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.