PSM #25: The Framework for Managing Self [revised]

Communications, Self-talk

This has been a difficult introduction to start, so I will go straight to the point[s] that I hope to make then build the case for the position I take.

If you do not manage yourself, someone else will. And when you allow this to happen, you compromise your ability to provide significant added value to the position you hold. You compromise the ability to serve the stakeholders, the shareholders, and the customers of your organization. You become an agent of someone else, accomplishing their vision and fulfilling their dreams. Being an agent in itself is not bad. We are successful when we help others to be successful. But we need to do this consciously rather than unconsciously.

If we do not have a strategy for self management and the the skills to do so, someone else will manage us instead.

So what is the strategy for self management? We have to start with the mission statement I spoke about several podcasts ago. We live for something. If we do not focus on who we are and what we live for, we can be assured that someone else will provide us that direction for his or her own ends. We need to center ourselves with our mission statement. I have also spoken about the value of a plan and the need for goals in our lives. These features, our mission, our plan, and our goals, create the framework under which we live, manage, and make decisions.

I think there is one other element in this framework. Our mission, our plan, and our goals state what we DO and only implicitly state who we ARE. To borrow a quote from someone, “we are human beings, not human doings.” Actually, I think we are both, but what we do is a result of who we are.

So on another sheet of paper, I encourage you to list who you are, what attributes make you uniquely you. Then review your mission, your plan, and your goals to see how your attributes of being are reflected in your doing.

This is the framework we use for decisions and direction: our mission, our plan, our goals, and our concept of being. This framework keeps us from becoming easily distracted, misdirected, or manipulated.

The podcast is located here.

Have a happy holiday season.

Craig @ December 2, 2007