Introduction
Individual excellence is a state in which an individual have the quality of excelling in his or her undertakings. It is about an individual possessing good qualities and the highest degree possible. It can also be said that it means an outstanding feature that an individual possesses; it includes something in which a person excels in. Individual excellence can also be used to mean the qualities that make an individual to excel in the numerous fields like business, school or college and/or leadership. Individual excellence can also be used in the context where an individual is considered or honored as a competent person (Lewis, 1992).
Framework for Achieving Individual Excellence
For an individual to achieve excellence there is a framework within which he or she must operate. First, achieving excellence requires that one must have some guiding principles which inform his or her interactions with other people and also reactions in certain situations. As an individual with desire to pursue excellence, it is important to have the motivation to pursue excellence. It is not just easy to achieve excellence without the need for determination.
Every individual must evaluate his or her life in order to determine the framework within which he or she is to achieve individual excellence. It is important to understand that individual excellence is not achieved the same way. There are certain factors that influence the achievement of individual excellence. Some of these factors are cultural backgrounds, environment in which one is brought up and the academic levels (Business Excellence through Process Maturity, 2009).
For me to achieve individual excellence the framework within which I operate includes understanding and supporting the wide responsibility that I have in life, possessing relevant knowledge, understanding and respecting the diversity of people and their opinions, understanding legal issues that appertains to every activity I undertake to do, thinking critically as regards to multifaceted issues, exercising responsible stewardship of all the resource entrusted to me and being trustworthy and able to maintain confidentiality where necessary.
The driving force in my life is perfection. One needs to make sure that after he or she has done an activity, no one should redo it again or he or she should not go back into doing it. This implies that when I decide or advised to undertake a task I must do my best to ensure that the input I place into the task will bring out the best output. It is about starting a task with the end result in mind. Once I know what the end result should be, I definitely work towards achieving it.
Another driving force is passion. Individual excellence cannot be achieved without the passion to pursue it. I am driven by the passion to offer the best I can and not the reward I will get after completing a task. Money is also one of the forces driving me. The fact is that in the current society everybody needs money to be able to meet basic needs and other life requirements. The need for the money will drive me into pursuing excellence so that I can offer my best in return for a better pay. This implies that I will always look for well paying jobs or pursue a well paying career and use my personal excellence in serving other for money.
Success is also my driving force. In fact everybody likes succeeding in everything he or she does. When I start performing a task, however hard it may appear, the desire to succeed will keep me doing it to the end. Every time I succeed I feel I will always succeed. The next task may look challenging but with desire to succeed, I always must accomplish such a task. Optimism is also very important to me. I never like having pessimistic way of thinking.
Optimism will always make me succeed or find quick solutions to challenges I face while undertaking tasks. Another driving force in my life is inspiration. I get inspired many professionals, those who succeed even though there may be many challenges in the process, and those who never give up even if they fail to achieve their goals severally. When somebody celebrates his or her victory I feel very much inspired.
One of my restraining forces is interruptions. Always when one is interrupted while in the process of doing a task, he or she must feel restrained. Constant interruptions interfere with my activities and I may end up not finishing a task. Lack of appropriate resources for the tasks I may want to do. When resources are not sufficient or completely absent, I am likely to feel restrained from doing a task. Another restraint is lack of appropriate knowledge on a task.
I would always let those who can do certain tasks do them, especially when I feel I do not have sufficient knowledge to undertake it. When a task assigned to me is likely to contravene the law or certain set policies and regulations, I would always be restrained from doing it. In fact, it is one of the principles within which I operate. All my actions must comply with the policies, rules, and regulations that govern such tasks.
Environmental management is very important for me. With global concern to have a sustainable environment, I always feel I also have a responsibility at personal level to help save the environment. In participating in environmental management and conservation, I always ensure that my activities are not harmful to the environment. I also make sure that I carry on with my task in an environmental friendly manner.
My desire for planning and program design is that during the process of doing the task, it is important to contact or work closely with different people. When planning and doing program design, it is important to take into account all the divergent opinions that may be presented during the process. I also desire that the process of planning and doing program design should represent all the intended beneficiaries of the programs.
An organizational design includes the official roles of each individual found in an organization. I wish that the design of an organization should be such that information takes bottom top approach. This implies that the top management should understand that it is the employees or management at the base who are the ones closer to actual activities that take place within an organization. It is only important to use information from employees and the subordinate management in making organizational decisions or designing strategic plans. The roles of all the departments or individuals should not be seen to clash with one another. All the roles should be distinct and complement one another to avoid confusion within an organization.
The development of human resource should be done on regular basis. It is important for every organization to recognize the need to offer an opportunity for its work force to acquire new relevant skills and also to rejuvenate them. I desire that human development should take place through constant team bonding and training activities, paid study leave and offering scholarships to excellently performing employees. It is also important for the management to promote individuals based on skills they possess and not merely on papers (Burton et al, 2006).
When it comes to supervision, the employees should be trusted to do their work effectively without constant supervision. It is important to realize that majority of employees would like work freely without the pressure that comes with the supervisors being close. After all, it is important that an organization recruit workers who can either work without supervision or with very minimal supervision. This will also benefit an organization in terms of reduced operation costs and time spent supervising the workers (Morse, 1977).
Financial management is very important; the mechanisms put in place should be as efficient and accurate as possible. The methods like the use of financial management software should be used. In fact, the use of financial management software will make the management of finances easy and accurate. In an organizational context it may also reduce the cost of buying books of accounts and the information on an organization’s financial performance can be tracked easily.
At personal level it is important to keep good financial records. One should have some level of discipline as regards the use of money to purchase items. My desire is that financial management should incorporate the use of rationality in term of making financial decisions.
The information system within an organization should be in such a way that once the information is released from the top, it should reach the lower level of the organization efficiently and accurately. The information management within an organization should be set to be done by a specific department to ensure the source and destination of all the information is tracked and kept. The system should be designed so that one can easily trace the source and also tell the intended individuals within an organization. In doing program evaluation it is important to use empirical measures. The results of the programs should also be seen to have empirical effects so as to tell the discrepancies.
The Meaning of Peter Senge’s Five Disciplines to Me
Peter Senge’s Five Disciplines include Systems Thinking, Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Building Shared Vision and Team Learning. The system thinking encompasses all the remaining disciplines. All these disciplines means that individuals should approach situations of life and work in away similar to an artist approaching the work of an art, there is some deeply ingrained assumptions and/ or certain mental images that actually influence how individuals understand the world around them and how they take action, they also indicate that when there is a genuine vision individuals always excel and that team members engage in genuine dialogue with suspended individual assumptions (Value Based Management, 2010).
Conclusion
Individual excellence defines ones characteristics that enable him or her to succeed in certain spheres of life. For an individual to succeed there is a framework within which he or she must operate. There must also be some motivating factors that may drive his or her efforts to achieve individual excellence. However, there are also demotivating factors that may make one to feel restrained from achieving excellence. Peter Senge’s five disciplines provide one of the best guidelines on achieving individual excellence in varied contexts.
Reference List
Burton, R. et al. (2006). Organizational design. A step-by-step approach. United States of America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Business Excellence Through Process Maturity. (2009). An Executive Study of Indian IT. Service sector. Web.
Lewis, R. (1992). Individual excellence. improving personal effectiveness at work. London: Kogan Page.
Morse, N. (1977). Satisfactions in the white-collar job. Survey Research Center series. New York: Ayer Publishing.
Value Based Management. (2010). Five Disciplines – Peter Senge. Learning Organizations. Web.