Since excellence is almost always an episodic rather than a permanent condition, most people correctly believe that they are not excellent. Because of this correct assumption, they make a second, incorrect assumption. They choose to incorrectly believe they cannot be consistently excellent. In the same fashion, they conclude that their organization could never be excellent.
This often locks them into the conventional mental map. The reality of constraint blinds them to the reality of possibility. Because they lack faith in themselves, they slough off the image or possibility of being excellent, personally or collectively.
The Positive Organization – p.71
