Excellence calls for character . . . integrity . . . fairness . . . honesty . . . a determination to do what's right. High ethical standards, across the board.

The ethics of excellence requires a sense of perspective. Look at the big picture. If you live for the moment you might mortgage the future? What happens if you put your reputation at risk and lose the bet?

We can't achieve excellence through talent alone. Or merely by making technological improvements. We can't even buy our way to excellence, no matter how much money we have available to spend. More dollars will never do it. We have to develop a strong corporate conscience. Ethical muscle. And that doesn't happen by accident either.

But when we get enough people who don't care, and who don't accept personal responsibility for high ethical standards, our organization gets the "M" disease. Mediocrity. Anybody in the place can be a carrier. By the same token, every individual can carry the cure: the ethics of excellence.

High personal standards aren't enough for organizational excellence. You've got to be intolerant of low standards in others. . . . If you accommodate questionable practices in others who touch your organization, you risk soiling its reputation. Anybody whose hands aren't clean can get the place dirty.

So let your deepest desires direct your aim. Set your sights far above the 'reasonable' target. The power of purpose is profound only if you have a desire that stirs the heart.

You can’t bake a cake without getting the kitchen messy. Halfway through surgery it looks like there’s been a murder in the operating room. If you send a rocket to the moon, about ninety percent of the time it’s off course—it ‘fails’ its way to the moon by continually making mistakes and correcting them.