books.
Orison Swett Marden, founder of Success magazine, once wrote: “People who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others do them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, this little farther on. That counts in the quality of life’s work. It is constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence.”
“We are what we repeatedly do,” philosopher Aristotle said. “Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” American President Abraham Lincoln knew this well. “I do the very best I know how, the very best I can,” he was quoted as saying, “and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way,” said Booker T. Washington. And that’s the secret of joy in work, according to award-winning author Pearl S. Buck. “To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.” It is by writing well also that I find joy in my work.
Excellence is when love and skill work together. “Expect a masterpiece,” declared John Ruskin, if the two are present. Take the case of Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian artist and one of the great masters of the High Renaissance. He was also celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist.
“His profound love of knowledge and research was the keynote of both his artistic and scientific endeavors,” someone wrote of da Vinci. “His innovations in the field of painting influenced the course of Italian art for more than a century after his death, and his scientific studies—particularly in the fields of anatomy, optics, and hydraulics—anticipated many of the developments of modern science.”
At present time, I can think of Hollywood actress Meryl Streep. Before making it big, she was a waitress at The Hotel Somerset in Somerville, New Jersey. Now, considered by many movie reviewers to be the greatest living film actress, she has been nominated for the coveted Oscar award 14 times. She gave an outstanding performance in her first film role, Julia, and was Oscar nominated for her second film, The Deer Hunter. She went on to win the Academy Award for her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie’s Choice, in which she gave a heart-wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a Nazi death camp.
A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her preparation for her roles, Streep turned out a string of highly acclaimed performances in the 1980s. Her career declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her performance as Clint Eastwood’s married lover in The Bridges of Madison Country. A realist when she talks about her future years in film, she remarked that “…no matter what happens, my work will stand…”
“Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better,” commented Pat Riley. To which American writer Warren Bennis added that excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. “The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere,” he explained. “Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.”
If you have to do things, do more than what you can do. Commit to excellence, urges Robin Sharma, author of The Powerful Secrets for Getting to World. Become massively innovative and wear your passion on your sleeve. They might call you different or weird or even crazy. But please remember, every great leader was initially laughed at. Now they are revered.”
Lots of Bible characters come to mind. Noah was considered a deluded engineer for he designed and built the ark in the middle of a desert. Moses was touted as a magician who turned water into blood. Nehemiah was a waiter for he was a cupbearer to a king. Elijah was a beggar asking a widow for food. King David acted insane to escape his captors. Mary was considered an improper woman for he conceived a child before marriage.
Jesus Christ Himself was willing to look foolish. Coming into a town on a donkey, having to fish to pay your taxes, and forgetting to bring the wine do not seem like ingredients for success. Crying like a rejected lover, passing out invitation to a feast that largely go unanswered, having to stand on front porches and knocking hardly sound like a job description for a king.
“My new favorite word is ‘awkward.’ The reason we need to be in search of awkward is that awkward is the barrier between us and excellence, between where we are and the remarkable. If it were easy, everyone would have done it already, and it wouldn’t be worth the effort,” Seth Godin said.
Do not be afraid to do more than what you know. An unknown author tells us: “Risk more than others think is safe, care more than others think is wise, dream more than others think is practical, expect more than others think is possible.” And that is what excellence is all about.
For comments, write me at henrytacio@gmail.com
