*This exercise is adapted from “Drawing Forth Personal Vision” exercise from Senge, et al (1994) The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook.

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Personal Mastery Worksheet

This week’s readings focus on the core disciplines for the learning organization. This worksheet is designed to focus on the discipline of Personal Mastery. As introduced in the text readings, personal mastery involves both keeping a personal vision and, at the same time, a clear picture of reality as it currently exists. “Keeping,” in this sense, means making a choice to achieve a destiny through deliberate patience. The connotation of “mastery” suggests a effortless and joyful action that comes from an ability and willingness to “understand and work with the forces around you”. As with most of the core disciplines, leaders must first develop their own mastery in order to model these behaviors and design organizations that can support these disciplines. In this week’s exercise, you will partner with one of your teammates to help each other clarify your vision. Prior to that discussion each individual should work through the following 3 steps. Step 1: Imagine the future: Find a comfortable place in which you can relax and reflect. Think about a favorite spot or moment in order to help yourself get into a positive mindset. Imagine achieving a desirable outcome or result that you deeply desire or have always wished for. Do not allow yourself to consider the impossibility or improbability of achieving that result. Experience what your life would be like in this situation. Describe this experience in terms of what it would feel like and what it would look like. Step 2. Reflect on that vision: Check your result from step 1 to determine if this vision what you actually want? If you found yourself agreeing with any of the following statements (see Senge, et al, 1994, p. 202-203), then there is a chance you have not allowed yourself to state what you actually want.

“I can’t have what I want.” – Suspend your doubts, worries, fears, and concerns and ask yourself if you could live up to your deepest wishes what would happen then?

“I want what someone else wants.” – For the moment concentrate on what you want not what others want for you.

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” – Don’t just write something, anything simply to get it on paper. Putting down something that isn’t personally meaningful to you can be counterproductive. You deserve to create a future you want. Don’t shortchange yourself.

“I already know what I want.” – Visions are created and re-created. Give yourself the opportunity to uncover ideas you had not previously considered.

“I am afraid of what I want.” — Your vision cannot “manage you”, you can always adapt it if you find it to not be what you want.

*This exercise is adapted from “Drawing Forth Personal Vision” exercise from Senge, et al (1994) The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook.

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“I don’t know what I want.” – Block in The Empowered Manager (1991) suggests considering the statement “Suppose you had a vision of greatness: what would it be?” Often reluctance is a reluctance to take responsibility for own lives.

“I know what I want, but I can’t have it at work.” – Ignoring your current reality will not get you closer to your desired future.

Step 3. Create your personal vision: Describe your vision by writing in the present tense what your deeply desired future looks like and what it feels like. The following categories provide some suggested area you might consider describing. Your personal vision may not include all of the following, but rather should describe a picture of your own desired future.

Self image – what qualities do you have? Tangibles – what material things do you own? Home – what is your ideal living environment? Health – what fitness, athletics, quality of life do you have? Relationships – what types of relationships do you have with friends, family, others? Work – what is ideal professional, vocational situation? Personal pursuits – what areas of individual learning, travel, reading, activities are created? Community – what is your vision for the community and society in which you live? Other – what other areas of your life have you created? Life purpose – what is your unique purpose?

Step 4 – Clarify and deepen the vision: To further clarify and deepen your personal vision, and to practice the leadership skill of helping others to develop a personal vision, pair up with a member from your Team and share your personal vision. To deepen a personal vision, one should ask the following two questions about each element of the vision:

If I could have it now, would I take it? Assume I have it now, what does that bring me?

*This exercise is adapted from “Drawing Forth Personal Vision” exercise from Senge, et al (1994) The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook.

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These questions may be repeated (as in peeling back the layers of an onion until you get to the core. You may find that after repeating these questions that different components will actually end up at the same primary desire. The following example illustrates this part of the exercise:

My goal, right now, is to boost my income. What would that bring you? I could buy a house in North Carolina. And what would that bring you? For one thing, it would bring me closer to my sister. She lives near Charlotte. And what would that bring you? A sense of home and connection. Did you put down on your list that you wanted to have more of a sense of home and connection? [Laughs] No, I didn’t. I just now realized what is really behind my other desires. And what would a sense of home and connection bring you? A sense of satisfaction and fulfillment And what would that bring you?

I guess there’s nothing else – I just want that. [Pause] I still do want a closer relationship with my sister. And the house. And, for that matter, the income. But the sense of fulfillment seems to be the source of that I’m striving for.

Take turns using these two questions with each other to help clarify your own vision. You can complete this step through email or a chat in the General Course Chat room (which is not recorded). As a coach, your task is to help others develop their own vision. Be careful not to lead others to your vision for them, but to support people’s own choices. The Team Discussion post this week should be made by each pair (not a team leader). The post should describe what the members felt they learned from the process of defining his/her own personal vision and working with another to help clarify another’s vision.