Vic has a passion for excellence. He told me to not stop until good becomes better, and better becomes best. This has been my mantra for many years. Until I began to embrace a growth mindset.
How do we know that a person has a passion for excellence?
I wrote a guide on personal development for smart Pinoys. Click the link to check it out.
Choosing Mediocrity
Mediocrity in the workplace is kept by people who embraced mediocrity.
They can endure mediocre performances because they want to keep the status quo. Mediocrity is their comfort zone, and excellence is alien to their system.
A latecomer has endless alibis. Heavy traffic. Road accidents. Insomnia. Eventually, he’ll reason that it is okay to be late – you deduct a proportionate amount from his salary.
A low performer can find excuses1 for low performance. Accepting excuses is a risky business for leaders.
The boss is not a good person. The boss does not know how to lead. The boss has favoritism. His efforts are unappreciated. The company gives so small a salary, so why work hard?
If you don’t choose excellence, you are choosing mediocrity.
Listen. Whatever you tolerate defines your leadership.
Being Indifferent
It is easy to think that mediocrity is the opposite of excellence. And you can quickly come to that conclusion as you read this article.
But let me tell you something important. Indifference is the enemy of excellence.
An indifferent person does not care — a person with a passion for excellence cares so deeply. They care for the users of their products and services. They care for the people they work with. They care so much that they cannot allow themselves to do mediocre work.
When you don’t choose excellence, you choose mediocrity because you don’t care.
So, you can ask yourself whether you care enough to do better than good and do better than best.
Perpetuating Mediocrity
What you tolerate perpetuates. If you allow mediocre performance to continue, you are telling everyone everything is okay.
Unless you declare that nothing of the same-old attitude is tolerated in the workplace, the same will remain.
No improvement will happen if you accept waste, low performance, and the status quo.
You will always get what you tolerate. Someone with a passion for excellence does not tolerate mediocrity.
Stop Making Excuses
Those who choose mediocrity do invent myriads of excuses. We can stop perpetuating mediocrity when we stop making excuses and accept responsibility.
People who procrastinate, for example, will find dozens of reasons why it is harmless, if not necessary, to delay work. But we know that procrastination is another excuse.
So instead of looking for the best time to work, we ask ourselves how to deliver what we can do now. Doing it now is the best antidote to procrastination.
Doing it now with our best stops mediocrity too. It is a step towards developing a true passion for excellence.
What is passion for excellence?
Passion for excellence is a phrase that describes the strong desire of a person to do what is outstanding, extraordinary, and remarkable. You want to give it your damndest best each time and strive to do better than yesterday’s best.
A passion for excellence is both a means and an end. The reward is instant. Excellence is the reward for excellence.
And as I have mentioned, one has to choose excellence to do excellent work. To be excellent, you must desire to work better than your best.
It is both the desire and the action that makes a person excellent.
Knowing Excellence
I was on vacation in Baguio when I learned a little thing about money. In the hotel where I stayed, there was a seminar on identifying counterfeit money. I had a short conversation with the seminar leader.
He told me that he is not teaching what counterfeit money looks like. There are many of them in the market. It would be unwise to study fake money.
Instead, he taught the participants what genuine money is.
If one knows the characteristic of genuine money, then any characteristic not of genuine money is fake. Know what is genuine because what is not genuine is fake.
In the same manner, many supervisors and managers talk about mediocrity. It is typically an endless, day-to-day lecture on why people are not performing at their best.
Instead of paying attention to mediocre work, good leaders point out what is personal excellence, and how people can work better than their best.
Doing better than your best shows your passion for excellence.
Passion for excellence begins with self. I recommend that you read Personal Excellence because you can become better than your best.
Exceeding Expectations
A person who has a passion for excellence exceeds expectations. He does not only transact his daily business; he adds value.
On Facebook, you will find people who give bad advice. For example, some say you should not work harder since you don’t get an increased salary. Instead, they tell you that providing an equal value to what you get is wise.
It is as if to say that you only produce a 1000 peso value of work for a 1000 pesos per day salary. I’m afraid that’s not right, of course. What you get from your employer is only a portion of what he needs to spend for you to work. This attitude won’t help you, for you will become a burden instead of a value creator and multiplier.
To increase your value in the workplace, you need to show that the return on investment is high. You must demonstrate through your performance that you give higher returns for every centavo the company will spend on you.
Your passion for excellence will make you walk the extra mile. You are not selling your hours to your company; instead, You are solving their problems.
Most employees worry about handling demanding customers. Some aim to satisfy customers so they won’t be angry. But you who have a passion for excellence will do everything to delight your customers. Creating a delightful customer experience will turn every customer into an evangelist.
To exceed expectations, you strive to become a better team player. You seek ways to improve yourself so you can communicate better. You collaborate with other employees and find ways to help them succeed.
I recommend that as you work, find ways on how you can 10x the value of your work. Think of ways to increase the revenue of your company. Explore growth opportunities. Leave everyone smiling.
Distinguish yourself as the person who walks the extra mile.
Leadership trainings can help leaders distinguish themselves. I recommend you explore the training programs I offer to managers, supervisors, and team leaders.
Passion for Excellence in the Workplace
To show our passion for excellence, we ought to model the way. It is not enough that we talk about it; we must demonstrate excellence.
Our aim is not to deliver what is perfect. That is seldom attainable. To show excellence, we only need to do our best every time. And to make do better today than yesterday’s best.
Here are some simple steps you can do to show your passion for excellence at work — and anywhere.
1. Celebrate the good.
Catch people doing good. Be the first to praise the good things that people do. Our actions gravitate towards our intention.
When we choose to see and celebrate the good things that others are doing, our feet move in that direction too.
2. Work hard and learn harder.
Those who embrace a growth mindset know that excellence is not a fixed identity. You can become excellent in the things that you do. You push yourself harder.
You are not afraid to try new things. You may stumble and fall. But your passion will make you bounce forward. You will learn from your experiences and do better next time.
One effective way to encourage a culture of excellence in the workplace is via training. I encourage you to explore the various leadership training programs I offer to companies in the Philippines.
3. Take risks.
Those who take risks aren’t fools. Passion for excellence isn’t blind faith.
An entrepreneur, for example, takes risks with his money and other resources on new ventures that have never been done before. But he does not do this blind. He knows his market. He knows people’s unfulfilled desires, and the entrepreneur wants to be the first to provide for them.
Taking risk is a choice to take the road not traveled. It is also an opportunity to create a safe and shorter way to our destination.
4. Expand your comfort zone.
Step out of your comfort zone. I was told so many times. And I see the wisdom in it.
But our passion for excellence does not require us to get out of our comfort zone every time. We can continuously operate in our areas of strength, develop new skills, and use new strategies to 1000x our results without the need to get out of our comfort zone.
5. Focus on one thing.
The best way to achieve anything worthwhile is to focus on doing one thing at a time. And we can focus on doing the most important thing at a given time.
It takes discipline to do this. But you can do this.
Start with your development plan. I use 4DX as a framework. You can try it too.
Every day, make it a habit to list down everything you need to do to achieve your strategic and long-term goals. Then, identify the one that will make the most significant difference.
6. Be consistent.
You develop momentum when you are consistent. Do whatever you need to do each day. It does not matter which side of the bed you woke up on. What’s important is that you do what is most important to you.
The three elements of momentum are focus, action, and consistency. You can make your passion ride on your momentum.
7. Seek feedback.
To do better than your best, you need to reflect and evaluate. You can do your self-appraisal each day. And you can benefit from the feedback of others too.
Keep in mind that we don’t see everything. Others can see something that we don’t. And we want to make use of feedback.
Someone with a passion for excellence has the humility to accept how others see things. You can get the help of others by telling them the kind of feedback you need.
8. Nurture relationships.
You can do better than your best by building relationships with others. It is best to build a community of professionals that support each other at work.
Nurture relationships with your boss and your co-workers. Nurture relationships with the members of your community too. We can help each other grow.
Articles
Quotes about Personal Excellence
I didn’t fail. I only discovered several ways by which it was impossible to generate an incan- descent lamp.
Thomas Alva Edison
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
Martin Luther King, Jr
One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his greatest surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t.
Henry Ford
FAQs
We need a passion for excellence at work. You may contact me when you need a speaker or trainer to help inspire employees. Use the form below.
- There are always reasons for picking mediocrity. ↩︎
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