In Search of Excellence

I saw a documentary on NBC a few days ago on the role; Gander, a Canadian town of about 10,000 residents played in the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

Here is more information about Gander.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gander_International_Airport

During 1950-70, before the age of Jumbo Jets, Gander used to be a Transatlantic refueling stop. After the advent ofJumbo jets, Gander slowly lost its importance. 

Just after the plane crashed into the World Trade Center, all air traffic over the USA was shut down. There were many planes enroute to various destinations in the US. They had no option but to land at the nearest airport. Gander airport was flooded with more than 50 flights and almost 10000 passengers. They had to be deplaned and cared for until the routes to US were opened again.

 Just imagine a town getting as many visitors as the number of residents at a short notice (a few hours). People had to be fed, people with medical conditions had to be cared for; and that too for over 3 days. The town had just 550 hotel rooms.

 The way the town and its residents responded was just incredible. The mayor (or town manager) did an emergency radio broadcast asking for help. And the residents responded and how. Not only they managed the basic necessities and comfort for all passengers, they did it with such humanity that must be appreciated and the story must be shared with everyone on the planet.

 Here is a NY Times article on this story from November 18, 2001:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/international/18NEWF.html

In a recent interview to thewisdenCricketer, Sachin talks about his state of mind when he plays at his best.  He says that he bats at his best when he is still in mind and body, when he clears his mind and doesn’t think about past or future and lets his natural instincts take over. I believe these are powerful lessons from the little master to all of us, regardless of our profession.

Here is the part in the interview that caught my attention:

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After two decades playing international cricket, how has he so ruthlessly accumulated these runs? “The secret to batting is to stay still and just react to what the bowler has done,” he says, making it all sound simple. “You have to be still both in your mind and physically. It is so important that your mind is not full of a lot of thoughts because your reaction time is not going to be good. You have to keep your mind blank.

 ”The toughest thing is to clear your mind. The mind always wants to be in the past or the future; it rarely wants to be in the present. My best batting comes when my mind is in the present, but it doesn’t happen naturally. You have to take yourself there. I am not able to get in that zone as often as I would like, but when you are there you don’t see anything except the bowler and the ball. You have to allow your instincts to take over. Trust me, your instincts are 99% right, but you know, the older I get the more I realise how important your breathing is to good batting. By that I mean, if you focus on breathing and relaxing, you can force yourself into a comfortable place to bat.”

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Read this beutiful Doha (couplet) from Kabir

Bada Hua to Kya Hua, Jaise Ped Khajoor
Panthi Ko Chhaya Nahin, Phal Lage Atidoor

Here is my attempt at translation for those who don’t understand Hindi:

“Being big (great) like a Khajoor (dates) tree is useless as Khajoor tree is tall but gives no shade to a traveller and it’s fruits are not accessible.”

My blog has a new URL: www.livexcel.com

We have to market ourselves so many times and at so many places, we run the risk of advertising to ourselves. There is a very fine line between being confident in our abilities and conning ourselves.

Success comes from dedicated, focused efforts and the dedication comes from not conning ourselves. Here is an interesting example:

One question from the interview of Nadal after he had won Australian open defeating Federer in the final:
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Q. You proved yourself as a true king.
RAFAEL NADAL: Oh, no, no. Well, the true, no. I don’t know. I just win for sure an important title for my careera. But I no better five hours before than now, no? That’s the true, no?
When you win an important match, but you have to know before the match who you are and after the match you have to know who you are, too. You are the same, no?
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You can read the entire interview at:
http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/news/interviews/2009-02-01/200902011233415660437.html

Ted talk presentation on an emerging technology. Simply brilliant.

‘I want to give myself the best possible chance’ is a common theme I have observed in interviews of committed and outstanding performers. Those who perform at the highest possible level prepare to the best of their abilities.

We get to enjoy the performances but it is a pity that we don’t get to learn about the hard work and the dedication behind them. High performers do everything in their capacity to be at the best of their abilities when the show starts. That involves hard work and sacrifices.

I recently read Shane Watson’s interview on cricketnext.in.com. The full interview is at:

http://cricketnext.in.com/news/watson-credits-booze-ban-for-consistency/35056-13.html

He was one of the top performers in the recently concluded India-Australia cricket series. He was also a star performer in the IPL (Indian Professional League). The early part of his career was hampered by injuries and because of that he was not a permanent member of the Australian team despite being extremely talented. He is now relatively injury-free but his focus has improved as well. In the interview he attributed his performance to saying ‘no’ to alcohol, even during celebration parties.

Here are some quotes from his interview:

“I’m off drinking while playing and training so I’m giving myself every chance I possibly can to be right throughout this big workload especially,” Watson said.

“It’s been since I injured my hamstring in South Africa during the Tweny20 (last September). So the only time I had a drink was after the IPL to celebrate, just a couple of glasses of champagne. But, after that, once I get back into training and playing, I’ve got to give myself the best possible chance to get through games,”

“I definitely celebrate. I’ve made sure it doesn’t take away from celebrations. I’m not isolating myself from the group because I’ve not sat down and just said ‘I’m not going to drink’; I want to make sure I’m still involved and be celebrating and have fun which I always do,” he said.

The all-rounder added: “It just saves me. I know when I wake up in the morning, a few blokes are feeling a bit dusty and I’m fresh as a daisy, a bit tired but fresh.”

Here are some quotes from other famous stars on this subject:

Sachin Tendulkar

‘It doesn’t always happen according to the way you have planned things out but I feel if you have covered most of the aspects, it does help out there in the middle. ‘

‘At least with me, the match starts much, much earlier than the actual match. ‘

Tiger Woods

“People thought it was asinine for me to change my swing after I won the Masters by 12 shots. … Why would you want to change that? Well, I thought I could become better. If I play my best, I’m pretty tough to beat. I’d like to play my best more frequently, and that’s the whole idea. That’s why you make changes. I thought I could become more consistent.”

Excerpt from ’How I play Golf’ by Tiger Woods

Winning is about Preparation

Have you seen how Tiger Woods will back away after he putt the ball, and seemingly prepares himself for a victory pump even before the ball reach the hole. How did he know that a shot is going in before it goes in?

In the book, Tiger Woods talked about the importance of preparation.

Tiger learned from his dad the importance of preparation for the game. Before a tournament, he would spend hours analyzing the different holes, visualizing the different scenarios that could happen after each shot. His talent merely brings him in line with the top golfers in the world. Its his preparation that sets him apart from the rest of the field.

How Much Importance Do You Place On Preparation

Preparation is boring. You do not do any actual stuff. You merely spend hours analyzing videos, brainstorming on different possible scenarios that might occur, and visualizing them. Many of the scenarios will never occur, and you might find it a waste of time.

Indeed, many people prefer to jump straight into a game without preparing for it. Yet it has been proven time and again that the best athletes are the ones that spend an enormous amount of time on preparation.

Tiger Woods is one of them.

Michael Jordan

Phil Jackson once said this about his protégé, “You cannot find anyone that competes as hard in training as in competition”

 

Sukumar’s latest blog entry asks “Can passion be taught?”  

Let’s start with a real life experience…

In one of my projects, the client manager raised a concern regarding communication skills of 2 of my team members. Both of them had similar education, family background and experience. Both were also ‘Excellent’ in their technical skills. They were falling behind their peers only because of their poor ‘English’ and poor written and oral communication.

Along with giving them the customer feedback I also offered to help.

After about one year one of them improved by leaps and bounds (from 1.5 to 4 on a scale of 1 to 5). The other showed very little improvement (may be moved from 1.5 to 2).

Why did one person turn things around completely and the other remained the more or less the same?

Well, it was simply because one person was more passionate about improving his communication skills than the other.

It was apparent in the things they did after the feedback was given to them. One person worked religiously on reading the suggested books/newspapers, presenting on different topics and seeking feedback. He even found the ‘Toastmasters’ organization on his own and became a participating member of the local chapter. He now mentors others in the area of communication skills and is constantly looking to get better himself.

Here are the things that set them apart:

1. Being honest to yourself (knowing and accepting where one stands)
2. Seeking help and creating a plan.
3. Putting in the hard work.
4. Seeking frequent feedback and keeping track of the effort and the progress.
5. Finding out new ways to get better.
6. Teaching and mentoring others.

In general when you want to improve on anything, these 6 things will be extremely useful. But these are not the steps to bring out the passion. These are things you do when you ‘passionately’ want to get better at something.

So why did one person become passionate about improving while the other did not? Was it possible for me to teach the second person to become ‘Passionate’ about improving his communication skills?

This brings us to the question posed by Sukumar: “Can passion be taught?”

Every person is passionate about something. But where does that passion come from is the question.

To try to answer it, I thought about some of the things that I am passionate about. Obviously I was not born with a passionate for these things. So why am I so now? What is my earliest memory of being mesmerized by it? What triggered it?

Let’s see…

Gazhal

My uncle, Appa Mama is a fan of Gazhals. He understands Urdu, appreciates the music and particularly likes the great Gulam Ali. I remember listening to Gulam Ali gazhals at his house. He always used to tell us what some of the Urdu words mean, what are different types of gazhals. I remember listening to the same gazhal recorded at different concerts with minor variations and my uncle rewinding and playing the pieces again and again to point the differences. I was hooked. Now I really love gazhals.

Golf

When I worked at Cendant, I used to report to Linda Mason. Linda is a golf fanatic. She always used to talk about golf and try to get me to learn the game and I was not really into it. So, one day after a resolving a critical problem, she gave me a starter golf set (100$) and 4 half hour golf lessons (150$) as a gift. So I had no choice but to go for my lessons.

I thought that golf is a boring game that does not need a lot of skills. I mean what does it take to whack a ball by a stick? Right? So I went to my first lesson. The instructor said, “Here is a golf club and here are some balls. For the next 5 minutes just hit the balls whichever way you can.” To my amazement, most of the times I could not even connect the club to the ball, forget about hitting it. Then my instructor started teaching me the fundamentals of the swing. By the end of the 4’th lesson I was completely hooked. I have went on to break a 100 (score less than 100) in one year (a big deal.. many people take 5-10 years) and now I routinely score around 90-95.

For all the things that I am passionate about; I realized that it always started with a trigger. Nobody taught me how to be ‘Passionate’ about Golf or Gazhals but there always was some trigger that ignited the passion.

Now, what will happen if I introduce someone to golf the same way Linda introduced me? The same trigger will not work for everyone.

So trigger is important but the same trigger may not work for everyone.

In my opinion, passion cannot be taught; but an environment that breeds passionate behavior can be created.

So when it comes to igniting passion at the workplace, the organization must create an environment that will provide the ‘Triggering’ mechanism. Here are some things that can be done to create such an environment:

1. Introduce the intricacies and nuances
   1. Help employees understand the bigger picture. Give them overview of other departments within the company and the industry as a whole. Provide them with opportunities to learn how well the competitors (internal and external) are doing.
   2. Example: Let a developer work in ‘Performance testing lab’ for a week testing the application code for stress test. As a result, she will definitely write more efficient code.
2. Provide opportunities to observe ‘Excellence’
   1. Create opportunities for employees to observe the best talent at work. Provide them with the reports that rank individual projects within the company on various parameters. Let them know where they stand on the ‘Bell Curve’.
   2. Example: Arrange on-campus Java coding competition and invite people from other companies.
3. Create positive feedback mechanism
   1. Reward ingenuity, innovation regardless of the magnitude.
   2. Example: Make ‘Innovation’ part of the annual ‘Goals and Objectives’ for every employee. Innovation in a minor part of the project life cycle can go a long way in increasing the team’s efficiency.
4. Promote healthy and open competition
   1. Make all project reviews easily available. Publish a list of best performers in all functions within the company.
   2. Example: Create standard ranking system for rating Java developers and publish the top 10 names every quarter.

Another question Sukumar asks is: “What is the connection between passion and one’s core strengths/capabilities? Can someone who is not good at a particular skill become passionate about it? For example, if I want to be a musician and I know I’m not good at it now, can I become a great musician by becoming passionate about it?  Or should I simply pick the things I am good at and become passionate about it? “

Passion can be as a performer or as an appreciator. Both have a scale and as a result both require effort. So let’s assume that being good at something need not mean being a good performer, it can also be as an appreciator.

Here are my questions that will provide the obvious answer:

Can you be passionate about something but not good at it?

Can you be good at something but not passionate about it?

I will leave the interpretation open and invite feedback/comments.

Milind Sathe

“Excellence”

We all have come across this word many times. We have read about it, we have heard about it, and we have even talked about it. But be honest, how many of us really understand what does it mean?

I for one am totally confused. I have a sense of what excellence is. Over the years I have read a few books (like ‘In search of excellence’) and I have heard prominent people talk about it.  But the true meaning of the word still eludes me.

What is Excellence and how does one go about achieving excellence? There are no simple answers.

Here are some thought provoking questions:

1. “We must strive for excellence.” I am sure no one disputes this statement. But how do we “strive” for it?
2. Can it be achieved only organization as a whole? Or can it be achieved by individuals? If it can be achieved by all (or most of) the employees, does the organization become excellent?
3. Is it the product or a process? Is it a static goal that once achieved is attained for good? Or is it continuous improvement?
4. Can everyone be excellent?
5. Can a person (or organization) excel in everything he/she does? Or it can be practically achieved in a few things that a person does? (This by extension applies to our work as well. Can someone be excellent in everything he/she does at work or can excellence be achieved in only a few categories?)
6. When someone excels at work, who are we comparing the person against?
7. What is the difference between better, outstanding and excellence?

Going through my notes on various newspaper articles, books, speeches etc, I have attempted to compile my thoughts and try to answer these questions.

Dictionary meaning from two sources:

Excellence:

Meeriam-Webster DictionaryMain Entry: ex·cel·lence
Function: noun
1 : the quality of being excellent
2 : an excellent or valuable quality : VIRTUE American Heritage Dictionaryex·cel·lence 
n. 1.               The state, quality, or condition of excelling; superiority. 2.               Something in which one excels. 3.               Excellence Excellency.

Synonyms

Here are some synonyms for excellence: fineness, brilliance, superiority, distinction, quality, merit. (Note: None of these truly capture the essence of ‘excellence’. It is like the elephant story. Every description is correct yet incomplete)

By reading different definitions and synonyms we can deduce the following:

1. Excellence is a quality.
2. Excellence is also a state.
3. Excellence is being significantly better than average.
4. From the group under consideration only the top few can be considered ‘Excellent’.

Examples:

Here are some examples that are quite different from each other but collectively I think they capture the essence of the word ‘Excellence’.

My new bag

I needed a new bag. Specifications: It should carry my laptop, should not be bulky, and should have room for my lunchbox, coffee cup, wall-street journal, pen and a notepad. I bought a new bag last week. It is by ‘Kensington’. The model is: ‘Contour Terrain Notebook Case’.

 

Average

-          It is good looking.

-          It is sturdy but not bulky.

-          It has a laptop compartment.

-          It has room for everything I want to carry with me on my commute to work.

Better

-          It has a front pocket where I can keep water bottle or my coffee cup for easy access.

-          It has padded handles and comfortable, adjustable shoulder strap.

-          It has water and stain resistant materials.

What makes it excellent?

-          The back of the back is contoured which brings weight closer to the body to increase comfort and reduce fatigue. Most of the bags I have used, slid from the shoulder (especially when I am wearing a jacket). The reason: the place where the shoulder strap rests on the shoulder is not in line with the bag itself. This bag doesn’t slide from the shoulder because of its contoured back. This makes it excellent because it does something that none else has done yet (at least to my knowledge).

-          It is an in-between bag. It is neither a laptop bag (which is useless to carry the commuter stuff) nor it is a commuter bag (cannot carry a laptop). This bag can be used even when you are not carrying a laptop.

Tiger Woods 

Average

-          He is a very good golf player.

-          He is extremely athletic.

-          He has great motor skills (hand-eye-coordination)

Better

-          He practices golf really hard for more than 5-6 hours almost every day.

-          He works out in the gym for 1-2 hours every day.

-          He has a very mature head on his shoulder.

-          He has never lost a tournament while leading after 54 holes (three rounds). He has won all 12 tournaments when he was leading after the third round.

What makes him Excellent?

-          At the height of his career, he changed his swing completely. Why? Because he felt that he could de-construct his swing and construct a new swing that will be significantly better.

-          Tiger putting is one of the best. While watching his game on TV he noticed a flaw (that no one else noticed) in his putting. He corrected it within a few days just in time for a tournament.

-          He is far above the rest of the golf professionals. Some pundits say that Tiger drives the spirit of competition out of the game as when Tiger is playing well (which is most of the time) he relegates his opponents to simply compete for the second place.

Jeffery

I commute by train. Every morning Jeffery, a mobile coffee vendor sells coffee along with other goodies from his van just outside the train station.

Average

-          He sells decent coffee.

-          Coffee is hot.

-          Price is fair.

Better

-          He is at the station every day.

-          He always has change no matter what note you give him.

What makes him Excellent?

-          He always has a smile on his face. He tells jokes while preparing coffee.

-          He remembers names of all his regular customers (he has more than 60 regular customers).

-          He remembers how his regular customers take their coffee. Light, dark, black, milk/cream and how many sugars.

-          He knows the train time table. He does not just stand by his van; he is always on the lookout for his regular customers. If the train is about to arrive and he sees you running to the station, he keeps your coffee ready. If you don’t have enough time to pay him, it is ok to pay him the next day.

How can we relate it to our work? 

Know how to rate your work

-          We need to know how to rate ourselves. This is not related to the goals and objectives set by our manager for us. This is our own evaluation.

-          Many have an inflated view of their own performance. Every person has three personalities. One, how the person sees himself; second, how the person wants others to see him; and third, how the others really see him. Only when all these perceptions are close to being identical, we can really evaluate ourselves. Excellence can only be achieved if we evaluate ourselves truthfully.

-          We need to review our performance frequently and make adjustments to our goals and objectives accordingly.

Achieve the ‘Average’ state first

-          Once we know where we stand, we need to achieve the ‘Average’ state; if we are not already there.

Achieve the ‘Above Average’ state next

-          After achieving the ‘Average’ state, we need to now become better than average.

Continue to work at ‘Above Average’ state

-          After reaching the ‘Above Average’ state, we need to consistently perform at ‘Above Average’ level.

-          We also need to understand that ‘Above Average; should and will become ‘Average’ and we will need to keep raising the bar.

Figure out how you can take your work to ‘Excellence’ state

-          We can start this process only when we are consistently at ‘Above Average’. You can’t be learning J2EE environment and become ‘Excellent’ at Java architecture.

-          Put yourselves in your customer’s shoes. What are your customer’s needs? Categorize them into Vital, Essential and Desirable buckets. By being ‘Above Average’ we are already taking care of the Vital and most of the essential needs. Can we satisfy the ‘Desirable’ needs?

-          Understand the customer’s technical, architectural and business knowledge. Should we be “Consulting” the customer on any of these areas? Are we going beyond being ‘Order Takers’?

-          Are we truly thinking what is right for the customers? How are we resolving the conflict between what is right for us and what is right for our customers? We should be resolving this conflict in favor of the customer. It always results in more business from the customer in the long run.

-          Maintain a ‘Value Register’ top keep track of the true “Value” we are adding for our customers. The things logged in this register should be truly above and beyond the “work” that is assigned to us.

Re-define your ‘Average’ or ‘Above Average’ state to the newly achieved ‘Excellence’ state

-          Once you have achieved ‘excellence’, know that very soon this will be the new ‘Average’ or ‘Above Average’ state. In other words, it will become the job description. To illustrate this point, you remember when the first Indian IT company achieved CMM-Level 5? That was excellence. Now almost everyone has achieved that level and achieving CMM-Level 5 is not ‘Excellence’, it is a requirement.

Continue to redefine what ‘Excellence’ is for your job