Understanding Excellence
Vinod Shah
I-Excellence is more than
genius
Actor Genius
• 1914: Keystone, $150 a week
•
• 1915: Essanay Studios, of
Chicago, $1250 a week, &
$10,000 bonus
•
• 1916: Mutual, $10,000 a week,
& $150,000 signing bonus
• 1917: First National, $1 million
deal — the first actor ever !!
Bridged the generation gap!!
• 1918, Chaplin(28) married the 16-year-old Mildred
• At 35, he married the16-year-old Lita Grey after she
became pregnant.. Divorced 2 years later.
• He was 47 when he secretly married the 25 year old
Paulette Goddard in June 1936.
•
• Chaplin briefly dated and married actress Joan Barry,
but ended it when she started harassing him.
• Shortly thereafter, he met Oona O'Neill, and married her
on June 16, 1943. He was 54; she was 17.
Charlie Chaplin in a fury at a hotel
when he was not recognized….
• “I am going home”
• Get me 12 taxis.
“One to ride in and..
The others as escort “
Flawed character
• Busy developing an image rather than
character
Marlene Dietrich German American
screen goddess
• Would insist on playing both sides of a
record full of nothing but applause
• Applause in Rio..
• Applause in Cologne..
• Applause in Chicago..
Mozart in his letter to his father..
I am never in a good humor when I am in a
town
where I am not recognized (1778)
Genius is what you have..
• Excellence is what you do with it.
• Parable of the talents- 5,2 and one
Blaise Pascal
• 1623-1662
• Brilliant physicist,
mathematician &
Theologian
• Pascal’s laws,
Hydraulic principle &
calculating machine
• Vacuum/Barometer
Author and a philosopher
• Wrote the “Provincial letters”that Voltaire
called the "the best-written book that has
yet appeared in France
• Pascal's Pensées is widely considered to
be a masterpiece, Will Durant, in his 11volume, comprehensive The Story of
Civilization series, hailed it as "the most
eloquent book in French prose."[
What he did with his genius was
excellence
• Man of profound faith and a brilliant
apologetic
• Attacked the heresy in the Catholic
church and got the Pope to reform the
doctrine of Janeses.
•
•
II-Activism is not excellence
A great and a beautiful activist
• Princess Diana- the most photographed
woman in the world
Excellence versus activism
•
Clandestine visits to Mildmay hospital
to see
AIDS patients who were terminally ill
Diana the people’s princess
• With landmine survivors in Bosnia
Landmine bill passed in 1998
Excellence marred by Personal
insecurity
James
Hewitt
James
Gilby
Oliver
Hoare
If
only..
Will Carling
Hasnat
Khan
Dodi
Fayad
Pro life activist kills..
• The state of Florida executed Paul Hill in
September 2003 for the 1994 abortion clinic
murders of physician John Britton of
Fernandina Beach and retired Air Force Lt.
Col. James Barrett of Pensacola.
Prolife activism or any other form of
activism in itself is not excellence
• Dr David Gunn an abortionist murdered by
Michael Griffith in 1993
He reformed the “world”
A picture of excellence
• 1805- Slavery was abolished
• 1813-Mandatory for the East India
company to make caring and missionary
work a part of the British mandate for
India.
• Reformation of the living conditions of the
poor
• SPCA
William Wilberforce
• his first anti-slavery motion in the House of
Commons in 1788, in a three-and-a-half
hour oration that concluded: "Sir, when we
think of eternity and the future
consequence of all human conduct, what
is there in this life that shall make any man
contradict the dictates of his conscience,
the principles of justice and the law of
God!"
Activism with a difference
Perseverance
Character
Courage of his conviction
Community
III-Efficiency in itself does not
constitute excellence
Excellence is not efficiency/Output
Excellence is related to outcome
• The issue, Hummel said, is not so
much a shortage of time as a problem
of priorities.
• Or, as a cotton mill manager once told
him, "Your greatest danger is letting
the urgent things crowd out the
important."
Gulliver’s travel
• Jonathan Swift
• In Gulliver's Travels, he records his hero's
capture by the Lilliputians. Fascinated by
Gulliver's clothing, the Lilliputians note:
• Out of his pocket hung a great silver chain;
which appeared to be a globe, half silver, and
half of some transparent metal … we think that it
is the god that he worships; He called it his
oracle, and said it pointed the time for every
action of his life.
Tyranny of the urgent
• "He that is everywhere is nowhere." —
Thomas Fuller, 17th century historian,
scholar, and author
• Unsuccessful organizations are often
beehives of activity and hard work.
• Jesus and the death of Lazarus
Pablo Picasso was a very busy
man
• The Guinness Book of Records names
Picasso as the most prolific painter ever –
In his lifetime, he produced around
• 13,500 paintings,
• 100,000 prints and engravings,
• 34,000 book illustrations and
• 300 sculptures.
Spearheaded and defined the
periods
• Blue period; Rose period
• L'Accordéoniste, a 1911 cubist painting by
Picasso.
• Surrealism
A certain lack• His torrid personal life
• His lack of meaning specially during the
last decade
• Picasso also made the comment, "
Women are either Goddesses or
doormats."
A certain lack…
• Disrespect for peopleAs far as I'm concerned, other people are
like those little grains of dust in the
sunlight. It only takes a push of the broom
and out they go."
• A spirit of competition
Understanding excellence
IV-Think potential not competition
Vision statementExample from Lincoln Electric
Lincoln Electric will be the undisputed world
leader in the industry as measured by
global sales volume.
Excellence is about maximizing
potential
• Park University will be a renowned
international leader in providing innovative
educational opportunities for learners
within the global society.
•
Competing with oneself rather with
the others
• Games were meant to celebrate human
achievement rather than overcome fellow
players
• Business should learn from competitors to push
their own boundaries
• Collaboration and networking is a sign of
excellence rather than just overcoming
competition .
Prayer and competition
• Luke 18:10-14: "Two men went
up into the temple to pray; the
one a Pharisee, and the other
a publican. The Pharisee stood
and prayed thus with himself,
God, I thank thee, that I am not
as other men are, extortionists,
unjust, adulterers, or even as
this publican.
• And the publican, standing afar
off, would not lift up so much
as his eyes unto heaven, but
smote upon his breast, saying,
God be merciful to me a
sinner.
Two people went to pray..
• One was trying to compete with himself..
overcoming his sins..
• The other was in competition.. I am glad I
am not like this man
• Excellence is stretching your own
boundaries
Competing against yourself
• We should not judge people by their
peak of excellence; but by the distance
they have traveled from the point where
they started.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813 - 1887) US
clergyman, abolitionist
V-Excellence has to do with
relationships
I will show you a more excellent
way…St Paul
I Cor:12.31
Working with emotional intelligence
• EQ is more important than IQ
• EQ is related to empathy
• Empathy is related to “listening with
understanding”
Listening and Emotional quotient..
• It has been proven that EQ is more important
than IQ because life is basically composed of
relationships with other people. In other words
someone who knows how to relate to others is
better equipped for life than someone who is
only a math wiz.
Listening and Emotional quotient
• On page eighteen of his book, Daniel Goldman makes
this statement: “Genetic inheritance gives us a series of
emotional qualities that determine our temperament. But
the implied brain circuit is extremely malleable;
temperament is not destiny”…
• Listening with understanding can influence the brain
circuit
Excellence is “aural” rather than
“oral”
• “Aural” means listening and listening
means learning
• “Oral”- people who talk more than listen
tend to be “mediocre”
• 20/80 ratio or the 80/20 ratio?
Vincent Van Gogh
• Did not listen to his brother and tried to be
a teacher
• Did not listen to his family and tried to be a
preacher
• Finally ...suicide
VI-Excellence is not simply
discipline
It is relevance!!
Excellence is not excessive
austerity/religiosity
• St.Simeon spent 68 years
on a pillar after he lost his
first tooth
• Excellence is about
being relevant
Relevance
AIIMS,New Delhi
Christian Medical
College, Vellore
How relevant are we to the world?
• The excellence of a gift lies in its
appropriateness rather than in its value.
• Charles Dudley Warner, 'Eleventh Study,'
Backlog Studies, 1873
US editor & essayist (1829 – 1900
• Be in the world and not of the world..
SUMMARY
• Sum total of many things and not any one in
particular:
• Not just genius
• Not just activism
• Is about potential and not about competition
• Not just efficiency
• Is about EQ
• Not just religiosity but about relevance
Ascent of a leader
Bill,Bruce and Ken
• Character and Capacity ladders should be
integrated.