Working Toward Excellence

8 Values for Achieving Uncommon Success in Work and Life

Paul Buyer

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781614481768
• eBook ISBN: 9781614481775
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

"Weaves together thoughts, stories, and quotes from top performers in music, business, and sports to help you achieve excellence" (Jeff Janssen, founder and president of the Janssen Sports Leadership Center). Does excellence relentlessly drive you? Does mediocrity constantly bother you? In Working Toward Excellence, Clemson University professor Paul Buyer identifies eight values for achieving excellence in work and life including hunger, effort, process, quality, consistency, leadership, time, and perseverance. Each chapter features inspiring stories, questions, and quotes from respected professionals who have achieved uncommon success in business, sports, education, and the arts such as John Maxwell, Jim Collins, Stephen Covey, John Wooden, Mike Krzyzewski, Wynton Marsalis, Isaac Stern, and many others. Also included is a Working Toward Excellence Evaluation to help you and your organization reach your true potential and further develop, improve, and measure these essential attributes of success. " Working Toward Excellence has captures my attention in a big way. It is filled with valuable and practical information. It will make a major difference in your life." —Pat Williams, Orlando Magic, senior vice president, author of Leadership Excellence

VALUE
1

Hunger

You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless he is willing to climb a little.

Andrew Carnegie, business magnate and philanthropist

The first value you must develop if you are going to work toward excellence is hunger. Hunger refers to wanting to achieve excellence. Hunger is an intrinsic quality, and is up to the individual to find for him or herself. If you are not hungry, if you are not passionate, if you do not want to excel and succeed, don’t worry—you won’t. But if you do, if you truly want to achieve something significant and meaningful, you can, but you have to be hungry.

Not only must you want excellence, you must be willing to work for it, and even more importantly, you must be eager to do whatever is necessary to accomplish your goal. Hunger helps push you through the tough times and inevitable adversity that will accompany your road to greatness. Hunger strengthens your perseverance, persistence, and sacrifice. It is simply essential for making things happen.

There are four characteristics of people who exhibit hunger: they are proactive, they begin with the end in mind, they are self-motivated, and they exhibit desire. Let’s take a closer look at these characteristics as they relate to your hunger and success.

BE PROACTIVE

“Be Proactive” is the first habit Stephen Covey writes about in his bestseller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. What does being proactive actually mean?

Covey says being proactive means taking responsibility for your life. It means taking action, showing initiative, making things happen, not blaming others, and not making excuses. Being proactive comes down to making a choice. According to Covey, “Your life doesn’t just ‘happen.’ Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you—or carelessly designed by you. It is, after all, your choice….Proactive people recognize that they are ‘response-able.’ They don’t blame circumstances [and] conditions…for their behavior.” Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi said, “It is time to stand up for the doer, the achiever, the one who sets out to do something and does it,” and educator Marva Collins remarked, “Success doesn’t come to you…you go get it.”

I remember my dad always telling me when I was looking for summer jobs, “Paul, they’re not going to come to you and knock on the front door. You have to go out and apply.” He was right—as usual! Be proactive, make things happen, and start taking responsibility for your life.

BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

The second habit of highly effective people, according to Covey, is to “Begin with the End in Mind.” Without question, this habit is one of the biggest differentiators between successful and unsuccessful people. To begin with the end in mind effectively, one must be proactive in establishing a game plan and work backwards, visualizing the end result and working toward excellence every single day.

For musicians, nothing is more important to achieving excellence than purposeful, deliberate, and consistent practice. Several years ago, one of my students asked me a question that I will never forget: “Dr. Buyer, how do I become a great player?” What a loaded question! After thinking about it for a few minutes, this is what I came up with: “Well, first of all, you have to have a great semester every semester. To have a great semester, you have to have a great lesson every week. And to have a great lesson every week, you have to have a great practice session every day.” I felt like I nailed it, like Ponce de Leon discovering the Fountain of Youth. My student nodded in agreement. Learning was taking place. I then remembered a quote from author John C. Maxwell that reinforced that teachable moment: “The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.”

As Professor of Music and Director of Percussion at Clemson University, I have had many students over the years—some who reached their potential and some who unfortunately did not. Which path a student chose to follow always came down to their work ethic, self-discipline, commitment, and hunger, as well as their ability to be proactive and begin with the end in mind.

BECOME SELF-MOTIVATED

As an educator, I have always been fascinated with the subject of motivation. I love to hear great coaches, teachers, and leaders give speeches to motivate their people to perform at their best. I believe one of my responsibilities is to motivate my students and get them excited about music, percussion, and working toward excellence. I engage my students by inspiring them through my passion, believing in them, and challenging them to reach their potential. But to develop a hunger for excellence and achievement, they have to become self-motivated and not depend on others to motivate them.

The ability to motivate oneself is called intrinsic motivation. According to Wikipedia, “Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself, and exists within the individual rather than relying on any external pressure.” In contrast, “Extrinsic motivation comes from outside of the individual. Common extrinsic motivations are rewards like money and grades, coercion, and threat of punishment. Competition is in general extrinsic because it encourages the performer to win and beat others, not to enjoy the intrinsic rewards of the activity.”

I first learned the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as a member of the Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps. Because we played over thirty shows that summer, it was common to perform two nights in a row. I vividly remember one such occasion. Our first show was outstanding, but we finished second. Everyone was upset and depressed. The following night, we did not play our best, but we won the show. Everyone was happy, celebrating the victory. The response to these two shows had a profound impact on me. It bothered me that some of my peers preferred playing a subpar show and winning to playing an excellent show and losing. The competitive result took priority over the quality of our performance.

Drum corps taught me the values of competition and how to become self-motivated to achieve excellence. From that point forward, I would not allow judges or other people or things outside my control to motivate me. Instead, I would find the motivation within myself, setting my own bar, expectations, and standards for success.

Author Daniel Pink explores intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. Pink explains the difference:

We have a biological drive, and we have a reward and punishment drive. But human beings also have a third drive. We do things because we enjoy doing them or because they are the right things to do or because they contribute to the world. Science shows that this intrinsic drive is the pathway to performance. The secret to high performance is that unseen intrinsic drive, the drive to do things because they matter, and I believe that includes three elements: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Autonomy has to do with the desire to direct our own lives. Mastery is our urge to get better and better at something that matters. And purpose is the yearning we have to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

EXHIBIT DESIRE

In my book Marching Bands and Drumlines: Secrets of Success from the Best of the Best, I interviewed Paul Rennick, Percussion Instructor at the University of North Texas, about how he achieves excellence. He said desire was one of the primary factors he works on with his students. According to Rennick, “I work on their desire level pretty subconsciously. I get them to care about what they’re doing as much as possible. And if they care about what they’re doing, they will try harder. And if they try harder, they will probably play better. It’s a snowball effect. What you’ll find is that a lot of my groups are almost self-maintained. You’ll hear corrections from people within the [drum] line in the same general positive way. When they care about it that much, they communicate that caring in their performance and it affects you.”

Desire is also about passion. Without question, passion is one of the keys to success in any endeavor. When we are passionate about something, we are positive, hopeful, and energized. We are inflated rather than deflated. I have always believed that one of the best feelings in the world is the feeling of anticipation—having something to look forward to. It could be a vacation, a date, or a big performance or presentation. Or it could be waiting to hear if your book will be published, if you were accepted into college, or if you got the new job you applied for. This desire and passion for wanting to be successful is what hunger is all about, and this feeling of anticipation fills us with reservoirs of energy that helps us continue to work toward excellence.

NOT HUNGRY?

Do you find it difficult to be proactive, begin with the end in mind, become self-motivated, and exhibit desire? Do you find it challenging to take action and get yourself going? Do you struggle with knowing what you need to do and then doing it? Author and leadership expert John C. Maxwell offers this advice: “Act your way into feeling, rather than feel your way into acting.” By taking positive action even when you don’t feel like it, you will start to feel some momentum. You will start to feel hungry. When you decide to take that initiative, you will start to crave excellence and nothing less will satisfy you.

LESSONS ON EXCELLENCE—HUNGER

What makes NBA superstar Kobe Bryant one of the best players in the world? Is it his talent or his work ethic? Or could his talent be the result of his work ethic—his hunger—to be the best? According to pakistanbasketball.com, a site dedicated to pursuing excellence in basketball for the love of the sport, “You have numerous gifted athletes who make it to the NBA stage but after they make it, they just disappear. It’s really up to them whether they have what it takes to remain, whether they have that eternal desire to be the best… and that’s just what sets apart players like…Kobe.”

Kobe’s workout starts at 5:00 a.m. every day and comprises six days a week, six hours a day, and six months of training. This is how one of the best players in the game prepares to get to the pinnacle of his profession and stay there, and the results speak for themselves. Kobe Bryant knows what it takes, and in his own words, “You have to want it; you have to feel like you’re about to cough up blood.”

THE NEXT STEP —

1.  Give three examples of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in your life.

2.  In what ways can you be more proactive, which would lead to better results in your work?

3.  Do you believe that life happens to you, or that life is designed by you? Explain.

4.  Describe one thing you are passionate about and look forward to achieving.

VALUE
2

Effort

A guy who gives you less than what he has to give is, one, telling you what he thinks of you, and two, telling you what he thinks of himself.

Pete Carril, Hall of Fame basketball coach, Princeton University and Sacramento Kings

You can look all you want, but you will not find any shortcuts to success. Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said, “There is no trick, no easy way. Success travels in the company of very hard work.” As we saw in our first chapter, you must be hungry to achieve excellence. You must be proactive, begin with the end in mind, become self-motivated, and exhibit desire to achieve your goals. Once those skills start to become part of your make-up and mindset, you must develop a work ethic that is second to none. You must develop mental skills and an ability to concentrate and focus that sets you apart. And you must develop the competence and confidence to execute—to finish the job at a high level. These three qualities—hard work, focus, and execution all come together to define your effort.

HARD WORK

One of the most profound fundamentals of achieving success in life has always been—and always will be—hard work. The cliché “you get out of it what you put into it” is as true today as it was hundreds of years ago. Hard work is the price we all have to pay for success, and though success is never guaranteed, hard work puts you in the best position to achieve it. It is one of life’s most important values and something we can apply to anything we want to accomplish. A strong work ethic is often instilled in us by our parents, mentors, and the goals we set for ourselves. Sometimes our work ethic is even ignited by wanting to prove others wrong and, at the same time, proving something to ourselves.

BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA

After graduating from high school, I felt I was a good percussionist. I was active in the band and had competed in solo and ensemble festivals each year, winning blue ribbons and medals symbolizing outstanding achievement. I was enthusiastic about music, playing the drums, and being part of something bigger than myself. Pursuing my passion in college and majoring in music was my goal.

When I arrived at Ball State University as a freshman, I auditioned for the marching band and quickly discovered I was in the bottom tier of players. After not making snare drum, tenors, or bass drum, I ended up trying out for cymbals. Unfortunately, many percussionists tend to look down on playing cymbals in marching band and consider it a “dumping ground” for weak players and not nearly as “cool” or challenging as playing one of the drums. When I was offered a spot in the cymbal line, I was demoralized and ready to quit, until Dr. Joseph Scagnoli, Director of Bands at Ball State, asked me to give it a chance. Doc said he needed team players who would contribute and asked that I put the interests of the band ahead of my own. It was a life lesson I have never forgotten as I proudly played cymbals in the Ball State University “Pride of Mid-America” Marching Band that season. I became a better musician, made lifelong friends, and experienced one of the biggest turning points in my life in terms of learning what hard work was all about.

I decided to major in Music Education at Ball State and learned that my marching band experience was just the tip of the iceberg. My very first percussion lesson was with the late Richard Paul, formerly of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and one of the percussion professors at Ball State. I remember sitting in his office talking about my musical experience in high school. After telling him I played the snare drum, I pointed to the marimba and said, “But I don’t play that”—as if I didn’t have to, as if it were optional. He made it very clear to me that if I wanted to pursue a degree in percussion, I would have to learn how to play the marimba.

It was apparent that I was significantly behind my peers. I had little talent and a weak musica...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Hunger
• 2 Effort
• 3 Process
• 4 Quality
• 5 Consistency
• 6 Leadership
• 7 Time
• 8 Perseverance
• Afterword
• Working Toward Excellence Evaluation
• Bibliography
• About the Author