How To Conduct a SWOT Audit on Yourself

Have you conducted a SWOT audit on yourself? I’ve facilitated SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis for organizations and teams, but I recently had an epiphany — why not perform a SWOT analysis on myself? Would it work?

A SWOT analysis is an auditing tool to determine possibilities, direction, and help define the mission and vision of an organization. I thought the same exercise would work for an individual. It was time to try.

With a group SWOT, I begin the analysis with a list of questions, then facilitate a brainstorming session around questions such as what strengths need to be maintained, built upon, or leveraged. What weaknesses need to be remedied, changed, or stopped? What opportunities should take priority, be built upon, and optimized? And what threats need to be countered or minimized and managed?

Will such questions stimulate ideas for improvement with an individual as well as a team? Would a SWOT analysis be a helpful improvement tool for an individual? I tried them on myself, and my answer is yes. The next step is to prioritize and plan activities, in other words, take action. Are you ready?

SWOT Analysis Form

You don’t have to answer every question. Hopefully, a few questions will spur ideas and begin the thought process.

Strengths

What do I do well?
What advantages do I have over my competition?
Are resources such as money, equipment, creativity, and customer base available?
What are my greatest strengths?
How do I stand out from the crowd?
What do I do well that, with a little improvement, could be a real strength?
What are my most competitive skills?

Weaknesses

Where do I see obvious areas for improvement?
What do I do badly?
What areas need immediate improvement?
What do I need to stop doing?
Based on my past mistakes, what should I avoid in the future?

Opportunities

Are there new technologies that I could use to innovate?
What have I stopped doing that I need to renew?
What has recently changed that’s new in my industry or new to me?
Do some of my strengths open new opportunities?
What weaknesses, through development, could lead to opportunities?
What can I do that no one else does or does as well?
Where can I find or create a competitive edge? What niches have my competitors missed?

Threats

What are the biggest obstacles I face?
What and who is my competition?
Could one of my weaknesses be a serious threat? How can I neutralize that threat?
What are my competitors doing better than me?
Could negative political, economic, or technological trends adversely affect me?

Combinations

How can I use my strengths to enable opportunities I’ve identified?
How can I use my strengths to overcome threats?
What must I do to overcome identified weaknesses and take advantage of opportunities?
How can I minimize weaknesses to overcome threats?
How can my strengths help overcome, reduce, or eliminate weaknesses?
What weaknesses expose the greatest threat, and how do I improve the weakness?
What threats could reduce my opportunities?
Are there opportunities that could overcome threats?

I’ll buy a Starbucks for anyone who tries it and is willing to meet to discuss the results. Latte? Are you ready to SWOT it out of the park?

Here’s another take on this — Personal SWOT Analysis.

How Can I Help You?

I like to help people and organizations, but I have three criteria I consider before taking an assignment – I believe in what the organization stands for, I know I can help, and it looks like fun. If you have any questions, Contact Me.

So, does your business have a management training plan? Because, if not, many organizations, large and small, use my book, The New Manager’s Workbook a crash course in effective management, as the basis for their leadership development program. Check it out. It might help you stop putting off what you want to do.

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