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IN PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE

“Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

So what is excellence? Why do some people excel in their world and why do others struggle to be good in what they do? The answer is not simple but I want to try and lay down some points explaining what it means to pursue excellence.

I wouldn’t define excellence as attaining perfection. Excellence for me would be attaining continuous improvement. It is not a target but a journey.

Roadmap to excellence:

I have always believed in loving or enjoying what I do. It’s like a decision you are making that if I am doing something then let me enjoy it to the fullest or if I am not able to enjoy then is better to stop doing the same and find an alternative.

I have been an auditor for the last 22 years and frankly, I cannot imagine my life doing anything else. People might classify that as boring but I have enjoyed my professional journey this far to the fullest. The job involves dealing with different issues; clients and people every year. I get to meet different people and cultures in each company from different sectors of the economy.

But having said that I have also seen or met many people who have struggled in audit, with some of them understanding that their professional calling is in a different field and changed careers or fields. It would be very important for a person to understand if they are enjoying their work or not. Try to understand the reason why you are not enjoying – is it the company environment, your colleagues or just the fact that you are not a good match in the field you are involved in? If you are not interested in the field then there is no point in changing the work environment and trying the same job in another company.

True excellence comes from within, driven by a deep sense of passion for what you do and an internal desire to improve.

Excellence will enhance performance:

Most people tend to believe in the importance of results to be called ‘Excellent’. I would like to dispute this and say that it is the hard work that we put into achieving excellence in one’s field which will get us the desirable results. If you are indeed trying to pursue something, then it is better to pursue excellence in your work than to pursue the results. 

For example, if you are a baker trying to run a business then you would want to bake excellent cakes that your customers will keep coming back to. If you decide to prepare cakes half-heartedly or take a shortcut to cut prices, you might not see those customers come back to you irrespective of your affordable pricing.

As I mentioned above excellence is a constant journey and not a defined target. Be disciplined and committed to your cause irrespective of the many roadblocks that you might face in this journey.

I also tell people to be committed to their work more than showing commitment to their employer. This means that irrespective of who you work for, be more concerned about being disciplined and committed to the work that you are doing. This will bring in the desired results and enhance your performance which will eventually be recognised by your employer.

Excellence is more about enjoying the journey and continually pushing boundaries than just achieving the desired result.

Measuring excellence:

One thing we always get lost in is when we start comparing our performance with others. Why do we need to do that? If you do want to measure your performance then you are better off comparing with yourself from a previous period or version. 

Everyone is living their journey with their unique challenges, resources, efforts etc. It is never a fair comparison when we try to compare our achievements with others because the path that they must have taken would be very different from yours. If you want to measure your performance then you are better off measuring against yourself a year back or 2 years back. Find out how much you have grown over a period and whether are you happy with the progress you have made.

Keep putting in the efforts necessary to be a better version of yourself on a daily, weekly or yearly basis and success will follow.

To conclude, I would say that excellence demands our personal accountability and we are the ones who need to take the responsibility for committing to pursue excellence in what we do. I will end with another quote here:

“Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.” – Pat Riley