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 11-volume, comprehensive The Story of Civilization series, hailed it as "the most eloquent book in French prose."[

• 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.

What he did with his genius was excellence

•

• 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

Oliver Hoare

Hasnat Khan

Dodi Fayad

James Gilby

Will Carling

If only..

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

Courage of his convictionCharacter

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 lifeHis torrid personal life

• His lack of meaning specially during the His lack of meaning specially during the last decadelast decade

• Picasso also made the comment, " Women are either Goddesses or doormats."

A certain lack…

• Disrespect for people-Disrespect for people-

As 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 excellenceIV-Think potential not competition

Vision statement-

Example 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

Christian Medical College, VelloreAIIMS,New Delhi

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, 1873US 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 leaderBill,Bruce and Ken

• Character and Capacity ladders should be integrated.