Skip to content

JA5. Personal Growth and Development Strategy

Statement

In Unit 5 of your course, you’ll be working on your personal growth and development strategy based on the mission and vision you developed in the Unit 4 instructor-graded assignment.

  • Review Figure 5.21 in section 5.7, Formulating Organizational and Personal Strategy with the Strategy Diamond in the text, Management Principles.
  • Create a graphic or an outline capturing the topics in Figure 5.21 and populate the first field of the graphic/outline with your personal mission and vision from Unit 4.
  • In the diamond section list 2-3 strategies for achieving your personal mission and vision.
  • In the last section, create a list of 3-4 personal goals and objectives related to your personal mission and vision.
  • Write an essay presenting this graphic/outline and discuss how you might apply the strategy diamond to your personal growth and development objectives.
  • Highlight and discuss the arenas and differentiators, personal vehicles, personal staging and pacing, and the personal economic logic that you identify in this process.

Answer

Introduction

A strategy is a plan of action that will connect the Mission and Vision statements to goals and objectives. It consists of two stages: formulation and implementation. The formulation involves gathering information, analyzing, and making decisions to formulate a collective plan; this step maps to the Planning step in the POLC framework. The implementation involves executing the plan, monitoring, and adjusting as needed; this step maps to the Organizing, Leading, and Controlling steps in the POLC framework (Carpenter, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2010).

The Strategy Diamond presented by Carpenter et al. (2010) is a framework for checking and communicating a strategy. It consists of five elements: arenas, differentiators, economic logic, vehicles, and staging. The framework is useful for formulating both organizational and personal strategies.

The text will discuss each element in the diamond separately, and then it will integrate them into a Strategy Diamond and Personal Strategy graphs, and conclude with a description of the alignment of vision, mission, and values with strategy. The text may use the first person to provide a personal touch to the statements.

Mission and Vision

In the previous assignment, I developed a personal Mission and Vision statement, which are as follows:

My Mission is to use my hard work, dedication, analytical skills, integrity, family-centeredness, philosophical thinking, and swiftness to deliver software projects that make a difference in the world.

My Vision is to become a Senior Software Engineer who specializes in embedded systems for medical devices, combining my Pharmacy and Software Engineering knowledge to make a difference in the world.

Personal Arenas

Arenas focuses on the needs and opportunities in the market that the firm will address. In personal growth and development, they are the areas of life where I will be active, have an opportunity, and be able to fit in. My arenas are:

  • Software industry: Unspecialized software projects would be the starting point.
  • Medical devices and software industry: This is a very specialized field in the software industry that connects the software, medical, and embedded systems knowledge.
  • Schooling and education: A specific set of certifications, knowledge, and skills are required to enter the industry.
  • Networking: Building relationships with people in the industry is essential for getting the right information and opportunities.

Personal Differentiators

Differentiators focus on what sets the firm apart from its competitors. In personal growth and development, they are my unique features (skills, personality traits) that set me apart from others and give me advantages when compared to others. My differentiators are:

  • Dual-degree holder: I have both a Pharmacy (5-year program) and a Computer Science (4-year program) degree that gives me the skill sets of both industries.
  • Proven success: I have successfully switched careers through self-learning and hard work, and then I have put a strong foot in the software industry despite my late start and disadvantages due to the lack of a degree qualification in the field.
  • Value-driven: My values of being hardworking, dedicated, analytical, and philosophical are favorable traits for the industry.
  • Industry shortages: The general software industry is in shortage of skilled engineers, and the shortages in specialized fields are even more intense.

Personal Vehicles

Vehicles focus on how the firm will get to the arenas. In personal growth and development, they are the means through which will put me in the right place to achieve my goals. My vehicles are:

  • Computer Science degree.
  • Medical software engineering master’s program.
  • Personal relevant projects.
  • A mentor within the industry.

Personal Staging

Staging focuses on the timing and next steps instead of thinking of strategy as a static and monolithic plan. In personal growth and development, they are steps that implement the strategy and move me closer to my goals. My staging pace is:

  • Complete my Computer Science degree in 1-2 years.
  • Complete a 1-2 years master’s program in medical software engineering in 4-6 years.
  • Find a mentor in the industry (maybe during my master’s program).
  • Develop personal projects that are relevant to the industry, starting after I finish my university degree.
  • Stay in touch with the news in the healthcare industry, starting now by following relevant news sources on social media, websites, and newsletters.

Personal Economic Logic

Economic logic focuses on how the firm will deliver value to the market at a profit. In personal growth and development, it is how I will profit from the strategy. My economic logic is:

  • The software industry is a high-paying industry, and the more specialized the field, the higher the pay.
  • Master’s degree holders are usually paid more than bachelor’s degree holders even in the same position.
  • The benefits of the industry include -usually- full health insurance, on-premises living apartments, and other benefits that are not common in other industries.
  • Getting a position in the industry opens the opportunity for greater career growth and opportunities.

Diamond and Strategy Graphs

The following graph represents my strategy diamond developed using the template provided by Miro (2024):

My Strategy Diamond
Figure 1: My Strategy Diamond

Then, the diamond was integrated into a full strategy also developed using the template provided by Miro (2024):

My Strategy
Figure 2: My Strategy

Alignment of Vision, Mission, and Values with Strategy

The relationship between Mission, Vision, and Values with Strategy and Objectives is best described by Figure 2 above. The Mission, Vision, and Values are fed into the Strategy Formulation process, where the plan and objectives are developed. Then, during the Strategy Implementation process, the plan is executed, with constant visits to the objectives to discover any deviations and adjust the plan accordingly.

This tells us that a strategy is a dynamic plan that has many parts, as opposed to a static monolithic concept (Carpenter et al., 2010). In our strategy, we can see the words/concepts/actions that appeared in the Mission, Vision, and Values clearly used in the Strategy. In other words, strategy is the bridge between the Mission, Vision, and Values and the goals and objectives; in case of any misalignment, the strategy would yield different results than what was intended; thus, we may not achieve our goals.

Conclusion

In this text, the author used the Strategy Diamond framework to develop a personal growth and development strategy. The author identified the arenas, differentiators, vehicles, staging, and economic logic that will help achieve the personal Mission and Vision, and then put those elements into a Strategy Diamond and Personal Strategy graphs. It was an interesting exercise that included a lot of self-reflection on the past and future, and also constructing a plan that will help achieve the goals.

References

‌