Four Elements of Excellence

Dear Dr. Blanchard:
One of the phrases one hears repeatedly is achieving excellence. Even the president, in his State of the Union address, discussed achieving excellence. Sure, people can work til they drop, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are achieving excellence. Do you have any suggestions for how one charts a course for excellence? In advance, thanks for your help.

Rudy in Sacramento

0Dear Rudy:

To achieve personal or organizational excellence, there are four elements needed. The first is goal setting. Without specific goals, you’ll never know whether you’ve achieved excellence because you’ve never defined it. Hence, the first step is to write clear, specific goals of what you wish to achieve and at what level you wish to achieve these goals.

The second element needed for achieving excellence is commitment. You must dedicate yourself to achieving your goals. You cannot allow yourself to be sidetracked or diverted from your main objective or goal. If you are unwilling to accept the challenge of achieving a particular goal, then the chances of achieving excellence are dim.

Feed back is the third ingredient needed for achieving excellence. How do you know when you’re going in the right direction unless you get feedback? Developing excellence is a process, one which is really a journey. You need to know that you’re on the right road. Otherwise, you may not end up where you wish. If there is no built-in system for tracking performance and improvement, how can you catch yourself or those around you doing things as they should be done?

The fourth element needed for achieving success is organizational support. This includes not just the formal sanctions and support from an institution, but the backing and support of family and friends as well.

Enthusiastic people, or individuals with ambitious goals, will often head off in a direction that might not lead to their goals simply because they lack a compass. People need to know how they are performing. Good athletes, great dancers and singers all have coaches assisting them reach their peak performance. A sure method for putting yourself on the right track and maintaining the desired course is through the formation of SMART goals.

Some may remember that I’ve written about SMART goals before. They are worth the review here since I suspect that they may be the critical element for helping you achieve excellence. The specific elements of these goals are: S stands for specific, M for measurable, A for attainable, R for relevant and T for trackable.

To establish a SMART goal, you must decide to achieve something specific. Let’s say that you wish to stop smoking. This is certainly specific. Stopping smoking is certainly measurable. Either you stop or you don’t. Smoking one little cigarette tells you that you have not stopped. You have specific evidence about whether you are achieving your goal.

The next step in establishing SMART goals is making them attainable. Stopping smoking is certainly an attainable goal. Yes, people can stop smoking. It’s not easy or fun, but it’s something more and more people are doing daily and something which you can achieve. The R for relevant is most appropriate since you know that smoking is harmful to your health and you know that by not smoking you’ll be in better health.

The T for trackable in this example is easy, also. Again, you know that if you’re not buying cigarettes and you’re not smoking cigarettes you’ve stopped at least in the short term. People who stop smoking are very thrilled to share with their friends the fact that they haven’t smoked in three days…or three weeks. These expressions of achievement are clear indicators of reaching a goal.

I applaud your desire to achieve excellence. Just remember that it takes more than desire. It takes clear, specific goals, as well as long-term commitment, feedback and organization support. I wish you success on your quest.