Alcohol Abuse Advice

Are You Cultivating Excellence?

Who do you think of as a person of excellence?

Ghandi, Helen Keller, DaVinci, or simply a neighbor, friend or relative with qualities you admire and appreciate? For me, persons of excellence live intentionally with a strong commitment to their purpose, whether it’s inventing, holding political office, running a school or raising a child.

The Current Situation

National research indicates 29% of employees display this level of committed passion on the job. They’re eager and willing, personally responsible for their work, their relationships, and have strong self and social interest. Out of the 71% remaining, 55% resentfully do only what’s absolutely required and 16% actively work against others. Sadly, schools and homes scored similar results.

What’s Going On?

At client sites, I ask, “What do you most want long-term for the people you lead, parent or manage?”  The answers are all, in one form or another, “I want them to be people of excellence.” They say, “I want them to be caring, contributing members; I want them to get along with others, be happy, healthy; responsible.”  They don’t say, “I want them to be rich, famous or smart.”  I ask them: “Are the practices you engage in consistently focused on accomplishing these goals?”

What Leads a Person to Excellence?

Excellence isn’t tied to advantages or a smooth path. If so, how would we explain that Abe Lincoln came from poverty with only one year of schooling, or that cyclist Lance Armstrong continues to inspire us, despite cancer? How do we explain those who enjoy health, wealth or education who don’t always choose excellence? Most importantly, what does lead a person to excellence?

The Four Core Needs

At the heart of the matter, all people have 4 core needs that must be provided for and nurtured if businesses, homes and schools are to be filled with caring, contributing members. The 4 core needs that internally drive all human behavior are: to feel powerful, lovable, connected, and contributing. Most leaders don’t proactively support these needs and in fact, often inadvertently adopt practices that block them (ie: punishment, reward, competition, negativity and neglect of talent).

Mission Critical

When people are frustrated in meeting their 4 core needs in positive ways, they are driven to satisfy them any way they can. These behaviors often seem to confirm wide-spread, faulty and pessimistic biases about human nature (i.e., people are evil, lazy, and selfish). Add to that outdated parenting and school practices, religious messages, and penal codes, and people learn at an early age to avoid self-examination and scrutiny from others. Like a starving man sneaking in to steal bread, discouraged people play out core need hunger in overt or subtle ways that are often socially unacceptable.

Misbehavior:  A Detour from Excellence

In our work, we teach ‘a misbehaving person is a discouraged person’ doing his best to move towards wholeness despite his negative behavior. Deficiency in the 4 core needs helps to explain why anti-drug and alcohol abuse campaigns focused on harmful effects or crime reduction with an emphasis on punishment show minimal results. The reason: the Internal drive to meet our core needs is so great it overrides threats of danger or reprisal. In fact, criminal activities of all types (ie: gangs and drug dealing) can and do meet a person’s needs to feel powerful, loveable, connected and contributing. Translation: it’s worth the risk.  Realizing “a misbehaving person is a discouraged person doing their best to meet their core needs” paves the way to new paradigms in which social interest, creativity and commitment are intentionally supported.

Cultural Transformation

Results in our client sites and others confirm that positive results occur when companies, schools and homes are intentionally designed to meet the 4 core needs systematically and constructively. In 1984, I attended parent training based on the psychology of Alfred Adler and began to set up new systems in my home towards this end. I also learned how to redirect, an alternative to punishment and reward. With my overall goal to transfer responsibility to the entire family, it was a pivotal moment when my kids, ages 11, 9, 7 and 5, demonstrated a family meeting in an auditorium. They were confident, comfortable sharing their ideas and mistakes, and described issues they’d confronted and solved. Our 5-year-old daughter ran the meeting to show how capable kids are, and how we underestimate their contributions. I realized the extent to which we all can influence excellence. I came to know: people are and want to be excellent! You want to be excellent! Our cultural systems are usually not focused for excellence –but they’re easy to change.

So…are you cultivating excellence?