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Issue 7 > 'Excellence. Always.'

'Excellence. Always.'

Tom Peters enthuses 'What a word. What an aspiration.'

'It came in a flash.' 'It arrived from the recesses of my mind.' I hate language like that! But it's more or less true.

I was in—yes—Siberia. For an all-day seminar. It was, simply, odd to be there. Orlando is not odd. Istanbul is not odd. Riyadh is not odd. Novosibirsk is odd. (Odd = totally new experience.)

As I said recently, I didn't want to do 'one more speech'—actually, I never do, but this time was different. And, as I sat in my hotel room, 'excellence seeped into my consciousness' (well, it did) for the first time in years.

And there on my cover slide appeared: 'Excellence. Always.' And the ground shifted perceptibly. Every speech since (about 50 this year), though unique in its own fashion, has been titled: 'Excellence. Always.'

It's been a blast. It is a very cool word:
Synonyms: Purity. Transcendence. Virtue. Elegance. Majesty.
Antonyms: Mediocrity.

And the imagery it conjures up:

• Old Ben Franklin in Paris.
• Nelson at Trafalgar.
• Newton being bonked by the apple. (Okay, that one's not true; neither is the cherry tree decapitation—but the images work anyway.)
• The Grand Canyon.
• Grey Meadow Farm/Tinmouth/VT.
• Hillary at the top of Mount Everest. (No, not Ms Clinton.)
• Callas in full voice.
• Churchill at the radio mike.
• An Apple II, circa 1981.
• An iPod, circa 2006.
• And as Waterman and I said almost 25 years ago: In enterprise! In a career!

'Excellence.' What a word. What an aspiration.

Tom Peters is a business advisor.

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