Top 10 Qualities of Excellence

Top 10 Qualities of Excellence

1. Natural Talent - Know Your Brilliance!
An uncut diamond has a wealth of unrealized possibility and brilliance. The beauty inherent in the diamond beckons us to develop its potential. Likewise, we are at our best when we develop our natural talent. Know your brilliance and learn to become it every day.

2. Invest in your success.
Life rewards those who are invested in their success. If you're ambivalent about what you really want, you won't get what's most important. Let what ever it is you're striving for mean something to you! Don't stay stuck if you're not happy or making progress. Invest in your success so you're completely passionate and motivated towards realizing your dream. Believe in your dream and you'll be invested in the creation of your success.

3. Integrity
When you have integrity, your word means something. If people can't depend on your word, integrity's lacking. If your actions aren't aligned with your words, a disconnect occurs ­ this disconnect then compromises your integrity. Integrity is the quality of being complete and undivided ­ living from "what's right." Live life so that you are always in a state of integrity.

4. Passion
Passion is that which deeply moves us. It's the fire from within and that which motivates us. Passion deeply stirs us and compels us into action. Passion gives us the ability to be touched, moved and inspired. Passion is at the core of excellence ­ tap into yours and let it guide your vision!

5. High Standards
Excellence implies striving for quality. Standards of excellence are those that are flawless and impeccable. Do you complete work? Do you surround yourself with people who nourish your spirit and intellect? Do you address discrepancies or concerns on the spot? Good isn't enough; we need to exceed expectations and continually raise the bar for excellence. In this way, quality is continually generated.

6. Creativity and Innovation

Creativity and innovation require openness and questioning. The belief that anything's possible paves the way for creative thinking. *Outside of the box* thinking produces innovation, and what company doesn't want to be at the forefront of innovation? Creativity and innovation require a boldness to play and discover... to be comfortable enough to admit that one doesn't know the answers. It's in the openness to not knowing the answers that allow creativity and innovation to be born.

7. Self Awareness
Self-awareness, particularly about the supports and structures that bring out our best, is key. Lacking self-awareness is like stumbling in the dark - one randomly bumps into what one is looking for. Contrast this to knowing exactly the supports and structures that support you. With self-awareness, one is able to get oneself *into the zone* with precision and accuracy. Pay attention and observe yourself to enhance your self-awareness skills.

8. Commitment
Commitment implies a willingness and a *stick-to-it-ness.* If one is committed, one's support is uncompromising and unending. One is willing to do anything in support of the commitment. Commitment drives us and anchors us during challenging times. Commitment enables us to maintain a high degree of perseverance. Commitment opens the door to self-mastery and excellence.

9. Showing Up
It doesn't matter HOW we show up, what matters is THAT we show up. Day after day, step after step. Don't let temporary obstacles keep you from showing up on a day to day basis. Pace yourself like an athlete and learn to develop new habits by incorporating the behavior on a day to day to day basis. Show up no matter what, and you'll gain stability and forward momentum as you move your vision forward.

10. Contribution
Looking back, what do you want the memories of your life to be? Excellence isn't solely about success, measured by how much money or notoriety we gain. Success is definitely not excellence if we've stomped on people en route to our goals!

Excellence is about contributing our best to the world while evoking others to do the same. It's about understanding our place and making our mark in the world, as we attempt to make it a better place.

Excellence is about contribution and honoring others as we move forward towards our vision.

Excellence lies in the hearts of all who evoke it in others by mentoring, supporting, exemplifying and giving back

How to Run a Meeting Like Google

No one wastes time searching for a purpose at Marissa Mayer's meetings—even five-minute gatherings must have a clear agenda

Meetings get a bad rap in business today and for good reason—very little gets accomplished in them. I can recall a Dilbert cartoon in which several people sat around a table while the meeting organizer said, "There is no specific agenda for this meeting. As usual, we'll just make unrelated emotional statements about thinThat pretty much sums it up. The majority of meetings are unstructured, uninspiring, and unproductive. But they don't have to be that way.

When I decided to write a column about running effective meetings, I turned to a leader who holds more than anyone I know and who actually credits her meeting structure for leading to some of the most innovative advances in technology today: Marissa Mayer, Google's vice-president of search products (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/19/06, "Marissa Mayer: The Talent Scout").

Mayer holds an average of 70 meetings a week and serves as the last stop before engineers and project managers get the opportunity to pitch their ideas to Google's co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Eight teams consisting of directors, managers, and engineers—all at various stages of product development—answer to Mayer.

In a shop like Google (GOOG), much of the work takes place in meetings, and her goal is to make sure teams have a firm mandate, strategic direction, and actionable information, while making participants feel motivated and respected. Mayer's six keys to running successful meetings follow:

1. Set a firm agenda.
Mayer requests a meeting agenda ahead of time that outlines what the participants want to discuss and the best way of using the allotted time. Agendas need to have flexibility, of course, but Mayer finds that agendas act as tools that force individuals to think about what they want to accomplish in meetings. It helps all those involved to focus on what they are really trying to achieve and how best to reach that goal.

2. Assign a note-taker.
A Google meeting features a lot of displays. On one wall, a projector displays the presentation, while right next to it, another projector shows the transcription of the meeting. (Yet another displays a 4-foot image of a ticking stopwatch.) Google executives are big believers in capturing an official set of notes, so inaccuracies and inconsistencies can be caught immediately.

Those who missed the meetings receive a copy of the notes. When people are trying to remember what decisions were made, in what direction the team is going, and what actions need to be taken, they can simply review the notes.

3. Carve out micro-meetings.
Mayer sets aside large blocks of time that she slices into smaller, self-contained gatherings on a particular subject or project. For example, during her weekly two-hour confab with the co-founders and CEO Eric Schmidt, she sets aside five- to 10-minute segments—or longer, depending on the subject—devoted to such specific areas as weekly reports on how the site is performing, new product launches, etc.

4. Hold office hours.

Mayer brought this idea from her experience teaching computer science at Stanford, where she first met the two guys who would go on to revolutionize how the world gets its information. Beginning at 4 p.m., for 90 minutes a day, Mayer holds office hours.

Employees add their name to a board outside her office, and she sees them on a first-come, first-serve basis. Sometimes project managers need approval on a marketing campaign; sometimes staffers want a few minutes to pitch a design (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/30/06, "Inside Google's New-Product Process").

5. Discourage politics, use data.
One of Mayer's "Nine Notions of Innovation" is "Don't politic, use data" (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/19/06, "9 Notions of Innovation").

This idea can and should apply to meetings in organizations in which people feel as though the boss will give the green light to a design created by the person he or she likes the best, showing favoritism for the individual instead of the idea.

6. Stick to the clock.
To add a little pressure to keep meetings focused, Google gatherings often feature a giant timer on the wall, counting down the minutes left for a particular meeting or topic. It's literally a downloadable timer that runs off a computer and is projected 4 feet tall.

Imagine how chaotic it must look to outsiders when the wall shows several displays at once—the presentation, transcription, and a mega-timer! And yet, at Google, it makes sense, imposing structure amidst creative chaos. The timer exerts a subtle pressure to keep meetings running on schedule