During my career as a federal supervisor, I made many new years resolutions, wrote my own Individual Development Plans (IDP) and approved plans for my employees. As a retiree, I no longer have to deal with performance appraisals and IDP’s. Still I feel that mixture of hope and frustration as I think about the New Year and that desire for change and improvement.
The IDP and the new years resolution come from the same impulse: to improve performance during the coming year. In my experience the IDP tends to focus on technical skills. If the job requires establishing a web presence the employee will include a course in HTML in the IDP. The employer will pay for the course and both will view the exercise as a success.
I never saw an IDP that helped an employee develop the core competencies necessary for executive success.
At the kindergarten level a core competency might be “plays well with others”. At the executive level the same skill would be described as “works effectively with persons of diverse backgrounds.” Look here for a federal government list of competencies. It includes “leading change, leading people, results driven, business acumen, and communication.” The core competency for communication, for example is defined as:
“This core qualification involves the ability to explain, advocate, and express facts and ideas in a convincing manner and to negotiate with individuals and groups internally and externally. It also involves the ability to develop an expansive professional network with other organizations and to identify the internal and external politics that impact the work of the organization”
These softer skills are not easily learned in the classroom or conventional training courses. A good IDP, or resolution, can help. It should follow a specific program, starting with the serenity prayer , i.e. discerning what can and cannot be changed. Here are three personality assessments that will help in this discernment:
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator MBTI will provide insights into core competencies that come naturally and those that need to be part of an IDP.
• Many companies and agencies now use a 360 degree assessment instrument to help executive candidates discover which core competencies need development. “Three Sixties” provide behavioral feedback from colleagues, superiors and subordinates. They can be disruptive and embarrassing.
• The enneagram personality assessment provides similar insights, without the public exposure. For a “quickie” enneagram test, click here .
Enneagram is a Greek word meaning nine-points. The enneagram describes nine different personality types. Each of three types is related most strongly to one of three centers of intelligence: mental, emotional, and bodily kinesthetic (or “gut level”). Personality type, or style, is shaped by a preference for one of three centers and the way in which this preference is used.
An employee can use the personality assessment to discern personal strengths and to identify core competencies that need to be developed. This may require the development of new personal and interpersonal skills – a task not easily accomplished as evidenced by the number of self-improvement books on shelves of any bookstore.
There is a trap here. Looking at all those self-help books gives an image of a statue taking the hammer and chisel away from the sculptor. The statue would be better advised to leave the shaping to the sculptor. Yet, in this image, the statue is not entirely passive. After an honest personality assessment, it will acknowledge that it has overdeveloped itself in some areas and neglected others. The job of an IDP, or resolution, is to cooperate with the sculptor in developing new skills abandoning unproductive behavior.
As an example, personality types and core competencies are often a result of overdevelopment of one of the three centers (mental over emotional, for example). People who prefer the mental center will, for example, tend to focus on content and the “big” picture instead of the emotional climate of an organization. The core competency of communication requires both. A well written IDP will assist in developing the neglected center.
The probability of the statue directly reshaping itself can be measured by the number of failed new years resolutions. An indirect approach is more likely to work.
Adopting the indirect approach means finding activities that develop one of the less preferred centers. Emotional intelligence can be developed by workshops in subjects such as couple’s communication, acting lessons and some types of therapy. Mental intelligence can be improved in writing courses, the study of language or math and some types of therapy, especially Rational Emotive Therapy. Bodily kinesthetic intelligence activities include the martial arts, yoga, music, and sports all will improve the mind-body connection and give additional confidence.
The indirect approach prepares the ground for growth in needed core competencies. Development of these competencies will require outside help from an executive coach, mentor or spiritual director. Many executive coaches are trained in application of personality instruments to learning new core competencies.
A new years resolution or IDP should also involve some specific program or plan for change. Consider following what many consider to be the greatest spiritual discovery of the last (i.e. 20th) century – Bill Wilson’s synthesis of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius and Jungian psychology: the twelve step program. Kathy Shaidle’s booklet A Seekers Dozen: the Twelve Steps for Everyone Else is a good place to start.
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