One of my earliest
memories - being productive - was at home. We were all sitting at the table for
breakfast, and the climate was tense. My brother and my sister were
continuously arguing, and my mother tried to keep up appearances. Rather than calling
for a time-out, she was unable to manage the emotions in our family very well.
So what did I do? I setup a
little performance, it was nothing spectacular as my public consisted of three
people, but I was able to deviate their attention to something more peaceful: I
made them laugh. Normally I would make a
joke or a simple statement that was funny, and if you ask me now I would not
really remember how I did it. But the tension was gone for a moment and
everybody was happy.
At school, I started with
some experiment - that's what I would call it now, but this came sort of
natural and not premeditated. I started to make funny remarks again. Although
the school setting was completely different, there was no tension, I used the
same trick. And most people would laugh. Apart for the teacher whose work was
interrupted, the climate improved in my experience. Everybody was happy.
But then, after being
expelled more than once from the class, sent to the headmaster (male in those
days) and being reprimanded by his words combined with a serious look, I realized that being a clown
was not always a good thing.
Especially when the course
ended, and most of the pupils started to prepare for a next level of education,
I was told that I was still too youngish to proceed, and it was better to try
the same course in another school. 6 to 8 kilometers further away.
That ought to have taught
me a lesson.
But it didn't. Really. After that year, I
went to the same school where my class mates moved one year earlier, and we lost
contact as it was a big institute. In the first two years I continued with my
mechanism of trying to improve the climate, but apart from some support in the
class - I thought I had - the teachers got more and more annoyed. It ended
before summer the second grade that they no longer wanted me there, so I got expelled.
That was a big wake-up
call, and I start realizing that I got behind in education and worst of
all, having "improved the climate" in the end nobody cared, everybody
else had just continued they course.
Improving the climate was
what I thought I did, but perhaps, besides a few laughs I was more of a
nuisance. And the clown in me resigned all though on occasions he entered the
stage with a swift remark that could light up the temperature in a room.
My next step in my "career"
was to gather the bits and pieces I had left behind, meaning trying to figure
out what everybody had learned and I not. I could manage to enter a technical
career after all, leading to a degree in engineering, but I knew nothing of the
more softer sciences, like literature, philosophy and what more have you. On my
own account I started to make up the lost time learning everything I could
learn.
That made it difficult to
connect with my students in my career as they were focused on their technical
problems where my priorities were somewhere else. It were the days of growth in
IT and after finishing my career I had already a part
time job that they were eager to change in a full time assignment.
I asked for a leave first,
because I wanted to see the world, so I left for Japan for two months. Then I
worked for the company another three more months after which I resigned for
good. I wanted to travel some more. This time a world trip. With a real "objective:" South America.
To shorten the story, I
came back started a career in the IT, followed my official education by getting
a degree in economics and wondering what to do with my productive life. I had
been observing others during my trips and found hundreds of people occupied
with their profession. A journalist on the Island of Goree, a Lawyer in Buenos Aires, business owners, coaches, teachers, physicians,
nurses, mail deliverers, researchers, authors, investigators, and so forth.
In my career, I had been a
programmer, designer, consultant, project leader and finally a so called
business architect, in the IT world, but still had not found my real passion. Even
after studying what others do, I could not make up my mind what To Do for
myself. What was I supposed to be: an architect (wrong career), musician (a bit
late for that), consultant (join the league), advisor, but offering what exactly? ...
Until at one moment when I
started my own consulting practice - offering online consulting, all those
travel experience, observing people, economics and culture came together with
an idea about what people - professionals self-employed and entrepreneurs - Do.
Basically they all follow the same pattern.
That idea turned into the
productivity-matrix, of which this is the latest version.
All professionals follow
the same pattern of productive roles, of which there are only four basic roles.
But not everybody puts the same amount of energy in each of these roles. Some
are preferred over others.
This model not only helped
me in finding what I do best and there for focus more on my strengths, it also
gave me an idea for a more purpose-full live. I have been observing the world
for so many years standing on the side line, I could now offer something back
to the world. Many people find themselves in similar situations that they are
not completely happy with what they do, and want to change. Others are more
focused already and just want to improve what they do.
My matrix just offers that,
insight in what you are good at, productivity-wise and means to change of
improve your style or role entirely.