 Well hey, welcome to another capture with Paul Scanlon and you know, we've done this is our fourth one now Talked about self-awareness Talked to young professionals in particular and about communication and on this one. We're going to talk about excellence So excited to be here again today Paul with you and touch on this topic. Good to see you Tom Yeah, excellence. So let's start with What is excellence to you? To me excellence is doing the best that you can with what you have and I say that I say that because Instantly when you mention excellence, especially again in the voluntary sector in the charitable sector in the church sector I think we think excellence means money and extravagance and opulence So it is a good place to start for us to define the words So excellence is really as simple as that to me. It's doing the best that you can With what you've got and I think it's a good start point for our conversation because you'd be surprised How how few people do the best that they can with what they've got? Assuming they can't do better till they have more so the belief becomes about excellence I can't we can't do this well We can't do this excellently until we have these people or that budget or that equipment or that opportunity Or we're at this stage of development and that's not understanding excellence. That is that is more Thinking excellence is to do with something that looks a certain way sounds a certain way Because you've seen someone else do it that way. Got you and I think excellence becomes a pressure and becomes a misnomer when we compare our Our chapter one to someone's chapter 10 as it were In terms of the excellence scale So we think excellence is something we saw on opera, right? And then we try to produce it and opera has a champagne budget and we have a coca-cola budget with champagne tastes So I think if you have a coca-cola budget Then you do the best that you can within that to me That would be an excellent thing that you did because you did the best that you could with what you have I have I have eaten meals in mud huts in Africa and It was an excellent experience Because the people had nothing compared to the West But they did the best that they could with what they had and I knew the moment I stepped into that hut It was like they treated us like kings And it was all they had and it was the best that they had that to me was an excellent meal As excellent as anything in a high-end expensive restaurant in the rest to me It wasn't one was excellence one wasn't they were both excellence. So I think that's a good Definition to hold throughout this conversation. That is that is what we say excellence is doing the best that you can with what you've got Great, and then you know talking about your story Where did all this start for you know if it at some point became let's say an issue When was that well it wasn't in my working-class background that's for sure because I think back to My working-class background as would be true for many people watching and it's not that is not a good background to Schoolers in or give us a desire for or even an awareness of something called Excellence, but I think growing up in the church world and certainly coming into full-time ministry 30 plus years ago I Think I realized that traveling around The church and the voluntary sector in this country. I realized that Excellence was suddenly lacking and that word became more common in my vocabulary back then But I felt that we were not Seen the value of it We were not operating in Excellence we were not doing the best that we could with what we had I'm gonna come back to that and say I wasn't going around the country Or looking for anything Opulent or extravagant. I don't mean that I just felt that even simple things were just not done well Never mind excellently. So the word excellence became much more a part of my Vocabulary, you know, I would think 20 plus years ago When I realized that my experience with the church in this country and around the world Was anything but excellent anything but doing the best that we could with what we had and I didn't talk about it because I felt I don't want to come across ungrateful or a diva or an ego or Demanding or ungrateful or all the reasons why we don't talk about this certainly the church world But then I think about 20 years ago I Began to become more serious about speaking about it I've got a bit of a reputation for speaking about it go asked to speak about it But I don't know that it went down well or that people felt in the grand scheme of things when so many people are suffering so much poverty and Trouble and difficulty in the world even more so now than then perhaps That that should be something we should waste people's time talking about is the vibe I felt yeah in the room whenever I spoke about excellence Yeah, so, you know, I guess once you started to Communicate about it and I'm sure you had a lot of feedback and questions and conversations Which is things I think I'm hearing as we we talk about it stuff that I think people would Say of excellence is you know, where do you draw the line between excellence and perfectionism? And and really what's the difference between those two? Well to me the difference is perfectionism is Is attempting something questing for something Desiring something that That again is something that you have seen someone else do Or you have convinced yourself without that you cannot you cannot say it was done well Perfectionism is this refusal to allow for growth. It's the refusal to embrace The stage you're at is the refusal to enjoy the journey to appreciate Average And sometimes average is the best that you can do and that's fine Because it's the best that you can do what you have as we said earlier Perfectionism is this unrealistic belief Of an outcome that is not possible It is unreasonable for you to ask you of you or of the people involved Perfectionism, uh, is this finicky nitpicky Never satisfied Thing that is in us. There is a flawed belief system. I think perfectionism So these two things are very different. It's worth separating them out. I guess but that is not That is not again what what we're talking about. We are talking about something far more accessible And practical and down to earth that everybody watching us and listening to us Can can start today you can start today to be excellent in something You can't start today to be perfect in anything But you can start right now to become to become to become excellent and commit to excellence In any small thing you do today any habit of life any regular routine Today can be given the excellent treatment which is do the best that you can With what you have so I think those two things Are worlds apart and our discussion today this capture Is nothing to do with perfectionism. So the perfectionist listening I think probably need to hear us say that Yeah, totally and um, you know, I guess is is there a is there potentially a danger of an attitude of excellence Developing if not cultivated well And obviously therefore I suppose stunting us from any growth or movement I think the value of excellence that we're talking about and it was a value that I decided to place Central to what we were doing in our church and in our operation. I think once you've Described and and identified the value of excellence you have to define it which we just did And then for that to become the culture It has to then be in keeping with What we defined it to be so I didn't define excellence as do the best that you come with what you've got and then try and have a culture of Opulence or perfectionism Or beating ourselves up because it wasn't as good as someone else down the road or someone else that did the same thing as us so Identifying the value of excellence, which I think we should all do for all of our lives Especially for what we're doing in our organizations in our churches charities businesses and teams Then the practicalities of that become very doable I didn't want to let excellence by default becoming people's minds or what we really mean is And and that perfectionism starts creeping in and people start getting over critical And over demanding and over nitpicky So I think in the first year When excellence was a new value in our organization I spent a lot of time saying no, no that was excellent. No, no, I didn't mean that we don't mean that No, let's not be critical about that. I think I think it was excellent Given those things that were weaknesses in it given those things that were probably fails in the way we did it I think it was still the best we could have done So I spent a good year making sure that the culture of excellence Was that it wasn't excellence is the value? But we're really trying to be something else in our culture that is more leaning towards perfectionism I kept having to keep that balance until I think we got it In in our team and in our organization So really that you know the culture it has to be in keeping with your definition of what excellence is Yeah Culture being behavior and value being belief. I believe in excellence Therefore the culture of excellence Practically looks like doing the best that we can With what we've got and That is not a small level. It's not a It's not a small weak standard because I realize once we chose excellence as a value How many things we were not doing well? How many things were just Not the best that we could do with the resources that we had So I don't want people listening to us to think the excellence is some kind of low bar That's just above average. It's not because I think if everybody listening to us today Decided to do one thing Excellently I I'm going to do this today. I'm going to I'm going to go to work. I'm going to make this phone call I'm going to do this job. I've got to do I'm going to do this household chore I'm going to respond to this Question I've been asked. I'm going to do whatever just anything today that they would pick if they would say Okay, I'm going to do this Better than I've ever done it. I think that's where people will realize what we're talking about. It's not easy. This is not easy our language sounds Makes excellence sound common And of course, that's what we want it to be But if this conversation began with opulence and perfectionism, we've already lost 90 of our audience And that is not what we're looking for. So we're looking for everybody do the best that you can With what you've got and start with one thing today You're going to find out this isn't as easy as you think it is as we sat here because I in our organization Make making the thing excellent was was a nightmare. Yeah most of the time I'm interested. I hope you don't mind me staying here for a second But just you know in your journey of developing that value of excellence How long did that take in in terms of reinforcing a culture before you said I think we've got it I think it took 12 months of intense Discussions at all levels with with the core team with the staff with the key volunteers I think it was a year of of In our in our organization now there internally for a year I would think it was a year of intensely Um speaking about celebrating reinforcing In our minds in our behavior that value Uh having said that we never I suppose relaxed from it in the following years It was just more mainstream. I think after a year But every new person that came every new staff member every new volunteer that was not part of that first year Where we embedded it as a as a value in a culture had to be brought up to speed And so when new people came and even though they knew that was a value but did not Do a thing excellently it was like starting all over again The only difference was that I had more people that were carrying that excellence than just me So it didn't need me to go around pleasing it As I did in the first year because it was primarily me bringing that value in Others caught it effortlessly others never caught it But the ones that were infected with it early on as it were and got the virus became my Partners and supporters in spreading it and so following that first year of intense effort from me It became easier To get it throughout the organization because more people had caught it Then I began to speak about it around the country in the world Um, but I was glad it came that way because I had I had my own laboratory In our own organization where I had pioneered Um, whether it was possible and remember how we were doing what we were doing In a church in the north of england in a working class part of the country We had no corporate leverage to get excellence because these are volunteers by and large And I think uh, that was a great learning curve for me and I think it gave me a great Basis from which to speak about it around the world because I had taken several years to See whether or not we could make it mainstream culture in our church. Yeah So I guess really what we're saying to people too is that it isn't something you'll do for 12 months And then great you've got it move on This is a continued thing in your life that you approach life with a spirit and a value of excellence You get more excellent at being excellent you do and I think that's what we're supposed to do um Even though now for us in our organization and many people listening will identify with Their beginnings and where they're at now um You just got to get more excellent at every level the challenge of that Is that with growth comes complexity and you get more spread out and more layers of leadership and management and products and options And maybe multi-location So so excellence gets more difficult to roll out The more spread out your organization gets the more diverse your staffing The more diverse the combination of people involved um The more complex everything that we do gets more complex the more we grow that's true of a family or a relationship Or a team or a business and so excellence becomes It's the value in whatever we do wherever we go But I don't think we can assume that just because we opened a branch there um No more than starbucks um When starbucks open a new franchise somewhere Or mcdonalds or any of these franchise based organizations and businesses They know it's not just about serving the product. They know it has to be done According to their cultural standards So starbucks have people all these franchises have people that are not just switched on with the systems But they are cultural engineers that go into every franchise making sure this is the starbucks experience It's not just here's your coffee. Got you and that's where it gets more difficult and that's more exhausting It is simple to put a system in it is not simple to put a culture in right and I think what our challenges as we grow Organizationally is that it's that I want to make sure that this Value this culture is as much there as it is at the first place where we started it That's the challenge. Wow and that makes it Uh, I guess the next level of of really, you know developing excellence is is when you start spreading out and an opening like you said other branches or Replicating a business or a charity because people are not really, you know, whatever people that are listening to us today Whatever they're into whatever they're selling whatever they're producing Whatever they're generating People are not following us or trading with us or partnering with us or buying from us because of the product There are other people that sell what you sell and do what you do Um, they are they are supporting us and attached to us. I think because of the experience they are having Whilst they're trading with us This is why all of us have certain brand loyalties We'd rather go and have our food there and buy our groceries there. We'd rather have our coffee there than there We'd rather go to That movie house than the other movie house We'd rather you know, whatever whatever our preferences are at the root of those preferences Are really not the product the commodity It's the way that the people handle that is the experience we have while we're there So therefore culture becomes More important than the value because the culture is your experience of that value So I can say it's excellent, but if your experience is shoddy and poor and and not excellent Then you're not going to come back Even though the product was still good your experience was not good All right As opposed to culture we could spend probably another 20 minutes altogether just on culture We're talking about excellence like you mentioned in the grand scheme of things and a lot of things that are going on around the world Let's say why does this matter? Why does excellence matter considering everything that you know, we're facing in the world today Well, I think it might I think excellence is the quality of life issue It's not a it's not a dotting eyes and crossing t's issue right excellence is not an organizational benefit It is that but to me excellence is a lifestyle benefit to do To do the best that you come with what you've got across your life Has got to enhance the quality of your life and everybody else's life that is That is benefiting from or not benefiting from The way you do a thing And so Timekeeping Being reliable I'm doing what you said you do when you do it doing it. Well I mean all of that Is the basics of all of our everyday life. So Excellence matters for that reason, but it matters also because To become outstanding at what we do to become the best at what we do To have a wider influence than the small influence we have now To have more customers to have more support to have more volunteers To have a larger voice to have a larger footprint and impact All of that that anybody listening to us is aspiring to Is going to be quite excellence you cannot possibly Fulfill that dream that you have to make this small thing a big thing Or to take this product global or to have this voice to go around the world Um, you can't possibly achieve that without excellence. It's just not going to happen That's why this matters so much Because we we live in a world where people believe that they can have An idea and rely on it going viral So it requires no work and no excellence and no cultural investment Because i'm just going to hit the big time because someone else did This breeds laziness and carelessness and let's just see what happens Into our culture and I don't think that is A a default mode to relax into so I realized that for our organization for our church to To become significant to have influence to reach thousands of people Excellence doing things well having great systems having great culture um in everything that we did Was a non-negotiable Because just dealing with many people listening to us know Just just with an average size family gathering. It's a disaster Getting everything coordinated and working on time and everybody having a good experience is exhausting Imagine wanting to do that thing that you did for 10 people that killed you and stretch it to the limit Imagine wanting to do that to thousands of people or millions around the world It's it's not an option you Like I say and other things I talk about I have this On my wisdom for life teachings that I do I say it's hard to change the world when you can't find your keys My point being there's a definite correlation between those two things. I want to change the world Yeah, but why don't you start with showing up on time? Why don't you be more reliable? Why don't you be a team player? Why don't you deal with your attitude? Why don't you stop being so disagreeable? Why don't you stop being so negative and glass half empty blah, blah, blah Those things matter to take in the world and my metaphor for that is if you can't find your keys Forget taking on the world with your big idea. That's why it matters And really this is this is something that lands for everyone whether you know, you're a stay-at-home mom That's looking to start a business or you're a see-over an organization There's always a starting point today for taking on a culture and a mindset of excellence Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think so and I'm hoping that our listeners and our watchers will see the value of this because I think people will be thinking Well, you know what? There's there's global terrorism There are global natural disasters that are the world is divided the world is dangerous The world is fearful and you guys is all you guys got to talk about is excellence I think I think the danger in A troubled world is a lot of this stuff Goes by the wayside and gets pushed aside as not important And so all of this we get fearful of talking about it because it's not in the grand scheme of things huge But there are many people listening to as the millions around the world that We need what you're doing to become global Because the world won't get better without your brilliant idea And so we're saying in the midst of this the global trauma that we're in in the midst of that we're saying to people Those that have ears to hear we're saying to you We want you to aspire to do something amazing politically and corporately and in the church We want you to do something amazing So you are going to be listening to us outside of the global tragedies and thinking okay Yeah, I am and I'm not going to think that my thing doesn't matter because we're telling you it does And we're telling you in the midst of things that are much bigger issues This issue is going to become vital for you to get to where you're going in the next 10 20 years So we're really talking to people that see the value of this and don't think that's nonsense in the scheme of things Because that's never going to be true about something as foundational as excellence. Got you. Well, I know you've You know particularly forged out In your setting particularly in the church world the journey of making things More excellent and and approaching what the church world does with with the more excellent spirit Can you talk to us a little bit about what that looks like for you? Yeah, we both know everybody knows excellence is a much wider issue than just the church and and I think you know We've said that in our capture But I do want to say to my church family around the world That we we have got to lift our game um I think in this last few years well not just the last few years but over the years But this last few years more. So I've traveled a lot around the world um, and I want to say that um In the church world, I do think that excellence has been the Cinderella Of our church cultures the excellence has been Shove below stairs and the two ugly sisters of it'll do and good enough Are running the church right, you know, it'll do it's good enough I it's okay They did the best that they could the people did the best they could Being in their volunteers give them a break is what's implicit in that comment of They did the best they could and we're doing the best they can and you know These people came give up their time and they've got to go work tomorrow and you know We can't be too hard on them and and all of that implicitly was hey back off And so it'll do became the norm And good enough became the norm those two ugly sisters were Running the house were running the organization So to bring Cinderella from below stairs And to reveal her in all her glory as it were Was a massive uphill struggle inside the church because of religion Religion and excellence do not go together because religion believes That to be excellence is worldly And corporate and professional and that's not what the church is about so Religion certainly will not help us to achieve excellence Not only does religion Not understand the need for excellence And devalue it and will be resistant to it with its own agenda And poverty and lack mentality which religion has But I I think in the church generally We wouldn't see excellence as An important thing in the grand scheme of things that the church should speak about but um It comes down to things like Not replying to an email How how can that be and it used to drive me crazy and my staff when they would email someone And then there'd be no reply for weeks So you didn't know whether or not You should go back and say did you get my email? Which feels like you've been pushy or you're pressing them for an answer Because you wouldn't sure whether the email landed or not And I used to teach all my staff that were involved in that level of correspondence If you have an email that comes and you can't answer it now Acknowledge the email go back and say we got your email. We can't respond right now We're not sure right now about the answer to that, but we'll get back to you within A few days or a week or the person who knows that is on vacation And we'll find out in a couple of weeks acknowledge the email But to not acknowledge the email Means that you left in this limbo Of did they get it or not? So the whole email the whole correspondence thing Absence of doing the best that you can with that email Doing the best that you can acknowledges it to me anyway So that became even when I taught my staff to do that people would say around the world Your staff were amazing. I said, why am I staff amazing? You never met them You've never been to our church. Well, you know, just emailing them is awesome. Wow, and I think yeah, exactly If it just stopped there It would have been excellent for them in their experience of dealing with our staff Just a simple thing like that doing the best that you can with an email What is the best that we can do? What is the worst that we can do with an email? Let's even forget going beyond that. Let's just do with correspondence. But still now 30 plus years later It's a still not uncommon at all For churches around the world to not acknowledge emails not respond to emails And then get back to you weeks later Like like they just got the email on that day and they've had it all along I think timekeeping airport pickups airport drop-offs Again, how hard can that be? But it seems to be a challenge around the world Coming with a car that's too small to get luggage in if people are traveling internationally Even people that are not doing this for a living even people are not on staff and involved in hospitality in any professional way Would know We you know, we can't take the mini to pick up people that are traveling internationally with bags And there's two people arriving With international luggage all of that you think really do we really need to be still talking about this? And my experience tells me we do still need to be talking about it Therefore to me excellence is still the cinderella. It seems to me of church life around the world It still seems to me and there are exceptions to this, okay There are exceptions where there are some churches and some tribes of churches That have got this nailed But they are too exceptional for us to assume. It's anywhere near mainstream. So we still have to talk about it And I think still by and large for 90 percent, I would say 90 percent Of the church around the world is still Got cinderella well and truly below stairs And it will do and good enough are running the organization and I want to say it matters It absolutely matters It doesn't just matter to to to me and I and this is the danger I have In st Well, he he just wants to be you know met at the airport with you know, the red carpet It's just nothing to do with that and I've got too many years in the bank to even try and prove anything on that part That I'm some kind of diva I just think My experience in traveling widely. I want to say the pastors and leaders all around the world This really matters And if you don't think it matters, then I want you to know your growth and your influence And your increase And your opportunity and your potential is all severely hindered Because if you can't organize an airport pickup or a hotel Um or an event or an administration of something as basic and as simple as that Then you shouldn't even be aspiring to anything beyond the level you are at And you can't do that excellence not as a value anybody can say we believe in excellence If you google any organization that will be somewhere in the list of values But having it as a value is easy making it the behavior in your organization Is not and I travel widely and I go into many many organizations and churches For whom this would be like a wasted conversation. Of course we we believe in excellence. Of course we do We've got so-and-so in charge of hospitality. Yeah, and they're terrible at it Why in the world did you pick them for that job? Aren't you involved in your own hospitality? And the answer is usually we're not I don't know what it's like to be picked up at the airport if I've never been picked up at the airport by Your church, I just assume it's going well And when you didn't do it well, and I'm your boss and say how did it go? You're going to tell me it was great even though it wasn't So I just assume it's going great because I don't have any way of finding out how well are we doing things And so secret shopping of how excellent you are becomes an option send people into secretly sass out I used to telephone my own church about three times a year. I'd telephone my own receptionist and put on an accent I pretend to be an awkward caller Just to try and find out how patient how kind and helpful are they because you never telephone your own business So you don't know what it's like to be a customer buying from you because you don't buy from you You don't you don't trade with you. You don't attend your event You are involved in your event and if you're involved You can't know what it's like to be coming as a member of the public or as a shopper or as a customer So you have to find a way to get in the shoes of the people that are the consumers of your excellence to know if it is excellence So, yeah, I still want to say around the world Call in church. We gotta use a lift our game and it absolutely matters to everything that you have in your heart to do for god In your generation in your community You cannot do it and you shouldn't be allowed to do it if you're not going to do it excellently Well, I certainly obviously feel Feel challenged to to you know look at my daily life The stuff I'm facing and to to do with a little more excellence and to approach it with that attitude of well What can I do with what I have and I'm going to do the best school So a super helpful and thankful for your wisdom and insight on it. Thanks very much