Accomplishment, as separate from achievement, is a wonderful thing, but it is built on a foundation of ever-improving efforts rather than one of perpetual successes.

As I write this, 2007 has just drawn to a close. Various groups are having, or have just wrapped up, awards ceremonies, and it is a general time of looking back. I love this time, which gives me both a reason and a reminder to remember, to reflect and to reacquaint.

One celebration that especially inspires me is the lifetime achievement award. It’s not an Oscar for best film or a high-five for a single win. Instead, it’s an acknowledgement by an organization that a community or society has truly benefited from the fact that a person or group stayed in the game, participated through thick and through thin and, over the years, made a real and valued contribution. Not a simple big win, but a lifetime of positive and meaningful contribution.

Beyond my family, my all-time favorite guy is baseball’s Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. A few years back my husband gave me a signed baseball commemorating Ripken. His signature certainly adds value to the baseball, but only because Ripken himself added so much value over such a long time to the entire sport of baseball.

In 1982, he won the American League Rookie of the Year award. In ‘91-’92, he won the American League Gold Glove as the best defensive shortstop. He was the all-time home run leader as a shortstop. He played 2,632 consecutive games, never missing one between 1982 and 1998. For 14 years he showed up for work – there every game, there in every way. He was engaged, committed and participating – through victories and defeats.

On a smaller but similarly inspiring stage, my local college football team, the University of Hawaii (UH) Warriors, won the Western Athletic Conference championship this year. In 28 years, they have not had one championship, but for 28 years they have been working towards it. Talk about staying in the game.

Off the sports field, another of my all-time favorite guys is W. Edwards Deming, who was tasked by Gen. Douglas MacArthur with rebuilding the Japanese economy after World War II. It took some time to accomplish, and it was a magnificent achievement.

It wasn’t a single victory, but a string of positive moments over a brilliant lifetime. The principles he developed are the foundation of the successes of such world-renowned organizations as Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Harley-Davidson, Hillerich & Bradsby, Ritz Carlton and many others. Hoping not to oversimplify, the one guiding principle of Deming’s that has been a staple of my professional life is this: “Pick a stable system and work continuously to improve it.”

In fact, I employ it not only in my professional life. It can also be seen in my home, which is always under construction; my marriage, where my motto is “pick a stable guy and work continuously to improve him” (my husband would laugh if he read this); and in my friendships. I like to think I’m getting better and better at them all, always alert for ways to improve the state of the people and places around me.

I read of our collective anxiety about education in America these days, and I am aware enough to know, as Deming did, that change is inevitable. Used in this sense, “change,” to me, means that we must start teaching our children how to surf along the crests of endless waves of change.

There is little point in praising a child for being intelligent or for parroting back information in the correct order. Instead, we must celebrate our progeny’s effort, persistence, curiosity and willingness to take risks. We should teach them never to settle for “good” at the expense of “better” and to always look for the greater good, not because a reward will follow but because it is the fulfillment of life. It is the only achievement of a lifetime that is cause for a larger celebration.

Accomplishment, as separate from achievement, is a wonderful thing, but it is built on a foundation of ever-improving efforts rather than one of perpetual successes.

I’m proud of my UH Warriors and, as I reflect on it, it is not their victory that I am so proud of as it is their achievement. Next year, maybe they won’t win the championship again, or maybe they will. But they’ll be there day after day, game after game, working on their system, improving it, tweaking it. They’re in the game to stay. We all should be.