José Pires, founder and CEO of Global Excellence & Innovation, has helped large and small organizations across multiple industries transform their leadership to achieve better results. Based on his decades of experience guiding organizations toward performance excellence, innovation, and collaborative leadership, the Baldrige Program invited Pires to deliver a keynote presentation March 31, 2025, during the 36th Quest for Excellence Conference, which showcased the latest Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipients.

“I learned early in my career that innovation is not just about ideas—it’s about execution,” Pires says. “When I first joined Sony, my boss, Hayashi-san, gave me what I felt was an impossible challenge: to identify 300 innovations in my first two weeks at work. I was overwhelmed, but I quickly realized that true innovation doesn’t come from lone geniuses—it comes from a disciplined approach to problem solving, engaging diverse perspectives, and developing the courage to challenge the status quo. That lesson became the foundation of my leadership philosophy, and it’s a key theme of the keynote I delivered at the Quest for Excellence.”

In the following Q&A, Pires shares additional insights about his presentation and offers what he calls “actionable takeaways for leaders striving to build high-performance, enduring organizations.”

Your keynote is titled, “Go for Extraordinary: Unleashing the Power of Great Enduring Leaders and Organizations.” What inspired this message?

Throughout my career, I’ve worked with thousands of leaders across industries, and I’ve found that what separates the truly extraordinary from the rest is not simply intelligence, strategy, or resources—it’s a relentless commitment to purpose, passion, discipline, and resilience. Great, enduring leaders and organizations don’t just navigate the status quo; they challenge it with curiosity, humility, and adaptability.

The message of my keynote was simple yet powerful: Extraordinary results require extraordinary collaborative leadership. That leadership isn’t about individual brilliance alone. It’s about setting the stage for collaborating, fostering innovation, and developing systems that make transformation sustainable over time. You don’t have to stay in your lane, but you do need to check your blind spots. The truly knowledgeable navigate with curiosity, not just confidence, and they embrace uncertainty as an opportunity to learn and grow.

You’ve emphasized the importance of making innovation “ordinary and accessible.” Can you expand on that?

One of the greatest misconceptions about innovation is that it’s reserved for a select few—visionaries, scientists, or disruptors. The truth is, real innovation happens when we embed it into everyday work, empowering every individuals to contribute to continuous improvement and breakthrough ideas.

Organizations that thrive in innovating don’t operate under the illusion that the best ideas come from the loudest voices or the highest ranks. Instead, they foster a meritocracy of ideas in which actionable insights, not egos, determine impact. This approach creates an environment where execution accelerates, engagement deepens, and excellence becomes second nature.

Extraordinary innovation isn’t about credentials; it’s about purpose, passion, discipline, resilience, and value creation through execution. The best ideas don’t come from the corner office; they emerge from the front lines of engagement.

At the Quest for Excellence Conference, many attendees were looking for tangible ways to improve leadership and organizational performance. What could they expect to learn from your presentation?

They walked away with actionable principles to build great, enduring organizations. Key themes and principles I conveyed included the following:

Mastering the contradictions of collaborative leadership

Great collaborative leaders blend the mindset of both the expert and the novice. While experts have deep domain knowledge, novices see opportunities with fresh eyes. Innovation thrives at the intersection of these perspectives.

Harnessing constructive friction for growth

Resistance is inevitable, but engagement is key. Progress comes from challenging the status quo, and collaboration isn’t about unanimous agreement. It’s about harnessing productive tension as the catalyst for real transformation. Organizations that avoid it risk stagnation.

The four traits of extraordinary innovators

Purpose, passion, discipline, and resilience are the driving forces behind transformative, collaborative leadership. These aren’t abstract traits; they are behaviors that can be developed and embedded in an organization’s DNA.

Collaboration as a force multiplier

The best measure of trust is effective collaboration. When people align themselves with a shared purpose and mutual respect, they unlock innovation and drive excellence. Progress isn’t just born from individual effort but from the synergy of trusted, collaborative minds.

Innovation is execution

Ideas are abundant, but execution is rare. Organizations must create disciplined systems that allow innovation to move from concept to implementation efficiently. Depth wins. Discipline dominates. The future belongs to those who outthink the noise.

The Baldrige Excellence Framework emphasizes organizational excellence, innovation, and resilience. How does your approach align with these concepts?

My focus on principles related to excellence and innovation aligns perfectly with the Baldrige framework. I stress that sustainable excellence isn’t about achieving short bursts of success, but rather about developing systems and cultures that ensure resilience and continuous improvement over time.

Resilience isn’t just about bouncing back from setbacks; it’s about proactively engaging with challenges, iterating, and refining approaches to drive meaningful progress. Growth from ordinary to extraordinary isn’t just about individual excellence. It’s about creating environments where adaptability, emotional intelligence, and continuous learning thrive.

Further, I’ve found that organizational excellence isn’t just about having strong work processes; it’s about demonstrating leadership behaviors and achieving cultural transformations that make greatness repeatable. True collaborative leaders don’t separate their personal and professional lives into compartments. They blend them into a purposeful, fulfilling journey. Leadership isn’t about ticking off goals; it’s about aligning passion, values, and impact across every aspect of life.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Good transactional leaders inspire people to have confidence in their leader. Great collaborative leaders inspire people to have confidence in themselves.”

What advice do you have for leaders looking to accelerate innovation and performance in their organizations?

Make innovation everyone’s job

Don’t isolate innovation to a department or a few individuals. Embed it in daily work across all levels of the organization.

Create systems, not silos

Sustainable excellence is built on interconnected systems that allow collaboration, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement.

Develop disciplined execution

Many organizations have great ideas but fail in execution. The discipline to implement and refine is what separates extraordinary organizations from the rest.

Lead with gratitude

Enduring greatness isn’t just skill or strategy—it’s fueled by one powerful force: gratitude. Great leaders don’t just chase success; they appreciate challenges, forgive imperfections, and give selflessly. They don’t have everything they love, but they love everything they have.

Engage with purpose and passion

The most enduring leaders align their personal and professional purpose and bring energy, discipline, and resilience to their mission.

Cultivate sustained thinking

In an age of fractured focus, deep and sustained thinking is a superpower. No problem can withstand its assault. Depth wins. The future belongs to those who can filter out the noise and focus on what truly moves the needle.

Any final thoughts you’d like to share?

Yes, I offer this challenge to leaders: Let’s challenge assumptions, explore new ideas, and uncover actionable strategies together. The future doesn’t belong to those who wait. It belongs to those who dare to lead boldly, collaborate fearlessly, and innovate relentlessly.

Published March 18, 2025, in Blogrige: The Official Baldrige Blog.