Make Excellence Its Own Reward

A great leader understands that excellence is its own reward. Whatever the results show on the scoreboard, the outcome in business negotiation, or any desired pursuit, a true leader never lets one result define them. Instead, this caliber of leader believes that inhabiting “a world of excellence” is its own reward, and the satisfaction comes from a life well lived.

When I was a young teenager, the leader of our Boy Scout troop, Paul “Big Iron” Thompson, enforced an ethic at every campsite we visited. Part of our weekend agenda on every trip was listed as “campsite improvement.” The motto behind this action was to always “leave it better than you found it.” As kids, we wondered if it wouldn’t be enough to just leave it as good as we’d found it. But looking back I realize that “Big Iron” was teaching us something about inhabiting a world of excellence.

There are many moments each day in which we have a choice in front of us. If we constantly dismiss little chances to act with character as “small stuff that doesn’t really matter,” we’re building a cutting-corners habit of mind. What I’m driving at is that when you first focus on excellence, the long-term winning and rewards will be what happens as a result.

This mindset also helps remind you that not every action is going to have an exactly equal reward immediately. As the coach of the University of Kentucky’s women’s basketball team, anytime the team was going through a bad patch — maybe a couple of losses or more in a row — I’d remind them that we needed to keep our eyes on excellence, and the wins would come. And they did. During my 13 years there, the team only missed the NCAA tournament three times, and two of those were in my first two seasons.

The following scenario illustrates this key point of embracing excellence as its own reward:

Mark is the CEO of InnovateTech (a fictitious company), that develops software focused on cybersecurity solutions. The business is doing okay, but Mark is dissatisfied and can sense he’s not connecting with his team in a way that drives growth.

InnovateTech entered the market amidst fierce competition and rapidly evolving technological advancements. Mark has been focused on getting his team to understand the tangible outcomes needed to survive and thrive in their niche. His typical drumbeat is a constant emphasis on meeting the goals for profits, market share, and growth metrics.

Mark realizes that knowing these key benchmarks and measuring the company against them is crucial for understanding what is working and what is not. But he also senses that some key ingredient in his leadership is missing. The message doesn’t seem to be unlocking the team’s full potential.

Mark begins to question his own mindset and the mindset he is instilling in his team. After some deep consideration, he decides to try something. He will continue to share goals and metrics and progress with the team, but not with the same steady drumbeat. Instead, he’s going to change the focus to creating excellence.

Mark makes a conscious and committed decision to the following points:

1. Understand that every action matters.
   Mark will now emphasize to his team that ALL actions matter, both big and small. Things like treating each other, customers, and outside vendors with complete respect on a daily basis, always being accountable for meeting deadlines, and being honest about problems will create a daily atmosphere of excellence.
2. Keep the focus on creating more excellence.
   Each meeting will now begin not with a recap of outcomes and goals, but with one question: how to create more excellence in the company. This question will certainly be applied to creating better software and generating first-class service for customers. But it will go deeper, too, and focus on excellence in mindsets, habits, and processes. Talking about excellence and how to drive it will become a normal part of life at InnovateTech.
3. Prompt the leadership team to operationalize excellence. 
   Mark also commits himself to email each of his leadership team on Monday morning with two questions: What will you do to inhabit a world of excellence this week? What will you ask your departmental team to do this week to drive excellence?

As Mark implements these commitments, he begins to notice a change in his team. Of course it takes some time, but the shift in mindset creates rewards. On a practical level, the outcomes Mark always wanted now begin to happen more naturally as a byproduct of the focus on excellence. In fact, many of the goals are now exceeded on a regular basis. Less tangibly but just as importantly, InnovateTech becomes a better place to work. The team is less stressed and more creative in generating new ideas and solving problems. People also make the shift to seeing each other as teammates focused on one thing: creating and inhabiting a world of excellence together.

I want to acknowledge that no one is perfect at this, obviously including myself. If you do something that falls below the standards of excellence in your behavior toward yourself or others, recognize it, learn from it, and then move on. Keep striving to do it more than not and you will slowly transform. Inhabiting a world of excellence will become an established part of your character.

Once you’ve created the habit of mind to always drive toward excellence, it becomes your source of happiness and satisfaction.

Written by Matthew Mitchell.
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