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Meanwhile I have continued my research on Self-Leadership and the thirteenth interview is finished. As a result I have created my first provisional model - a “flower”:

1 plus 6 Dimensions Of Self-Leadership

© Dr. Burkhard Bensmann

It is my first attempt to unite the different facets and dimensions of the term Self-Leadership into one scheme. Some comments:

Mission / Future: both stand for (at least for some leaders) a kind of loop relationship – knowing my purpose on earth I am able to define my goals. I know this may sound like an impossibility or paradox for others…

Spirit, Body & Brain: this “petal” combines fields like spirituality, attitudes, as well as techniques like stress management, mental models (Peter Senge and others), cognitive skills etc.

Abilities & Self-development: this is the area of talents, personal strengths, and social skills – and further development of these abilities

Partners, Co-Workers & Network: … this includes relationship management…

Processes & Structures: includes, among others, the basic methods and instruments for self-organization

Projects & Products: depending on the perspective, this “petal” is made up of lifelong projects, long-term activities, and / or main tasks, also main (personal) products and services

Outcome / Additional Value: this is an early working title… this field is dedicated to creating value: it may be profit in an economic sense or earnings as the result of pro bono work…

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So much as a first interim result after two months of project work… I will keep you posted.

The February issue of FAST COMPANY magazine gives us another hint that lots of so called knowledge workers do not focus on their main tasks. As a result of internal studies pharmaceutical company PFIZER found out: 20 – 40 % of the time is spent on support work. The senior director of organizational effectiveness, Jordan Cohen, is quoted: “ These are people we hired to develop strategies and innovate. Instead, they were Googling and making Power Points.” It was Cohan who found a way to outsource parts of the workload – he created OOF, which stands for Office Of the Future. Behind it PFIZER created a system with a simple interface, the magic “OOF button”, integrated into Microsoft Outlook. The knowledge worker of Pfizer can determine if he wants to outsource a certain support work to a company in India which in turn sends an offer, specifying the costs. Read the full text in FAST COMPANY here.

I have started my main project in 2008 on Self-Leadership and I have already finished eight interviews (till today), traveling to Milan, Frankfurt, and Waldkirch (Fabrik Sonntag, near Freiburg i.Br.) for dialogues with leaders.
As expected, there is a wide range of answers to my set of questions. Most important aspects are goal setting, discipline, self-motivation, and self-reflection. Looking at the methods and instruments for Self-Leadership I found the more “classic” approaches of planning on paper, as well as hybrid forms including digital media. And I found some validation for my skeptical view of PDAs such as the Blackberry.
Of course there are very creative approaches, too. For example, I heard a lot about the use of mind-maps for personal goal setting and visualizing tasks. Leonardo Previ, co-founder and co-owner of the Milan agency Trivioquadrivio shows how easy planning methods can be: he has a three-dimensional model of his goals right on his desk – made of LEGO bricks. This is no surprise for me – Leonardo is a certified facilitator for LEGO Serious Play.

Interview with Leonardo Previ (Milan, Feb. 04, 2008; photo: Pietro Storti)

I will quickly go on with the interviews. Although the focus lies mainly on Germany, there will be interviews with leaders from Italy, Great Britain, Poland, and the USA in the next months.

My project of the year for 2008 deals with the topic of Self-Leadership. In a row of interviews with leaders in Germany and abroad I want to find out how leaders lead themselves. There are numerous articles and books on this subject but I am interested in finding out what leaders actually do to stay on target.

The key questions for the interviews are:

1. How do you define leadership? What comes to mind?
2. Which methods and instruments do you use for self-leadership?
3. Which are your strengths in the field of self-leadership in your own view?
4. Which are your weaknesses in the field of self-leadership?
5. Are there any role models (present or past) of self-leadership for yourself?
6. How can someone improve his/her self-leadership? What can be learned?

As from the present point I will use the results of the interviews at least for the following purposes:

1. material for my lecture on leadership at the University of Applied Sciences, Osnabrück (Germany),
2. material for this BLOG (http://futurehub.com/),
3. as the base form y book (2009) on self-leadership and
4. for lectures and speeches.

I will post more information in this BLOG.

At the beginning of each year we face the challenge of changing personal habits. Still helpful for getting results: Alan Deutschman’s book “Change Or Die“. He is collecting the key factors of lasting change:
relate - which means you need support and hope from others; repeat - which means a learning process to train new habits; and reframe - which stands for the necessary internalization process (see my Amazon review).