The Personal Business Plan

A Blueprint for Running Your Life

Stephen Bruyant-Langer

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118744253
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Plan for success

No one would embark on a business venture without a thorough and coherent plan. So why are so many of us happy to stagger through life with no real plan – just going with the flow, seeing what happens? It's time we gave our lives the same importance we give to our business exploits. The Personal Business Plan offers a practical, field-tested method for effectively planning out what you want from life and exactly how to achieve it. It will change the way you look at yourself, your job and your career. This is an essential toolkit for all ambitious career professionals who want to know how to thrive in their job and simultaneously become a happier and more effective person. Creating your own personal business plan will help you to define your purpose, plan your actions, break through limiting beliefs and reinvent yourself.

• Written by a top executive coach and head-hunter with the world's leading Talent Management and Executive Search firm who has changed the lives of thousands of people
• A field-tested methodology for identifying your mission, setting your critical success criteria, defining your agenda, keeping to the point and become more fulfilled and happier
• A complete life view – how to excel in your chosen career and simultaneously enjoy a happy personal life

1

What is My Situation?

“I'm taking control of my life –

now, right now”

Tom Petty

We all experience forced choices and there seems to be a built-in urge to organize the world in opposites. Are you verbally or numerically oriented? Does your company focus on innovation or efficiency? What is most important for you – your career or your family life?

Juxtapositions are destructive, because they always create a false picture of reality. If you aim at a harmonious life where you balance different dimensions according to your life ambition, then juxtapositions are decidedly lethal. Each and every time you create a schism inside your head you must try to reposition and challenge yourself. This is valid not least for so-called “soft” and “hard” values. If you find yourself in a situation where you feel you have to choose between prioritizing the hard and the soft values in your life, then you will fail. You should always be in a position to identify a meta-level and think of a solution that transforms the schism into a “both/and” situation, allowing you to transcend trade-offs. A Japanese proverb says: Vision without action is a daydream – action without vision is a nightmare.

Just in order to name a few resolutions of dilemmas:

You must pursue both professional and personal ambitions in order to create an optimal career – look for your life ambition.

You must focus on both your intellectual and your spiritual competencies in order to leave a mark – look for your energizers.

You must focus on both the present and the future, that is, both short-term and long-term in order to create wellbeing – look for what will ultimately make you happy.

You must focus on both the vision and the operation, that is, both strategy and implementation in order to succeed – look for what differentiates you from others.

When you find yourself in situations where you have to choose between two paths always ask yourself: Is it possible to find a third way where I don't need to opt out on either A or B? My experience is that C exists. Should I accept this job or should I ask for a higher salary? You could combine the two, state that you are highly interested and want to negotiate a bonus based on clear success criteria. In reality there are very few opposites. You don't need to be either a tough or an inclusive employer. You might choose to be tough on tasks and soft on people. My experience from CEOs in all weight classes is that, the longer along their life, the more they perceive dilemmas from a holistic point of view. Their perspective becomes more inclusive and participative.

The leadership styles of senior executives are the complete opposite of lower-level managers' styles. The decisive style, which combines the use of minimal information and a single option, is dominant among first-level supervisors but nearly non-existent among senior executives. Similarly, the fast-moving, multi-focused flexible style, embraced by senior executives, scored lowest among supervisors.

The hierarchic style (lots of data, one option) is the second-most frequently used for first-line supervisors; its use dips during a manager's career and bounces back somewhat at the most senior level. And the integrative style, relied on so heavily by senior executives, ranks near the bottom for junior managers (see Figure 4A).

Figure 4 Decision Styles
Source: Brousseau et al (Harvard Business Review, February 2006): The Seasoned Executive’s Decision-Making Style, based on proprietary research from Korn/Ferry International

At the second level of management, the scores are tightly clustered with no one style dominating, before they fan out again in the opposite direction. This is called the convergence zone, the point at which managers begin to understand that the approaches to decision making that have served them well are becoming less and less effective.

This pattern becomes even more dramatic when you look at the scores for top-performing managers. (Salary was used as a proxy for success – an imperfect measure, but organizations do tend to pay more for better managers.) Once again, we see the crossover with the most successful people reaching this point a bit earlier than average.

This may be an indicator that they are faster to catch on to the need for new behaviors in their new jobs (Figure 4B). The least successful managers – the bottom 20% in terms of income – start out pretty much as the others, but they don't continue to evolve and their leadership styles remain clustered in an “uncertainty zone” (Figure 4C). This is an illustration of the Peter Principle at work: People are promoted up to their level of incompetence!

If you waver between pursuing two different job opportunities, don't ask yourself which one feels best. The first question you must ask yourself is: What drives me? I recently placed a CEO in a global organization and I vividly remember her comment coming out of the interview: “It is as if I have always been training for this position”. This experience of lucidity – as if everything falls into place – is magic. This is the intense feeling you will experience when you have truly identified your life ambition. It will probably change over time, but being life ambitious will be a permanent attitude. Your life ambition is your strongest motivator and it will help you maintain momentum and direction in your life. We are constantly confronted with artificial choices. Very often we create them ourselves. Why make life more difficult than it is? History doesn't show the alternative. It is possible to reduce complexity. Radical Simplification could become your new mantra.

The potential of being able to think in both/and solutions instead of either/or is huge, not only at the individual level. High performance organizations are characterized by their ability to create a fusion between contradictions – for example:

Centralization and decentralization

Globalization and individualization

Rationalization and growth

Profit and investment

Consolidation and development

Planning and execution

Hi-tech and hi-touch

Apple, one of the world's most valuable companies, is on the one hand a superbly creative and user-oriented company – and on the other hand an almost military-like organization as far as strategy, design, and execution is concerned. Steve Jobs called Apple the biggest start-up on the planet. It is ...