Life Planning... get real!

One of the great benefits of a management development program is that it helps you manage your life. Our Management Academy students regularly report that they see improvements first in their performance as a parent or as a spouse as a result of trying to develop themselves as managers. Planning skills, negotiation skills, dialog skills, measurement skills, teamwork skills-- they all transfer.

For some of us, work performance begins at home. Are you taking care of yourself? Are you asking for what you need? Are you having the good, real discussions with your life partner that insure you are fulfilled and whole, working on the priority issues and both pulling in the same direction? In other words, are you doing life planning?

Life plans put work plans into perspective. Karl Umble likes to say that the goal is less about balance and more about "harmony." And the skills are essentially the same for both: the ability to plan well and then push through to execution, to work the plan into existence.

As the skin horse says to the velveteen rabbit, it takes a lot of love and attention to go from a stuffed toy to being real. In this respect, the velveteen rabbit is in line with a long stretch of work on authentic leadership, the notion that leaders have to let their personality come through the role to be maximally effective. They have to be present and real.

Last word is this: congratulations Anne on your wedding-- great team!

-- Steve Orton