Personal Management

Habit 3 is Personal Management: the exercise of independent will to create a life congruent with your values, goals and mission.   The fourth human endowment, Independent Will, is the ability to make decisions and choices and act upon them.  Integrity is our ability to make and keep commitments to ourselves. Management involves developing the specific application of the ideas. We should lead from the right brain (creatively) and manage from the left brain (analytically).

In order to subordinate your feelings, impulses and moods to your values, you must have a "burning" YES! inside, making it possible to say "No" to other things.  The "Yes" is our purpose, passion, clear sense of direction and value.

Time management is an essential skill for personal management.  The essence of time management is to organize and execute around priorities.  Methods of time management have developed in these stages: 1) notes and checklists - recognizing multiple demands on our time, 2) calendars and appointment books - scheduling events and activities, 3) prioritizing, clarifying values - integrating our daily planning with goal setting.  The downside of this approach is increasing efficiency can reduce the spontaneity and relationships of life.; 4) managing ourselves rather than managing time - focusing in preserving and enhancing relationships and accomplishing results, thus maintaining the P/PC balance (production versus building production capacity, as stated in earlier blog).

Self discipline isn't enough. Without a principle center and a personal mission statement we don't have the necessary foundation to sustain our efforts.

Stewardship Delegation depends on trust, but it takes time and patience. The people may need training and development to acquire the competence to rise to the level of that trust.

Stewardship Delegation requires a clear, up-front mutual understanding of and commitment to expectations in five areas:

1. Desired Results - Have the person see it, describe it, make a quality statement of what the results will look like and by when they will be accomplished.
2. Guidelines - Identify the parameters within which the individual should operate, and what potential "failure paths" might be. Keep the responsibility for results with the person delegated to.
3. Resources - Identify the resources available to accomplish the required results.
4. Accountability - Set standards of performance to be used in evaluating the results and specific times when reporting and evaluation will take place.
5. Consequences - Specify what will happen as a result of the evaluation, including psychic or financial rewards and penalties.

Using Stewardship Delegation, we are developing a goose (to produce golden eggs) based on internal commitment. We must avoid Gofer Delegation to get the golden egg or we kill the goose - the worker reverts to the gofer's credo: "Just tell me what to do and I'll do it."