There are moments of epiphany (relevant essence of something) in a continuous learning process. I went through something like this at the last course of project management.

A simple sentence has triggered a complex process: Strategy is the way in which you reach your objectives. When I heard it my past experiences and knowledge have become pieces on a chessboard in a game where I know beforehand what moves my opponent will do.

Regardless of how much information and experience you accumulate the engine that will move you ahead depend on how you create connections between them.

Strategy remains a word said with reverence in business. Until now I have met 3 types of people who assume an expertise in what is called business strategy:

1. Unknowers – those who use the word strategy in contexts like “I do PR strategy”, etc. without understanding how much experience involves the assumption of such expertise. Usually these people gather with similar to them people and feed their vanity listening to each other speaking.
2. Conservators – those managers and business owners that apply with perseverance things applied 10 years ago without understanding that the terms used no longer exist or have a completely different meaning. Formal authority given by the assertion “I am the boss and I know best” spreads terror among subordinates who will bend over to do things as they should be done without upsetting the boss. Eventually profits will come and he / she will be proud of his strategic abilities and will be generous with kicking the lower backside of the slaves that worked for it.
3. I-want-to-be-like-him-when-I-grow-up People – those who aggregate intelligence, experience, common sense and care about those around them and which do not even bother to use the word strategy. They know that their experience is a foundation which can be build upon only if they have an attitude open to new and the consciousness that they are not always right.

Except those who are truly exceptional, for the rest of us to get success requires a lot of work and continuous learning. These are some minimum requirements. If success means not only money and social position, you need to be a genuine human being with real values for others to look at you like as to a model to follow.

The ability to understand the concept of strategy as well as its applicability in professional and personal life and in building your personal brand is obtained while gathering experience and continuous learning.

Values are not just basic beliefs, needs or standards relatively stable across the life span.

Values are the things that really matter to you!

They develop under the influence of culture, society, and personality and can be classified in ethical, economic, social, aesthetic, and ideological.

The Rokeach value system is classifying values in two categories:

• Terminal values – goals that you want to achieve.
• Instrumental values – behaviors manifested in achieving your goals.

You are motivated to choose a work environment which is congruent with your values because the discrepancies create an unpleasant situation.

Your personal and professional values are something you have when you enter in an organization. The organizational values that you encounter can be similar with yours or just to appear this way. It is a matter of reciprocity: you and the company both have espoused values – values you want the others to think that you respect.

Beyond all classifications, your values are the source of your choices and as Warren Buffett said: “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”

First time I heard about “locus of control” from one of my colleagues, a psychologist. My friend Google helped me to find out more about it. Julian Rotter in 1966 published an article about locus of control. He is also developed the social learning theory (a post about it to follow).

It seems that there are three specific personality characteristics that are important in the study of organizational behavior and influence the level of satisfaction of the employees: locus of control, self-esteem and self-monitoring.

Locus of control refers to what a person believes that has a good or bad influence about his/her life. More specific in a work environment: if the career path is influenced mostly by external factors or internal forces.

Weak people believe in fate, luck and powerful people that can help them on the way. It works if you accept to have your freedom and rights as a human being limited.
Strong people believe in themselves. Their future is determined by their career planning process, their actions and initiatives. These people ask not why you have money, but “how did you do it so I can do it too?”

Self-esteem is the result of self-evaluation. A favorable image about yourself can make you more resistant to external influences, consequently much more inclined to be perseverant and focused.

Self-monitoring is about self-control or how much of a show you put in interacting with others. There are jobs that require acting (from my personal experience, law is one of them) and there are natural actors that have the wrong job.