Excellence means surpassing or outstanding achievement.

We recognize excellence readily when someone breaks a record in an Olympics event, or first to climb a previously unscaled peak, or writes a bestseller, or wins a Nobel prize for contribution to a discipline of science, or gives the best years of youth in selfless service to the downtrodden.

Excellence is important to society because it sets an example, a standard of behaviour that is socially useful. Human excellence comes in many forms. Being best amongst competitors is one form-the excellence associated with the champion. Doing much better then what one could in the past is another form of excellence in which the competition is with ones own self. This is excellence of perfectionist.

Innovation and invention is still another form of excellence. Invention relates to the conception of a bright new idea; innovation to the full development of an idea into a novel but useful product or output. Discovering something nobody else has known or suspected is another form of excellence.

Selfless service or selfless pursuit of a noble cause or helping others to growaltruism-is also a form of excellence. Self-enlightenment (Buddha) is also recognized in many societies as a very high form of human excellence.

All these excellence are obviously not cost free. There are the costs of mental and physical effort, sacrifices made by oneself as well as ones near and dear ones in pursuit of surpassing achievement, opportunities forgone. Excellence may also be controversial: what may seem excellent to one person may not seem so to another.

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Just as human excellence takes many forms, so does organizational excellence, for the organization is after all an entity of humans for humans and managed by humans. The six forms of organizational excellence are: Competitive excellence Rejuvenatory excellence Institutionalized excellence Creative excellence Missionary excellence Versatile excellence

A variety of organization compete for clientele. These include firms, political parties and unions. An even wider variety compete for resources. The chief characteristic of this form of excellence is being outstanding within a field of competitors vis--vis a clear-cut criterion or a few reasonably clear-cut criteria of performance.

The company with the best or outstanding return on investment and/or the fastest growth rate within the industry in a given year is a typical example of this sort of excellence.

Organizational sickness is rather common. There are many reasons for it: political and bureaucratic interference; erratic govt policies; insufficient transport, communication, power and other infrastructural facilities. The chief characteristic of this form of excellence is vast improvement over previous performance.

Many organizational turnarounds from sickness or decline exhibit this form of excellence.

If the organization internalizes norms of excellent functioning, it may continue to function well despite of weak competitive pressures and an adverse control environment. Organizational leadership during the formative years of the organization is needed that makes the right choices of what missions to pursue and how.

The chief characteristic of this form of excellence is sustained high achievement over a long period of time on important performance parameters even when there is little pressure, by way of competition, for excellence. It may need top mgt continuity and orderly succession through carefully selected successor chief executive well acquainted with the orgs excellent traditions and norms of excellence.

Creativity and innovation are strategic importance to societies. Creative excellence offers a competitive advantage to the org, excitement to its staff, and useful novelty to its clients. The chief trait of this type of excellence is the commitment to pioneering, innovation , experimentation, discovery and dynamic change.

So vast are the socio-economic problems of most countries that missionary organizations mushroom. Many are set up by the govt, others by private as enterprises, cooperatives, institutions or voluntary org.

The chief feature of this form of excellence is the dedication to some social mission or ideal and the ability to make outstanding progress in achieving this mission or ideal.

This form of excellence is the desire and ability to meet the expectations of all the significant stakeholders of the orgowners, staff, suppliers, customers, govt, bankers, unions etc.

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There are four distinct approaches to organizational design, each resting on some basic assumptions, and each having research support: Formal organization Sizeable organization Excellence Different kinds of excellence

The ultimate responsibility rests with the mgt and staff of the org. But significantly auxiliary roles can be played by various agencies in promoting organizational excellence. The possible role of following three: For org embedded in larger systems The institutions regulating the domain in which the org is embedded The govt of a nation.

Many sizeable organizations in the Third World are not autonomous. They are legally owned/controlled by supersystem. A public enterprise is owned by the govt and controlled by a ministry of the govt.

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A crucial service the controlling system can render the controlled org is regarding the selection of the latters chief executive. The controlling system should conduct a fairly frequent detailed performance review of the organization. Annually, the controlling system and the org should agree on priorities for the coming year.

4. The supersystem should exert strong pressure for the attainment of agreed upon targets and goals. 5. The supersystem should grant to the org a great deal of operating autonomy, holding it accountable for performance rather than for practices and procedures. 6. Those at the supersystem who monitor the org need to be themselves dynamic professionals.

7. The supersystem must ensure mgt continuity at the org. 8.The supersystem should create opportunities for its controlled orgs to learn from one another and collaborate with one another.

Very many domains have domain influencing institutions. Associations of schools, chambers of commerce, trade and industry associations, associations of professionals, industry research institutions, apex cooperatives societies, central banks etc., are e.g. of domain regulating or influencing institutions.

In the Third World, where orgs have to learn to master unfamiliar technologies both of operations and mgt, these domain influencing institutions can play a very important role in developing knowledge of good technical and mgt innovations and practices and disseminating this knowledge to their members.

They can pool information available with members to develop more informed judgements about future. Such forecasts can help members make realistic plans for future. Thus domain influencing institutions can become significant disseminators of organizational excellence.