Introduction
Organizations find it critical today to model best practices for processes. However, similar models for ‘mental best practices’ do not exist. A large part of an individual’s success depend upon his beliefs, values, mental strategies and attitude. These vary depending upon circumstances – but an environment specific model is always more valuable than a general one.
If an individual can be identified as creating excellence in a particular area (influencing, leading, negotiating, data entry etc.), what we have is a rich resource for learning and growth. We have a ‘best practice’.
Excellence Modeling attempts to identify and isolate individual’s strategies that allow the role model to demonstrate excellence. Once we have isolated these strategies, we can coach or train others to experiment with them. The result is almost always a discovery, an insight that leads to enhanced performance in the area.
Isolating and studying individual strategies that allow them to demonstrate excellence has far-reaching benefits. For the first time, it will become possible to have a scalable model for individual competence. Such a model could be used to train new recruits, where the need for unlearning is low. Also, coaching and mentoring acquire a new meaning because – coaches can share specific strategies and “how-to” rather than generalizations (“think positive”, “concentrate”, “work hard”, “try becoming better with people” etc.) It can also be the most significant step forward in enhancing individual competence and their personal development. The competitive advantage that the organization enjoys would be further strengthened and it would also positively impact prospective employees and clients.
The levels at which a model is studied
