You’ve Got a Business Plan. Now What About a Personal Plan?
Answering these 10 questions (in writing) can get you on the road to aligning your personal and professional life
If you lead a company of almost any size, you’ve developed a strategic plan, business plan, or playbook: the indispensable tools for keeping your organization aligned with its goals and purpose. It took hard work from you and others, but, once you’d done it, it probably gave you the breathing room you needed to run your business.
But I’ll wager you haven’t devoted your talent and energy to creating a personal playbook or life plan. Maybe you should? After all, the purpose-driven leader doesn’t check his or her professional life at the door. The personal and professional are intertwined — not in balance, as the cliché goes, but mutually energizing spheres.
Several years ago, I created a personal playbook I’ve kept close by. I got the idea from Patrick Lencioni’s book The Advantage, which offers a method for achieving organizational charity by rigorously answering six questions:
1. Why do we exist?
2. How do we behave?
3. What do we do?
4. How will we succeed?
5. What is most important, right now?
6. Who must do what?
I figured the underlying assumptions for creating and maintaining clarity in an organization might be applicable to an individual, so I adapted Lencioni’s ideas to my own circumstance. Here’s an annotated template.
The 10-question personal playbook
1. What’s important that’s happening in “the marketplace?”
Broadly defined, my niche is the natural products industry, so I want to have an up-to-date list of key opportunities, such as omnichannel strategy, the coming-of-age of entrepreneurial companies, and attractiveness of social impact to investors.
2. What’s important that’s happening in my life?
I’m not two different people, Robert the CEO and Robert the family man. So, I want my personal priorities to be front and center. I have daughters entering college and high school and a book project I hope to complete in the coming year. All need my close attention!
3. Why do I exist?
Unlike the first two questions, this one’s a constant. My plan states: “My magnificent obsession is improving lives by being a change-the-world leader while teaching others to do the same through personal mentoring, my writing, speaking engagements and leadership of organizations.” I am also committed to an “exceptionally loving relationship with my wife” and to “raising two remarkable daughters who will make their own dent in the universe with their love, caring, joy and courage.”
4. What do I do?
At a company, this question would be answered as part of the mission statement and would cover matters of service and attention to quality as well as the larger, less tangible contributions. Mine reads: “To deliver results I Listen. I provide Vision. I Inspire. I Align. I Coach. I constantly seek to learn and add value in the lives and businesses of others.”
5. How do I behave?
Much like corporate values, this question addresses personal values but also personal “brand.” This includes how you behave toward others and how you would like to be perceived by others in terms of what they can expect from you. If you say, “People can trust me and count on me,” deliver on it every time.
6. What are my triggers & fuel?
A trigger brings out the worst in you by arousing your “fight or flight” response. (Mine include meandering meetings and petty behavior.) Fuel energizes positively and brings out your best self. (I’m in the zone when teaching and coaching people one-on-one or in meetings or going deep on a topic while breaking bread.) Knowing your triggers and fuel — and how to handle them in real time — is so important they deserve their own article.
7. Where is all this headed?
Attach some numbers to your dreams and visions. Set financial goals and timelines for your family and professional goals for your business. What does a flourishing life look like for you and your loved ones in 5, 10 or 20 years?
8. How will I succeed?
What do you need to accomplish today to give this vision every chance of succeeding? Hard work? Faith in a higher power? Will you go it alone or place your trust in others for some important matters?
9. What is most important right now?
Your priorities will change over time to include such things as starting, buying, selling or raising investment capital for an organization. It should also include commitments to personal and professional growth. Two years ago, I took up meditation as a way to re-energize myself and become a more conscious leader.
10. What are my immediate next steps?
Every plan has a list of practical steps that must be taken to achieve the desired results. Develop a list of options and then assign actions needed to pursue them. Check, check and check!
To sum up: my playbook aligns me every day by keeping my greatest motivations and fears right before my eyes as a framework for processing whatever comes at me. Although it’s a life plan, it’s flexible and I tweak it whenever needed. The tougher the decisions I have to make, the more I value having a playbook to turn to.
What have you done to create a playbook for your life? I’d love to hear your ideas or expand on any of the points I made in this post.
Robert U. Craven, Managing Partner, Findaway Adventures
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All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!
