Now ask your conversation partner the first question: "What do you think is the secret of my success? What patterns do you see in the success stories I'm about to tell you?" Then ask your opposite to listen to you closely and take notes about the patterns and possible strategies they may recognize in you.
Now tell the person giving feedback about the successes you have written down on the sticky notes. You can talk about all your successes or only about those with the highest spikes on the "temperature curve". If you feel that something is too personal, just leave it out.
Finish your story after ten to fifteen minutes. Now ask for feedback on the patterns that your conversation partner has identified. Listen carefully and do not interrupt your opposite number. Hold back comments and assessments. Take notes instead.
At the very end, discuss with your conversation partner how you perceive their feedback. Thank them for their time and attention. If necessary, ask one or two other people to provide you with feedback and then proceed as described here.
What did you learn from the feedback? To what extent does this feedback match your initial assessment of what is the main reason for your success? (assertiveness, other people, luck and coincidence or …?)
In one of my seminars, for example, a male executive received the following feedback on his strategies for success: "You always seem to be looking for new challenges. Variety is important to you. If you want to do something new, you don't question whether you can handle it. You set out on an adventure. You network quickly with people everywhere and establish the necessary contacts. You enjoy learning 'on the job' and so you learn quickly. Theory is not that important to you. You are positive and optimistic. This is infectious to others and you make sure that they enjoy supporting you."
It is rather unlikely that this executive would have recognized many of his patterns on his own. Nevertheless, it is helpful to reflect on your success strategies on your own. You can do this before asking for feedback or thereafter. It is best to reflect from time to time for a certain period of time.
The following questions help you with self-reflection on your success strategies:
● How have I achieved my important career goals so far?
● What have I used for this and what has helped me?
● What has motivated me – also and especially after setbacks?
● How did I celebrate my successes and with whom?
● What influence did my personal life have on my job – and vice versa?
You have already come a long way in terms of discovering what your most important successes to date are and what strategies you have used to achieve them. Now the question is how you can draw strength from this for the present and use the strategies for future success. You will then be able to recognize your personal resources and use them in a targeted manner. In the end you will develop confidence in your own success story. You will look forward to new tasks and challenges and tackle them courageously.
Targeted use of success strategies and resources
Susan, a marketing executive and expert in customer relations, was 42 years old when she joined an automotive manufacturer and became head of department. Whenever she changed jobs she always followed the same pattern: Within the first one or two years, she recruited several trusted individuals from their previous employer to her new company and either provided them with permanent jobs or gave them consultancy contracts. As a result, she created a core team of trusted associates, which she then gradually expanded to include other employees from her new company. Susan´s PCM architecture showed that she had a Harmonizer base. She always expressed herself graciously and diplomatically in meetings, emphasized team play and always consulted her associates before making decisions.
After a while, Susan noticed that there had been negative talk about her in the car manufacturer's closer management circle. Behind closed doors, colleagues referred to Susan as too soft, hesitant about making hard decisions and needing to "put her foot down" in order to make progress in her field – especially with her digital favorite project. This, according to PCM, is, by the way, a typical demand of people with a strong persister energy! Susan knew that it was due to IT and organizational hurdles in the cumbersome company that were slowing down her project, and that it would do no good to put pressure on her employees. Nevertheless, she was unsettled. Did her standing in the management circle maybe require a tougher approach after all? Not until she realized her strategies with which she had achieved her previous successes in a coaching session did she breathe a sigh of relief. She realized that her leading way had always resulted in the desired outcomes: she had satisfied, highly motivated employees and contributed to the overall system. Rather than changing, she decided to lead in her own way now more than ever: Bringing people together, friendly and relaxed. However, she now spoke more often with colleagues about her leadership style. She confidently explained her approach and values – even without being asked. This eventually also convinced the Persister element and silenced their criticism.
Learning to use your own success strategies more effectively
Once you have recognized your success strategies, you can consciously use them for future success. Of course, we are constantly changing and learning in life. Nevertheless, it is good to know what has worked for us in the past and will most likely work for us again. Nowadays it is trendy to immediately seek "purpose" and inner fulfillment in a job and to want to save the world at least once a day. In the process, we can also be successful with something we don't immediately identify with 100 percent – and learn a lot for our future path.
It is precisely in difficult times that we develop strategies for success that will benefit us later. For example, I know a top executive who started her career in the 1990s as a telemarketer in a call center. She had little desire to do so at the time, but desperately needed the money. Once on the job, she completed all the training and continuing education courses that were paid for her. This made her realize how important advanced training is, and she continues to educate herself further to this day. The call center also entrusted her with management responsibilities at the age of 21. This is how she discovered her leadership talent and quickly climbed the ladder in this company. In the end, she had learned an enormous amount for her further career in the call center.
When you look at your own success strategies, maybe there has been something that has carried you through difficult times before? A production manager once sent an email with confidential information to the wrong recipient because his mail program auto-populated a similar name and didn't notice. This is how the information got sent to a customer. The production manager contacted the recipient. The walk to Canossa. He was at his mercy. The recipient was kind enough to delete the message without reading it. A lesson learned for the production manager: I may make mistakes. But if I stand by my mistakes, I can ask for help. Most people are honest and helpful and do not take advantage of my mistakes when I admit to them. This experience continues to shape the production manager's management behavior to this day. He now enjoys the reputation of having established a truly performance and learning-oriented error culture in his field.
Identifying and using resources more effectively
Personal strengths are at the core of your success strategies, always helping you to achieve goals and overcome challenges. These strengths can be described as "resources". Like the resources in a company, your personal resources are what you can fall back on to carry out any kind of project successfully. The same applies to our successes and success strategies: most people are not or only partially aware of them. As soon as we become aware of our resources, we can use them even more effectively. A quick glance at our success strategies provides us with an indication of our resources.
Susan, the head of department at a car manufacturer, now knows that her pronounced relationship orientation is by no means a weakness – as some of her colleagues in top management once believed – but rather one of her greatest resources.
With her relaxed and diplomatic manner, she understands how to connect people into networks