is Organizational Excellence about getting things right first time?

"The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence". John F. Kennedy US Democratic politician (1917 - 1963) The pursuit of excellence in organizations is not new. Since the setting up of the capitalist system, organizations all over the world have been pursuing excellence in many different ways. Firstly, to compete and excel amongst their competitors by using unique set of organizational models or code of best practice, and secondly, by innovating through managerial fads. The effects in organizations of these two approaches are shared but predominantely negative. Many organizations have been trapped by the "ilusion of excellence". Mainly, those companies pursuing excellence without knowing their own capabilitites and visions have ended up following, step by step, what external consultants recommend. The leaders of this industries have defended their positions by justifying their approaches to comply with code of best practices but they have ended up in copying other organizations ways of doing things. As one expert said, these leaders are just wasting their own organizational potential and strategic resources. Organizations need to overcome these issues by acquiring certain knowledge of their own needs and customize their own approaches to resolve their internal conflicts. Surely, this is the path to gain competitive advantage and avoid to be trapped by the 'ilusion of excellence'. What does Excellence mean? The definition of 'excellence' as such is rather complex and mainly used in management jargon and fads. Aristotle defined ’excellence’ as the art of pursuing certain attributes or ‘virtues’. Virtues are either habits or trained faculties. Excellence in some respect is about doing things right at the right time through having the attributes required to be unique. According to Aristotle: ’Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” (in Ross, 1921). The Aristotelian view of excellence brings to light the influence the ancient Greek culture has had over on society, principally through its drive to expand and understand the world around. The Ancient Greeks had a culture of excellence, particularly in the arts of sports, culture and the development of a social order which valued freedom and a public hunger to excel (Makedom, 1996). According to Marrou (cited in Makedom, op.cit.), the model of excellence in Ancient Greece was built mainly by the insertion of heroic ideas and education throughout their society. The internalization of heroic ideas or visions in their people, and particularly the youngsters, was introduced by using a system of educated adults and tutors extended throughout the cities. They built their whole cities with 'education in mind', and the work of these mentors was to serve as role play models for young people and ask them to follow their virtues. The main responsibility of these tutors was to identify young people with special skills or powers and train them to be excellent or virtuous. It is this ethical character of leadership in Aristotle’s sense of virtue which is known in management as "effective leadership" and is one of the main ‘virtues’ that drives success in organizations. The model of excellence from the Ancient Greek culture provides the foundation of excellence in societies and organizations. Organizations are successful or excellent when their leaders identify and understand the success and survival factors within their industries, and how these will evolve in future. As in the Greek model, these leaders create visions that are communicated to the workforce. The vision can be translated to the lower levels of the organization in an effective manner using scorecards, which represent tangible and intangible sets of performance measures (Kaplan and Norton, 1996; Salz, 2005). However, not all the organizations follow this practice, which might be one of the intrinsic characteristics that separate leaders from laggards. Another group of characteristics we have identified in our literature review is that high performance organizations have leaders and managers who are role models for the employees. They invite the workforce to follow their virtues and construct organizational cultures in which values are shared and followed by everyone. These leaders use politics to empower and educate identified groups of people, who may possess diverse self-interests, to work together, progress within the organization and make sure the fundamental aims and values are maintained. While these leaders do this, they reward innovation and entrepreneurship and stimulate employee creativity through their involvement in the decision-making process. Thus they create the kind of place people want to work (Peters et.al., 1982; Coulson-Thomas, 1997). Organizations to excel amongst it peers needs to identify their own strategic resoruces that have to be distinctive- difficult to copy by others- and develop their strategic focuses on them. Same view can be apply for individuals. Excellence, though, is not just pure fashion or meaningless management jargon, it is about doing the right things, at the right time and with the right level of job satisfaction....Therefore, do not leave for tomorrow or pub chatting...make it happen! Sources: Aristotle (350 B.C.E). Politics. Nicomachean Ethics (Ethica Nicomacea). In “The Works of Aristotle”. Tr. W. D. Ross. London, England: Oxford University Press, 1921. Available from [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.2.ii.html] visited 21.12.05 Collins, J (2002) “Built To last: Succesful Habits of Visionary Companies”. Harper Collins Coulson-Thomas (1997). The Future of the Organisation: Achieving Excellence through Business Transformation. Kogan Page Ltd. Kaplan, R and Makedom, A (1996) “In search of Excellence: Historical roots of Greek Culture” Abacus Publishing. Matteson, Illinois. Norton, D. (1996) “Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System” Harvard Business Review. Jan-Feb. Salz, P (2005) A vital Building Block in Attaining That Corporate Edge Calls for the Creation of a Unique Corporate Anatomy: The crucial culture change. The Wall Street Journal. 02.05.2005. p. A8. Available at [http://www.accenture.com/NR/rdonlyres/281A0D32-6AFB-42E2-B64D-BD119D0BE0A4/0/hpb_corp_anatomy.pdf ] visited on 10.12.05 Aníbal Miranda Bsc. MBA