Countries, Cities, and Cultures That Shaped How We Define Excellence at Work

Excellence is culturally dependent: Tokyo’s precision or Silicon Valley’s experimentation. What I find most fascinating is that, across different studies, time and again, breakthrough ideas, remarkable people come from cultural intersections: multicultural teams or someone with a foreign mentor. Read on to learn our experts’ opinion on this rich question.

Rooftop Installer Culture Defines Field-First Excellence

The culture that shaped my definition of excellence most is installer culture on urban rooftops. If a product looks beautiful in a spec book but creates confusion, delays, or rework in the field, it is not excellent.

Skydeck USA came out of that frustration. We built SkyJack pedestals to arrive fully assembled and adjust quickly, because excellence to me means the crew understands it immediately and the architect still gets design flexibility.

Projects like Soho House Dumbo and the Cigna Health Headquarters reinforced that standard. High-end spaces need to look intentional, but the real test is whether the system helps people solve slope, layout, access, and material transitions without turning the jobsite into a puzzle.

My practical filter is simple: ask the person installing it what will go wrong before you finalize the design. The best designs usually come from respecting the field as much as the rendering.

Cori Eagan, President & Co-Founder, SkyDeck USA

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Italian Precision Elevates Global, Human-Centered Design

Over my three decades leading Keiser Design Group, I’ve seen how expanding our worldview directly elevates our work. The rich architectural culture of Italy–specifically its deep-rooted focus on perspective, harmony, and human emotion–has most profoundly shaped our standard of design excellence. 

This European influence is a daily reality in our Columbus office, brought to life by team members like Ignazio Marzulli, who studied at the Polytechnic University of Bari. We applied this classical Italian precision to a service-oriented school and chapel project for a ministry based in Ghana.

Designing for a completely different continent pushed us to research how other cultures view space, allowing us to deliver a tailored, zero-constraint design that prioritized the client’s mission. Embracing these diverse cultural roots ensures our work is never confined to a single, narrow perspective.

Dan Keiser, Principal Architect, Keiser Design Group

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Father’s Craftsmanship Sets Our Excellence Standard

Honestly, it wasn’t a country or city — it was my dad. Watching him work as a handyman, I saw how a person’s hands could either reflect pride or indifference. That stuck with me.

He never cut corners even when no one was watching. That became my internal standard — and it’s exactly why I push my team to treat every water heater installation like someone’s family depends on it. Because they do.

That culture of quiet craftsmanship shows up in our reviews constantly. Customers mention technicians like Evan and Mitchell not just for getting the job done, but for explaining everything, cleaning up, and treating the home with respect. That’s not training alone — that’s values passed down.

The trades culture I grew up around taught me that a license is just a starting line. What separates excellent work from average work is the pride you carry into every job, whether it’s a basic tank swap or a complex tankless installation.

Anthony Hamilton, Co-Founder & CEO, THE Water Heater Company

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Canadian Values Prioritize Consistency And Trust

Canada influences the way I believe excellence can be defined by placing emphasis on dependability, acceptance of others, and stability. Therefore, within business it is expressed through commitment to providing consistent service, having respect for others opinions, and earning the trust of others throughout time rather than trying to gain attention.

Excellence is reflected in my mind as not being the most vocal or speedy participant. It is being consistent with your presence, doing a good job with your work, and delivering dependable experiences to those who are served by you. In communication technology, it is important to have this thought process as trust is established through several small transactions and not one outstanding transaction.

Dora Bloom, Chief Revenue Officer, iotum

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Canadian Scale Demands Simple, Inclusive Systems

The experience of living in Canada has influenced my thoughts about excellence; in part because so much of our work involves servicing people who are separated by distance, language, industry and geography. You very quickly learn that a successful system must be simple, clear and usable – not just for someone working at head office.

You see that mindset in effect on a daily basis for frontline operations. Whether a person is a hospital worker, retail associate, plant worker or on a field team, each one will require the same updated policies to do their job but will experience their own unique work processes. Achieving excellence requires making communication, training and workflows as simple as possible so that someone can find them from anywhere they may be working, complete what needs to be completed, and be included in the larger organization.

Teri Maltais, VP of Revenue, iTacit

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Excellence Requires Both Discipline And Agility

Quality is not limited to specific geographic areas. High-velocity innovation blended with methodical structural discipline define the type of quality I know and use. My background in engineering centres of India mixed with the continuous agility I see in tech centres around the world has shaped my definition of quality. In my area of origin, the resourcefulness and long-term stability of the operational culture is how you build systems that last. You build the foundation on how you want to prepare your systems for the long-term before worrying about the scale. In contrast, the operational culture I observe in global innovation centres embraces rapid prototyping, constant iterations, and having the courage to pivot in response to the data demands. At first, I thought these were opposing values; the slow, calculated architect versus the fast, agile product owner. Eventually, I learned that real excellence at an enterprise level requires both. As the leader of delivery teams supporting clients around the world, I leverage the structural discipline of my roots for safety and scalability while infusing the iterative user-centric pace of global innovation hubs. The most common mistake I see is forcing one culture on the other, causing variability of systems that are either fragile or stagnant. Both systems must coexist. You cannot trade off speed for stability, nor can you trade off stability for speed. You integrate these two qualities. I consider my standard for excellence to be the discipline to plan and build for the next decade while having the flexibility to ship the next feature this week.

Sudhanshu Dubey, Delivery Manager, Enterprise Solutions Architect, Errna

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Japanese Kaizen Inspires Daily, Incremental Excellence

If I had to choose one influence, it would be the culture of continuous improvement that is often associated with Japan. What has always stood out to me is the belief that excellence is not a destination or a major breakthrough. It’s the result of making small improvements consistently over a long period of time.

In case of education it can be very useful. Students do not become excellent overnight and schools do not turn into top schools through one particular program. Excellence is achieved through improvement and development of processes, collecting the feedback and becoming a bit better each day.

Being the co-founder of Legacy Online School such an approach has influenced my way of building our programs and the team working on those programs. Being always better than before became our motto rather than trying to be perfect.

In my opinion there are many organizations which are obsessed with innovation and forget about continuity. As for me successful organizations manage to combine both concepts.

Vasilii Kiselev, CEO & Co-Founder, Legacy Online School

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Japanese Service Sets My Reliability Benchmark

My fields include travel, transportation, logistics for events, and AI operations.

The Japanese concept of service has definitely been the most influential for me in forming my vision of excellence. I find it appealing because here excellence is silent – on-time trains, people who pay attention to the smallest details before you even have a chance to ask, and systems that hide the complexity behind the service from the client.

It has been my model of transportation service as well. Excellence is not just about the cleanliness of the car or the politeness of the driver. It is also about tracking the flight, giving understandable instructions for picking up, having a prepared car, and making the client oblivious to any of the processes going on.

According to JR Central, in FY2024, Tokaido Shinkansen trains were delayed by 1.4 minutes on average per train, taking into account natural disasters as a cause of delay (source: https://global.jr-central.co.jp/en/company/ir/annualreport/_pdf/annualreport2025-13.pdf). This kind of reliability is the benchmark I always try to reach.

Arsen Misakyan, CEO and Founder, LAXcar

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Galapagos Mastery Set My Client-First Standard

One of my most influential experiences came from Ecuador. Galapagos prides themselves on conservation, which set the benchmark for how I view excellence with clients. Guides are naturalists who have an attention to detail that is unmatched. From watching animal behaviors and tracking migration patterns to triple checking bio security measures to ensure the pristine ecosystem remains that way.

Galapagos guides spend years being certified to lead tours. They can answer any question you have about evolution or animals behaviorally without skipping a beat. That is when I realized excellence means mastering a topic more than most people will in their entire career.

The thing that really stuck with me was how the locals try to make a living while also helping to preserve the land. Operators in Galapagos will always put the health of the land before their income because they know if they don’t take care of it. There will be no tourism and no income. That’s when I realized that excellence with sales is putting your clients’ needs before how many transactions you can get out of them.

Evelyn Duran, Sales Manager, Ecuador & Galapagos Insiders

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German Precision Made Our Remote Work

Leading remote teams in Germany showed me the value of precision. When scaling ShipTheDeal, we documented every single task. That small change made our remote work actually function. Now I build everything around clear communication and solid processes. Without that, one unexpected issue can mess up the work for the entire team.

Cyrus Partow, CEO, ShipTheDeal

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Rural Reality Guides Practical Infrastructure Choices

BEAD shifted my perspective on what infrastructure can really mean. We experimented with solutions and it was the few that truly worked for rural towns – beyond the lab-work – that really started to matter. I saw a solution go from a project on paper to being utilized in a real community in three months time, and it really resonated with me.

If you’re the one installing networks, the starting point must be something people use every single day, not just something that might wow you on a slide.

Jake Brander, President, Brander Group Inc.

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London Demands Creative Work That Delivers

Working from London is great, it just keeps you on your toes. They are very creative and tech orientated over there, and you need to be tight. It was about three months ago I was doing some branding presentations for a SaaS team.

Before I had finished, one of them came up to me saying ‘give us the numbers’. That shows me you have to be effective. If it’s not noticeable and adds value to the company, it’s not working.

James Rigby, Director, Design Cloud

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Dutch Pragmatism And Transparency Win Loyalty

My approach to business completely changed after working in the Netherlands. In the cannabinoid space here, it’s all about being pragmatic and transparent. We just follow the rules to the letter and keep quality high. That’s it. Clients stick around because they know exactly what they’re getting. No surprises.

Maximilian V. Misovic Misovic, CEO, Pharmabinoid BV

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Florida Keys Taught Real, Safe Service

The Florida Keys taught me how to do my job right. The island culture is relaxed, so you can’t be stiff. You have to be real with people. I learned that making people happy means customizing their trip and always putting safety first. When people have a good time, they tell others, and that’s better than any advertising.

Chris Feuerman, Owner, Key West Charter Boat

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London Taught Me Results Over Hype

Life in a London agency also taught me that it’s not worth much to come up with flashy, attention-grabbing concepts if there’s no data to support them. Simply ‘getting press coverage’ is not good enough. You need to be able to demonstrate that a campaign achieved something tangible for the company it served.

That is often the difference between a pretty good campaign and one that makes a genuine difference. If you want to improve, then focus less on being a witty individual and instead start delivering work that gets noticed by those who matter.

Emma Sansom, Managing Director, Flamingo Marketing Strategies

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UK Standards Guide Simple, Compliant Healthcare Tech

The UK’s high standards for both healthcare and technology are how we measure everything we do at Faces. Our job is to make the system incredibly simple for doctors while still following all the rules. That balance helps new clinics get up and running faster. For instance, when we just added a simple feedback button in our CMS, we suddenly saw a lot more clinics start using it.

Ashley Simpson Davies, Co-Founder, Faces

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Global Founders’ Candor Refined Product Excellence

The experience of working with founders from 100+ countries through the Acquire.com platform revolutionized my approach. Perhaps the best feedback you get comes from bootstrapped founders in Malaysia or Slovakia – people that built companies out of their own pocket. They’re not afraid to tell you what is and isn’t working.

That, ultimately, is the approach I take with the product on the Acquire.com platform as well. Build something useful for strangers whom you will never meet. That’s the reward.

Andrew Gazdecki, CEO, Acquire.com

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Kaizen Drives Trustworthy, Ever-Better IT

Japanese work culture, especially kaizen, shaped my view on IT excellence. It’s about the details and never being done improving. That’s how you earn trust. At Medix Dental IT, we’re always looking at what we did yesterday and figuring out how to do it one percent better today, whether it’s a security check or a system update.

Tom Terronez, CEO, Medix Dental IT

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Dubai Fuses World-Class Ambition With Humanity

No other city I’ve ever lived in, or worked in has defined excellence for me the way that Dubai has. Dubai is the city that had a dream for what it wanted to be and then set out to create it faster than anyone imagined was possible. Just being in Dubai makes it infectious. In this city, excellence means more than just ‘pretty good.’ It means asking how we can actually make something world-class and then insisting that we do. Of the many, many lessons that I’ve taken away from Dubai, nothing has impacted me more deeply than discovering that excellence and humanity go hand-in-hand. This is a city where excellence meets generosity in a way I have never experienced. But because it is Dubai, not even hospitality can trump ambition. But now for me, that is just it—that becomes my definition. Excellence is that which is truly exceptional and where everyone participating feels like the rock stars that they truly are. Dubai and I demonstrated that no one needs to ever compromise on either. We have built a company on that idea.

Lina Haj Hussien, Founder and CHO, Employee Engagement & Experience Manager, Inspire

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Texas Culture Anchors Consistent, Integrity-Driven Excellence

I learned what excellence really means from the Texan culture. I have been shaped by the Texan attitude to excellence the most. It appreciates open communication, bouncing back and filtering out the noise. In Investorade, we make real estate easy and get results. We see challenges as an opportunity to create long-term value, and fair solutions to the sellers.

In this culture I learned the value of using consistency and integrity in order to be excellent. It’s the notion of making good decisions all day, every day, with the same sense of purpose. That’s what we do and we measure success by.

Blake DeWitt, CEO, Investorade

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Consistency Over Flash Defines Our Work

Southern California has taught me what excellence really is. When you hold the same high expectations for every building, lot, or owner you come across, there is no excuse to half ass any job. If you’re taking care of shopping centers that see 500 cars a day, you can’t cut corners or take shortcuts with workmanship. Owners want quality that will stand the test of time. They expect you to communicate and schedule like your business is their profession. They want you to care about the small things most people overlook. That environment breeds consistency instead of hoping for a Friday miracle. Excellence isn’t just wowing someone with your work Friday afternoon. It’s showing up on Monday morning and doing the right thing every day in between.

What excites me the most is that I’ve learned excellence should still look impressive when your crew isn’t working on their property 6 months later. Fresh asphalt looks great, but once all the rocks are ground down, you’ll see if every line was filled or stripped correctly. Everything you did will pay off when you have proper drainage that prevents erosion or repaired streets flush with concrete transitions. Taking that mentality is what helped me make every decision for my business. Pride yourself in your work, so when someone has a bad experience with the rush job down the street, they come to you. If I could give one piece of advice to another entrepreneur, it would be to judge your success way after your startup instead of your grand opening.

Scott Flores, CEO and Licensed Contractor, Empire PLS

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Portland Champions Collaborative, Holistic Success

Portland, Oregon. It’s kind of kooky in many ways, but the founders in this city care deeply for each other and the success of the group instead of trying to outdo each other or only look out for themselves like other major metros. It’s a great place to have incredibly unique experiences while growing a new business, and you can’t get that in many other places around the world. It’s a refreshing take on excellence. We want to be successful, but success is defined holistically. How you feel about your work and how you affect the society around you.

Ken Marshall, Co-Founder, Meet Sona

Have Your Say

What shaped your own definition of excellence? Share your thoughts in the comments.

• Which place or culture has influenced your work the most?
• What habit helps you consistently perform at your best?
• Which perspective in this roundup resonated most with you, and why?

Alignment with the UN SDGs

• SDG 4: Lifelong learning and knowledge-sharing.
• SDG 8: Professional excellence and productive work.
• SDG 9: Innovation and resilient industries.
• SDG 17: Global collaboration.

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Note: The views and opinions expressed in the content provided on this page are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organizations mentioned. The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as professional advice. Readers should consult with relevant experts or professionals for guidance specific to their circumstances. The examples used are for illustrative purposes and results may vary depending on various factors. Any external links provided are for convenience, and we do not endorse or take responsibility for the content, products, or services available through these links.

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