Roger Ingbretsen

Develop Your Personal Strategy for Success



Posted: Saturday, February 21, 2009

by
Ingbretsen Consulting LLC

The development of an overall "strategy for success" can become one of the most potent weapons you can have in your career arsenal, as you attempt to become more successful than your competition. Having ideas, dreams, goals, and understanding concepts that can have an impact on your success are both good and important. Accomplishing a few goals and doing something new is great, but having a strategy - a plan with objectives - helps you get the biggest bang for your effort while keeping you on track. Developing a strategy is about determining your capabilities, documenting your basic life choices, and instituting a plan of how to achieve a higher level of success and purpose within a given time frame.

The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats framework is perhaps one of the best known approaches to defining strategy within a business environment. This type of analysis involves analyzing an organization's internal capability - its strengths and weaknesses - relative to the opportunities and threats of its competitive environment. Using the information gained, the organization then puts in place strategic actions to preserve or sustain its strengths, offset its weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities and avert or mitigate threats. The strategic business plan, maps out key objectives over the long haul. It also helps establish the context in which daily decisions can be made to attain desired results. This same approach can be very effective in developing your own personal strategy for success.

An excellent approach to developing your personal strategy for success is to use the previously discussed business model. Start the process by making four extensive lists of your (1.) strengths, (2.) weaknesses, (3.) opportunities, and (4.) threats. Be brutally honest when making the lists. Write down as many things as possible for each category. I would suggest building your lists over several days. Show the list to a trusted friend and solicit their input. Once you have developed four long lists (quantity) then begin to refine the lists down to "three" things in each category (quality) that really resonate well with you -things you are truly willing to do something about.

The items you select should have the following four properties. They should demand specific action - what will be done, carry a high level of concern - this is very important to focus on, be clearly beneficial - when its accomplished success can be measured, and have an intended impact - this is what it will look like, feel like, be like, when you get there.

Once the three things in each category are identified, and the four properties satisfied, your next action is to develop a detailed game plan that supports the following questions. What can you do at every opportunity to capitalize on your three strengths? What can you do to overcome, mitigate, or turn into strengths, your three weaknesses? What can you do to use the three identified opportunities, to get closer to or attain your goals? What can you do to mitigate or avert your three weaknesses from preventing you from attaining your desired level of success?

The point of going to this level of detail is to formalize your actions, help paint a more complete picture of where you are, see clearly how all aspects are related and affect each other and help you develop an action driven plan for your personal success.

For your personal strategic plan to be most effective, it should be clear, simple, meaningful, and embedded in a process, which sets direction while remaining flexible. If you do not have a plan, you will not know where you are going. Your personal strategic plan positions you to move toward your goals. The plan should provide not only the destination but also the route.

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