Tag Archives: excellence

I’m a Role Model? When Did that Happen?

By Dr. Laura Hills, President, Blue Pencil Institute, www.bluepencilinstitute.com

In the past weekrole model, three different younger professionals have told me that they look up to me as their role model. These have been unsolicited comments from younger people I know in different fields and who don’t know one another.  It strikes me that somewhere along the line I have morphed into being a person who younger people respect and even want to emulate. Does this mean that I am now a sage? A Wise Woman? Perhaps.

I have learned a thing or two over the years, I suppose. I have accomplished some things too. I’ve raised daughters who have blossomed into remarkable young women. I am married to a man who adores me and who is the love of my life. I live comfortably.  I’ve made contributions to my community. And despite the usual bumps and bruises along the way, I’ve managed to keep my sense of humor and even all of my own teeth. I’m no spring chicken. So, I guess it does seem plausible that I am now a role model.

This is a humbling realization. The weight of that responsibility is just hitting me, and I am awed by it.  It turns out that my own success and the way I’ve carried myself through my life has mattered more to the younger people around me than I’d ever realized or imagined.

How Professional Are You at Work? A Self-Quiz

By Dr. Laura Hills, President, Blue Pencil Institute (www.bluepencilinstitute.com)

The followinshutterstock_61745026 (2)g characteristics relate to professionalism in the workplace. Answer these questions to see if you exhibit a high degree of professionalism.  Answer yes if you demonstrate these characteristics or behaviors at least 90% of the time.

1. Do you have all the skills required to be successful at your job? If not, are you in the process of learning them?

2. Do you communicate well with others?

3. Do your managers deem your behavior to be professional? Does your manager approve of your attire, the hours you keep, the way you conduct yourself in general? Does he or she seem comfortable coming to you with special projects or to discuss problems or ideas?

4. Do you have a high level of integrity?  Do you tell the truth at work? Do you see tasks through to completion and avoid cutting corners?

5. Do you practice the Golden Rule? A true professional treats others with respect and expects the same from them. Do you return borrowed items right away and in good order when you’re done using them?

6. Do you live up to your commitments? In any job, you agree to do certain tasks. Some tasks you must do routinely, without being asked and your employer may ask you to take on other responsibilities. A real test of your professionalism comes in your ability to meet all these commitments while upholding the standards of quality and timeliness set by your employer. Individuals  with a high degree of professionalism make promises to themselves and to others about what they will and won’t do. They keep those promises.

7. Do you report to work at the agreed-upon time (or early), ready to work, and with a cooperative and positive attitude? Do you willingly pitch in during times of staffing or other crises?

8. Do you avoid conducting personal business while at work?

9. Do you take full responsibility for the results of your efforts and actions?

10. Do you continually seek self-improvement and self-awareness by looking for opportunities to enhance your professional growth?

11. Do you keep confidential information confidential?

12. Do you take pride and satisfaction in the work you do?

13. Do you participate in one or more professional organizations?

Being Excellent in the Age of Mediocrity

By Dr. Laura Hills, President, Blue Pencil Institute, www.bluepencilinstitute.com

Excellence – it’sshutterstock_122845336 (2) what we admire in others and what we strive for every day. But what does it mean to be excellent? Are we excellent because we achieve excellent results? Does how we achieve those results matter? Do excellent efforts and intentions make us excellent, regardless of the outcome? Must we strive for excellence in everything we do? Can we justify being excellent in some areas of our work and our lives and not in others?

If you’ve already achieved a high level of excellence, you may be further concerned about whether and how you can sustain your excellence day after day, year after year, or even, decade after decade. You may wonder how you can prevent that all too common “whatever” or “good enough” attitude that creeps into place when we fall prey to inertia, boredom, arrogance, and complacency. How do we remain excellent when it seems that no one notices or cares what we do, when we are surrounded by others who don’t share our value of excellence, when we are operating in a time that others have dubbed the “age of mediocrity”?

Excellence is a hungry mouth. It clamors for constant feeding. And it can vanish in an instant. That means that we must be vigilant about our excellence. It’s not enough to have been excellent at one time. We can’t rest on those laurels. We’re only as excellent as we are right now, in this moment, in these circumstances. Consider Colin Powell, who says, “If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception; it’s a prevailing attitude.”  That sounds a lot to me like Aristotle, who is attributed as having said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”

What I’ve learned working with career professionals for more than 30 years is that the best way to become and remain excellent is to develop excellence as a habit. Excellence, therefore, must become not only what we think or what we want to be, but who we are. That means three things: that excellence in small things does indeed matter, that we must surround ourselves with individuals who can support our excellence, and most of all, that we must repeat excellence again and again and again — until excellence becomes engrained in us.

Lifelong Learning — In the Bathroom?

shutterstock_71092255I’ve never been what you would call low maintenance. It takes me about a half-hour or so at the bathroom vanity every morning to turn the head that I wake up with into the head that the world sees every day. To my credit, I think that’s darned impressive when you consider the gazillion steps and products that I go through to transform myself into the person most of the world has come to know.

Recently, a friend gave me some CDs to listen to with interesting interviews on them with great people like Seth Godin, Brian Tracy, and John Maxwell. I was excited to have them but wondered at first when I would have time to listen to them. I don’t drive long distances on a typical day (a good thing, I think), so listening to them in my car wasn’t a good option. Of course, I thought about just sitting down and listening to them, but I couldn’t figure out when I would do that.

The next day, I mulled this over while washing, toning, and moisturizing my face and it hit me; what if I listened to them while I was getting ready in the morning? I’ve listened to music in the bathroom and in fact have both an iHome and a CD player in there for just that purpose. But it never occurred to me that I could listen to an educational or inspiring audio program in there before.

I popped the first CD into my old player and within five minutes I was hooked. I’ve been listening to these programs for a week now and have to admit that I actually look forward to going into the bathroom and listening to them every morning. I’ve already learned so many good ideas and gained tremendous inspiration from these programs. But what I love most of all is that I’ve turned my necessary morning routine into something that’s good not only for my outsides, but for my insides, too. What a great start to my day!

Now, I’m craving more good audio programs that I can listen to each day – ones that will help me stretch and grow as a person and in my career. Readers – do you have any good ones to suggest to me? I welcome your recommendations. – Dr. Laura Hills, Blue Pencil Institute, www.bluepencilinstitute.com

Are You Hearing Voices? If So, What Are They Saying? Daily Affirmations for Developing a Habit of Excellence

shutterstock_38101996Most of us engage in self-talk for more than half of our waking hours. The question is: What are we saying to ourselves? Negative self-talk runs rampant for many of us and is usually a mixture of half-truths, poor logic, distortions of reality, and an unbalanced focus on a problem.

We are not born with negative self-talk; we learn it.  That means that we can un-learn it, too. We can change our thinking and our actions by the messages we tell ourselves. Pay attention to your language in your self-talk today. Notice when you begin to think negatively and to lace your self-talk with can’ts, won’ts, and shouldn’ts. Stop yourself. Then speak only of positive thoughts and possibilities. Use language of abundance, prosperity, and excellence.

For example, whenever you begin to tell yourself something negative, replace the thought with daily affirmations like the ones below. These will help you develop and cement your own personal habit of excellence:

1.    What I do every day matters.
2.    People can count on me.
3.    I expect the best of myself.
4.    I am worth investing in.
5.    I want to learn new things.
6.    I will do good things for myself every day.
7.    I will stay in control of my papers, things, and workspace.
8.    I will aim higher and higher.
9.    I will embrace new challenges.
10.    I will succeed

For more information about developing a habit of personal excellence, check out Blue Pencil Institute’s 25 Rules for Being Excellent. On Pinterest:
http://pinterest.com/drlaurahills/being-excellent-25-tips/. – Dr. Laura Hills, President, Blue Pencil Institute, www.bluepencilinstitute.com

The Barista with the Blank Face: Three Hallmarks of Professional Excellence

Two Cups EspressoThe other day I stepped into a local coffee shop where I smiled and said hello to the barista behind the counter. The young woman neither responded verbally nor smiled, but rather, stared at me blankly waiting for me to tell her the next monotonous coffee order she’d have to fill. While her response was obviously far from what any employer would hope for in a customer service representative, what struck me most about my barista was how apparently miserable she was in her job. I felt sorry for her.

The barista with the blank face clearly wasn’t happy, and because of that, I have to say that she wasn’t excellent in her job. Getting a cup of coffee should be a pleasant experience, not one where the customer feels that his or her order is a burden. Because of my barista’s poor response, my overall experience in the coffee shop that day was lackluster, even though the coffee was hot and delicious. I thought more broadly about the excellent customer service experiences I’ve had elsewhere and the excellent individual performance I’ve witnessed. While professional excellence may vary from one person to the next, it struck me that there are three hallmarks of personal excellence that are always in place – and that this unfortunate young woman lacked. Excellent career professionals:

1. Sincerely want to better the business. Have you ever come up with a solution to a problem in your company or suggested a better way of doing things or of providing better service to your clients? Do you treat the company you work for as though it is your own? If you love what you do and you are committed to excellence, you’ll be constantly on the lookout for ways to improve your business, whether it’s your “coffee shop” or someone else’s. If my barista owned the shop, I doubt that she’d have behaved as she did. Or certainly, if she did, the shop couldn’t survive long.

2. Are constantly learning and enlarging their expertise. Do you read books, professional journals, and newsletters pertaining to your work? Do you attend conferences of your professional association and participate in courses, either face-to-face or online? Do you know and regularly visit several blogs and/or websites that help you keep abreast of your field? The career professional who is passionate about gaining new knowledge is better equipped for the future and has more to contribute. It’s a likely guess that my unfortunate barista hadn’t learned anything new on her job or about her work since her initial training.

3. Get in the “flow” of their work. Flow occurs when we lose track of time and are 100% engaged in what we’re doing. Do you find yourself staring at the clock and waiting for each break or the end of the day? As the day is winding down do you find yourself counting the minutes until you can bolt out the door? If you’re just punching a clock at work, like my barista, you’re most likely not performing excellently. Notice the times when you’ve gotten lost in your work and were fully present in the moment. Strive to have more and more flow times like those.

Career professionals who are truly excellent don’t put on a set of behaviors and act the part (though in this case, I’d have preferred that to my barista’s blank stare). They are excellent from the inside out, making their excellence genuine.

Are you looking for more ways to increase your personal and professional excellence? Or, would you like to use an interesting tool to help your employees to increase their personal and professional excellence? If so, check out my Pinterest board, “25 Rules for Being Excellent” at http://pinterest.com/drlaurahills/25-rules-for-being-excellent/. And the next time you encounter excellence – or the opposite of excellence, like my barista with the blank stare — think of the three hallmarks of excellence I’ve identified and look for other lessons that you can apply to your own life and career. And remember, your client’s experience will suffer if you’re not excellent – even if your coffee is hot and delicious. – Dr. Laura Hills, President, Blue Pencil Institute, www.bluepencilinstitute.com.