The key aim of The Six Key Practices of Personal Effectiveness is to focus on improving the effectiveness of the individual. However, they can be used in the wider context of
- people
- the organization
- activities or processes.
Their application can be very large or very small scale or anywhere in between.
People:
- yourself
- managers, subordinates, peers
- third parties e.g. suppliers.
The Organisation:
- Teams, including virtual teams
- Organisational Units: Sales, Marketing, HR, IT etc
- Business Unit, site, subsidiary organisation
- The whole organisation.
Activities:
- job roles
- major business processes: selling, marketing, systems design etc
- projects: culture program implementation, new technology introduction, marketing campaign, sales drive etc
- ongoing activities and processes: customer focus, service management, 'more for less' etc
- Strategy.
(You can even apply it to your personal life and out of work activities.)
Foundation Skill and Meta Skill
Additionally, the practice of personal effectiveness can help leverage or complement the use of existing technical skills and soft skills, or conversely provide a foundation on which to develop other skills in a way that encourages the effective application of those skills.
Used as a 'meta skill' the practice of personal effectiveness sits above
other skills: the framework can be used to make sense of the many different
skills we acquire over the years, many of which are variations of the same
themes. "Report Writing, Assertiveness, Presentations, Teams, Meetings,
Customer Service, Change, Running Projects, Communication, Influencing,
Time Management, Creativity, TQM, Making Coffee...50 Skills, 2,000 Features:
Which should I use? How Do I Decide?"
Used as a 'foundation skill' the practice of personal effectiveness can be used to go into a new situation and 'invent' the skills needed to be effective in that situation. The Six Key Practices of Personal Effectiveness provide the basis for determining how best to be effective, and how to achieve this quickly.
An Effectiveness Culture
The key aim of The Six Key Practices of Personal Effectiveness is to focus on improving the effectiveness of the individual. Where many individuals become skilled in the practices then an organisation can create an effectiveness culture. The organisation uses the Practices and Framework as a common language, with common purpose.
