Self Awareness - SWOT Analysis

Self Awareness - SWOT Analysis
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)



 

Having discussed the importance of self-awareness last week, let us discuss some of the methodologies through which you can be aware of yourself better.

1. Self Introspection through SWOT analysis
2. Values and Beliefs clarity
3. Identifying purpose and passion 

 
First, let us discuss one of the powerful methods of knowing self is through SWOT analysis. As most of us aware that this SWOT tool is being used for business purposes, and it can be being used for personal development as well.

SWOT  stands for is Strength, Weakness, or area for improvement, Opportunities, and Threats. 

a brief idea about each element

 Strength :

Everyone has unique strengths. Identifying and leveraging is one of the aspects of self-awareness. Self can define strength by listing out all positive attributes or by taking reference from other's feedback or opinion as expressed frequently.

For example, you may be realizing that you are good at "thinking creatively," that is your strength. Or others also might have mentioned this quality many times. 
 
Weakness or Area for Improvement:
 
Weakness or Area for Improvement is quite the opposite of strength. Some of the areas which you may think to improve further or others might have mentioned frequently.
 
For example, you may be thinking that you are not good at listening. Some people might have pointed at your poor listening. You might come across many occasions you made the task complicated due to poor listening ability. Those are all clues that you need to improve further on listening skills.

In my opinion, there is no weakness in personal capabilities; it is only an "area for improvement." Anything can be improved over some time if we have awareness and take action.
 
Opportunity :
 
Opportunity is nothing, but when you leverage your strength, that will become an opportunity or the changes in the external world that will give you a chance to leverage.
 
For example, if you identify your creativeness as strength, what are the opportunities that exist to explore?
 
Threat:
 
The threat is quite the opposite of opportunity. When you are not addressing your area of improvement for a longer duration, that will become a threat to your survival or growth. Also, you can identify the change in the environment, and if you are not updated, that will become a threat.
 
The point is SWOT as a tool that helps you to streamline your thought processes to know yourself better. This analysis can be done at least once in a year that will give more clarity about yourself. I have been using this analysis myself for the last 25 years and finding useful.
 

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Action plan

Identify your strength, areas for improvement, opportunities, and threats in your personal and professional areas that will give you some level awareness about you.
 

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Initially, articulating seems to be difficult, and this analysis is an iterative process.

Self Awareness

Self Awareness
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

The first step in improving emotional intelligence at the workplace is self-awareness. Self-awareness is more of knowing self in terms of strengths, limitations, beliefs, values, purpose, passion, and feelings/ emotions at a deeper level.
 Why is Self-awareness required?

When we are aware of ourselves, we choose the right field to play to win and be prepared to improve.

Let me give you some real examples which will bring more understanding about the power of self-awareness in personal and professional growth.

1. One of my known business heads realized that he frequently stuck in a meeting and not able to ask the questions to his team. That is the moment of self-awareness of his limitation. After realizing that, he has been consciously learning the art of questioning in different circumstances.
2. One of my colleagues who was working as a senior manager identified his strength lies in people management than in detailed engineering. That moment of realization made him shift into a general management area and been successful for the last decade.
3. One of my friends recently identified his limitations in dealing with the online webinar format of learning, particularly on listening ability and coping up. Now he is working on improving the listening capability as suggested to him.
4. Personally, when i became aware of my limitations on my writing skill without grammatical errors, now I am using grammatical software to improve the writing quality and still working on it.
 The real problem is not with the strengths or limitations, but not aware of those strengths/ limitations and leading a suboptimal life with suffering self and others.
When you know more about yourselves, it will improve your leadership effectiveness and relationship qualities.

But the strange fact is that most of us think that we know about ourselves very well. That is not TRUE. One of the studies conducted by Carnegie Mellon University researchers among the leaders of many organizations found that only 15 % of the people are aware of themselves very well and remaining either overestimated or underestimated themselves.

When I was working in an organization, as part of the leadership development process, the HR team asked me to rate myself on some of the leadership attributes. Also, they asked my peers and junior colleagues to rate me on the same attributes. To my surprise, in all the attributes, I have rated high about myself than others. That is a blindspot. That is the moment of self-awareness about myself.

We will learn the structured way of knowing ourselves in the coming weeks, and as of now, to get an overview of your judgment about yourself, suggest you take the following action this week.

 

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 quick action on self-awareness 

• Reach out 3 people who are very close to you and know more about you. They can be your partner, colleagues  &  friends.
• Ask them to give feedback on TOP 3 POSITIVE qualities of you and TOP  3 AREAS OF LIMITATIONS of you as they feel.
• Summarise the responses and calibrate yourself on what do you think about yourself and others' feedback are matching or not.

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Pl do not get into justification or defend. Just be aware of yourself.
 Self-awareness is the first step in improving your emotional stability and leadership qualities.

 

Indicators of Low Emotional Intelligence (EI)

Indicators of Low Emotional Intelligence (EI) 
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

How to measure our current emotional intelligence level?  Many agencies in the market are administrating psychometric assessments to measure EI level and it is up to the individual to take it if it is affordable, keen on the quantitative metrics, and the development plan.

Alternatively, let us reflect on some of the habits that we demonstrate on a day to day activities. Those habits will give some ideas about our current capability of managing emotions and the gaps to bridge.

Given below, some of the habits/behaviors in the workplace. If you relate more points with your behavior, then you need to realize that you should work on emotional management aspects.

Some of the indicators of low emotional management skill 
 

1. Accepting to other’s obligation to complete a task by saying YES, then internally feeling bad about ourselves for not saying NO and finding difficulty to complete the task as per commitment and developing internal stress.
2. Getting into arguments for silly issues with colleagues or external people even though they admit the mistake. Just to prove our stand, keep on talking.
3. Criticizing others even though we do not have a direct influence and not relevant to personal, professional, business growth. ( For example, by  criticizing the player’s performance who are actually in the field or criticizing the people who are in the hot seat and no way we connect with them and no way they can hear our voice.)
4. Frequently losing coolness and shouting in high decibels with colleagues, junior colleagues, and at the end of the drama, the purpose is never met!
5. Taking “Impulsive decisions” due to overjoy or anger or frustration which sometimes backfires by way of monetary loss, time loss and the friction in the relationship.
6. Not having the patience to listen to others, interrupting with personal views.
7. Blaming others when things go wrong and not realizing the self’s contribution to the failure
8. Frequently going in a self-sabotaging mode for all the failures without logically analyzing the causes.
9. Not able to focus and prioritize. Keep on changing the priorities or even jobs or business.
10. Not able to look at the issues from other’s perspectives and more self-centered.

You can add the list based on your experience and relate your selves.

We need not regret today’s level of managing emotions effectively as it is the effect of many variables like your values, beliefs, awareness of self and others which we discuss later with counteractions. But awareness is essential for progress.

Moving towards higher-level emotional management is possible with awareness and practice.

Let us discuss more on this aspect.

Emotional management and its effect

Emotional management and its effect (Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

As we discussed the importance of emotional management in the workplace, let us see a typical example of different emotional management for a particular event and how it is affecting the quality of the relationship and impacting the performance.

For example, one of your teammates prepared a presentation which you suppose to present it to your customer. The presentation content seems to be as good as you expected.
 
Now you have three choices on managing your emotions in terms of recognizing and expressing.
 
Choice 1: Recognizing your feeling of happiness and expressing to your teammate
 
Since you have a high level of emotional intelligence, at that moment, you realize the feeling of happiness. Also, you express your happiness to your teammate by appreciating the work, giving some more positive feedback about the presentation.

Consequence:

First, you are feeling happy and at a high level of a positive state. Second, your teammate feels happy, motivated with your appreciation, and learns some more tips on the presentation from you. There is a chance of development in his/her capability and an increase in the quality of the relationship.
 
Choice 2: Recognizing the feeling of happiness, but not expressing to your teammate.
 
You may feel happy and ending the discussion with the teammate with a simple gesture of thankfulness.
 
Consequence:

your teammate is not getting any clue about your feeling. He/she may get disappointed, doubtful about his / her quality of work, feeling not learning much from work. The quality of the relationship is neutral and not much scope for development.
 
Choice 3: Not recognizing your feeling of happiness and not expressing to your teammate
 
As you are with low EQ, you are not in a position to recognize your feeling at that moment and concern about other’s work.

Consequence:

Nothing fulfills you, and your teammate feels low for a thankless job and not getting any clue about the work, and there may be chances of poor relationship building and learning.
 
We are not concluding which choice is right or wrong. It is up to the individual to decide. The point to realize is that, knowingly or unknowingly, we are displaying either one of the choices in our interactions, and each choice has a different consequence on either relationship building or managerial/ leading capability in the workplace. 
 
Going forward, let us discuss the process of developing awareness of emotional management.

Why is emotional management required in the workplace?

Why is emotional management required in the workplace?
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

Emotional management at work is all about managing your emotions or feelings within yourself, expressing well, understanding other's emotions, regulating your response in line with both yours and others.

When we learn to master the emotions through awareness and practices, it brings the following personal and professional benefits.
 

1. Being in a peaceful state  
2. Feeling complete
3. Being productive
4. Taking timely and right decisions
5. Enabling growth in the profession
6. Nurturing a good relationship with others 

 For example, you might have seen some people who are qualified with educations and technical/functional skills (IQ), but not being happy inside, not achieved much growth in the profession and not sought after person. But some people without much educational qualification, low intelligence on technical/functional aspects are living a fulfilled life, having a good relationship with others and consistently grown in professions. The main reason for the contradiction is emotional intelligence (EQ) or emotional management skill only.
 
Even at the business level, some business is quite successful and grown consistently because the leaders are good at managing the emotions well at self-level and managing the people's feelings very well. People could be employees, customers, and other stakeholders.

Most of the organizational problems are related to people management only. The executive leaders who are good at managing the people well can drive the business results also very well. That calls for effective emotional management skills.

What is meant by emotions?

Psychologists suggest the six dominant emotions that we are experiencing most of the time, namely happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust. Under each, there may be many sub-elements.

When we manage those emotions very well in terms of recognizing and expressing, we become a better person in dealing with emotions.

For example,

one of your teammates prepared a presentation which you suppose to present it to your customer. You are happy with the presentation quality. The way you are recognizing your emotions at the moment and expressing with others will have a consequence on your quality of self and relationship. Let us discuss the various scenario next week that will give you the idea of our emotional management.

Learning Emotional Intelligence

Some time back, i requested feedback on the topic to be discussed for our personal and professional growth. Some have expressed  the requirements indirectly the struggles they have at a personal level and the workplace as follows

• dealing with the decision dilemma
• managing the boss and the colleagues
• how do we know we are on the right path?
• developing charisma
• improving interpersonal skill
• managing the conflict and difficult people
• overcoming stress

When we observe all the struggles, most of them are related to emotional management only.

Emotional management can be defined as the ability to recognize and regulate emotions in ourselves and others to make effective decisions.

When we are aware of ourselves in terms of our values, beliefs, strengths, areas of improvement, and if we learn to know how to deal with the emotions of others, we can become a better person. That awareness brings the ability to manage all the challenges in the workplace.
 
 For the last 30 years, the modern business world packaged emotions related aspects into a new theory, termed as Emotional Intelligence or Emotional Quotient and a lot of researches and books have been written on that subject. When we go in-depth of those theories and researches, one after study either supports or counters previous findings, and some of them are not considering cultural differences.

One thing I had realized that reasonable emotional management is already in our culture as we encourage more family systems and our ancient mythologies also insist upon emotional management. The Bhagavat Gita starts with the emotional conflict of Arjuna, and Krishna taught more to bring emotional stability as part of his teachings.
 
Hence, we need a holistic approach to look at our personal and organizational challenges in dealing with emotions from our culture, a combination of emotions, and a spiritual perspective. Also, to bring a transformation at an individual level on emotion management, just theory alone is not sufficient, we need to experiment, and self-realization is required.
 
With that context only, we are going to discuss "Emotional Management for Personal and Professional Growth" in the coming weeks with an in-depth explanation of some of the concepts, real-life examples, small actions, and sharing the personal experiences. We focus more on our discussions with reference to workplace challenges only.
 
Given below the broad area of coverage.
 

• Knowing self – Strengths / Values / Beliefs / purpose /balancing in all aspects of life
• Controlling and Managing our emotions for positive turnout
• Achievement drive – self-motivation/ finding passion/ taking responsibility / being in energetic mode / Looking at the work and people from a karma perspective
• Managing Others – background/understanding and  sensitizing emotions  /developing others
• Leveraging relationship to achieve results – Leading change / Influencing / Building Team/ Improving communication

 
Look forward to your views and sharing your experiences.

Big picture thinking Vs. Micro detailing

Big picture thinking Vs. Micro detailing

A few weeks back, we have been discussing the need for big-picture thinking and the ways to develop at self-level and among the team. One aspect left out was  “ Which is ideal for the leader? Being big picture orientation or getting into micro detailing? When to switch in and switch out between big picture thinking and detailing?
 
There is no ideal style or state of thinking. Everyone should have both big picture thinking and micro detailing orientation. We need to know when to switch in and switch out as it depends on the context and situation. That awareness is essential. We can not always be in the extreme state as life is all about balancing, given the larger interest of others than self.

Some effective people are aware of themselves and able to switch in and switch out, and in both states, they bring value to the others and organization.
 

For example, 
 

I worked with a  senior colleague in an organization, who was regarded as a big picture thinker and visionary person. In a specific period, there was a huge demand for our products. Due to the supply chain issue, the team was struggling to manage the delivery crisis. He involved himself in the crisis, worked with micro details, and helped the team to sail through the crisis. At the same time, he understood the problem at the root level and thought about long term solutions. Post-crisis, he took some initiatives and solved the problem in the subsequent year. He brought the solution for the chronic problem due to his ability to switch in from the big picture to micro-level when it is required and the ability to see the big picture when working in detailing and solved the problem permanently. 

The point is as business managers or leaders; you need to develop the capability of switching in and switching out from big picture view to micro detailing and vice versa. This capability will help in sustainable growth.

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Additional note on this capability of switching in and switching out

Since I have the opportunity to work with more than 100 business leaders of small business, I did a little research on the leadership style (big picture orientation vs. micro-management) of those leaders. Only 47 % of the sample demonstrated both the capability during the intervention. Interestingly, there is a positive correlation between the business head who is capable of switching in and switch out and the consistent growth of the organization for the last 5~8 years period.

Whereas the business heads(41 %) who demonstrate a higher level of big picture thinking orientation and lack of detailing on a day to day issues, the organization struggles on the consistent growth or some organizations are stagnant or even switched to other businesses. Similarly, the business heads (12%)who demonstrate high on micro-level detailing also loses the sight of growth opportunities.

I am aware that many variables influence the growth or stagnant aspects of the business. I am not concluding that this leadership capability alone contributes to growth; however, it is also one of the contributors. We need to do more research on this aspect.

Coping with uncertainties

With the prevailing uncertainty, most of us are undergoing internal anxiety and restlessness.

We have many queries, and no one able to predict and answer the following, which adds more anxiety and disturbance.

1. How long this lockdown continues, and when things will become normal to go out freely?
2. Even after lockdown, what will happen to my job and my business?
3. Will I have sufficient cash to manage the basic and my business expenses?
4. Will there be any change in the business model, how i  fit into that, and so on?

Whatever may be the answer or outcome, our mental strength is essential to cope with any challenges, and we can develop power through the combination of spiritual, emotional, logical intelligence.

My perspective on dealing with the uncertainty as follows

Accepting the reality:
First, we need to realize that we cannot control everything in life, and we need to go along with the flow. Today's situation is a common, global phenomenon, and we are just part of it. Go with the flow.

Expecting the best to come:
When we are uncertain, our mind works on what can go wrong. The more we think about the possibility of failures, we start believing that and our behaviors/actions fall in line with belief. Alternatively, accept the fact that nobody can predict the future. Let us believe that the best will unfold and cultivate the positiveness.

Cultivate the positives by looking at your past:
We have experienced many such uncertainties in our lifetime. For example, we have seen uncertainly in the 1990/ 2001 / 2008 economic crisis, in the last two decades more of natural calamities and epidemic incidents. During those times, we used to think the future is dark. On a personal level, every one of us might have come across the loss of family members, loss of job or money in the business, the stock market, or through theft.

During those moments, we might have thought that the future was almost lost and felt helpless. However, by overcoming all the social and personal crisis, we are still standing tall. That means, life challenges are just a storm, peaceful life is certainly possible post-storm. So, expect the best in any crisis, we will be better than ever before with our inherent strength.

Feel the gratefulness for overcoming those challenges and being secure today than before. That will reinforce the positiveness within us.

Faith in the power of nature  
As we discussed many times, the law of nature is more powerful and eternal for all times. Remember those phrases
"Nothing is permanent, either good or bad." 
"You will get trouble to the extent you can bear."
"Everything happens for a reason and right time; we are just part of it and playing a small role".
"When we look at all our live events in a longer time frame, the challenges look small. Time heals everything".

Your mindset and looking at the right, balanced perspective is vital for managing any uncertainty.

God bless all!
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Having discussed at the personal level, I have given my perspective  to help the Entrepreneurs / Business owners / Head of the small, emerging organization to manage the lockdown and post lockdown scenario

1. The things to be done during the lockdown
2. Likely scenario immediately after lockdown and the solutions approach 
3. Long term business fitness for managing uncertainty in future

If you are interested, pl use the link below and read it as I believe that the contents will give some clarity or reaffirm the thought process of the business heads to manage the uncertainty.
https://businesstransformationinsights.blogspot.com/2020/04/coping-up-with-uncertainties-in.html

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Peaks and Valleys

Peaks and Valleys

Even though this book is old, this is very apt at this point, to make good and bad times work for us by maintaining mental stability and positiveness all the time.


Name of the Book: Peaks and Valleys
Author: Spencer Johnson (Bestselling Author of “Who moved my cheese” book)
No of pages: 100+

The  Theme of this book :
In the entire lifecycle, everyone goes through good and tough times. Our tendency would be enjoying too much during good times and getting upset too much during tough times as it shows the lack of maturity in dealing with the gift and uncertainties.

This book gives perspective on dealing with good and bad times of life in a story format and easy to read.

I especially recommend to entrepreneurs and business leaders to get perspective on managing good and tough times in business.

The essence of the book is given below. 

Valley (Tough Times):    
                                                                                          
 This time is an opportunity to learn more about life. Find the good hidden in a bad time. Could you make use of it? Do more service to others. Learn from the mistakes; develop strategies, competency development for a better future.

Peak (Good times):

This Time is for celebrating the achievement and enjoy the moment. But, be humble and grateful for being on the height. Reflect on what good things made your top and look back on the path you have come across. Sustain it.

Prolonging Peak (Good times):

When we are in peak, the tendency would be to get into complacent and arrogance. Instead of it, practice humility, do good things better, and do more service to others. Always remembering to reach the valley as part of the cycle.

Be mentally strong now, and everything will pass on!

Learning Resources

Learning Resources 

"Sometimes we can not change the circumstances, but we have a choice to choose our attitude and actions"

Given the lockdown period, each individual has a choice to develop the competency and today we have multiple options. Given below some of the options which i am personally exploring and suggesting you as well.

1. Online courses:

Variety of subjects available in the market place and depending on your interest you can pursue any short term course.

2. Online Learning website  / Apps on multiple personal, professional. spiritual  subjects

Medium.com
Harvard Business Review -HBR Management Tip
Gita 365 - Spiritual contents (Apps) ( Thanks to my friend who had suggested)
Youtube channels of your interest mainly on Interviews by professionals to get new perspectives and fresh ideas 

3. Evergreen / classic books to be read forever:

Personal and relationship perspective enhancement
 
The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
Law of Success in 16 lessons – Napoleon Hill
Awaken the Giant within –Anthony Robbins
Discover your Strengths – Marcus Buckingham
Why Mars and Venus Collide –John Gray
The road less traveled –scott Peck
The Habit of Winning –Prakash Iyer
Seven habits of highly effective people –Stephen Covey
Valuvaana Kudumbam, Valamaana India-Prof Kanagasabapathi
Living with the Himalayan Masters –Swami Rama
Rich dad, poor dad – Robert  Kiyosaki
 
Business growth perspective
Five Levels of Leadership – John Maxwell
Blue Ocean Strategy
The Goal –A process of ongoing improvement –Eliyahu M Goldratt
The machine that changed the world – James womach
The high-performance entrepreneur –subroto bagchi
Stay Hungry stay foolish –Rashmi bansal
I too had a dream – Verghese Kurian

( Will suggest regional language-Tamil Books if you drop me a mail )

4. Some good/new management books can be explored :

The Fourth Industrial revolution -Industry 4.0 - Klaus Schwab
Profit First
CEO factory -HUL experience
Kindle Life - Swami Chinmayananda
Lean startup
Edge - Turning adversity into advantage
Trillion Dollar coach
Emyth -revisited
The next step- In individual and social development -Madhusudan  Reddy
Compilation of Vivekanandar speech at Chennai ( i will send based on request which i compiled)

5. Eat, Sleep well, watch movies along with family and be cool as everything will pass on.

Reflect and  Be grateful for everything you have in life ......

Ultimately, you need to be happy and peaceful irrespective of circumstances !!! That is also competency to be developed.