Methodology

 

Our methodology includes several key elements:

 

1. Personal strategy covers your entire life; the solution of specific questions is reached in context and in harmony with your general personal strategy.

2. Our approach is based on the philosophy and tools of business strategy.

3. All potential of intelligence and emotions (left and right brain) is used, mobilizing a systemic and multi-dimensional approach along with creativity, emotional and spiritual potential.

4. The goal and the main criterion is not only knowledge, but also actions and results, including development of powerful positive habits and use of interactive tools.

5. The majority of work is carried out in teams focused on the shared end result.

 

 

 

1. Personal strategy covers your entire life; the solution of specific questions is reached in context and in harmony with your general personal strategy.


There are many approaches, books, philosophies and training programs directed to solving specific problems in your life:

• Philosophies (and some religions) focused on your general attitude to life, search of higher goals and principles.
  
  
• Psychology seminars and training programs focused on the development of certain moods and mentalities (such as confidence, optimism, responsibility, motivation, self-discipline, etc.).
  
  
• Training, coaching and consulting directed at specific goals in your life:
  
  
  • career development (general, or in specific fields or professions)
    
    
  • development of certain skills (such as communication, time management, networking, personal image and general attractiveness, etc.)
    
    
  • finance (income, investment, budgeting)
    
    
  • relationships and family (dating, family relationships, etc.)
    
    
• Training, coaching and consulting focused on physical development:
  
  
  • physical/sports training programs
    
    
  • diet and general nutrition
    
    
  • health and sexuality
    
    
  • meditation, relaxation techniques, etc.
    
    

Personal strategy covers all of these and many other areas, and integrates them into a harmonious system adapted for you. Frequently, the trigger of changes in our life is a specific problem or a question (be it goals, psychology or physical development). But we are deeply convinced that the best and most harmonious approach for the solution of these specific problems is to create and implement a general personal strategy. By basing your solutions on such a general strategy, you can solve both the specific problem in the context of your life and other problems or questions that will surely arise in the future.

In the business world, a company trying to solve a specific problem (production, cost optimization, marketing, financial management, HR, etc.) in the absence of a general strategy either suffers failure or solves their problem inefficiently. Therefore, in all large and successful companies, the solution of specific problems is always coordinated with the general strategy. The way personal strategy is developed here, replicates this hierarchy

Besides the general defining influence of your strategy on all areas, these areas also strongly influence each other. It is a question of not simply balance between various areas of your life, but also of mutual systemic influence, with both positive and negative feedback. In the section Balanced System, we discuss in detail the interrelations and influences that areas of your life have on each other given a stable personal architecture (life model). Creative breakthrough is a section that gives you the process and tools for search and realization of a new personal architecture. Thus, these sections are closely connected both in terms of the timeline of cycles of your life, and in terms of the main areas of your choices and decision-making ("degrees of freedom").

Each module in both sections includes both the connection with the general strategy and concrete (often numerical) recommendations and practical steps for achieving the nest results in each particular area.




2. Our approach is based on the philosophy and tools of business strategy.

Our team brings decades of experience of business strategy development for the largest corporations in Europe, America and Asia, as well as for innovative companies of smaller sizes. Each strategy development project of a large corporation costs millions dollars, and the overall investments into methodologies and the intellectual capital of business strategy development amount to billions of dollars. Personal strategy cannot provide comparable budgets of development and investments into intellectual capital.

Nevertheless, our team adapted our accumulated experience, methodologies and tools for personal strategy, actually providing you with most of these investments made in the intellectual capital of strategy development.

Here are some of these tools:

Business strategy	Personal strategy
General business strategy, mission and vision	General personal strategy, mission
Business model innovation, business architecture	Creative breakthrough, innovation of personal architecture
Corporate system of alternatives assessment and project prioritization	Personal system of alternatives assessment of and project prioritization
Corporate system of decision-making, planning, performance and results monitoring	Personal system of decision-making, planning, performance and results monitoring
Testing of new products and business architectures	Testing of new ideas and personal architectures
Balanced scorecard, Key Performance Indicators (KPI), top management dashboard	Balanced system, Personal KPI, personal dashboard
Improvement of operational efficiency (general and in specific areas)	Improvement of personal efficiency (general and in specific areas)
Project management (of business and teams)	Management of personal projects (individual and in teams)
Motivation of personnel and discipline	Personal and team motivation and self-discipline
Corporate culture and communications	Personal communications and interaction
Corporate marketing and branding	Personal marketing and branding
Strategic choice analysis and conjoint analysis	Strategic analysis of personal choices
Corporate finance and investments	Personal finance and investments
Corporate teambuilding	Teambuilding for personal strategy tasks

Companies always consist of people and ultimately work for people (in other companies and consumers). Therefore, it’s no wonder that so many powerful tools of business strategy are directly applicable to personal strategy.

Our team did considerable work on adapting and synchronizing methodologies and tools for application in concrete modules. Adaptation includes the elements demanding reconsideration upon transition from business strategy to personal strategy. For example:

• In most cases, the prime target of business strategy is the maximum increase in long-term shareholder value. For personal strategy, in most cases, the highest level goal is the maximum increase in long-term feeling of happiness/life satisfaction. At the same time, in business strategy, this main goal is broken down into or balanced with other goals (revenue, market share, satisfaction of various stakeholders, interests, government, corporate culture, etc.). In the same way, in personal strategy, the process of establishing and balancing of specific goals is organized into specific areas.
  
  
• In many large corporations, shareholders (owners) and those who work in the company are different people. As company shareholders’ value is the prime declared goal, sometimes decisions are made while ignoring (or not giving enough attention to) emotional parameters. A personal strategy based exclusively on mathematical logic would, most likely, be incomplete (if such an approach is not both thought through and heartfelt). Therefore, during methodology adaptation, the following approaches were used:
  
  
  • in large companies, where emotional/cultural elements are very important (for example, in European business, balancing financial and cultural elements)
    
    
  • in companies, where owners operate business and make key decisions. In such companies, often there is a question of optimization of parameters (business and personal), including deeply emotional elements.
    
    
  • in innovative and high-growth companies, where passion, enthusiasm, and motivation of people are key assets in new markets and under uncertain conditions

Business strategy provides the general structure and content of many modules of personal strategy. Besides, as with any strategy, personal strategy includes the elements dictated by specific objectives. Our team not only included these elements in the general context, but also filled them with the latest scientific research and practical information available globally. The section Resources lists many of these sources. Although there is no system in the world that completely duplicates the structure of our system, some of these elements may be familiar to you.

3. Entire potential of intelligence and emotions (left and right brain) is used, mobilizing a systemic and multi-dimensional approach along with creativity, emotional and spiritual potential.

Often, whether creating life systems and worldviews or solving specific problems, people confront two approaches:

• Logic against emotions
  
• Reason and science against faith and spirituality
  
• Systemic thinking against creativity
  
• Left brain against right brain
  
  

Calls from both parties can exhibit more or less irreconcilable character:

"Let's think everything through and we make the decision without emotions."

vs.

"Don't think; trust your emotions!"

"Think clearly and avoid knee-jerk reactions."

vs.

"Feel communication with the higher force and surrender to it."

"Oh, these creative types are just slackers."

vs.

"Oh, these pedantic accountants are just bean counters."

The fact is that the right and left hemispheres of the brain are present in each person. But they can be developed to a greater or lesser degree, be used more or less consciously and be involved in different degrees in different situations.

Emotions and feelings represent a more "ancient" layer of our personality that is shared or perhaps derived from animals. Emotions are built into us genetically and represent both a powerful factor of motivation to actions, and the result that we try to reach. Personal strategy constructed without emotions (for example, if it is constructed on cold calculation) will be defective.

Intelligence and logic is a "younger" layer of our personality, and is our key difference from animals. All development of human civilization in one way or another has been driven by our ability to think logically and to consciously set and achieve goals. Personal strategy that does not consider this factor (for example, if it is only constructed on pure emotional motivation or on an appeal to higher forces) will also be defective.

We made significant efforts to use both of these parts in a balanced way. Instead of confronting them, our system is is based on symbiosis, mutual addition and strengthening of these major components of human personality.

It includes the following:

• Definition of main goals both in terms of feelings and emotions and in terms of intellectual understanding and calculation.
  
• Inclusion of specific modules directed toward both psychological and emotional development, and achieving specific well-defined goals that have been thought through. These modules not only balance each other, but also powerfully influence each other (see Balanced System).
  
• Using both a systemic/multidimensional approach and a creative process to build your new personal architecture (see Creative Breakthrough).
  

An example of such close interrelation (instead of confrontation) is the personal system of criteria-based decision-making. In the first step, we ask you to designate emotional and logical criteria and to place them on one scale. Then, when passing through this process several times, you understand that both logical and emotional criteria are part of a harmonious system that is formed in your consciousness. On the one hand, you no longer see emotions as something uncontrollable and not subject to judgment. On the other hand, you also understand that many logical criteria (for example, finances or other numerical indicators) finally bring you the same basic emotions. Thus, a seeming antagonism is removed and a balance is achieved, and you make thought through and heartfelt decisions, acting in full compliance and harmony with what is important for you.


We use a logical and emotional "operating system" that consists of the following components:

• Multi-dimensional space of choice (system of coordinates). All elements of choice, all simple and complex alternatives, can be expressed in such a system of coordinates. In Creative Breakthrough, this takes the form of the ocean of choice. When solving specific problems, specific "slices" (projections) of such space are formed. In the Balanced System, such dimensions are "body", "goals" and "mood" blocks, and also specific modules.
  
  
• System interdependencies. The system differs from just structure by having interdependencies. Positive and negative feedback is a key factor in the Balanced System. The ability to see interdependencies and patterns, to "connect the dots", and then to use them is a key factor in decision-making and achieving results, including Creative Breakthrough.
  
  
• The maximum involvement of emotions, spirituality and creativity in concert with multi-dimensional and system vision, including:
  
  
  • using emotions and creativity to increase your degrees of freedom, expand borders of space of choice and eliminate undesirable restrictions.
    
    
  • generation of ideas - both for core options and for current decisions
    
    
  • "soaking" of systemic and multi-dimensional vision by emotional and spiritual coloring
    
    
  • openness to possible unpredictable events and possibilities, of both logical and emotional origins
    
    
  • attention to and use of instincts and reflexes, both self-formed and developed on purpose (including forming positive routines)
    
    
• Use of the process of reaching results based on choice, interrelations and left-right-brain approach. This process is presented in Creative Breakthrough in its most general form, but the simplified way is used for setting and achieving all strategic and tactical goals:
  
  
  • Alternatives (based on degrees of freedom, external information and creative generation of ideas)
    
    
  • Analysis of alternatives by logical and emotional criteria and making of thought through and heartfelt decisions
    
    
  • Accurate planning and execution leading to results

These principles underlie the majority of modules, both in the Balanced System and the Creative Breakthrough. Besides, one of the reasons for organizing work in teams is the integration of potential from participants with left- and right-brain prevailing abilities.

 4. The goal and the main criterion is not only knowledge, but also actions and results, including development of powerful positive habits and use of interactive tools.

Similarly to business, the value of strategy that does not lead to action and result is zero or negative. All modules contain concrete recommendations, steps and tools, which allow you to act and reach results.

Some of these elements demand serious decisions based on free choice. We give you the tools to make this choice as free as possible, to make a thought through and heartfelt decision. You can then act according to this decision and be powerfully motivated by it.

At the same time, we realize the complexity and limitations of creating important processes in your life exclusively by relying on motivation and willpower. Therefore, in a large number of cases, we recommend that you limit your personal freedom of choice and reflection in specific elements.

Having left the freedom of choice for making key decisions of your life, we offer a system of developing habits and routines that creates a "skeleton" of your daily existence.  There is various terminology describing it: instincts, conditioned reflexes, anchors, formed neural connections. With any approach, the process of habit formation is critical, and it includes the following:

• Free decision about the need to form the habit
  
  
• A phase of developing routines (actual habit formation through neural connections)
  
  
• Habit maintenance

We prepared a number of tools geared towards the formation of such routines. These tools provide key factors of success in forming a habit:

• Regularity (most of these tools are daily)
  
• Clearness and transparency (you know what, when and why is done)
  
• Responsibility and control (including personal and team)
  

As in many other elements of personal strategy, teamwork is an important element for habit development.

It is important to realize (though it may seem paradoxical) that the formation of such routines does not reduce your freedom, but actually increases it.

Very often, a person may feel paralyzed because of "disintegrating" life due to incorrectly made decisions and, as a result, having limited opportunities. Even if decisions are correct and free, they can't be carried out in the absence of resources and a correct process. Such people cannot be considered as being completely free.

At the same time, the process that we describe here includes:

• A free, heartfelt and thought through decision that you truly believe in and in which you'll be glad to invest a major part of your life.
  
  
• The process leading to implementation of this decision (including tactical routines). Only the implemented decision is meaningful. Pipe dreams and unfulfilled promises do not make you a free person.
  
  
• The organization of your life that gives you much more resources, leading to greater opportunities for realization of even more daring and free ideas and decisions in the future.
  
  

Habits and routines based on the tools are a very important part of this way to freedom.

5. The bulk of work is carried out in teams focused on the shared end result.

Starting with the early stages of work on your personal strategy, we recommend that you form your team or join an existing team. Your team may include:

• Your close family and/or friends.
  
  
• People connected with you via common interests (especially if they correspond to your desired result). This may include colleagues or college/university buddies, though this may not always be the best option..
  
  
• New members whom you select (or join) specially for the development and execution of your personal strategy.

Moving through the development and realization of your personal strategy, you can participate in more than one team.

Mutual support in your team is a crucial factor, especially if each member of the team can create and execute his/her personal strategy. If you achieve goals together, your personal strategies will be synchronized, they will supplement and strengthen each other.

Besides shared interests, one of the important principles of forming a team is using complementary abilities and resources. It is especially important to form a balanced left- and right-brain process. The majority of people have a tendency either to a logical or an emotional approach. A very small number of people are capable of carrying out independently a balanced left- and right-brain process at the highest level. However, when your team participants combine these complementary properties (and their abilities are effectively used), the result will the best.

Specific areas in which teamwork gives a powerful positive effect include:

• Identification and increase of degrees of freedom
  
  
• Development of the goals and alternatives, and generation of ideas
  
  
• Development of execution plans
  
  
• Search, mobilization and increase in resources
  
  
• Support in implementation
  
  
• Motivation, both due to mutual inspiration and using mutual tangible rewards
  
  
• Responsibility formation (responsibility to members of your team is an important step on a way of training of responsibility)
  
  
• Formation of habits/routines
  
  
• Joint achievement of results and pleasure from success
  
  

Finally, the team with which you develop and realize your personal strategy can become an integral and important part of your life for many years ahead.

 

up