When I buy products or services, I expect those items to meet certain standards. I am looking for excellence, and usually at the lowest cost possible. Whether it is a $.50 pack of peanuts or a $20 toy for my granddaughter or a $30,000 vehicle or a $100,000 home, I expect safety, usability, reliability, quality, and longevity (except for the peanuts). What are your expectations for the goods and services you purchase? You probably have great expectations when you spend your money. The first reason to be excellent might be that people expect excellence in goods and services. Think about the customers for your goods and/or services. What are their expectations? Do they expect mediocrity or excellence? How do you know when you hit the target? People notice the differences between excellence and mediocrity. People will tell you, particularly if you provide mediocre services or products.

Evidently, lots of people expect excellence and organizations want to meet the expectation. When typing in the term “excellence” at www.google.com, the term generates 551,000,000 hits on the Internet. The term “mediocrity” generates 9,090,000 hits. It appears people are more interested in excellence than in mediocrity, by almost a factor of ten. The results for excellence revealed that the word means different things to different people. What does excellence mean to you? A dictionary contains these meanings: first-class, valuable, distinguished, outstanding, quality, surpass in achievement. David Foster, in Accept No Mediocre Life, indicates that excellence is a spiritual standard, and we meet that standard through quality of commitment, integrity, and character. Aristotle says similarly that excellence or virtue of a thing causes that thing both to be itself in good condition and to perform its function well. Combining these ideas shows that excellence is that habit or practice that makes a person both good in character and effective in performance.

The Greeks used the word arête, to mean excellence: The most articulated value in Greek culture is areté. Translated as “virtue,” the word actually means something closer to “being the best you can be,” or “reaching your highest human potential.” In the Homeric poems, arête is frequently associated with bravery, but more often, with effectiveness. The man or woman of arête is a person of the highest effectiveness; they use all their faculties to achieve real results. Foster also says that “excellence is the currency of influence in our culture.” Those who seek to influence through their lives and work and products and services are judged by the quality of their accomplishments. How do what Foster and the Greeks say about excellence compare with your definition of excellence? When words like character, virtue, influence, and effectiveness are used, excellence takes on deeper layers of meaning.

Posted April 17th, 2007 in Excellence Book