Be good enough to get better

Milton Kamwendo Hunt for Greatness
Being good is never good enough.

Greatness means that you have to be good enough to get better all the time. Nothing is so good that it can never be improved. To climb up the ladder and forget to keep getting better is basic folly.

You can never become so good that you stop learning, growing and improving. The more you are at the cutting edge, the more you need to keep sharpening your edge. Every musician knows that you have to keep practicing to keep your edge.

Every athlete knows that you have to train and practice to keep fit and battle ready. This principle applies to any arena. Be so good that you are good enough to get better. Parking at mere competence is not enough, go for mastering.

When you become a master, keep getting better. There is always room for improvement. Learning gets sweeter the more you grow. The more you know, the greater you become aware of your own ignorance and limitations.

It is those who are producing results that know the value of self-improvement and learning. It is organisations that are doing well that know the value of consultants.

You can never be made smaller by learning more. There is no way that sustained improvement can shrink you.

The Enemy of Great

Jim Collins in 2001 published his inspiring book, “Good to Great.” Whatever you dwell on, you become. Forget, then, about mediocrity; think about how you can move from being just good enough to being great. Collin’s main idea in his book is that good is the enemy of great.

I have read this book several times and always find its lessons fresh and inspiring. Collins opening lines of the book read: “Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good — and that is their main problem.”

Mere proficiency is not mastery. Good and great are not the same.

The epidemic that confronts us is right before us: the majority become reasonably good and then stop there. The key to greatness is to be good enough to get better. If you are not getting better, you will eventually end up bitter.

It is when you think you have learnt something that your education truly begins. School prepares you to start learning. Your true learning starts on graduation day. Tertiary education is meant to stoke your desire for learning and self-improvement.

True learning starts when you now hold your certificate in hand, then you are licensed to start your learning journey. Be good enough to learn daily and improve all the time.

Rebel against mediocrity and do not let the chorus of praise singers tempt you to think you have arrived, when you have only just begun.

The Conference Changed Me

More than ten years ago, I was invited to share the podium at a Victoria Falls Conference with a special, patriotic and eminent Zimbabwean.

He was at the top of his game, yet never stopped learning and improving. He related across fields, races, classes and professions.

He started working at 16 years and over the years served his articles finally becoming a Chartered Accountant in 1964.

He was born on the 2nd of April 1939. After serving the accounting profession for 15 years, he found himself increasingly being called upon to serve as a consultant.

His diverse clients came to him with a breadth of problems that they were facing in their businesses. Increasingly, he realised that he could not just confine himself to the limited scope of his accountant training.

He had to give some answers and this meant learning all the time. He had to search widely and read extensively. Ever articulate in his economic perspectives, many started describing him as an economist. He never claimed to be one, yet his balanced economic views were valued by many.

For more than 16 years, he consistently wrote a widely followed column, firstly in The Financial Gazette and from May 1996 in The Independent, until about a fortnight before his death on the 20th of September in 2014.

This inspirational man who was good enough to keep getting better was the late Dr Eric Bloch. I had been looking forward to the opportunity to sit down with him and find out what kept him going.

I wanted to know how Solusi University got to confer upon him an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration, in May 1999, in recognition of service to the Zimbabwe. I wanted to know how he balanced his many responsibilities and had kept his marriage going for nearly 40 years then.

I was curious about how he kept his humble touch and faithfully drove a simple 1980s blue sedan.

His was a life of service, not self-serving.

I wanted to know how he kept learning, growing and improving.

I was all questions. I wanted to know what and who inspired him.

Here I was, gifted with an opportunity to talk with a legend.

Whenever he made presentations, Bloch always spoke his mind with candour and respect.

He was always willing to answer and engage, with an unmistakable tinge of humour and also breadth of knowledge and understanding.

The truly great are humble and willing to serve.

They realise that true greatness is in serving selflessly.

Eric Bloch was a director of more than 50 companies.

He was a trustee of various trusts and civic organisations. He was on the Committee for the Development of Bulawayo and the Bulawayo and District Publicity Association.

Always serve where you are planted and improve where you live and work.

The spirit of the patriotism is a forgotten quality in many narratives of greatness. Bloch was also chairman of the Advisory Board of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Faculty of Architecture and Quantity Surveying, and a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the Faculty of Journalism and Media Studies.

He was also a patron of the NUST Student Bankers Association and of the Matabeleland Taekwondo Association. Bloch loved his family, Bulawayo and his country, Zimbabwe.

Despite his busy schedule, he was always ready to serve. Sometimes several times every week he would fly between Harare and Bulawayo.

He was also a trustee of the decorated Black Umfolosi, The Ulwazi Institute, Girls’ College, The Junior Achievement Zimbabwe Trust, the National Gallery in Bulawayo and was a member of the City of Bulawayo Ad Hoc Budget Advisory Committee.

He also served as a Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe advisor and a board member for Homelink. He was an International Trustee of the Centre for Peace Initiatives in Africa.

With all these responsibilities, he still found space to be an Interschools Quiz Master and would frequently drop at school some of the children of his 15 employees that he stayed with at his half-acre home in Khumalo, Bulawayo.

What made Bloch good enough to keep getting better? As we dug into our lunch at the Elephant Hills hotel restaurant, Bloch shared his secret inspiration.

It was his father. About nine months earlier his father had passed away aged 91. He had been a Chartered Accountant, also. Although retired, his father was still learning and getting better. He was reading and attending personal development and professional conferences.

He kept his mind alive, alert and engaged. He read widely. You are truly old when you have stopped learning. His father had made him realise that he had to be good enough to keep getting better.

Eric Bloch realised that he was too busy not to have time to improve himself. His secret for continuing to get better was his passion for self improvement. Here was a man who had accomplished so much yet read more than twice the amount I did.

His routine was simple: He read at least four books every month and about 10-12 periodicals and magazines. Speaking to him that day, I realised that I had to be good enough to keep getting better. Under-reading is not a luxury that I could afford.

In times of change, those who keep learning keep leading, while those who park pack-up and expire prematurely.

To maintain your cutting edge, be good enough to keep sharpening yourself and improving. Be embarrassed to tell people that you do not like reading. Be ashamed to pass a month without having bought a book.

Wail if a year goes by and you spend a year without attending some personal improvement course. Raise a lamentation if all you know today is what you studied five years ago or learnt at school. Refuse to die while you are still alive. Get so good that you become good enough to keep being better.

Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author and coach. He is a cutting strategy, innovation, team-building and leadership facilitator. He can be reached at: [email protected] and Twitter: @MiltonKamwendo or WhatsApp at: 0772422634.