Do you do things with excellence?

Excellence is “the maximum exercise of one’s gifts and abilities within the range of the responsibilities given by God”. Author and teacher Chuck Swindoll speaks of building a platform that rests on six pillars of excellence:

· Integrity. Integrity — being of sound moral principle, uprightness, honesty and sincerity — should be the hallmark of our business life.
· Faithfulness. When you say you are going to do something or be somewhere, you do it.
· Punctuality. Start early. Make sure people are never waiting on you.
· Quality workmanship. Quality workmanship is the rule and not the exception. Don’t cut corners or stop short of your maximum effort.
· Pleasant attitude. Resist the temptation to complain and grumble.
· Enthusiasm. Be eager to contribute your energies to the success of your company or business.

Competitive excellence requires 100 percent all of the time. Making a commitment to excellence is a fundamental step on the success journey.

Excellence is
· The sincere performance. Excellence is shown by how you work when no one is noticing.
· A result. Excellence is never an accident and does not come by chance. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution. Excellence means “anything that is worth doing is worth doing well.”
· A choice. Your level of performance is a choice. You cannot reach your potential and make adequacy your goal. Excellence represents the wise choice of many alternatives.
· A moving target. Aiming for excellence means performing significantly better than your present standards.

To move toward excellence, follow the CASH method:

· Continual improvement. “Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better” (Pat Riley).
· Attention to details. It takes a lot of little things to add up to 100 percent.
· Self-discipline. If you want to change yourself, you must practice self-discipline to change something you do every day.
· High personal standards. Maintain high personal standards. Mediocrity is a personal concession to “less than our best.”

Continually pursuing excellence means setting the goal of perfection. There is no substitute for the feeling of the sense of achievement in doing a job extremely well. Cultivate the habit of excellence and reflect a pattern of excellence: Do through to the end, complete, accurate, omitting nothing.

There are many times in our lives when no one would notice a minimum effort and would appreciated a maximum effort. Often, the difference between a great work and a mediocre one is the care and extra work that make the difference in the final results.
Excellence separates the best from the rest. Excellence is not perfection; perfection means making a 10 (i.e. no mistake), excellence means doing the best we can do at that point in time (not always a 10).

A spirit of excellence can make us:
Do a little more.
Stay a little longer.
Aim a little farther.
Go a step higher.
Shoot a little higher.

A spirit of excellence means no half-hearted service. Prepare and practice excellence; do everything in the spirit of excellence. We must build the culture of excellence because excellence honors God and inspires people.

The roadmap toward excellence:

Think ahead. Prepare ahead, plan way in advance. Everything matters. You cannot leave things at the last minute and hope for the best.

Follow through. Excellence by choice means:
· Our aim is to overdeliver.
· Our goal is to exceed expectation.
· We do more than expected.
· We go beyond the average.
· We move from routine to remarkable.
Success always follows when you exceed people’s expectation.

Take responsibility. Sincerely apologize when you make mistake. It will raise the “leadership Dow Jones Index”.

Add value. Seek to add value to whatever we are doing. Excellence is a game of inches. Do things better all the time.

Do it with heart. Whatever you do, do it with heart, “as if everything depends on it”. Excellence is done with a lot of heart, a lot of thought, a lot of care.
· If you are going to work, work with heart.
· If you are going to lead, lead with heart.