One of my ongoing Audible listens is On Managing Yourself by HBR’s 10 Must Reads. It’s wonderful to read Peter Drucker and Clayton Christensen’s writings.
I haven’t completed the book to rewrite it in my own words. However, I’ll capture a few key ideas so that they can still be thought-provoking. If you truly want to benefit, take the time to read the book.
Today, I’ll capture the first essay in the HBR collection, Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker. It’s viewable on the HBR website. Incredibly, what he wrote in 1999 can still be so relevant today. It feels like we are still trying to figure out how to best carry on our lives as knowledge workers.
We have to learn to develop ourselves. If we’re lucky, we get to place ourselves where we can use our talents. Working life spans 50 years. We need to stay mentally alert and engaged throughout so we can know how and when to change the work we do. The key questions and topics to consider are below, and I’ll just comment on a few.
- What are my strengths?
- How do I perform?
- What are my values?
- Where do I belong?
- What should I contribute?
- Responsibility for relationships
- The Second Half of Your Life
What are my strengths? Use feedback analysis. Write down expected outcomes when taking a key action and compare them later when we have the results.
How do I perform? Am I a reader or a listener? How do I learn? Knowing how we learn may be possible, but acting on this knowledge is the key to performance. Do I work well with others, or am I a loner? If I work well other others, then what kind of relationships are they?
Responsibility for relationships. First, accept that other people are individuals with strengths, performance, values, and belonging. Learn to know those strengths, performances, and values. Few people pay attention to it! People understand the importance of taking responsibility for relationships but don’t communicate sufficiently with their associates. They are afraid of being thought presumptuous, inquisitive, or stupid.
Most managers still don’t declare the following, “This is what I am good at. This is how I work. These are my values. This is the contribution I plan to concentrate on and the results I should be expected to deliver.”
And continue with “What do I need to know about your strengths, how you perform, your values, and your proposed contribution?”
That becomes even more relevant in today’s world. This reminds me of building a Manager Readme as made popular in a few Silicon Valley companies.
Managing oneself demands that we think like our own CEO. No wonder being a CEO is hard!