Why Personal Strategy?
A light has materialized from last year’s mess. I managed to articulate my mission of helping people deal with the complex challenges they (will) face.
This idea has guided me into looking to understand complexity better and seeking to interact with diverse people and learn about the complex challenges they are facing.
The one thing that kept popping up in conversations, in my reflections and in my projects was the question of: “How can I better figure my way forward?”
People from all walks of life seek to navigate better through the uncertainties that life brings. I found myself asking this question constantly. The answers that I got helped me explore lots of different professional areas, various industries and various ways of creating value for others.
On the first day of 2021, in the morning, I had this a-ha moment:
What if you could apply strategy concepts to better navigating your wider personal environment?
Having the recent experience of facilitating lots of strategy workshops and advising corporate, business unit, product and functional strategy, I got the sense that “strategy” is something that is perceived as difficult, abstract, hard to grasp. Could it become more accessible, easier to put into practice, even at personal level?
Let’s pause for a minute and look at the evolution of computers.
Computers were once big, difficult to operate and only a few large companies could get value out of them. Now we carry powerful computers in our pocket.
Strategy feels like a similar technology: traditionally associated with kings, generals, commanders, nations and then corporate boardrooms. Couldn’t we make it so easy to understand and use, so that everyone of us can benefit from the value it brings?
So that each of us can get better at navigating life and business, making sense of what’s going on around us and making better decisions about where to invest our time, energy and attention in?
The quest that I’m embarking on is to explore and better define the field of personal strategy, hoping to bring you inspiration for navigating better through an uncertain life.
My aim is to explore strategy concepts from as many fields as possible: business, military, sports, biology, gaming, geopolitics, martial arts, sailing, racing and others. Then refine the core ideas in simple forms that each of us can use in our individual journeys.
My hope is that this endeavor will inspire you to share these ideas with your partner, with your team and with your organization. What’s relevant for each of us individually might be relevant collectively as well.
Next article will be about a simple model of personal strategy that I’ve been using.
Thanks for joining this exploration! 🧭💡
Bülent
