Personal Vision.

Imagine that you have two cohorts of people within your organisational structure and you wanted to increase their productivity and job satisfaction.

Let’s say you had three.

One cohort you just left to their own devices.

The second you ask to formulate a vision for how they were going to be better employees and to write that down.

The third you said formulate a vision and plan for how you would have a richer and more engaging and productive life. Make a life plan.

Set these cohorts head to head and look to productivity over a one year period.

What you find is a 10% productivity improvement in the group you have developed a personal vision and no improvement in the group that only specifies corporate goals. 

- Jordan Peterson

Dr Peterson explains why when organisations ask me to deliver Good Decision Making workshops, I begin by inviting participants to privately identify their ‘Weekend Widget’. I don’t need or want each person to share it. Only to acknowledge its existence and that it’s separate (usually) to their weekday widget. We then move on to identify our Weekday Widget.

I have learned that unless we identify and distinguish between our Weekend and Weekday Widgets, we risk expecting our boss to meet our ‘personal vision’ as Dr Peterson describes the Weekend Widget. This leads to workplace conflict as we act out our frustration and disappointment that our boss and others are failing to serve our Weekend Widget.

According to Dr Peterson, in just the first five minutes of a Good Decision Making workshop, I can potentially improve my client's productivity by 10% AND helped every participant to identify their Weekend Widget.