Detecting Your Operating Strategy

This process of checking, judging , and acting in order to achieve a personal ambition is your operating strategy. You employ such a strategy most of the time. It is not all that your meta-level is up to, but it is one of its most active programs.

By the end of this chapter you will have used some self-reflection to define your operating strategy. You will end up with a few sentences that summarize what you check for, the kind of judgments you reach, and how and why you tend to act on those judgments . You may be struck by how simple it is. You may also be struck by how profound it is.

Keep these four questions in mind as you read along, and at some point take a few minutes to address them:

1. What do you tend to be checking on as you observe and listen to things?

2. How do you make this determination? What kind of factors do you consider?

3. When your checking uncovers what you are seeking, in what types of action do you engage?

4. Why do you act in this way?

My own operating strategy works like this: I am continually checking for whether I sense a block in other peoples thinking. I do this by listening for gaps in their stories. If I determine that there is such a block or gap, I help them remove it. Doing this makes me feel powerful and lovable. On the one hand, the simplicity of this startles me. I know it is accurate, but it feels very strange to both discover it and expose it. On the other hand, the extent to which it explains a lot of what I do is amazing. My familys chorus in response to this disclosure would definitely be, ˜˜Yes! Thats you to a tee. You are always looking for how people are screwed up and then presuming to help. It drives us crazy.

Its a little embarrassing for me to expose my operating strategy. It implies that all I do is look for blocks in people and attempt to remove them. What a machine! It makes me seem so simple and perhaps even narcissistic. After all, what makes me engage in such a strategy may be a sincere desire to help people, but it clearly is also the means for my feeling fulfilled. I like to help other people because it makes me feel good. I seem to think it will make them think Im powerful and maybe cause them to love me back.

Knowing your operating strategy will explain many of the things you do. Mine explains why I do what I do for a living. Does yours?

You can thank your operating strategy for what you have attained so far in your career. After all, you are in your current position because your style of operating on the job revealed your capabilities to your manager or senior management. The upside of being a worrier, for example, is that you take things seriously enough to be motivated to find solutions.

Controllers do gain control, and if they are effective, their control wins them successes. Attention-seekers do indeed get attention and often this is all it takes to make it in the world. Victims have learned to watch out for blame because, at least a few times, it freed them from culpability. The list goes on.

But your operating strategy is also what is holding you back from being more than what you are today. Thats the problem with an operating strategy. Once you have it defined, youll realize that while it may well explain your current behavior, it may also be limiting you because it means you are not checking for other things. For example, lets say you are a victim. Your operating strategy demands that you check to see whether things are under control. If they are not under control, you work to demonstrate how it is not your fault so you are free of blame. By definition, then, you are not checking for other things. For instance, you might miss that other people are in need and how you can help. You are otherwise occupied.

If your strategy is holding you back, you might derive some value from adding to it and tweaking it. You could say, in the case of the previous example, ˜˜I check whether things are under control and whether others are happy. If things are not under control or if people are not happy, then I act to soothe people and locate a cause so the problem wont recur. In this case, the modification to your operating strategy will help you check for two things and redirect your reaction. Consequently, you will focus less on how you are not to blame and more on what can be done about the problems you detect.

Your ego is the natural source of your operating strategy. Your ego works to move you to greater security. It is very motivated. For example, if you are an attention-seeker , you may be constantly checking for whether you are loved. If you judge that you are not loved, you may be moved to influence others one way or another in order to impress them. This is one way to describe what the ego does for a living. It finds a way to move you toward greater security and away from insecurity.

Once you have your operating strategy labeled, you may well choose to continue with it. Nobody is demanding otherwise. The idea is that by knowing that it is yours, you empower yourself to change it if you wish and you overcome some degree of personal bad faith. That is, you dont have to play a game where you pretend your motives are otherwise. You know your operating strategy and you give yourself permission to employ it. A client of mine concluded, for example, that his operating strategy was to check for opportunities to be a hero. If he judged that there was such an opportunity, he would get into gear to be a hero and then be loved. He learned that this was his modus operandi, and he concluded that though it was his automatic programming, it wasnt so bad. He knew what game he was playing. He knew it worked for him.

To some extent, playing out an operating strategy may be a bit of a game. It could imply narcissism or a lack of authenticity. For example, you and others may think you are compassionately listening to someone, but you may just be satisfying some programmed need to listen so that you can perform some function other than simply lending a hand when someone is in need. Perhaps you are busy looking for opportunities to sound intelligent . You may project compassion, but your ulterior motive may be somewhat more selfish. You want the attention.

On the other hand, having an operating strategy does not necessarily mean you are lost in some pernicious program. For instance, I know many parents who are always checking to see whether their kids are in need, and, if they judge that to be the case, they quickly move to make things right so they feel theyve been acting responsibly.

Some people have an operating strategy at work that is different from home. This is fairly common among mothers. At work they may be checking for vulnerability to various possible political attacks, while at home they are engaged in nothing but expressions of love in order to keep the family happy and healthy .

Some people have a conditional operating strategy. They first check for one thing, and then, if there is no issue requiring attention, they check for some other, secondary thing. I know a man who first looks for whether the people he cares about are okay. If they are not okay, he moves to make things better. If they are fine, he checks for what task is incomplete. If he can lend a hand to finish a task, he proceeds to do so.

Conditional operating strategies are often used by people who have adopted some kind of temporary but important mission. For example, when profits are down and there is a directive about cost savings, then fiscal feasibility is often the first condition that must be satisfied for someone listening to other people talking about their plans. If the plans are fiscally feasible , they move to whatever is their default position.