Excellence before Innovation? Or Innovation before Excellence?

I posed this question to the School that we were conducting a strategic planning session recently. Apparently, we have two schools of thought here.

Allow me to share my thoughts here.

Firstly, definition. To me, excellence is where someone has gone from unconscious competence to performing his craft with such high standard, his work has reached the level of excellence. In fact, it is because he can do it so well and is continually improving it that it is said that he is working at the level of excellence.

Innovation is where someone applies creative and critical thinking in the process of making quantum leap in improvements that create significant value. In other words, his end in mind being to create value means he has gone beyond just making incremental improvements.

With that out of the way, I'd describe the process as follows. In the beginning, one has to have the courage to undertake a particular task or choose a specific trade. Why courage? Because it may mean not subscribing to the deferred life plan (see "The Monk and the Riddle"). Or it may mean being true to yourself by embarking on a path that is aligned to your purpose in life. It requires courage because it may mean; earning less, putting in more hours, sacrificing on certain wants, etc.

Once that choice is made, one must make learning a lifelong pursuit. Learning from the best in the trade, learning more skills or content, or even learning from others outside the trade. However, this is merely head knowledge. Until one put it into practice, at best it will be retained; worse forgetting it altogether. Just try to recall your calculus unless you have still been putting it into use.

By practicing what's learned, one will then gain experience. But experience must be evaluated or it would result in making the same mistakes repeatedly. Hence, evaluating the experience will in turn feed back into learning. And then the cycle repeats itself.

Now, so how does excellence comes about? I believe excellence requires not only competencies, experiences (evaluated ones), it also requires the right attitude. Why? Unless one poses the right attitude, excellence will not happen. And attitude comes from whether the work that the person engages in is meaningful. And it is only meaningful when it is aligned to their core beliefs and their purpose in life.

Rarely, people advance to this stage. For those that do, they will definitely stand out in the crowd.

Once it is done with excellence, it means the person is willing to make further improvements in their work. Which again feed back into evaluated experience and learning. And of course it being aligned to their purposes and core beliefs; it further reinforces the behavior and gives them even more satisfaction.

Now, even that is not enough to go from good to great. It will only be at the level of "best". Hence, until creativity and innovation come in, he will not go from best to great. However, innovation must significantly not just add value; it must create value. Put it differently, it means the reason why anyone should innovate should be for win-win scenarios. If its only innovation without creating value for customers and only benefiting oneself, at some point in time it will at best be ahead of its time. At worst, it is only a novelty.

Only when it is innovation with a win-win mindset can it bring about value for both client and yourself. And that win-win mindset is also called the abundance mindset. In other words, unless one sees that it is possible to give more and also receive more; it will not be a win-win situation. And I believe that the way to see abundance is where because innovation is made possible through ideas that work, and ideas are limitless, hence it is possible to give more and also have more.

Hence my believe that "excellence" before "innovation".

Your friend,
Melvyn
(Sent from my Blackberry Bold)