unimagined futures

Searching for YOUR most valuable ROADS AHEAD
In a world relentlessly moving toward new and different futureS
This site provides the elements
for creating a "life time" work approach

Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker

About Peter Drucker !!!
Everybody needs a coach and he's as good as it gets.

Amazon.com link: Managing Oneself (Harvard Business Review Classics)

Contact me (bobembry)

Bookmark this on Delicious

Donation: Click the button below to make a donation through PayPal. Just a few dollars helps with the books, software, web site hosting, and the time devoted to enhancing the work approach blue print available on this site. See the text site map for a view of the site's unique scope and resources. Also see links to external resources on my delicious page

This page is a step beyond early career work—which should be explored also.

Bottom line: You are the CEO of your life. It is up to you to develop yourself. It is up to you to navigate your way through time—2020, 2040 … a world moving toward unimagined futures.

Changing social and economic picture

Those who want to live a fulfilling life—who want to feel as if there is some purpose in their being on this earth—will have to learn to manage themselves.

They will have to accept the fact that it is their own responsibility to find meaningful work that builds on their strengths and values.

"The World Is Full Of Options" by Peter Drucker
(be sure to explore the two preceding links ASAP)

Successful careers are not planned.

They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values.

Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person—hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre—into an outstanding performer.

… snip, snip …

The conclusion bears repeating: Do not try to change yourself—you are unlikely to succeed.

But work hard to improve the way you perform.

And try not to take on work you cannot perform or will only perform poorly. — Peter Drucker (calendarize this)

See Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself on the Leader to Leader Institute site

Contents of Managing Oneself

Now, most of us, even those of us with modest endowments, will have to learn to manage ourselves.

We will have to learn to develop ourselves.

Will have to place ourselves where we can make the greatest contribution.

And we will have to stay mentally alert and engaged during a 50-year working life, which means knowing how and when to change the work we do.

History's great achievers
Learning to manage oneself
What Are My Strengths? (calendarize this) bobembry's caution: strengths can't be discovered by taking a test or reading a book. What sports coach would select potential players based a test? "Just show me the performance"—and even that is suspect.
- Feedback analysis
- Action implications
How Do I Perform? (calendarize this)
- Am I a reader or a listener?
- How do I learn?
- Alone or with others—in what relationship?
- Decision maker or advisor
- What kind of work environment?
- Conclusion
What Are My Values? (calendarize this)
Where Do I Belong? (calendarize this)
What Should I Contribute? (calendarize this)
Responsibility For Relationships (calendarize this)
- Accepting others as individuals
- Responsibility for communications
The Second Half Of Your Life (calendarize this)
- The boredom challenge
- Three ways to develop a second career
  - Starting a new one
  - The parallel career
  - The social entrepreneur
    - Bob Buford
    - Josh Abrams story and self-development approach
- Those who manage themselves are the leaders and models for the rest of society
- Starting early (age 35)—a prerequisite (calendarize this)
- Serious setbacks—another motivator
Summary—A revolution in human affairs
About The Author

Don't memorize … calendarize (identify work areas, next actions, and follow-ups in writing—mind maps may be helpful)!!! See harvesting and implementing

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Quotes from Managing Oneself

History's great achievers

That, in large measure, is what makes them great achievers. But they are rare exceptions, so unusual both in their talents and their accomplishments as to be considered outside the boundaries of ordinary human existence.

Learning to manage oneself

Now, most of us, even those of us with modest endowments, will have to learn to manage ourselves. We will have to learn to develop ourselves. Will have to place ourselves where we can make the greatest contribution. And we will have to stay mentally alert and engaged during a 50-year working life, which means knowing how and when to change the work we do.

How Do I Perform? (Conclusion)

The conclusion bears repeating: Do not try to change yourself—you are unlikely to succeed. But work hard to improve the way you perform. And try not to take on work you cannot perform or will only perform poorly.

Where do I belong

Equally important, knowing the answer to these questions enables a person to say to an opportunity, an offer, or an assignment, "Yes, I will do that. But this is the way I should be doing it. This is the way it should be structured. This is the way the relationships should be. These are the kind of results you should expect from me, and in this time frame, because this is who I am."

Successful careers are not planned

They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person—hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre—into an outstanding performer.

Summary—A revolution in human affairs

The challenges of managing oneself may seem obvious, if not elementary.

And the answers may seem self-evident to the point of appearing naïve.

But managing oneself requires new and unprecedented things from the individual, and especially from the knowledge worker.

In effect, managing oneself demands that each knowledge worker think and behave like a chief executive officer.

Further, the shift from manual workers who do as they are told to knowledge workers who have to manage themselves profoundly challenges social structure.

Every existing society, even the most individualistic one, takes two things for granted, if only subconsciously: that organizations outlive workers, and that most people stay put.

But today the opposite is true.

Knowledge workers outlive organizations, and they are mobile.

The need to manage oneself is therefore creating a revolution in human affairs.

Why Great Companies Fail

Organization Evolution Definition

Steve Forbes—observations Forbes Rich List Evolution

Warren Buffett's reflections on the stock market and the history of tech companies

"Part X: New Demands on the Individual" in Management, Revised Edition also contains a chapter on Managing Oneself along with several other important topics. Also see Living in more than one world and the educated person.

The Educated Person

educated person

Larger view (outline)

From Management, Revised Edition

… This is true for all knowledge work. "Generalists"—and this is what the traditional business enterprise, including the Japanese companies, tried to develop—are of limited use in a knowledge economy. In fact, they are productive only if they themselves become specialists in managing knowledge and knowledge workers. This, however, also means that knowledge workers, no matter how much we talk about "loyalty," will increasingly and of necessity see their knowledge area—that is, their specialization rather than the employing organization—as what identifies and characterizes them. Their community will increasingly be people who share the same highly specialized knowledge, no matter where they work or for whom.

… snip, snip …

… There is as a consequence only one satisfactory definition of management, whether we talk of a business, a government agency, or a nonprofit organization: to make human resources productive.

It will increasingly be the only way to gain competitive advantage.

Of the traditional resources of the economist—land, labor, and capital—none anymore truly confers a competitive advantage.

To be sure, not to be able to use these resources as well as anyone else is a tremendous competitive disadvantage.

But every business has access to the same raw materials at the same price.

Access to money is worldwide.

And manual labor, the traditional third resource, has become a relatively unimportant factor in most enterprises.

Even in traditional manufacturing industries, labor costs are no more than 12 or 13 percent of total costs, so that even a very substantial advantage in labor costs (say a 5 percent advantage) results in a negligible competitive advantage except in a very small and shrinking number of highly labor-intensive industries (e.g., knitting woolen sweaters).

The only meaningful competitive advantage is the productivity of the knowledge worker.

And that is very largely in the hands of the knowledge worker rather than in the hands of management.

Knowledge workers will increasingly determine the shape of the successful employing organizations.

Read more

Take Responsibility for Your Career

The stepladder is gone, and there's not even the implied structure of an industry's rope ladder. It's more like vines, and you bring your own machete.

Q: If a young man in a gray flannel suit represented the life long corporate type, what's today's image?

A: Taking individual responsibility and not depending on any particular company.

Equally important is managing your own career.

You don't know what you'll be doing next, or whether you'll work in a private office or one big amphitheater or even out of your home.

You have to take responsibility for knowing yourself, so you can find the right jobs as you develop and as your family becomes a factor in your values and choices.

Remarkably few Americans are prepared to select jobs for themselves.

When you ask, "Do you know what you are good at?

Do you know your limitations?" they look you in the eye with a blank stare.

Or they often respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer.

When they prepare their résumés, they try to list positions like steps up a ladder.

It is time to give up thinking of jobs or career paths as we once did and think in terms of taking on one assignment after another.

We have to leap right over the search for objective criteria and get into the subjective—what I call competencies.

September 9 — The Daily Drucker

Google Free Agent Nation

You can't design your life around a temporary organization — Interview: Post-Capitalist Executive from Managing in a Time of Great Change by Peter Drucker

Non-competitive Life and Personal Community (calendarize this?)

What do you want to be remembered for?

All of the above is suspended in a world moving toward unimagined futures. There is more to know and more to do. See Life-TIME Investment System.

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What Executives Should Remember

Peter Drucker: Conceptual Resources

about Peter Drucker — a political social ecologist

Combined outline of Drucker's books — useful for topic searching.

Process: find topic; get Kindle version; word search; dictate notes to voice recognition software (Dragon NS or smart phone); calendarize

Invent Radium or I'll Pull Your Hair by Doris Drucker

Most of the following contain interesting introductions and prefaces with key strategic concepts. Reading through a book's index is a valuable use of time.

Toward tomorrows

Toward unimagined futures

The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism (1939)

The Future of Industrial Man (1943)

The New Society: The Anatomy of Industrial Order (1950)

Landmarks of Tomorrow (1957)

The Age of Discontinuity (1968)

The New Realities (1988)

Post-Capitalist Society (1993)

Managing in the Next Society (2002); Last section originally published earlier in The Economist (http://economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=770819)

Comprehensive Management Books

Concept of the Corporation

Practice of Management

Managing for Results

Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The Essential Drucker (An introduction to management)

Managing the Non-Profit Organization

Management, Revised Edition

Management Cases (Revised Edition)

The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization

“Time Related” Management Books

Managing in Turbulent Times

The Changing World of The Executive

Frontiers of Management

Managing for the Future

Managing in a Time of Great Change

Management Challenges for the 21st Century

Managing in the Next Society

Individually Aimed Books by Drucker

Managing Oneself

The Effective Executive

The Effective Executive in Action

What Executives Should Remember (a valuable summary of several core concepts)

The Daily Drucker (an introduction to broad range of his thoughts)

The Daily Drucker table of contents worksheet

Drucker on Asia — A Dialogue Between Peter Drucker and Isao Nakauchi

Adventures of a Bystander

Books about Drucker and his ideas

The Definitive Drucker

Inside Drucker's Brain

A Class With Drucker: The Lost Lessons of the World's Greatest Management Teacher

Drucker on Leadership: New Lessons from the Father of Modern Management

The Drucker Lectures: Essential Lessons on Management, Society, and Economy

The Drucker Difference

Drucker Essay Collections

Although written years ago, these essays can be valuable attention directing tools. They can take your brain to places (brain addresses and brain roads) it wouldn't naturally go. What has changed and what is likely to change?

Technology, Management and Society

Men, Ideas & Politics

Toward the Next Economics and Other Essays

The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition

What are the opportunities time and history have (will) put within your grasp? — Peter Drucker

See expanded version of this topic (WIP and may be deleted later)

TLN Keywords: tlnkwmanagingoneself

Brainscape enhancement and topic assessment

Contact me (bobembry)

Bookmark this on Delicious

Radar: attention :: enhancement :: organization

Life-TIME Investment System

(a road map and brainscape ^© for time investing)

For a world always moving
away from yesterdays
and toward unimagined futures.

Working on the familiar (routine tasks)
with the familiar (capabilities)
won't get you to tomorrows.

What follows is part of a
foundation for future directed decisions

Time investing is the only way to escape
the decaying worldS of yesterdayS — its not a one time event.

The 1850s, 1920s, 1950s, 1970s, 1990s … are gone
and they aren't coming back.

Many people seem to believe that a rising tide lifts all boats.
But does it, really?
Look around the worlds of yesterdays.
How much of the things being done then
had any lasting value?
(Disco, 8-tracks, B&W TV, rotary dial phones,
downtown shopping, fashion, bleeding, Blockbuster, …)

How much of what you're doing today is really
effective or future directed?

Organization change events are with us for the roads ahead.

Amazon link: How The Mighty Fall

… the organization of the post-capitalist society of organizations
is a destabilizer.

Because its function is to put knowledge to work
—on tools, processes, and products;
on work;
on knowledge itself—
it must be organized for constant change.

It must be organized for innovation;
and innovation,
as the Austro-American economist
Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) said,
is “creative destruction.”

It must be organized for systematic abandonment
of the established, the customary, the familiar,
the comfortable
— whether products, services, and processes,
human and social relationships, skills,
or organizations themselves.

It is the very nature of knowledge
that it changes fast and
that today's certainties
will be tomorrow's absurdities. — Peter Drucker

Extrapolating yesterdays is hazardous to your future.

But what if you're currently doing great?

“Only fairy tales end
‘They lived happily ever after.’
Success always obsoletes the very behavior
that achieved it.
It always creates new realities.
It always creates, above all,
its own and different problems.” — Peter Drucker

You can only invest your time in the things on your radar

You can only utilize the things on your radar

What you primarily see around you is yesterday
and the dead past.

Without continuous, systematic on-going work
your radar will be infested with yesterday
rather than opportunities.

Because we live in a world that is always heading
into a non-linear future …

1940 Census

… we need a way to force ourselves
to look for and at things
that aren't on our radar (with some credible help)
and decide what to do about them.
At the same time we need a way
to narrow down the infinite number
things we could look at.
The previous ideas need to rest
on a solid foundation for future directed decisions.

The topics below are “top of the food chain” radar ammunition

It would be a really good idea
to read all of the following before clicking the links.

As you're reading remember the non-linearity of time.

All of the below are connected through TIME
and are moving in TIME

They are part of the elements
for creating a “life time” work approach
mentioned at the top of most pages.

They will help you figure out
where you want to go (your most valuable roads ahead)
and how to get there.
And then do it again …

This is a blueprint for a genuinely interesting life.

A radar list will be helpful in your exploration and life navigation.
It could include important, relevant topic areas and where you found them.
There is a limit to the number of topics a person can effectively calendarize.

One of the difficulties of getting to tomorrows
is having access to the right brain-addresses.
Your radar list should be your future brain-address book.
Every line in the image below is a brain-address
or at least a jumping off point toward the right brain-road to pursue.

Please don't ever begin to believe that
a permanent answer or magic bullet exists.
There is a constantly receding horizon — no final answer.
Just alternatives — appearing at different times.
Life is a navigation challenge
in a world moving toward unimagined futureS.

The pages below are meant to be explored and selectively harvested.

They are ATTENTION-DIRECTING TOOLS

They provide a form of LIFE “insurance.”

Having a complex mental landscape
combined with periodic abandonment and refocusing work
will prevent your from traveling the wrong roads for too long.

Every road eventually becomes the wrong road.

Having a complex mental landscape is also
some protection from those pushing “snake oil.”

Everything above and below is about time investing
for the purpose of time-life navigation.
All of it is part of a foundation for future directed decisions.

You should want to know how the world works
and how you can navigate this reality.

We are already embedded in
a knowledge society, a society of organizations, and a network society.

Attention !!! (refocusing attention always comes first) ::: LTIS for TLN — Quick Look ::: The World is Full of Options by Peter Drucker (a social ecologist) ::: Contents of books by Peter Drucker ::: What do you want to be remembered for? ::: Foundations for future directed decisions (What do you need to know before you decide … ?) ::: Knowledge: Its Economics and Its Productivity ::: The Daily Drucker (a foundational resource with an unparalleled field of vision) ::: TLN text site map (quick view of the Time-Life Navigation ^SM ^© site's scope. Over 500 html pages, 100+ PDFs, 1000s of images. Which of these elements are part of your future?) ::: Time-Life Navigation ^SM ^© (about living in a world moving toward unimagined futures) ::: Adventures in time (can you connect this idea with someone or a topic listed here?) ::: Adventures of a Bystander ::: Simplified TLN system view ::: The Unfashionable Kierkegaard ::: The Changing Social and Economic Picture ::: Economic Content and Structure ::: Knowledge System View ::: Selected TLN articles from the news (Society :: events :: stuff happening)

Work life brainscape: Early Career Work (for knowledge workers and ambitious knowledge technologists—a foundation for future directed decisions)   :::   Because life-time employment is gone Networking is necessary   :::   Résumé and Interview Planning for your years and the decades ahead   :::   New job game plan: when you get a new job, task, or assignment — this is very, very important   :::   Learning

Managing Oneself (as a unique INDIVIDUAL human being over a lifetime in a changing world—beginning NOW! This should be your foundation for everything else)

  :::   Career and Life Guidance from Peter Drucker   :::

  :::   The Essential Drucker   :::
("A coherent and fairly comprehensive" introduction to management)

  :::   Managing Oneself for Effectiveness (a step up the performance ladder — The Effective Executive Preface !!!!! Outline !!!)   :::

  :::   The Educated Person ("defines society's performance capacity")   :::

  :::   Living in More Than One World
How Peter Drucker's Wisdom Can Inspire Your Life by Bruce Rosenstein   :::

  :::   CEO   :::   Board member   :::

  :::   Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It   :::
  :::   What Got You Here Won't Get You There both by Marshall Goldsmith   :::

::: The Second Half of Your Life (important to start by your mid-30s) :::

Career evolution : Professional Grade (another door)

Organization evolution (essential to creating and maintaining a healthy, modern society. Somebody has to want it and do it. From working in a basement or garage to Built to Last) ::: Management, Revised Edition ::: Managing the Non-Profit Organization ::: The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization ::: The Definitive Drucker ::: Leadership ::: Production (from "specs" to user reality) ::: Managing the Small Business ::: Managing the Family Business: see December 28 and 29 in The Daily Drucker

Apple: Apple II, Lisa, Mac, Laptops, iPod and iTunes and other online stores, iPhone, iPad, iCloud …
always aiming high

Innovation and Entrepreneurship ("This is a practical book, but it is not a "how-to" book. Instead, it deals with the what, when, and why; with such tangibles as policies and decisions; opportunities and risks; structures and strategies; staffing, compensation, and rewards. Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service. … The test of an innovation, after all, lies not its novelty, its scientific content, or its cleverness. It lies in its success in the marketplace. … A successful innovation aims at leadership … successful entrepreneurs aim high. They are not content simply to improve on what already exists, or to modify it. … Successful businesses, businesses that are today in the right markets with the right products or services, are likely ten years hence to get three-quarters of their revenues from products and services that exist today, or from their linear descendants. In fact, if today's products or services do not generate a continuing and large revenue stream, the enterprise will not be able to make the substantial investment in tomorrow that innovation requires.") ::: Innovation ::: Entrepreneurship ::: Entrepreneurs and Innovation

Life lines (a view from above) ::: Life design (as your verb or noun) ::: Financial investing (developing an informed capacity) ::: Life management system (LMS) (a conscious navigation system from yesterdays to tomorrows) OR Time-management

Practical thinking (knowing what to to do) ::: Mental patterns (our self-organizing information system. In the final analysis the future of society depends on what's between our ears) ::: More thinking resources by Edward de Bono

Using conceptual resources (as brainroads ^© and brainscapes ^©)
Conceptual resource digestion process ::: TLN conceptual resource file listing ::: Concepts and ideas …

Calendarization (from topic introduction to what's the next action—really?)
What's next? in your life and time
Where will your current time usage lead?

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bobembry contact info (suggestions or whatever) ::: Conceptual resource assistance ::: Partners wanted ::: Resume (Bob Embry) ::: Personal (Bob Embry) ::: Bob Embry's Time-Life Navigation © Blog ::: Twitter | Bob Embry ::: Twitter | ti4tomorrows ::: Facebook | Bob Embry ::: LinkedIn | Bob Embry ::: delicious | bobembry ::: googleme (unexpected ways to view site connections) ::: TLN search (semi-functional Google site search)

The URLs to my site are going to change before June 30, 2012. Apple is discontinuing their hosting service. The new domain is http://rlaexp.com/. Also you will still be able to find the site by Googling either bobembry or "Time-Life-Navigation" or "Life-Time-Investment system"

"To know and not do, is to not yet know"

tlnview tlnkwview

At the present time this is a prototype site. I add, remove, and redesign content based on my own unfolding comprehension of the time-life navigation ^© (TLN) landscape . This means that you might want to periodically revisit relevant pages.

Site design goals (beta—September 2010): My minimum goal is to provide enough "sign-posts" that serious site users don't find themselves in major negative situations because they didn't get the TLN memo. My desired goal is to provide "sign-posts" to a meaningful life—both for individuals and society. One supreme sign-post is to set your sights on achievements that really matter, that will make a difference in the world. The second half of your life is the major opportunity for full effectiveness and fulfillment.

Many of the books that were available when I first started working on what I now call "time-life navigation" have gone out of print or are hard to find. You can still use the content of the book outline pages to identify topics of interest and to search Amazon Books for topics or phrases.

tlnkwtime ::: tsm ::: tlnkwradar ::: tlnkwquick ::: tlnkwdrucker ::: tlnkwceo ::: tlnkwleadership ::: tlnkwbobembry