Make a strategy for your success

What is your strategy for success? – If you don’t have a strategy then you need to make one. Without a strategy you won’t get far. First of all you need to define your future and start creating it. When you develop your strategy and plan have to realise it you have to bare in mind that the world is dynamic and you do not control it. You have to learn how to navigate in a complex world of flux and find the optimal way to go. To navigate you need your strategy and planning. Along the way you will have to revise your strategy and plans, because the rest of this world does not have the same visions as you do. So, be flexible and be prepared to take another way to reach your success.

Right now you may find yourself doing this and that, hoping to be more successful, but all you get is no-where and stress. - Why is that, you ask yourself, and the answer is – because you do it at random, you don’t have a strategy!

To make this strategy you have to be clarified about what your visions are. Let’s say you want to start you own business in coaching other people on some specific topic. To do this you need to discover all the resources that are needed to start this business. When you know what it takes then you have ask yourself: - Do I have these resources? If the answer is no, then you have to find them before you continue. In this case you could form a long term strategy like this: “My strategy is to start a coaching business to become independent”. Next step is to make a more specific resource strategy that could sound a bit like: “My resource strategy is to discover the resources I need and find out how to get them. I will put focus on three areas – first, my physical and mental resources; second, my qualifications and competencies and third, other resources.”

With this simple strategy you can start planning the first area of focus, physical and mental resources; after that, you can move on to your qualifications. This way you will work your way, following a flexible plan, towards your goals.

Be careful not to make rigid plans and tight schedules – you cannot control the world, you can only steer your way through the landscape of life.

If you manage an organisation, the same principles apply; only be aware that the organisation is not an individual, but consists of more individuals whose resources need to be taken into consideration.

Keep it simple!

Having a creative mind sometimes leads you off track, but if you have tried skiing you have probably tried skiing off-piste as well. If you have tried it once, you know what a unique experience it is and you cannot help doing it again. My creative mind lead me to the concept of success management, but I soon realised that this concept often refers to vague websites containing either suspicious or less reliable methods. I am certain the people behind most of these sites have good intentions with their ideas, but to be reliable they have to be founded on at least some academic evidence.

So, I have decided to rename my blog to Human Resource Management, which my topic basically is about, although with a slightly different approach than most actors in this field. I will spare you for any further academic accounts since it is not my mission to bore you. My mission is to help you to optimise your resources to get where you want on a viable foundation.

Is that the success you want?

I saw a film today. It was about a man doing an impossible thing. What he did is unimportant, the point is that he did what everybody else thought was impossible. - He's crazy, they said, - that's never going to happen. But it did.

The question you have to ask yourself, trying to achieve some goal you set up, is: - Do I really want this success? - Is this what I really want? Because one of the key points about success is that you have a burning desire to get there. One thing successful people have in common is, that they all know exactly what they want and then go for it.

Are you aiming at a promotion just because it is expected from you? Would it really make any difference to you if you succeded? Do you want to be a millionaire? - most people would answer yes to the question, but most millionaires admit that it didn't make them happy. To be successful you have to feel successful. If you don't feel the rush of happiness, then you did not succeed in getting where you wanted to go.

Take a second, a minute, a whole year if needed, to realise what you want. Because achieving a goal that you have a burning desire to reach, will give you the greatest feeling of success. It will make you stronger and help you go even further.

Along the road to your goals, there are many other, less desirable things, you need to do. You have to reach some milestones before you reach your goal. You have to identify what is needed to be done to get what you want. Do not mistake what is needed to be done, with your goals for success. Money, for example, is nice to have. It is a mean to help you to get what you want. Very few people are happy about having money, it's what they can do with the money that makes them happy.

Find out what you want and put up some milestones to keep you on track.

Clear the way for success

To optimise your foundation you need to put focus on your lifestyle. Your physical and mental health depends on how you lead your life. The first thing you need to do is to analyse how your lifestyle is; and I recommend starting this by taking a look at food, sleep and exercise.

Food
Make diary of what you eat and how much you eat. Also write down at what time you actually eat these things. You have to write down everything you take in; even water or a small mint. Make the diary over three days and take a look at it and see if there are any bad eating habits you would like to throw away. For example less sugar, less fat, more omega-3 fatty acids etc.

Your body prefers that you put your meals at certain hours of the day:

07.00 - 09.00 Breakfast
11.00 - 13.00 Lunch
17.00 - 19.00 Dinner

Please remember that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This is the optimal time for digestion and assimilation of food.

Sleep
Do not eat proteins after 19.00 as this will influence your sleep. Do not drink coffee after 16.00 as this will also influence your sleep.
According to my own research, the body needs about 7,5 hours of sleep between 22.00 and 07.00 and a half hour nap between 12.00 and 14.00. If you don't think your are a morning person, then it is because your lifestyle needs work.

Exersice
It is essential that you exercise on a regular basis. This means at least one hour of exercise three times every week. It's better to exersice in the morning. Exercising involves high pulse about half the time you exercise and maximum pulse for at least 5 to 10 minutes. This will strengthen your body and increase your energy level.

Now, with these basic rules you can start building a strong body and a strong mental health and clear the way for your success!

Success in three steps

This is the short and simple version of success in three steps:

1. Foundation
2. Development
3. Change

First, you need a good foundation. This means a strong physical and mental health - this also goes for organisations. Second, you need to know your ressources and optimise these ressources; they need to be tuned. Third, you need a vision; you have to know where you want to go instead of where you are right now.

These three steps are mandatory in that order. There is no way around them. If you skip step one you will never reach step three. All three steps take a lot of hard work, but it is the most rewarding process that you can ever imagine.

What is success?

To get success you need to know what success is. Trying to get success without knowing excactly what it is, is like going to the supermarket without knowing what you are there for.

To me, success i simple, but that's because I have studiet the concept for a long time. I don't have the right answer to what success is, because it can be many things. My idea of success is inspired by one of our great philosophers, Thomas Hobbes. You may know his name from the comics 'Hobbes and Calvin', that are named after two philosophers.

I know I have success when I feel happy with the results of my efforts. In other words, success is the same as happiness. But what is happiness then? Happiness is momentary. You only feel happy for a while and the you will start longing for more success. According to Hobbes, man strives for power to maintain control of his life and to protect the people around him. This power provides safety and a feeling of happiness. But the second you stop striving for power, you will get weakened, that is why man is in constant persuit of power.

This is, in my opinion, the key to success. You need to constantly strive for power; constantly strive for success. That is the only way to feel like a success.

Success Management

I know that the concept Success Management isn't a new concept. But this term is what best describe my recent work. I'm working on a book about habbits, development and change. While writing this book, I've done a lot of research that has lead to the development of my own Success Management Theory. I havn't named it yet, but I will present you to my theory and my book in a (hopefully) long series of articles in this blog.

I'm presently working on different projects and two of the really takes up a lot of my time:

1. My book as described above
2. My company Sulcus which can be found on www.sulcus.dk (danish site)

I hope you will enjoy reading about my projects and coaching on success management.

Cognitivism and social constructionism

By working with social constructionsm you also reject cognitivism. Cognitivism claims that a sentence or proposition can be either truth of false. But when working with social constructionism you acknowledge that the truth is relative and is created by language and narratives in social relations. The truth only exists to the extend that all people in a certain relation acknowledge it as being the truth.

In the same way social constructionism also rejects behaviourism that claims that human behavior can be researched scientifically excluding the mind. Behaviourism claims that all human actions are determined by outside forces. According to social constructionism the researcher has to take part in a social relation to understand it.

In other words cognitivism and behaviourism are based in the individual mind while social constructionism is based on a holistic view that emphasizes the relations among people.

Hofstede and Morgan

What do Geert Hofstede and Gareth Morgan have in common? How are their theories related?

Hofstede's surveys on cultural dimensions are quantitative while Morgan's research methods are qualitative and belong to social constructionism. But I have found that both Hofstede's and Morgan's methods can be used together.

Hofstede says that culture is the collective programming of the mind. Culture is set of values and attributes of a group, and the relation of the individual to the culture, and the individual's acquisition of those values and attributes. By this culture is a cultural construction.

Morgan believes that culture is a process of reality construction that allows people to see and understand particular events, actions and situations in distinctive ways. In his book 'Images of organization' he examines how we construct our realities and thereby our culture.

Source
Morgan, Gareth (1997) "Images of Organization", Sage Publications

Taylor and Deming

'Scientific Management' and 'Total Quality Management' don't belong in the future.

Management of the 20th century started with the theories of Friederick Taylor and ended with the theories of Edwards Deming. Taylor was the inventor of 'Scientific Management' and Deming introduced 'Total Quality Management'. Common for both Taylor and Deming is that they both believe in describing and streamlining processes in order to optimize. This calls for time studies and work measurement.

Personally I don't think that 'Scientific Management' or 'Total Quality Management' have any future perspectives. I only see TQM applicable in companies with a high degree of routine work, but to optimize human resources I think it is important to implement other methods of management and leadership to secure continued growth and development.

Sources:
Dalrymple, John F. "From F Winslow Taylor to W Edwards Deming - Over a Century of Progress?", RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, Link to PDF