Managing Oneself

Picture yourself five years from now, watching a colleague land the promotion you've been dreaming of, or seeing a peer effortlessly navigate challenges that leave you feeling frustrated and stuck. What made the difference? It wasn't necessarily talent or luck—it was self-awareness. In today's rapidly evolving workplace, the most successful professionals aren't just good at their jobs; they're masters of understanding themselves.

We live in an unprecedented era where career paths are no longer predetermined, where knowledge workers must think and act like CEOs of their own professional lives. The days of being told what to do and how to contribute are over. Instead, we face the exciting yet daunting challenge of managing ourselves—discovering our unique strengths, understanding how we perform best, and creating meaningful contributions that align with our deepest values. This journey of self-discovery isn't just about career success; it's about transforming from an ordinary, hardworking individual into an outstanding performer who thrives in any environment.

Understanding your true strengths isn't about what you think you're good at—it's about discovering what actually produces results. Most people live with misconceptions about their abilities, focusing on weaknesses rather than leveraging their natural talents. The reality is transformative: you can only build performance on strengths, never on weaknesses or things you cannot do at all.

The key to unlocking this self-knowledge lies in a simple yet powerful method called feedback analysis. This technique, invented by a German theologian in the fourteenth century and later adopted by John Calvin and Ignatius Loyola, explains why their institutions came to dominate Europe within thirty years. The method works like this: whenever you make a key decision or take important action, write down what you expect will happen. Nine to twelve months later, compare your actual results with your expectations.

Consider how this method revealed unexpected insights for one practitioner who discovered an intuitive understanding of technical people—engineers, accountants, and market researchers—something that came as a complete surprise. Simultaneously, the analysis showed a lack of resonance with generalists, providing crucial guidance for career decisions. This consistent practice, applied over two to three years, will reveal not only where your strengths lie but also what you're doing that prevents you from fully benefiting from those strengths.

Once you identify your strengths, concentrate on them relentlessly. Put yourself where your strengths can produce results, work on improving them further, and acquire the knowledge and skills needed to fully realize your potential. Remember that it takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than from first-rate performance to excellence.

Finally, remedy the bad habits that inhibit your effectiveness. These might be brilliant plans that fail because you don't follow through, or exceptional work that founders when cooperation from others is required—often indicating a simple lack of manners. Energy, resources, and time should go toward making competent people into star performers, not trying to fix what fundamentally cannot be fixed.

The way you get things done is as unique as your fingerprint, yet amazingly few people understand their own performance patterns. Working in ways that don't match your natural style almost guarantees underperformance, making this question potentially even more important than knowing your strengths: How do you perform?

The story of Dwight Eisenhower perfectly illustrates this principle. As Supreme Commander in Europe, he was the darling of the press, delivering polished, elegant responses in beautifully structured sentences. Ten years later, as President, the same journalists held him in contempt, ridiculing his rambling, incoherent answers. What changed? Nothing about Eisenhower—but everything about his approach. As Supreme Commander, his aides ensured every press question was presented in writing thirty minutes before conferences. As President, following his predecessors Roosevelt and Truman who were listeners, he attempted free-for-all press conferences. Eisenhower was a reader trying to function as a listener, and the mismatch was devastating.

Start by determining whether you're a reader or listener—few people are both. Then discover how you learn. Some people, like Churchill, learn by writing. Others, like Beethoven, learn by taking notes they never reference again. Some learn by doing, others by hearing themselves talk. One CEO converted a mediocre family business into an industry leader by talking through policy issues with his staff for hours each week—that's how he processed and learned.

Ask yourself the deeper performance questions: Do you work best as a subordinate, team member, or alone? Are you a decision maker or advisor? Do you thrive under stress or need predictable environments? General Patton was America's best subordinate but would have been the worst independent commander. Many number-two executives fail when promoted because they excel as advisors but cannot bear the responsibility of decision-making.

The conclusion is liberating: don't try to change yourself—you're unlikely to succeed. Instead, work hard to improve how you perform within your natural patterns. Understand your personality-driven work style and avoid taking on work you cannot perform well. This self-awareness can transform an ordinary but hardworking person into an outstanding performer.

Your values serve as the ultimate compass for career decisions, going far beyond simple ethics to encompass what gives your work meaning and purpose. While ethics provide universal rules tested by the mirror test—asking what kind of person you want to see when you shave each morning—values determine where you can truly thrive and contribute.

The German ambassador to London in the early 1900s exemplified this principle. Destined for greatness as foreign minister or chancellor, he abruptly resigned in 1906 rather than preside over a dinner for the notorious womanizer King Edward VII. "I refuse to see a pimp in the mirror in the morning when I shave," he reportedly said. This decision, while costly, preserved his integrity and self-respect.

Consider the experience of a successful human resources executive whose company was acquired. She deeply believed in hiring from within before looking outside, while her new organization prioritized bringing in "fresh blood." Both approaches have merit, but they represent fundamentally incompatible value systems about the relationship between organizations and people. After years of frustration, she quit at considerable financial loss because her values and the organization's simply could not coexist.

Value conflicts appear everywhere—from pharmaceutical companies choosing between incremental improvements versus breakthrough discoveries, to churches measuring success by new members versus spiritual growth. These aren't primarily economic or theological questions; they're about core beliefs regarding purpose and contribution.

Sometimes your strengths and values conflict. You might excel at work that doesn't align with what you find meaningful or worthwhile. One investment banker, despite performing brilliantly in London during the mid-1930s, realized that managing assets didn't fulfill his value of contributing to people's lives. Despite having no money and no job prospects during the Depression, he quit—and it proved to be the right decision.

Values must be compatible between you and your organization—not identical, but close enough to coexist. Otherwise, frustration and nonperformance are inevitable. When facing career decisions, let values serve as your ultimate test, ensuring that your professional path aligns with what you find truly meaningful and worth dedicating your life to achieving.

Success in today's workplace demands mastering the art of working with others, and this requires taking full responsibility for relationships. Very few people achieve results working alone—most of us depend on others and must be effective with others to create meaningful impact.

The foundation of effective relationships is recognizing that other people are individuals just as much as you are. They have their own strengths, performance modes, and values. A person trained to write reports for a reader boss will fail miserably when the next boss is a listener, continuing to produce reports that generate no results. The boss will inevitably think the employee is stupid, incompetent, and lazy. This failure could be avoided simply by observing the new boss and adapting to what makes them most effective.

This principle extends beyond managing up to all your coworkers. Each person works their way, not your way, and they're entitled to do so. What matters is whether they perform and what their values are. The secret of effectiveness lies in understanding the people you work with and depend on, enabling you to leverage their strengths, working styles, and values. Working relationships are as much about the people as they are about the work itself.

The second crucial element is taking responsibility for communication. Most personality conflicts arise because people don't know what others are doing, how they work, what they're concentrating on, or what results they expect. The reason they don't know is simple: they haven't asked, and therefore haven't been told. Until recently, this wasn't necessary—people in medieval districts plied the same trade, farmers in valleys planted the same crops, and those who did different work typically worked alone.

Today's reality is different. The marketing vice president may understand sales but knows nothing about pricing, advertising, or packaging. The specialists in these areas must educate her about what they're trying to do, why, how, and what results to expect. Conversely, she must help her coworkers understand her marketing perspective, goals, methods, and expectations.

Take the initiative in relationship building. Tell your associates: "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." The response is always positive: "This is most helpful. But why didn't you tell me earlier?" Then ask the same of them. Organizations are built on trust, and trust comes from understanding, not necessarily liking each other.

The traditional model of working forty years then retiring to do nothing is obsolete. Today's knowledge workers aren't "finished" after four decades—they're merely bored. Most executives reach their peak by age 45, mastering their work but no longer learning, contributing, or finding challenge and satisfaction. Yet they face another twenty to twenty-five years of work ahead.

This reality makes managing the second half of your life crucial. There are three approaches to creating a second career. First, actually start a new one, perhaps moving from one type of organization to another—like a corporate divisional controller becoming a hospital controller—or switching fields entirely, such as a business executive entering ministry at 45 or a manager leaving corporate life to become a small-town attorney.

The second approach involves developing a parallel career. Many successful people continue their primary work full-time, part-time, or as consultants while creating a parallel role in a nonprofit organization requiring ten hours weekly. They might administer their church, lead the local Girl Scouts council, run a women's shelter, work as a children's librarian, or serve on the school board.

Finally, there are social entrepreneurs—people who remain successful in their first careers but start additional nonprofit activities. Bob Buford exemplifies this: he built and still runs a successful television company while founding a thriving nonprofit organization working with Protestant churches and building another to teach social entrepreneurs how to manage their ventures.

The key prerequisite is starting long before you need it. If you don't begin volunteering before age 40, you won't volunteer past 60. All successful social entrepreneurs began working in their chosen second enterprise long before reaching their peak in their original business. A successful corporate lawyer who started model schools began doing volunteer legal work at 35, joined the school board at 40, and launched his educational enterprise at 50.

Beyond avoiding boredom, a second major interest provides crucial backup during setbacks—the passed-over engineer at 45, the professor who realizes she'll never reach a major university, or family tragedies. In these moments, success in your outside activity becomes vital. In a society where success has become terribly important, having options provides the opportunity to be a leader, gain respect, and make a difference somewhere, even when your primary career disappoints.

The journey of managing oneself represents nothing less than a revolution in human affairs. Unlike previous generations who were told what to contribute, today's knowledge workers must think and behave like chief executives of their own careers. As Drucker observed, "Knowledge workers outlive organizations, and they are mobile." This fundamental shift from manual workers who do as they're told to knowledge workers who manage themselves profoundly challenges every aspect of how we approach our professional lives.

The path forward requires honest self-assessment across five critical areas: discovering your strengths through feedback analysis, understanding how you perform and learn, identifying your core values, taking responsibility for relationships and communication, and preparing for your second career long before you need it. Success comes not from trying to be someone you're not, but from placing yourself where your unique combination of strengths, performance style, and values can produce extraordinary results. Start today by asking yourself these fundamental questions, and begin building the self-awareness that will transform your career from ordinary competence into outstanding performance.