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Building Your Personal Operating Model

In ABA’s September 30 webinar, “Motivating Your Teams through Crisis,” our speakers reminded us that your energy level is impacted by the alignment between your priorities, the roles you take on, and when, where, and how you spend your time. Aligning these elements can help boost your mental, physical, and emotional energy.  How to know if they are aligned and act on any areas of misalignment?  Use a personal operating model. 

The personal operating model was designed at McKinsey & Company to help busy leaders effectively prioritize their time and avoid burnout given the demands of the consulting world.  Here, we offer some guidelines to implementing this technique as your compass during the current crisis.

Below, we guide you through a series of targeted questions to reflect upon your priorities, habits, strengths and aspirations, and time. Then, you will create a 180-day plan based on your responses. 

 
 

PART 1: REFLECTION

For the first part of this exercise, you may want to grab a pen and paper, or pull up a blank document on your desktop. You may also find it helpful to draw diagrams, use different colors, or think ‘out loud’ to start.  

  1. Your Priorities: Identify your top personal and professional priorities for the next 6 months and implications on time spent.

    • What projects or initiatives do you hope to pursue? 

    • Which relationships are most important to you? 

    • How do you interact with the people in your life? 

  2. Your Energy (Physical, Mental, Emotional): Identify the habits or activities you are practicing to maximize and renew your energy. Identify habits or activities you are practicing that drain your energy.

    • What jobs or tendencies fulfill you, in and out of the workplace? 

    • What jobs or tendencies add meaning to your life? 

  3. Your Strengths and Aspirations: List your personal strengths and aspirations. Do you need to increase capacity and/or upscale the capabilities of your team?

    • What kind of colleague, spouse, or friend do you want to be, and to whom? 

    • In what ways are you sharing roles with others, if at all?

  4. Your Time. List the activities on which you want to spend more time. List the activities on which you want to spend less time.

    • Are you being present when you need to be? 

    • How are you fitting breaks into your routine? 

    • What is urgent, and what is important? 

    • Are you being as efficient as possible?

Now, brainstorm strategies you can use to make the right trade-offs in the moment to protect time for long-term needs, including critical priorities and energy-maximizers. 

 

PART 2: 180-DAY PLAN

Now, you can use the information from Part 1 to inform your personal life and work life over the next 6 months by constructing a 180-day plan. 

  1. The next two weeks: What specific steps can you take in the next two weeks to begin working toward your personal and professional goals? Identify people in your network who can help you, and how they can do so. 

  2. Specific steps to take in the next 6 months: What specific steps can you take in the next six months to work toward your personal and professional goals? Identify people in your network who can help you, and how they can do so. 

  3. Follow-up/accountability plan: How will you hold yourself accountable at every stage of your 180-day plan? 

Once you’ve built your plan, look for an accountability partner.  Find a colleague or friend - or reach out to the ABA to help find an appropriate colleague - and share your plans and explicit goals.  Schedule a time in about six weeks to meet with your accountability partner to check in.  Revisit your operating model whenever things feel misaligned.