Achieve Personal Excellence

THERE IS probably nothing that will affect your career more for the rest of your life than your making a commitment to becoming personally excellent at the most important things that you do.

In every organization, there are two routes to the top. One route is through performance. The other route is through politics. Studies done on Machiavelli and management show that if you try to get to the top through politics, you will almost invariably be derailed some time in your career.

Dan Kennedy says, “Be careful who you step on when you are climbing the ladder of success because they will be waiting for you with drawn daggers on the way down.”

Focus on Performance

When you decide to get to the top based on excellent performance, almost everyone in the organization will help you, including the people above you—your superiors—the people at your level, and your subordinates. Commit today to becoming the very best manager that you can possibly be.

It turns out that anything else less than a commitment to excellence becomes an unconscious acceptance of mediocrity. As Pat Riley, the basketball coach, has said, “If you are not getting better, you are getting worse.”

Average performance is the “default setting” for virtually everyone. To override this automatic setting, you must instead make a commitment to become one of the very best people at what you do. In addition, you must set standards of excellence for everyone else who works for you. Encourage, reward, and compliment quality work. You will always be judged on the basis of the quality of the work of the people who have been entrusted to your supervision.

Celebrate Success

To encourage even higher quality, celebrate success and achievement. Give rewards and prizes. Catch people doing something right. Praise people whenever they do something that is out of the ordinary. As the song says, “Little things mean a lot.”

Most important, lead by example. Look upon yourself as the standard-bearer of your department, unit, or company. When you see yourself as a role model, an example for others to follow, you put yourself on the high road to leadership in your organization and in your life.

Dedicate yourself to CANEI—continuous and never-ending improvement. Read and learn in your field each day. Attend additional courses and seminars. Listen to audio programs in your car and on your smartphone. Never stop learning and growing until you become the best manager in your business.