What About Personal Excellence?
Last month I posted about Organizational Excellence, provided some examples of who has achieved it, and challenged my readers to define how they can personally support the “journey”.
OK, so that makes me think about Personal Excellence. Wow. That’s a loaded concept. It’s embedded in many things – your view of life, of work, of yourself, and of your WHY.
To a degree, I feel someone needs to define (even loosely) who they are as a person and what they stand for. All “measurements” require some form of baseline to compare against.
But … we are complex beings. We can have excellence in some areas and be woefully short in others. Is there an overall “score” for that? Adding more complexity, we may place different weight or emphasis on some areas over others.
Here are some areas that we may consider defining excellence for … and occasionally assessing our progress against:
- Our spirituality
- Our family (nuclear and extended)
- Our health and medical situation
- Our physical fitness
- Our mental health
- Our career
- Our financial situation
- Our work
- Our relationships beyond family
- Our giving commitment and activities
- Our hobbies
In those areas where we score low (not just in the “bar” we set, but also our “performance” against it), I believe we should find someone that compliments us in that area. For me, that’s technology. In reverse, we can support others to be effective if they don’t have the knowledge, skill, or interest in that area.
Aside from your own thinking and asking for input from others, The Clifton Strengths assessment is a useful way to get started on this. It operates from a strength-based approach. My Top 5 strengths are: Strategic, Relator (preferring fewer and deeper relationships), Achiever, Activator (to get things started; I need people to help me finish), and Responsible (do what we say we’ll do).
Think about Personal Excellence. How could more time and attention to that concept help you and those you spend time with?
I’d enjoy hearing your story. Please share how you use/have used this concept and the results from it.
