The hugely successful Self-Assessment and Career Development (SACD) course was originally developed by John Kotter, Victor Faux and Charles McArthur at the Harvard Business School. I taught the course for 3 years at HBS and then 33 years at the Darden Business School at UVA. It was an honor to be asked to do the 2nd and 3rd editions of their textbook.
SEE BELOW FOR TWO EXCEL FILES YOU CAN DOWNLOAD.
The SACD process is very powerful. One develops serious MANAGERIAL SKILLS by generating multiple pools of (personal) data, scanning them for recurring patterns or themes, drawing conclusions, and then making high stakes (career) decisions based on those conclusions. I always thought the SACD course was one of the best ways to hone one’s managerial inductive logic skills. Ironically, we usually would get ~20% of the students engaged; the rest were resistant to “navel gazing” as they called it. At Harvard Business School and Darden Business School these were semester-long courses involving ~20 self-assessment tools and two major papers; a Self-Assessment Paper and a Career Development Paper. The underlying theory was that success came from the best fit between who a person habitually and enduringly was and the persistent demands of the job or career. This requires a rigorous analysis of one’s self and of the demands of any opportunity/option. Without knowing both, one cannot assess goodness of fit.
The alternative is the commonly used “trial and error” method where one tries something, decides after two years it isn’t working, and then tries something else. Some students would say “I can’t afford a semester-long class on navel-gazing” and I’d counsel “You can’t afford NOT to take this course because the trial-and-error method is way more costly in time, money and effort AND after two jobs, you STILL may not know what’s a good fit for you.” I had one student who had already accepted a high paying job after his summer internship, took the course, realized the job and career were not for him, gave back his signing bonus and pursued another avenue. Smart man. What he learned was that success is measured by the goodness of fit between who he was and the demands of a job/career.
FindingFIT is not just about one’s professional life. There are at least fifteen —AL aspects of life including Professional, Financial, Material, Professional Associations, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Recreational, Familial, Marital, Parental, Social, Neighborhood, Ecclesiastical, Societal and Political. You can add other dimensions if you wish (eg sexual). I’ve created a small Excel file in which you can rate what you have vs. what you want. This is a measure of contentment with your life.
BALANCING YOUR LIFE
Over time, I developed a larger Excel Workbook that summarize the whole SACD process in one place. Download the CAREER OPTION WORKBOOK or COW here Familiarity with Excel is recommended. The COW connects you to various self-assessment tools, guides you to identify your Life Themes (Habitual Behavior), and shows you how to use those Life Themes to assess GOODNESS OF FIT with as many job options as you want. The COW contains many links, jumps, and instruction so, is best used by those with a solid understanding of the process and of Excel.
NOTE: You don’t have to take the full semester-long approach. I’ve organized the SACD process into three levels of investment: you can take a “Quick and Dirty,” Moderate or Comprehensive approach to your self-assessment–depending largely on how many and which self-assessment tools you choose.
Here’s a link to A Weekend Guide to Self-Assessment and Career Development (SACD) available at Darden Business Publishing for $7. It’s a two-day version of the SACD process.
What Do You Want? A Success Primer 97 page guide to SACD
If the COW by itself is not clear enough, there is a pdf book, FindingFIT, with links to the self-assessment tools and more that also leads one through the SACD process available for $7 at Darden Business Publishing. Here is that link FindingFIT
Self-Assessment and Career Development Third Edition
