Incredible Priyavrat! Your words on the 8 steps to excellence provide a thoughtful roadmap/path for organizations, businesses and individuals to move forward. I found a comment you posted on Jay Marino’s “Quality in Education” blog, http://www4.asq.org/blogs/edu/2006/09/do_you_celebrate_success_in_yo.html#comments

I wonder about your comment, “Not tooooo much” with regard to the limit you might impose on acknowledgement of achievement. As a fomer education professional turned business vision analyst I find the power to honest/real acknowledgement to be a power second to none in driving businesses and the people within, towards excellence.

To know that my colleagues value my effort and that my energy is contributing to the realization of a collective vision, fuels the fires deep within and inspires a new commitment that might not have existed otherwise. To work in pursuit of excellence for the sake of excellence drives a select number of individuals who we often say are intrinsically motivated. The vast majority of people we find in larger corporations and even in smaller organizations view their role as simply a cog in the system. When the cog wears out we either shine you up or replace you with a new one.

For business to flourish we need to consider that there may be another way to move forward towards both the realization of a collective vision and the subsequent goals/objectives (actions) that will produce the tangible results or bottom line progress. Without the drive from within an organization the results will become meaningless if not insignificant.

I enjoy this topic as you might have gathered and would encourage you to explore it further as I will on our blog at www.thinking-forward.com.

I will include an excerpt from your post on the 8 steps to excellence on my blog site as well as my comment above so that readers around the world can benefit from the collective knowledge we have.

Regards,

Joe Bruzzese

Joe,
Your concern for the cause of student Quality and Quality of student motivation is 2 good. In the blog as you referred I used “Not tooooo much” with regard to limiting the scale of celebrations (of achievement) and not on the esteem you award a student as an acknowledgement of achievement. I spelled it emphasizing that ‘Time and Schedules’ being precious part of a job delivery dare not allow one to deviate from the main objective- of completing curricula for the day; celebrations too being an undocumented part of that. Though the holistic outcome of the class counts and recounts, bringing the circle back to celebration and its necessity, the latter assumes its role as a satellit-ic activity, and should be consummated strategically and innovatively. How? That’s deserves some brain writing.
It is further important to consider whether each success being celebrated were also objectively evaluated for its synergy with the organization’s objectives. For any effort, which was not synergic, may have contributed as a learning process but for the product. And an impertinent success-for-celebration can always be threatened by providing a stimulus for work, which others’ might term as a cog, as you very well mentioned. Is it not the role of a leader to oversee that satellitic activities do not get sooo much importance?
You very rightly argue: quote “For business to flourish we need to …. move forward towards (securing) … tangible results or bottom line progress. Without the drive from within an organization the results will become .. insignificant”. Let’s call this drive a product of mass and acceleration. Are these the ‘Impetus (in right direction) and the motivation’?
Regards,
P Thareja

A response to your comment:

Along with jay it is the endeavour of the American Society of Quality with their support for education.
I would exhort all those ‘Quality in Education’ enthusiasts to vist Jay’s Blog, and give him a helping shoulder to promote the cause of this vital aspect of ‘societal development’ and a ’sustainable tomorrow. Jay concurred with the paradigm ‘sustainable tomorrow’ at the behest of education.

Priyavrat, Jay moves us forward in our thinking about education and the business of educators, learning and the children that ultimately benefit from their guidance. Kudos to you for spreading the word.

– Joe

Let’s talk more about:

Though the holistic outcome of the class counts and recounts, bringing the circle back to celebration and its necessity, the latter assumes its role as a satellit-ic activity, and should be consummated strategically and innovatively. How? That’s deserves some brain writing.

Here’s a few ideas to begin with:
Google celebrates the diversity and imagination that each of its team members brings to the collective. As a strategic part of their day to day all team members have the opportunity to engage in topics of their personal interest that fulfill their passion a build a growing connection to the collective vision. The results speak volumes. I acknowledge you for your ingenuity and the energy you bring to the table and simply by valuing your work we move forward as a group. The simplicity of course grows in complexity as you start to examine how ideas become a part of what Google rolls out; however the idea that everyone’s contribution is valued propels the business forward.

There is Fun, Love, Duty, and Challenge.
Joe, You are absolutely right. There is Fun, Love, Duty, and Challenge in what you think (as proposed above) we all do and should do. Somebody has to set the ball in motion-(to give a connection and direction to requisite growth in vision). But indefinite ans sustaining running can not be accomplished by a single person. An effective support and shoulder is therefore a vital requirement.
I am enthused by what Anatoly Guin said in one of his papers as an end note:
Quote “Life itself is a big open problem people have to solve every day. We would like people to be happy. To be happy, they ( there? )must be (some) efficient problem
solvers. This is just why we work on the development of the theory of
inventive problem solving (TRIZ) and teach solving creative problems to adult specialists and children of different ages” unquote
Reference to the paper is at http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2004/08/04.pdf.

Regards
Priyavrat