• IEE MISSION

    Smart & Good Schools Report In the school, home, workplace, and other environments, IEE conducts research to identify and benchmark the moral and performance character strengths—such as relationship skills, ethics, work ethic, goal-setting, perseverance and others—needed to "be our best" and "do our best." Through trainings, coaching, and an online community, we deliver programs that build the culture and competencies of excellence and ethics required for success in any endeavor. Ongoing assessment contributes to high fidelity of implementation and data-driven continuous improvement.

    Cultural indicators from all sectors of American life—political and military, business and education, sports and entertainment, families and communities—make clear the critical need for preparing individuals to lead purposeful, ethical, and fulfilling lives and to contribute to a productive, just, and caring society.

    How do we renew our culture, so that both ethics and excellence define who we are as a people, our economy has a stable supply of competent workers, and our democracy can count on a critical mass of responsible citizens? IEE views character and culture as the pathway to both excellence and ethics.

    Undeveloped social and emotional skills, satisfaction with mediocre work, poor effort and attitude, inability to work collaboratively—these and similar issues have a common root cause: the absence of good character. Developing good character, unlike piecemeal efforts to combat negative behaviors, offers the best hope for improvement in all areas. IEE views character not as a problem but as a solution.

    But for character to become a solution, we need an intentional focus on building the culture that supports character competencies that are specifically NEEDED in a particular environment and can be DEVELOPED from it. In schools, for example, focusing on the character and culture NEEDED FOR effective learning and DEVELOPED THROUGH learning, educators can build the classroom culture and develop student competencies in a synergistic way.

    What is true for schools is also true for homes, businesses, and entire communities. Intentionally placed at the center of our efforts, character and culture of excellence and ethics maximize our potential for success—in all of our endeavors and all of our relationships.