The most important lesson I ever learned: excellence is always voluntary. You can only compel someone to do the minimum amount of work to be retained. Anything over that standard is always voluntary. Excellence cannot be compelled. The only way to obtain excellence from your organization is for each member to volunteer to be excellent. Each individual has to believe that they are important to our success, that their expertise is valued, that their opinions are sought and considered important, whether or not that opinion is the ultimate decision which is implemented. It takes a strong leader to trust his people with his life.
Excellence is only voluntary. To achieve excellence you must enable your people to make decisions and implement them, knowing that you'll back them up. You must tolerate and celebrate mistakes as the price of success. And you must celebrate organizational success as their success, as you embrace failure as your failure, which will clear the way to their next success.
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