Managing Oneself - 3

Last week we looked at "What are your strengths?", this week we look at equally important question "How do I perform?".  Very few people know how they get things done. Many of us don't even know that people perform differently.

 

One of the main reasons for this is during our school days all of us were told how do things, rarely any us had an opportunity to look at how we learnt, what are the different ways to accomplish the same task.

Now as grown-ups we neither do thing as they are meant to be done nor do we create new ways of doing things. The impact is we don't have the results that we want. 

 

How one performs is very individual. It is part of his/her persona. There are few personality traits that usually determine how one achieves results.

First thing to know about how one performs is whether one is a reader or a listener. Very few people know that there are readers and listeners, and that very few people are both. Even fewer people know which of the two they themselves are. 

 

One small example is, consider your manager is listener and you are a reader, in that case to give an update on your project status you might send an e-mail. Whereas your manager might prefer that you call-up and update. You might also observe that you too have your preferences; you might be comfortable talking and listening whereas others might want to write down, or send a mail. 

You might also observe that some people are great, when it comes to presenting, participation in meetings, whereas their skills in preparing slides or reports are mediocre. 

 

The point is you should know how you perform, where you can produce results. In the next article we will look into How do I learn? And my Values.