Excellence & The Art of Meaningful Work
I went to see the French movie ‘A Taste of Things’ recently. Set in France in the late 1800s, it tells the story of a French gentleman, his live-in cook (and lover) and their shared love of gastronomy and each other. It is a beautifully made movie; the scenery, the love of food and the romance of the story are such a delight to the senses I almost floated out of the cinema afterwards.
It was also a tale of excellence and doing things well. The effort and care the two main characters commit to in creating menus, selecting the right produce, and presenting the meals prepared was a work of art in itself. A reminder that to do something well needs an investment of time, the right mix of ingredients and someone who cares deeply enough. There is such beauty, finesse, and purpose in a commitment to excellence.
The Loss of Excellence
This dedication to excellence resonated with me because, as those close to me will attest, I regularly lament the loss of excellence. The acceleration and speed of change across society and in work, the prevalence of urgency culture and the singularity of corporate goals has seen excellence as an outcome fall far down the list of priorities of what is expected from our work. The nature of today’s working world is to value speed and scale over everything else. A rush to complete things and increase numbers without due care of how or why we want to get there. This dynamic plays a part in the growing vacuum of purpose people feel in their working lives.
I say all of this without judgement (well maybe a little…) but with sadness because excellence is a hard standard to maintain in a society, workplace or culture which is always pushing you for more. Purpose and urgency culture are like oil and water; they do not mix. Anything worth having or doing – a piece of work, relationships, a passion - requires the correct investment of time.
Many working environments no longer respect time. They fill days with meetings, needless activities, and false deadlines. How can you aim for excellence when your boss or co-worker is asking for something to be completed that you both know is meaningless but ticks a box? Would the heavens fall in if we admitted it would be better to deliver something on Monday rather than trying to get it finished by Friday? Busyness and unnecessary tasks are the oil in the waters of excellence. They reduce your ability to aim for excellence and dilute the sense of purpose you can have in the work you are doing.
Excellence Is About You
A couple of years ago, I had dinner with someone I used to mentor. They shared with me that as they have grown into their role, they watch people deliver presentations and work that are, to put it kindly, below standard. They notice gaps in the understanding of topics, and observe people miss key details or nuance that really should be known. Our conversation centred around whether it is worth the extra effort it takes to do things well when others take the shorter road? My answer? Yes it is definitely worth it. Internally those without the expertise may not notice but any sophisticated client will notice. But that is still secondary to the fact that you would notice. You would know. That is the real point. Excellence is about you. The reward of excellence is for yourself.
There are bullshitters in every industry. I have met plenty of them and no doubt you have too. You can see them coming, all hot air and little substance. They do very well in urgency culture and companies which value speed and scale over quality and excellence because to work and live at speed is to skim the surface of something. In contrast, excellence can only be found at depth. They may look like they are succeeding more than you as they adjust themselves to suit the ‘speed and scale’ model of the industry but to do that they must give up on excellence. For me, that is a very high cost to bear.
Excellence should not be confused with perfectionism. Perfectionism is when I am afraid what others think about my work. Excellence is when I care deeply about what I think about my work. There is something decadent about excellence. It is considered, deliberate. Excellence is a commitment to precision, repetition, mastery. It is a choice to be serious about the things that matter to you. To care enough that you will dedicate yourself properly to them.
Focus On Building Rather Than Producing
Excellence and meaningful work are about outcomes not outputs. An output is simply a transaction. An outcome is about longer-term goals. It asks what you are building rather than what you are producing. When we see pieces of work as simply something we must deliver, it means we don’t find the work meaningful. What matters to us is what the work will get us instead of how the process of doing the work is helping us develop mastery. Producing rather than building creates a gap between you and the work you are doing. In this gap, a crevasse opens between you and the purpose you seek from your work. We think the antidote to finding that purpose is to work more or faster, hoping we will fill the gap we have created and find the purpose we desire. A never-ending spiral of grasping for purpose by doing and accumulating more while feeling like we have less. The real antidote is to slow down and eliminate what is not necessary. To have the courage to ask how would I like it be done? What timeframe does this piece of work really need? What will I sacrifice to ensure I can do this well?
One of my motivations for migrating my writing to Substack was a desire for excellence. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of just ‘producing content.’ The personal development market is increasingly condensed into inspirational quotes, social media friendly posts and other surface level content. This is in contrast with what any good personal development plan needs; a willingness to work at depth and an investment of time. To reduce my ideas and what I write to soundbites would put me in direct conflict with what I believe and the advice I give clients. I would rather invest the time each month thinking about, researching, and writing about topics that matter in the manner I believe is most impactful. This is far less sexy and harder to package than ‘ten weeks to your best life’ but it is more truthful. I am not simply producing something but building a body of work I believe in and care about.
More than that, I am improving my skills as a writer, developing mastery rather than trying to compress my ideas into 140 characters or an Instagram post. I am thinking about and researching the practice of writing. Mastering my craft. Committing to this as a worthwhile outcome keeps me closer to myself and what is meaningful for me rather than caring how many likes I might get on a social media post or the speed at which I might do something.
Returning To Craftmanship & Meaningful Work
Craftmanship can apply to any work. It is about the care you put into something you are doing. The standard you set for yourself. But it is difficult to continuously reach for those standards if your surroundings don’t support that. Your environment matters. Who you surround yourself with or who you work for will be relevant to the success of your mastery. People committed to their own craft will also value yours. If they value excellence in themselves, they will value you and your excellence. Being around other people who share that value reminds you that your desire to do things well matters. And, in turn, you remind them. You both spiral upwards in excellence simply by being around each other.
I write a lot about how technological advancement is an opportunity to become more human. Craftmanship, like purpose, is inherently human. A computer does not care for or tend to work, it completes tasks. As we recalibrate our lives and work around AI, there is an opportunity to revitalise our desire to do things meaningfully. If AI can remove tasks from our working days, the invitation is not to speed up and do more but to slow down and to do less things better. To not fill the potential of additional time with more things we don’t enjoy doing but rather expand the time we spend on things we do. To tend to the work that is most meaningful for us. To return to the pleasure and purpose that valuing excellence can offer.