Excellence is Doing Your Best with What You Have

Years ago, I started a new job and found the existing staff to be resistant to new ideas. I was confused by their resistance because they had a great reputation for enjoying innovation and I knew they were passionate about the mission. It was clear that their resistance was not a character issue but a culture issue.

When I challenged their resistance, I was repeatedly met with the same phrase. “We can’t do that with excellence.”

Over the years, the staff had adopted a core value of excellence that had served the organization well. They had high standards and did not want to do anything without perceived excellence. The problem was that excellence is always perceived. They had no clear definition of excellence so anything that might pull resources away from something they were already doing appeared to be a threat. Common phrases were “we don’t have bandwidth for that” and “our span of care does not allow for that.”

The core value of excellence became a hinderance to pursuing excellence. It created a culture of “no” instead of a culture of “yes.” The team was allowing a perceived standard of excellence to decide what we would or wouldn’t do. We needed a working definition for excellence and landed on the statement “excellence is doing your best with what you have available.”

That definition allowed us to pursue new ideas with passion and freedom. Instead of comparing ourselves to other organizations or to previous versions of ourselves, we could simply evaluate the current situation and give it our best shot. We stopped leading with “no” and starting leading with “yes.” Yes is way more fun than no.

Doing things with excellence is important and a wonderful way to live. We want to give God our best and love our families and communities with excellence.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” (Colossians 3:23 NIV)

“And yet I will show you the most excellent way.” (1 Corinthians 12:31 NIV)

Love is the most excellent way. Love tries and love never fails. Love is a resource we never run out of when we are connected to the source of unending, perfect love. God is love and you were created by Love in love to be loved and to share love. Love is the most excellent way, and excellence is doing your best with love.

Think about making a dinner for your family. What does an excellent dinner consist of? Do you have a dream menu in mind? Would it involve high priced foods and a full day to prepare? If you do not have the money and time for the “excellent” dinner you imagine, you could easily decide that you can’t have dinner with your family. But what if your “excellent” dinner involved simply doing your best with what you have available? Can you imagine enjoying a meal with your family that doesn’t look like it came right out of the centerfold of last month’s “Good Housekeeping” magazine? A simple dinner is more excellent than no dinner.

When excellence becomes an excuse to not do good things, we are missing out on God’s best. Love well. Do your best with what you have available and enjoy the most excellent Way!