Pursuing Excellence in Business—and in life…

I've put a lot of thought into this, and remembering a lecture from some time ago, I made this Venn diagram:

As you can see, it has three facets, Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Economy. I even put a brief definition on each.

People have a tendency to focus on one or other of these three E’s. Excessive economy can cause problems in production or delivery, as components fail more frequently, reducing efficiency.  Or producing something that is just too low quality for what we ultimately want. Too much focus on efficiency can leave us paying over the odds for the best parts or services, or removing processes that we actually value, leaving us less than satisfied.  If the attention is exclusively on effectiveness, then costs can quickly get out of control and activities that don’t add real value will creep in.

Economy plus efficiency tends to create a low-cost strategy, where the cost of sale is driven low to give us an edge on price alone.  Economy plus effectiveness will drive a budget strategy – we get most of what we want at a price that seems to be a very good value.  Efficiency plus effectiveness will tend towards a premium strategy, giving us a smooth delivery of what they want, but at a price.

We often hear these three E’s described as a kind of hierarchy, with Effectiveness being at the top of the tree. But in actuality, all three are necessary to snag the brass ring in the middle, Excellence.

Excellence is more than just having a blend of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. It’s going beyond the goal. Of doing the best with what is available to us, using the talents we’ve been given.

1 Corinthians 15:58 So then, dear brothers and sisters, be firm. Do not be moved! Always be outstanding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain.

In a previous post, I talked about “working as unto the Lord”, meaning that wherever we do our work, whether at a job, it’s really the Lord that we’re doing it for. In the verse above, we see this further exhorted. In fact, the Greek word translated to outstanding is perisseuo, meaning “abounding, doing over and above, excelling”.

In the end, the pursuit of excellence should be what sets us apart from the crowd. Not excelling to prove that we’re better, or to keep score. Pursuit of excellence, in a biblical sense, means to do and give our very best. Even when no one is looking.

Working as unto the Lord

Working as unto the Lord

Your boss asks you to perform another meaningless task;  sweep the floor or extra paperwork or take care of something that is patently "not your job".

What do you do?

Do you quit? Give him the finger?  Do both as you walk out the door and into unemployment?  Do you do what you’re told but grumble all the while, hating your work all the more? This is a tough thing to deal with. I've been there, and some days, I'm still there.

"Ok, smarty-boots, if you're so smart, what should I do?"

Man! Tough crowd. But since you asked... ;)

Colossians 3 tells us to "work as if unto the Lord". But how do you actually do it? Here's a few ideas:

1. "[God] measures our lives by how we love"-- Francis Chan, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God  When Jesus reminded us to love our neighbor as ourselves, the workplace was part of that.  Unfortunately, the workplace also seems to be where we usually forget this command.  Think of everything you do at work as a way to express God’s love to others.
2. "Stop it with the negative waves, Moriarty"-- Oddball, Kelly's Heroes  Man, that's a good quote. You have a choice.  You can pay attention to the parts of your job that you hate-- and there will always be something, because... well... it's a job--  or you can remind yourself of the positive parts.  The catch, though, is that you have to find the positives.  Find what you love about your job, the parts where you're at your best.
3. "To infinity... and beyond!"-- Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story  Find out what they expect from you and then do more.  You will be happier, they will be happier, and things will certainly be easier to deal with. Others will say that you're easier to deal with. Find those niggling little things that most people take for granted, and then do more or better.

If you do nothing else, at the very least try out the first idea.  If you work as a way to show love then you’ll find yourself anticipating going to work.  Ok, maybe you won't be sitting on the edge of your seat, but you will certainly feel better about work than you do now.

In what ways can you express Love to other people through your work?

The great potato experiment, Part 1

We're trying out new ways to grow potatoes in our garden. Two reasons for this are:

• We don't have much space to allocate to a garden.
• Our soil is basically a big ball of clay.

Our first option is to use a potato box. You've likely seen pictures like this one. Basically four posts and boards attached.

Here's the premise: as the plants grow, you add a layer, effectively burying the plant, the stems turn into roots, which in turn become potatoes.









I designed our box so that each layer is a standalone piece. So as the potatoes grow...

 

another layer can be added...












until it's at full height. Great design, that-- a few days after I got everything built-- I found the same design done by someone else. I choose to look at this as great minds thinking alike. ;)







Here's the first layer inst+alled. Even got a few plants poking through.








  The second path to potato-dom is to stuff seed potatoes into a bale of straw. Here we have three seed potatoes each into the bottoms of three bales. The plants push up between the "cracks" in the bale. Whatever stays inside the bale will supposedly fill in with new potatoes. To harvest, we'll just cut open the bale. If this works, we get potatoes and mulch at the same time.


I'll post more as this goes on. I'm not looking for hundreds of pounds of potatoes. But if I can get a five to one ratio. I'll call that a successful start.

Blessings!