1 of 6: Crafting my personal strategy ∙ Environment
You can read each of the other articles in the series here:
- 2 of 6: Radar
- 3 of 6: Capabilities
- 4 of 6: Strategy
- 5 of 6: Projects
- 6 of 6: Day to Day
Or you can read the whole story in one go here.
It was a sunny morning in late December. One of those days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve when I tend to lose count of the days.
I took a couple of hours to make sense of what’s happening around me, of the lessons learned from 2020, of what’s on my radar going forward, and how I might approach things in 2021. After deciding what my focus will be, I took some notes about the changes I need to do — in terms of new initiatives, adjusting current projects or how I approach day to day things in my life.
In a nutshell, I’ve crafted my personal strategy for 2021 — my guide for navigating the uncertainties going forward.
Here is my personal story of creating this personal strategy by applying the Sense & Change model.
First of all, I explored the Environment area by asking myself:
What’s happening around me?
We’re all part of multiple wider contexts like our family, our teams, our friend circles, our organizations, our communities, our cities, the market(s) in which we provide value, our countries, our planet.
I took some time to “walk through” these contexts from the widest to the closest, looking both at what’s happening in the present and what might happen in the near future.
Some of the key, raw ideas:
- the pandemic will continue to have a huge impact on our lives
- the economic crisis will continue
- different countries will address both the health and the economic crisis differently
- most companies will probably decrease budgets in 2021
- many people will continue to work from home
- most people are craving for connection and belonging
- many communities will continue meeting online
- the organizations around me are looking for increased autonomy of their teams, more self-sufficiency and less reliance on external help
- my city shows low signs of a possible social unrest
- most of my friends are cautious of making big changes professionally, given the wider context
- my family is facing lots of uncertainty and tries to make sense of what’s happening through discussing about these things more often
