Defining Our Selves

How?  One of the simplest yet most important approaches to questioning any topic that requires solid reasoning.  How do you define yourself?  A look at one of the subsets of how.

Rest assured that if your career defines you, you have not truly defined yourself.  In fact, if you define yourself through superficial or proper nouns, your self definition likely lacks depth and meaning.  And yes this is a very subjective article.

We are who we are because of all the little pieces, that we have accumulated over the years.  Look back in your personal journals (written or mental records) and you will find a more significant meaning to that self definition.  Our childhood activities, our struggles, endeavors, and successes have helped us to arrive at where we are today.  More over the relationships that we have formed over the years also plays a significant role in our personal identity.  There are those relationships we cherish and others that have taught us the lesson of who we do not want to be- often these gains result from the people we care for and trust the most.

So where do you begin if you do not have the answer; when do you decide to reassess if you already had a definition but find it is time to reinvent yourself?  Two great place to begin.

Approach number one suggests if you have not yet taken time to define yourself, look at what you do best.  This is a valuable place to begin because it takes stock in your personal capacities.  By looking at how you invest your energies you can begin to examine why you think what you do best is a reasonable approach to assessing how you would like to define yourself.  Not to be confused with defining yourself by your career (i.e. if you are a stock broker, or writer, you do not necessarily have to define yourself as such); because you  write does not mean you define yourself that way.  What you might want to do is think of your your self definition as a personal mission or purpose statement.  Why? because defining yourself as a writer also come with parameters that can restrict your personal development.  And while you might want to fully develop as a writer, you can also become defined by others expectations of you as a writer resulting in a personal type-cast, perception-- you become who others see you as.  The same argument can be made for the stock broker example.  There is a type of distention resulting from the exertion of external forces leads to a misaligned self definition.

To truly define ones self, time, experience (of life), and solitude are necessary.  Time is a luxury we are rarely find in the world today.  I intentionally use refer to world because in a global society, we also have a global obligation in many instances.  Without discovering where you can find time to examine yourself, a clearer understanding of the how, will be tremendously difficult to achieve.  Reason being is defining yourself should be a journey, a deeper look at who you do and do not like about your self.  Do not allow yourself to disguise the don't likes, with every step you take towards acknowledging who you approve of, you get closer to answering the how, of defining yourself more accurately- thereby becoming a more effective you.  Time alone is a requisite to answering any critical questions; believe me when I say, there is nothing more critical than you.  You are the nucleus to all of the intricate activity in the web that surrounds you.  Time to write in a journal (which I highly recommend), time to reflect on decision, time to reflect on your actions.  When reflecting on your actions go back in time.  Look at the kids in school who you (even at the youthful age of ten, eleven, twelve...) you might have mistreated.  Consider misdeeds and consider when the decisions you made, made you feel your best.  Understand why. apply those characteristics to the attributes you would like to incorporate column.  Time as a human concept, allows us to truly take advantage of it, past or present.  Our higher order of thinking allows us to make different decisions based on what consequences we see that may have affected us adversely.  We don't have to live with regret, rather we can adapt to move forward differently.

Having looked at time and where to begin (though only scraping the surface), let's take a look at when to begin.

It Is Never Too Late.  Even though we think that there is nothing like being a teenager, then there is nothing like your sixteenth birthday, oh nothing like being twenty-one, thirty, oh shit...I'm about to be forty, you see where we are going with this.  And if you are offended by reading this then you probably should not follow my blog- we are all adults here- right?  Aging is not that serious.  Every day I get older, experience I have (positive or negative) I embrace fully as part of an opportunity to enjoy the human experience overall.  More knowledge about the world, myself, and how I want to define myself.

One recommendation I make to clients (when coaching), is to set a time line to assess the big questions about defining yourself.  If you want to go deeply twenty one consecutive days of planned introspection is a good time frame (this is more like a crash course); it requires great discipline.  Keep in mind this is total immersion.  Not in the sense that you do nothing else during this time but dedicate a significant amount of time to answering important questions.  This time also allows you to integrate what you learn about yourself and internalize it.  If you have a sabbatical coming up, that is a great time to explore this self discovery.  Sabbaticals should not solely be used to get better at your work; by being a better you, you by default will improve your work environment.  I have seen where such self understanding resulted in individuals leaving their existing job.  The when really requires you to take stock of your self and your available time.  Use a weekend, decompress and recalibrate with the intention of determining your when.  By making a schedule with the goal of committing time to this endeavor, you will get significantly closer to success.

The next article will address the steps in defining your self.  There is simply no way to describe it in one article which you will want to read in its entirety.  This article is meant to provide some starting points.  In essence this will be a mini series of perhaps three articles that will provide enough of a frame work for you to get started.

If you have direct question please feel free to comment.  I will respond to any questions submitted.  I want to leave with why defining yourself is important.  Truly knowing how you define yourself will open doors in and out of your life.  You will have different expectations for yourself resulting in you moving through life differently; others will observe, interact and develop different expectation when engaging with you.  A clear self definition can be transformative.

Emerge And Lead

This is not a political article, but rather a chance to looks at politics as an intro to the this article. President Obama of the United States, has successfully emerged as the winner in the presidential elections.   And while there are multiple stories about what is next for President Obama, we cannot  overlook the opportunity to understand what leadership means at such a juncture from a business challenge sense.

This is also an opportunity for us as individuals to assess where we stand as leaders.  Regardless of your position politically, there are multiple lessons we can take away as well as reflect on what is next.  Why?  The response is less complex than the answer.  The President has overcome multiple obstacles, succeeded despite less funding, and set yet another record among a list of his accomplishments, namely only the second two term democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

From The Economist to WSJ, academic and business entities alike, are pointing fingers, asking questions, questioning answers and drawing conclusions about the entire process.  What better time to ask ourselves about decisions we might make in the wake of our own aftermath-- it is the perfect storm.

Let's start with behaviors.  Within any organization, behaviors impact performance, relationships, and innovation.  While there are multiple other angles to consider, these few offer more than a handful of discussion points.

Performance figures help provide matrices to better understand where we are as individuals, as a team and as an organization.  President Obama had variable performance outputs that left many questioning his ability to secure his re-election.  In business we think a bit differently.  Ones performance can be outstanding from a technical perspective, meaning they have a solid grasp of the building requirements, integration, and deliverables.  Possession of these components makes for a useful individual when considering strategic plans that create a road map for advancement of organizational initiatives.  While there can be a distinct divide between leadership and one with technical expertise, a great leader will likely have technical expertise in many of the areas someone with masterful technical skills has as a specialist.  Most hopefully, their leadership has been an accumulation of their experience that in part, carried them up the ladder.  A leader understands how to use abilities in key members, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of team leaders, thereby helping him or her assemble an effective team-- resulting in a strong department.  What does that leader look for  look in the technical leader?  In the early stages of building a team, they want someone who can create a strong foundation.  A department could be in the process of being rebuilt, in which case they are also looking to create a solid foundation.  In many instances you are working without the infrastructure needed to innovate, but in the beginning, you need to ensure the correct pieces are in place to make the right things happen, otherwise integration will be enormously difficult whether with other departments or businesses/ institutions.  The inability to integrate most often results in isolation which can manifest moderately and grow more extreme depending on the composition of the team.  With strong technical attributes meeting performance expectations becomes a much smaller worry when building this way.

Relationships are a very different creature.  Drucker and Senge both write extensively about behavior and relationships; the reason is simple, behavior is a shape-shifter.  By shape-shifter we mean the way in which (when taken in the root form) we relate, to others.  We should look at relationships in multiple ways; spatial relationship and social relationship.  Where does your organization stand with relation to competitors and stakeholders (anyone who is significantly affected by your operations, determined by your understanding of your network map).  You also need to be able to understand what significance means for your organization; it may vary widely- measured in dollars or equity/  intrinsic value.  From a social perspective, your relationships should be increasing opportunities through new networks, better working relations, healthy departments (where team leaders interact with, communicate, and encourage their team members).   An example is General Electric's practices in information sharing and service-support, to increase loyalty of its corporate partners.  While this is an external relationship example, it speaks to the extent which we should consider key relationships.  When looking for new opportunities, an organic process occurs when one is consistently nurturing this aspect of their work.  Withing your organization members in different departments not only feel comfortable going to different departments for assistance or collaboration, they also understand when might be the best opportunity to turn to a potential collaborator.  This is assuming members understand technical boundaries; not so much because they are limited in their expertise but rather they understand the nature of their own work and enough of the nature of their colleagues work to know that an opportunity exists.

Innovation nearly speaks for itself, which is likely why we deal with it last.  Innovation should be occurring all the time.  Understanding from a performance perspective, when performance in this area is not developing is easy.  That being said, let's look at a couple of angles.  When your organization is stuck in decision-making, it could be lacking innovation.  Decision-making is crucial and often not spoken of, so I decided to mention it here.  Think about this, when we are not clear about what direction to go, who to turn to, what to offer, how to proceed, how do we respond; we lack product innovation, social innovation (how to build new networks) that are most relevant to your mission and objectives-- not just jumping on the next big trend in communication or technology.  And in terms of knowing what direction to go, innovation often comes from exposure that goes beyond company boarders.

Fresh creative ideas backed by technical expertise help us understand when windows of opportunity are open; boroughing deeply because team members are able to sniff out new opportunities.  Innovation if using one relative word might be thought of as clairvoyance.  The cavities in one's mind are open widely sensitive to when the course is lacking certain commodities or when the course is simply not the right one.  More importantly innovation staves off trouble in many instances because of a certain readiness that exists for change.