Harsha Bhogle: Lecture on ‘Excellence’ at IIMA
Harsha Bhogle – Lecture on Excellene at IIMA
Harsha Bhogle, an IIMA alumni, is one of my favorite cricket commentator. He is also a student of excellence and has given many lectures on the topic. His thoughts are inspiring.
Recently, I came across a lecture he gave at IIMA on Excellence. You can watch the first part of the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugJhHsUfZFo
The remaining parts follow in the relevant videos on YouTube once you finish watching the first part.
Here are the notes I took down for myself while watching these videos:
Excellence is about having the confidence to share knowledge.
- No insecurity about sharing knowledge
Excellence is about stretching a little bit to find out how good you are or can be.
It is also about knowing what we can and cannot do (or should or should not do)
Excellence lives in the present.
- We must maximize what we are doing now.
- Don’t live in the past (glory of the past) or future (or promise for the future).
- Don’t live o your legend, live on your performance
Excellence is trying to know everything possible about your profession.
Luck is preparing to the best of your opportunity and recognizing when an opportunity presents itself.
Gary Player(a successful golf player) “The harder I practice, the luckier I get.”
Excellence is about humility.
- Be comfortable in being a non-striker [build partnership and make others look good].
Subjugate the self to achieve excellence.
Talent has insignificant role in achieving excellence. It is what you do with your talent matters the most [attitude and work ethic].
Talented people who only rely on the talent, don’t know what to do when they face an hurdle.
- Australian elite military force don’t pick people who have never failed, for they won’t know what to do when they fail or are facing failure.
Tendulkar: Played for 55 days in a row where he practices for 2 hours, played a game, practice for another 2 hours and invariably ended up sleeping on the dining table.
Excellence is about learning from mistakes. Mistake is not a crime and not a matter of shame.
- Because excellence is as much about knowing what to do as it is about what not to do.
- It is the second or third time making the same mistake that it not acceptable.
Give 100%, it is not possible to give more than a 100%.
If you seek excellence, you seek out people who are better than you, or even people in other profession who seek excellence as well.
Beware if you have started hating criticism or when you don’t have people around you who wont criticize you.
Arrogance comes in the way of excellence.
Allan Border: “Take care of the runs and the dollars will take care of themselves.”
Make the process of achievements supreme and make the results irrelevant.
Perfect the process of performance and don’t allow the pressure of result to choke your performance.
If you worry about what others /competitors are doing and what critics or people will say, you are not allowing you to perform to the best of your ability.
Karmanye wadhikaraste
Ma faleshu kadachana
Do your job as well as you can.
Dont put end before the means [ethics also come into picture here].
Excellence is not in result, it is in performance and even more so in preparation.
Set yourself performance goals and not result goals.
Give your best in the present moment. If you keep doing that, there is nothing more you can do.
- If you give 100% everytime and lose, you can still sleep peacefully. May be that time your opponent was better than you. Salute him/her and try to get better.
Excellence never seeks escuses. No “I would have been good but..”
Never grudge anyone his or her success.
