Everyday Excellence

A question that always comes to mind in the 12th month of the financial year — how does one sustain the rigour of work that it takes to do anything well. By this time of the year, some of my colleagues may have met over 150 mentees individually, and would have carefully documented each interaction. Some would have spoken to 200+ mentors in detailed hour-long conversations, establishing bonds, familiarity and a sense of purpose for what they are about to embark on. I would have reviewed annual plans, detailed budgets, weekly work plans, monthly spending, quarterly reports and so many more points of interaction, analysis and discussion. Over and above the efficiency that one can bring into any process, there still remains an act of consistent repetition — you have to turn up and do what you know keeps the system running.

I’ve seen many times the paradox of success: you are good at something. That spawns something else (greater mandates, more complex work etc etc.) You stop doing what you were originally good at, and then boom — suddenly you’ve lost the very foundation that allowed you to do any greater work.

There are many sub-questions that come to my mind:

1. Taking from sport — how does a top athlete do it? I imagine there is some amount of muscle memory that sets in, in getting the basics right. But I also think it’s unlikely that Serena Williams turns up on court on any day and assumes that she can pull off her most difficult moves right away. How do athletes produce peak performance with such consistency?
2. Levels and the upgradation of complexity — It seems obvious to think that you move on to doing more complex work after mastering any previous level of work. But then how do you sustain what you already achieved — why do the stock ideas of automation, training someone else, standardising processes routinely fail? Why does it feel that you most often end up ignoring the basics in the bargain?
3. What is our culture of maintenance?- taking from this excellent podcast, what is the cultural value attached to keeping things running? Why do words like boring and routine get attached to essential systems and processes? And words like innovation, learning, or growth get attached to anything new?

So this is the question that’s confronting me this week. I hope it tickles some brain cells for those of you reading this. And I hope I hear from some of you on what you think about the topic. I’m going to spend sometime throughout the week thinking about it myself, and then I’ll summarise what I’ve learned in an end of week blog post. A new challenge for a new year!