How To Create A Life Plan Dashboard

This is the third post in a series on life planning. In this series, I am sharing with you the basics of a life plan and why you need one by going through the details of my own LIFE planning process. Neither my plan nor my process are perfect. In fact, they are evolving from year to year. My hope is that you can take what I do (or even just parts of it) and use it to create your own plan.

life plan

LIFE Plan Document

In my last post, I gave you a detailed description and break-down of my main LIFE Plan document. I described my Roles, Focus Areas, and Goals. I gave you a couple of samples from these areas. I also gave you access to download my [Title Page Summary] and [Godly Father Role].

As you can probably guess, combining all of these pieces into a complete document makes for a long document. The length of the document made it difficult to quickly review it on a regular basis. While I considered cutting it down, I just could not figure out which parts to eliminate.

Dashboard as Summary

So, as a result, I decided I needed a “dashboard” of sorts. With a one-page summary, I felt I could use this document in a weekly review process. I used a compilation of several resources I had found (and created a spreadsheet that would represent the month to month living out of my LIFE Plan. This Dashboard is made up of many sections, or “Gauges”, that help me keep my overall LIFE plan at the forefront of my mind.

Roles, Focuses, and Goals Gauges

For the first section, I started with the eight roles and laid out the sheet in a way that would allow me to see all eight Roles and the corresponding Focus Areas. Then, I left three blanks under each Role for monthly Goals. Each month, I update my monthly Goals, leaving the Roles and Focus Areas the same throughout the year.

Take a look at the picture below to get an idea of what I mean. (Note the Roles and Focus Areas have changed…this is part of my dashboard from December 2010)

life plan

Remaining Sections

As I have said several times, this whole process has evolved over time for me. You may want to stop right there and let your dashboard include only your Roles, Focuses, and Goals Guages. I started here, but have since added to mine. I will share the rest of my Dashboard with you and let you decide if any of it is interesting to you.

Strengths Gauges

In his book Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham describes how working on your strengths is the best strategy. At the end of the book, you take a test and are told your top strengths. I really found the material to be enlightening and began determining how I could apply it to my life.

In a sequel to Buckingham’s book, StrengthsFinder 2.0, author Tom Rath details out a list of 10 strategies for developing each strength described. I picked the top two or three of those actions for each of my top four strengths and put them on my dashboard.

Take a look at this picture to see how this looks.

life plan

Final Gauges

Across the bottom of the LIFE plan Dashboard, I added four more sections based on what I felt was most important to review regularly. You may substitute your own categories here, but I included the following:

1. Prayer Focusa listing of various ongoing areas in which I focused my prayer
2. Reading/Listening Plana list of the books and audio for that month
3. 360 Assessmentmy top ten concern areas from a 360 degree assessment of me
4. Scripturea list of references to the 15-20 verses I am trying to memorize

Here is a visual of these gauges.

life plan

Closing Quote

To close out the bottom of my LIFE Plan Dashboard, I wanted something to keep me focused on the big picture. I learned in my C12 group that I should always be ready with a conversation-starting response to the question, “What do you do for a living?” I used this answer to close out my dashboard.

I work for an unusual company. It is an car dealership group that is a Christian company. We are trying to learn, and to show, how Jesus would run a company if He were the boss.

That’s It!

So, there it is! That is my LIFE Plan Dashboard, in all its glory! If you want to see the entire document together, just [Click Here].

Some of you are thinking I am crazy and others are thinking I am weak. That is fine! I can handle it!

Regardless of what you are thinking, I encourage you to do something similar. I will go into more detail about how I use this Dashboard in my final post in this series, but for now, I urge you to think about what you could create that would be easy to review on a weekly basis. Keeping your life plan in front of you in some shape or form will keep you closer to the path God has revealed to you.

What is your reaction to this dashboard?

Do you see how you could benefit from a weekly review of your life plan?

What do you see to be your next step in the life planning process?

Originally posted 1/26/12

10 Reasons for an Employee Exit Interview (with Purpose)

I called a friend the other day and asked him out to lunch.

While that may not seem unusual, consider that this friend had worked for our company up until that week and was terminated for non-performance.  Now are you interested?

I told him that my offer to buy his lunch had two main purposes.  First, I wanted to take the opportunity to learn from him whether there was anything he thought we could do better as a company.  He is also a Christian and could give me insight about that aspect of our company.  While I think I have a good feel for what happens from day to day in my business, I always hear something in an exit interview that surprises me.  If I am open to it, I can always learn something from an ex-employee.

My second purpose was to take the opportunity, with his permission, to offer advice to him.  I had observed him for close to a year and I felt I had a perspective that could help him.  If I am truly in this business for an eternal impact, why would I not intentionally mentor another Christian when I have the chance?  I felt we had a good enough relationship that he would give me that chance.

I learned about a couple of things that we could improve on immediately.

We had a great lunch and it went just as I expected.  He gave me some honest and thoughtful feedback.  As always, I learned about a couple of things that we could improve on immediately.  Also, as I expected, he was open to my feedback on his performance and future work opportunities.  With our company, he was not in a job that fit his strengths.  We discussed another job he is already considering as well as some he has not considered, based on my assessment of his strengths.  All in all, we both profited from the meeting.

Typical Reasons to Conduct an Exit Interview…

    1. Gain a new perspective about your own business (or department, team, etc.).
    2. Learn what you are doing well…or not so well.
    3. Confirm what you may already know (but have not verified) to be true.
    4. Uncover real reason for leaving company (if voluntary termination)
    5. Make peace with an ex-employee

Additional Reasons from a Christian Perspective…

    1. Gather frank accountability feedback on your witness
    2. Give them frank accountability feedback on their witness (if they are a believer)
    3. Offer advice, mentoring for their future.
    4. If applicable, recommend resources for help (substance abuse, financial distress, etc.).
    5. If appropriate (your witness is intact and ex-employee is non-believer), share the Gospel!

What are your thoughts on this list?

Are there any reasons you would add or remove?

Does your company execute exit interviews?  If not, should you?

If so, do you have a success story to share?