Let's lose excellence

By Sandy and Roger McDonald

We went to the movies recently. One of the pre-show advertisements featured a local primary school promoting itself as a source of and destination for excellent education. Like those other once-beautiful and now abused words unique and passionate, excellent has had its meaning bastardized.

Those who use these terms open themselves either to jaded cynicism, or the weary patience maturity extends to teenage enthusiasm.What we saw and heard in the cinema wasn’t the language of the outstanding, the exceptional, or the brilliant. Instead, it chanted the mantra of the average, the lazy, and a marketing culture that copies rather than creates.

Those tempted to mouth these words display their ignorance of their true meaning when they offer no evidence, let alone proof, of their self-hallowed but mostly hollow claims of superiority.

Symphony, or solo?

What was this primary school telling potential parents; that by attending, their children, to a one, would attain a universal excellence? What were they setting parents and kids up for? What’s wrong with investing children with a basic love of simple learning, curiosity, and creativity? Why would the school promise a symphony when a solo was required?

Thirty five years ago, having newly arrived from Africa, I sat in a parent teacher-evening at our own local school. The spokesperson said teachers were in unanimous accord. Children should be given self esteem. I was too taken aback to ask how self esteem could be given when, by definition, it could only be earned.I regretted my silence, but at that moment I felt I’d come to another planet, not just another country.

Would you rather spend the mandatory 10,000 hours becoming excellent at one possibly useful skill, art, or past-time that might benefit a handful of people? Or would you choose to develop yourself as best you can in all areas where you could make a difference, however minor, to many more?

What about business?

And what about businesses that use the word excellence to describe what they do? To achieve it, they’d better tick every box: diversity, inclusion, psychologically safe work places, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, quality, reliability, guarantees and dozens more before they dare attach it to their brand.

How many businesses do you know score even close to perfection of this kind? (Avis, for all its attempts at excellence, is still trying harder.)

We were reminded of some lines Philip Larkin wrote on the birth of Sally, daughter of his life-long friend and fellow writer, Kingsley Amis:

… may you be dull —

If that is what a skilled,

Vigilant, flexible,

Unemphasised, enthralled,

Catching of happiness is called.

Contemporary excellence (holders of the Victoria Cross excepted) has come to mean little more than a shallow boast. We should inter it for an aeon and hope that Lazarus-like, we might restore it to life, pride, and strength.

What say we uncork a bottle? Let’s toast a language that provides so many other options for a once compelling word like excellent? What an … uhhh … compelling idea!

Language is a critical component of good storytelling. To find out more visit PowerPacked Stories.