Personal Mastery

1. Personal Mastery Mastery means • Gaining dominance over people or thinking • Also a special level of proficiency (personal growth & learning) Personal Mastery is discipline of • Continually Clarifying • Deepening personal vision • Of focusing energies • Developing patience & • Seeking reality objectively

2. PM-Roots Lies in both • Eastern and western spiritual condition • In secular traditions as well The discipline of PM, by contrast, starts with • clarifying the things that really matter to us, • of living our lives in the service of our highest aspirations. Here authors tells us • Connection between personal learning & organization learning. • Reciprocal commitment between individual & organization • Special spirit of enterprise made up of learning

3. The spirit of the Learning Organization • Organization learn only through individuals who learn. • Few organizational leaders are recognizing importance of individual learning. If people are not sufficiently motivated to challenge goals of growth and technology development.. There will be no growth, gain in productivity.

4. Tap potential of people What does it require? New understanding of people’s • Subconscious mind • Will power • Action of the heart • Desire to serve the world People with high level of PM are continually expanding their ability to create the results in life they trulyseek.

5. Mastery & Proficiency PM becomes discipline – an activity we integrate into our lives– integrating in two movements Continuous clarifying- we forget “why we are on the path?” often spend too much time coping with problems along our path. Deepening personal vision- continually learning how to see current reality more clearly.

6. Contin.. Generates “creative tension” Juxtaposition of vision (what we want ?) Clear picture of Current reality (what we are relative to what we want) Natural tendency of Tension is to seek Resolution PM is learning how to generate and sustain creative tension in our lives Learning in this context doesn’t mean acquiring more information, but expanding the ability to produce the results we truly want in life. Learning organizations is possible --- if they have people at every level who pratice lifelong generative learning.

7. People with high level PM share several basic characteristics • A vision is a calling rather than simply a idea • “Current reality” seen as ally, not an enemy • Learned to work with forces of change instead of resist forces • Deeply inquisitive • Feel connected to others & life itself with out loosing uniqueness • Feel part of large creative process, which they can influence but cannot unilaterally control.

8. What do they do? Live in continual learning mode They never arrive For them PM is not you possess, it is a process A life long discipline Acutely aware of their ignorance, incompetence Aware of growth areas, deeply self confident, values Make commitment to goals larger than themselves, being open, exercising free will, try to form accurate reality picture.

9. Why we want It ? We believe there is no fundamental tradeoff between Higher virtues in life --- economic success We believe we have both People have a broader and deeper sense of responsibility in their work. They learn faster. Traditionally there was a contract Example: Honest day’s pay for an honest day’s labor. Now there is a different relationship between Employee and Institution

10. Shift in attitude of work From Institution to a Sacred View of Work Institution: work is a instrument to generate income Sacred: People or objects are sacred in the sociological sense Traditionally organizations supported people’s development instrumentally. O’Brien says that type of organization we seek to build– • development of people on equal plane with financial success. • Practicing the virtues of life & business success, both are not only compatible but enrich one another. • This is far from the traditional ‘moral of the marketplace.’

11. Covenant --- Contract Max de Pree, speaks of a “covenant” between organization and individual, in contrast to the traditional “Contract” Covenant: Relationship rests on a shared committeemen to Ideas– issues—values—goals– to management process. Covenant relationship reflect Unity—grace—poise. They are expressions of sacred nature of relationship. Contracts: are a small part of a relationship.

12. Resistance • Who could Resist the benefits of personal mastery? Yet many a) People b) Organizations. Because of radical departure from traditional contract between employee & institution. Why companies resist encouraging PM, because • It is “soft” • Based in part on unquantifiable concepts—intuition & personal vision In materialistic culture as ours, it is difficult to discuss some grounds of PM Worst for m of resistance is “Cynicism.” This can be avoided by accurate view of human nature

13. Resistance- continue… • Some fear that PM will threaten the established org of a well managed co • Discipline of personal mastery must always seen as one among the set of discipline of a learning organization ( common vision, common mental models..). • If leaders are capable of building shared vision & motivated to guide local decision makers then we say organization committed to PM.

14. How to develop sense of PM • Personal Vision • Holding Creative Tension • “Structural conflict”: The power of your powerlessness • Commitment to Truth • Using the Subconscious, or you don’t really Need to figure it all out • Integrating Reasons & Intuitions • Seeing our Connectedness to the world • Compassion • Commitment to the Whole

15. Personal Vision Holding Creative Tension Personal Mastery Structural Conflict: The Power of your Powerlessness Commitment to the truth Usingthe Subconscious

16. Personal Vision Personal vision come from within Real vision cannot be understood in isolation from the idea of purpose Vision with no sense of purpose is just good idea Vision is a specific destination, picture of desired future Vision is concrete, while purpose is abstract Vision often gets confused with Competition– competition is useful way of calibrating a vision ,of setting scale. PM is the process of continually focusing & reinforcing on what on etruly wants, on ones vision.

17. Personal Vision—conti… Vision is Multi features • Material • Personal • Service Material – such as Where we want to live?, How much money you want to have in bank? Personal– Health – Freedom – being true to ourselves Service– Helping other– contributing to the state of knowledge in a field It takes courage to hold vision that are not in the social stream ( Clarifying vision is one of the easier aspects of Personal Mastery)

18. Holding Creative Tension We are acutely aware of gaps between our Vision & reality These gaps can make a vision seen as unrealistic or fanciful, which discourages us make us feel hopeless. Gap is source of “CreativeEnergy” – we call Gap as Creative Tension Tension seeks Resolution or release How to reduce this? “2” possible ways • Pull reality towards the vision depends on whether we holds • Pull vision towards the reality steady to the Vision

19. Creative Tension

20. Creative Tension leads to Creative Tension is the Central principle of Personal Mastery Creative tension leads to • Feeling/emotional associated with anxiety • Such as sadness • Discouragement emotional tensions • Hopelessness/worry “Negative“ emotions that may arise when there is creative tension are not Creative tensions itself Creative tension is completely under our control ---the Vision.

21. Creative Tension Current reality becomes the Ally not the enemy An accurate insightful view of current reality is an important as a clear vision Truly creative persons knows that all creativity is achieved through working with constraints

22. “Structural Conflict”: The Power of Your Powerlessness The Reactions are evidence of deep-seated beliefs “Most of us hold one or more opposing beliefs that limits our --ability to create what we really want” Name belief centers • Powerlessness—inability to bring into being all the things we really care about • Unworthiness– that we do not deserve to have what we truly desire. Fritz calls the system involving both the tension pulling us towards our goal and the tension anchoring us to our underlying belief Structure conflicting forces: pulling us simultaneously towards and away from what we want.

23. Structural Conflict

24. How do we overcome the forces of structural conflict ? Fritz identified 3 generic “strategies” • Letting our vision erode • Conflict manipulation or negative vision • Will power Belief changes gradually as we accumulate new experiences-- as we develop personal mastery

25. Commitment to Truth People always want formula, a technique, something tangible that can apply to solve PROBLEM of Structural conflict --- but Commitment to Truth is far more powerful than any technique Here truth is --- relentless willingness to root out the ways we limit or deceive ourselves from seeing what is. --- continually broadening our awareness ( this means continually Deeping our understanding of the structure underlying current event)

26. Critical task in dealing with structural conflict Recognize them and resulting behavior when they are operating. How do I recognize ? ---- warning signal i.e., blaming something/someone for our problem. Develop skill or know how to identify problem as structure. So that able to look at “what I could do?, rather than at “What they had done?” High level of PM here is discovery structures. These structures readily change, gradually change, then need to work more creatively within them acknowledging their origin, rather than fighting the structure.

27. Structure—current reality “Either way once an operating structure is recognized The structure itself becomes part of “ Current reality” They more committed to truth, the more creative tension comes into play, because Current reality is seen more for what it really is? Context of Creative tension Commitment to truth becomes a generative force Just as vision becomes a generative force

28. Using The Subconscious, or, you don’t Really Need to Figure it all out Implicit in the practice of personal mastery is another dimension of the mind (subconscious) Through subconscious that “all of us” deal with complexity. We have all mastered a vast repetitive of skills through “training” the sub conscious. Once learned, they become so taken for granted. We don’t even notice when we are exciting them. Normal Awareness High personal Mastery develops High level of Rapport Sub consciousness helpful Meditation Practice In working more productively with the subconscious mind

29. Integrating Reason & Intuition People with High level of Personal Mastery achieve “naturally” Integrating Reasons & Institution as a by product of their commitment to use all resource at their disposal. System thinking May hold a key to integrating Reason & Institution Institution can’t be explained in terms of linear logic As experienced managers find that many of their intuitions become explicable by gaining facility with systems thinking as alternative language.

30. Fostering personal mastery in an Organization Personal growth is a matter of choice. If forced guaranteed to back fire Similarly organizations with aggressive in promoting PM for their members get into difficulty Leaders building organization where it is safe for people • to create vision, • Inquiry • Commitment to truth are the norms • Where status quo is expected (obscuring aspects of current reality that people seek to avoid)

31. Organization climate will strengthen personal mastery in “2” ways • Continually reinforce the idea that personal growth is truly valued in organization. • The extent that individuals respond to what is offered, organization provide an “on the job training”. Core leadership: is simple be a model. • Commit to yourself to your own personal mastery. • Actions always speak louder than words.

32. Thank you