The Strategic Case for Self-Management

Self management is as critical a skill in today’s world as is strategic management.

The problem is self management most often feels like a mystical hybrid of Oprah, Gwen Paltrow’s Goop, with a side of Deepak Chopra. Self management often is long on platitudes, and short on substance. It’s like Cheetohs. It tastes really good, but does nothing to fill you up. Platitudes and life-hacks abound - the quackery and potions of the snake-oil salesman has been replaced by “5 easy steps to x” or “30 days to y.”

Despite all this, how we manage ourselves matters.

This is why we’ve been discussing excellence for the last 3 weeks. Excellence begins with the self - first by creating enough space to think/breathe, followed shortly thereafter by the application of craft. Craft is the steady process of seeking improvement in the few areas you care most deeply about.

Craft may be in a hobby, but most likely we will want to find a professional vocation where we can apply our skills to their greatest potential effect. Self management then matters to our sense of professional fulfillment.

For those who are leaders, it should be top of mind as well.

Here’s why - services are the majority of the US economy today. A service, as one academic defines it, is an experience that is being produced and consumed simultaneously. Said more simply, someone is doing something for someone else, in real-time. A nurse cannot store a bank of patient interactions (aka a product), she has to go room by room to interact with those under her care.

Service is produced at the front line by the person doing the service - meaning that how they show up matters. If they are having a bad day, didn’t get a good night’s rest, had a fight with their spouse, any and all can affect the quality of service a client receives. Nothing is more critical to the quality of service delivered than the state of the person doing the service.

While self management is easy to dismiss as being soft or too woo-woo, truly great organizations find ways to support their employees so that they are positioned to deliver great service.

We should treat self-management as seriously as businesses treat strategic management. Businesses know strategy is important. The business needs a theory about how it is going to be successful and it uses that theory to make decisions. A business without a strategy is lost.

In the same way, the business will be unable to deliver on its promise to customers if its people are not actively engaged. The more you can develop your people to become excellent, the more your service experience will improve and your business will grow. People development is as much a part of service company strategy as is understanding the competitive environment.