Why I Re-read Drucker's "Managing Oneself" Every Year—Questions to Help You Align

Every year, I read Peter Drucker's classic article, "Managing Oneself" (HBR, subscription required or via other collections) as part of my personal-professional career navigation process. His powerful questions and frank commentary help me reorient and reset my career and life priorities. Do yourself a big career and life favor and buy and read the article.?

Drucker's 5 key questions in "Managing Oneself"

(Drucker's commentary in italics)

1. What are my strengths??

Most people think they know what they are good at. They are wrong.

2. How do I perform??

Amazingly, few people know how they get things done. Too many people work in ways that are not aligned with how they learn and process. This almost guarantees suboptimal performance.?

3. What are my values?

The mirror test—what kind of person do I want to see in the morning?

4. Where do I belong?

Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values.

5. What can I contribute?

What does the situation require??

How's your career going? Are you in alignment??

If things aren't working right for you in your position or career, chances are, you are out of alignment with the real answers to one or more of Drucker's questions. Think through each question. Ask for input from trusted colleagues. Spend some time in self-discovery mode.?

I regularly see people working in areas and in roles that fail to draw upon their unique skills...their superpowers. They struggle.

Others fail to revisit and live their values. When your behaviors are dissonant with your values, you struggle.?

And sadly, many others fail to find ways to contribute that draw upon themselves at their best.

You cannot succeed without understanding you

You cannot succeed in any life phase unless you understand yourself.

Choose to ignore what drives you and where and how you thrive; this dissonance will breed dissatisfaction and less-than-optimal performance.

You cannot fight "you" and win in the long term.

Six additional questions to ask and answer to gain focus in your career?

Drucker's five questions above are great; however, I think there are a few more we all need to consider. These include:

How well am I connecting with others daily?

For many dissatisfied with their work lives, learning to slow down and strive to connect with coworkers and colleagues improves their performance and daily satisfaction. As the late Dr. Mark Goulston offered, "People want to feel felt." That goes for you. Learn to recognize the type of conversations people want to have. Match them, and then bridge to your topic when appropriate.

What's the one BIG goal that will change my career or life if I succeed at it?

I'm grumpy and disoriented if I'm not working on at least one big goal that is truly meaningful to me. Writing a book, creating a new workshop program, or hitting aggressive targets for my fitness and health are just a few of the goals that drive me to great learning and performance.

Sadly, our workplace goals are mostly transactional or compliance-driven. Forget your firm's outdated and tactical S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely) template and develop a S.L.I.M.M. goal (specific, learning-focused, impactful, meaningful, and measurable). The emphasis on learning, impact, and meaning is a game-changer for growth.

What am I doing to learn?

Whether you recognize it or not, you're involved in the real-world equivalent of what the video game designers describe as leveling up. When you think you've mastered a situation, something changes in the external environment that challenges what you know and how you've done things. Accordingly, you must start over, learning and developing new behaviors while finding new ways to defeat these unfamiliar adversaries. The level challenge is both personal to you and essential for your organization.?

What are you doing to keep learning? Are you exposing yourself to new ideas and new approaches? Are you challenging yesterday's processes and ways of doing things??

If you're not learning, you're moving backward at the speed of change.?

How hard am I working at rethinking and reframing??

Yesterday's assumptions are the seeds of tomorrow's obsolescence. Most of us operate with hard-wired views of the world, which is a prescription for disaster.

What are you doing to continually refresh your framing of you, your firm, your markets, and how you approach career opportunities? What are you doing to challenge your assumptions??

If reframing isn't a regular part of your personal strategic planning, you risk becoming obsolete.

How am I doing embracing and adapting to change?

We've all been fed a line of baloney about our dislike of change. If we didn't like change, how did we spread out across the globe, venture into space, and strive to explore the highest peaks and lowest depths on our planet? Humans thrive and adapt to change, yet we seem resistant to upsetting the status quo in our workplaces. That's laziness talking.?

Reframe change as an opportunity, not an adversary. You cannot control what changes or the speed of change; however, you can control how you leverage it for learning and growth.?

How am I doing?

This question may be my favorite. Gaining honest, unfiltered input is never easy, but it's worthwhile if you listen and act. Start asking today, and start working on the information. What begins as an awkward exercise with less than complete feedback will become comfortable and transparent over time.

The Bottom Line for Now:

You own your career. No one else, and especially not your present employer. If you frame your career as an adventure to places unknown instead of the increasingly irrelevant climb up the ladder and prepare yourself accordingly, it will be a grand adventure.?

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