Saturday, June 28, 2008 In search of excellence By Henrylito D. Tacio Regarding Henry
I BORROWED the title of this piece from the book authored by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. The bestseller tried to scrutinize laudable "lessons from America's best-run companies."
What the two authors found surprised them. They wrote: "Tools didn't substitute for thinking. Intellect didn't overpower wisdom. Analysis didn't impede action. Rather, these companies worked hard to keep things simple in a complex world. They persisted. They insisted on top quality. They fawned on their customers. They listened to their employees and treated them like adults. They allowed innovative product and service 'champions' long tethers. They allowed some chaos in return for quick action and regular experimentation."
That's what excellence is all about -- in business. In 2004, I was part of the editorial team of the regional office of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to come up with a book with the same idea but related to forestry. The following year, the book "In search of excellence: Exemplary forest management in Asia and the Pacific" came out and became one of FAO's most requested books.
"Hope is on its way," wrote David Kaimowitz, director general of the Center for International Forestry Research. "We have had enough of doom and gloom. These inspiring stories (contained in the book) remind us there are good people out there doing good things in the forests."
Orison Swett Marden, founder of Success magazine, once wrote: "People who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others do them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, this little farther on. That counts in the quality of life's work. It is constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence."
"Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way," said Booker T. Washington. And that's the secret of joy in work, according to award-winning author Pearl S. Buck. "To know how to do something well is to enjoy it." It is by writing well also that I find joy in my work.
Excellence is when love and skill work together. "Expect a masterpiece," declared John Ruskin, if the two are present. Take the case of Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian artist and one of the great masters of the High Renaissance. He was also celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist.
"His profound love of knowledge and research was the keynote of both his artistic and scientific endeavors," someone wrote of da Vinci.
"His innovations in the field of painting influenced the course of Italian art for more than a century after his death, and his scientific studies 'particularly in the fields of anatomy, optics, and hydraulics' anticipated many of the developments of modern science."
If you have to do things, do more than you can do. Commit to excellence, urges Robin Sharma, author of The Powerful Secrets for Getting to World. Become massively innovative and wear your passion on your sleeve. They might call you different or weird or even crazy. But please remember, every great leader was initially laughed at. Now they are revered."
Lots of Bible characters come to mind. Noah was considered a deluded engineer for he designed and built the ark in the middle of a desert. Moses was touted as a magician who turned water into blood. Nehemiah was a waiter for he was a cupbearer to a king. Elijah was a beggar asking a widow for food. King David acted insane to escape his captors. Mary was an improper woman for he conceived a child before marriage.
Jesus Christ Himself was willing to look foolish. Coming into a town on a donkey, having to fish to pay your taxes, and forgetting to bring the wine do not seem like ingredients for success. Crying like a rejected lover, passing out invitation to a feast that largely go unanswered, having to stand on front porches and knocking hardly sound like a job description for a king.
