The initial prompt to do this course was how I could use the next few years to best serve the companies that I am associated with – my conclusion was by coaching and mentoring the next level of management. I needed to identify the gaps in management development and structure these. A related prompt was that in difficult economic times, I could continue to invest in people through continued personal and professional development, where inflation related pay was not keeping up.
The original thought was how to marry up our corporate vision and value statement and the practical application of the SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) that we had agreed to implement. I realised that management effectiveness was a significant part of the gap between these two initiatives. I also realised that I needed to leave the company on a better standing than when I arrived.
On further analysis, the management team had the technical skills required by the company, but were struggling with effective time management, emotional intelligence, taking decisions and implementing those decisions. In other words, all the traits of effective personal management.
The more I looked into course content, the more excited and enthused I became on the subject matter:
- My youngest son was studying psychology, philosophy and politics at university and encouraged me to dig deeper on this theme. He offered me guidance on the literature and I had made one of my new year resolutions to better understand his learning path
- I realised my own shortcomings in so many areas – this was a fabulous opportunity for me to continue learning by reflection and teaching
- There were a lot of texts on the subject, but were very much trendy and personality driven and not deep seated and balanced – I wanted to simplify staff’s appreciation and understanding of quite a daunting and all-embracing subject. This course is about synthesising the best out there and putting it into an appropriate context for the countries that I operate in
- Many of the books on the subject were too American for the target audience and would need to be simplified and made more practical – I have a capacity as a wordsmith to translate wordy prose into summary bullet points
- I began to realise that I in fact subscribed to most, if not all the timeless, universal principles that I was working on and could and must defend myself on these character traits
- The beauty of the course design was the opportunity to access some of the best minds in the world over two millennia and better understand their thinking and what inspired them, and share this with participants, which is why I focus on quotations and references – ‘We seek not to imitate the masters, rather we seek what they sought’.
- The more I have worked on the course material, the more I am convinced that it has applications for high school and university leavers to prepare them for the wider world, has a critical role to play in career planning, parenting, relationship building, as well as general personal and managerial effectiveness
- My ultimate goal is to reach a stage where I can share the same platform with politicians and civil servants to re-orientate their thinking towards service to citizens and the nation, rather than an opportunity for the state to provide them with a livelihood by a right of party or position. I am constantly guided by the notion and the hope that the electorate will judge officials by who they really are, rather than what they say and do.
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