In Search of Excellence
Excellence is a standard many people aspire to but can’t achieve.
It’s not because they lack the will or skill to accomplish great things. It’s more about what discipline and learning it takes to reach the highest standard and sustain it.
The foundation for the highest competence in any role or skill is aptitude, knowledge, experience, and the drive to learn.
But those are just table stakes.
To attain a competence and quality that is extraordinary, a professional must constantly seek feedback, absorb what is actionable, and then incorporate it into their daily execution.
That takes high confidence and low ego, as the feedback to get better usually stings somewhat.
Learning how prospective candidates learn can serve as a lens into their potential greatness. Those who aspire to excel typically want to get better at everything they do.
So, for example, if they cook as a hobby, asking them how they plan to get better at cooking will reveal a lot about who they are as self-improvers and learners.
Because excellence is so rare, most people don’t look for it when they select others to do a task, fill a role, or join a team. After looking at a rash of prospective candidates for a job, it is too easy to accept just above average with the hope for the best.
In too many cases, candidates who might be excellent are overlooked because they say the wrong thing or don’t fit the stereotype a leader is looking for. If sports analytics has taught leaders anything, it is that greatness comes in some surprising packages.
Leaders selecting talent don’t always have access to a full array of data analytics. Instead, they normally rely on a few psychometrics, interview questions, and an example or two of the work the candidate has completed in the past.
Better leaders go a step further and ask candidates to demonstrate their skills in some way, either through a skills test or by performing one skill in front of the team.
Those who are highly talented and reach for excellence love to showcase their skills. Those who are just above average or less despise this demonstration. That, in itself, is highly revealing.
But pound-for-pound, nothing displays excellence better than how it is embodied. An excellent cleaning person is 10 times cleaner than you, or they haven’t yet achieved extraordinary. A great executive assistant is 10 times more organized than you. An excellent coach is 10 times more insightful than you are. A remarkable technologist has 10 times the understanding that you do. Although the number 10 is contrived, you get the gist.
Good leaders look for how excellence is embodied in the people they want to do a task or fill a position on the team. They apply a standard of excellence to the evaluation. They try hard not to accept anyone who isn’t on their way to excellence for any role or position.
Surround yourself with excellent people, and pretty soon, learning and feedback spread like wildfire. That’s one way exceptional teams become great.
"Those who aspire to excel typically want to get better at everything they do."
Excellence is not talent. It is the result of a conscious desire to excel.
Excellence is thus a measure of how competent and skillful we are at any given task.
Competence can be trained, and skill can be learned.
Excellence is thus a measure of how much effort we put in to learn and master a specific skill.
You will only put effort and blood into mastering a skill if you truly love it.
Therefore, you can only be excellent in a skill, if you deeply love the skill for its own sake. But you can always become better at any skill. Progress doesn't require alignment. Excellence, however, requires dedication.
Excellence is thus, a reflection of how deeply you love doing what you do.
The reason you are not excellent in a skill, is because you don't want to excel in that skill. And the reason you don't want to excel is because you know that it doesn't align with who you are.
An interesting read, with a lot to unpack. I intend on, with your permission, to use this article for a discussion time during two of my upcoming leadership related courses.
My courses are for the Frontline Leader and the Field Training Officer. Neither have the hiring authority, but they are two of the three most influential positions at a law enforcement organization.
Some of what I have learned teaching my Frontline Leader class is, many organizations either don't have an evaluation process, or have a poor one at best. We talk about goal setting and how to give feedback in that training. A nugget I'm going to throw into the mix is what I now call (the Combo), Actionable Ownership. (The worker's buy in.)
We give the people we lead feedback, maybe, kind of like the SWOT approach without as many steps, and simply have the person or people we lead for tell us what their Actionable Ownership of the situation will be, and let them to it. They will either rise to the expectations they have set for themselves or not. They will be able to demonstrate their excellence, boosting their confidence, or we may have to approach the target from another attack angle.
This is no easy task. Though there may be some "excellence" out there, maybe what needs to be done is for organizations to ask some of the questions presented about how the candidate best learns, and what their knowledge, skills and the tricky one, their attitude about the work to be done is. Then we send them to our empowered field trainers and Frontline Leaders, and they will teach or train the new hire what excellence looks like, and the discipline it takes to be excellent in the field and sustain that attitude.
We tend to want to blame the "newer" generations about this issue. The truth of it is, it's our fault. The newer generations are our kids. We broke them by lack of attention or neglect and they haven't been taught what excellence looks like. We need to fix it and the message I send to my Frontline Leaders and Field Training Officers students is, "It doesn't matter whose to blame, it's our responsibility to fix it." I have some of the same questions and concerns you are thinking of. "Tomorrow waits for no man." Let's get crack'n.
Thanks again and be safe.
Steve