2011 | It's Worth Noting

Productivity

Importance of preserving big blocks of time to think and create

December 30, 2011

Take a look at your calendar. Is it full of scattered appointments, meetings and tasks? Thirty minutes here, sixty minutes there with varying breaks in between? You’re busy. So busy in fact that you’re probably missing one of the most important things you need to do, preserving a few big blocks of time to think and create. It’s nearly impossible to think or create in 15-30 minute spurts. It may be difficult for you to come up with more time, but one thing you can do is to rethink how you calendar to preserve big blocks of time. Here are a few ideas: Make Monday a day to race through all the small tasks for the week. Every task that needs to get done, but will not take more than 30 minutes each to complete, knock out on Monday. At the beginning of each week, move as much of your calendar…

Leadership

The ripple effect of company culture

November 1, 2011

Are you struggling with your team consistently delivering the right sales or service experience to your customers? How do you feel about how your vendors are treated and what they would say about your company or people if you weren’t paying them? If these are challenges in your organization and the solution has been more training, rules, policies, monitoring, etc., you’re solving the wrong problem. The first Jurassic Park has a classic scene where a few people in a jeep feel the dreaded trimmers of a T-Rex fast approaching. On the dash, a glass of water begins to ripple. While trying to film that scene, the special effects department was tasked with making the water ripple from the bottom up, no small feat without CGI. The team searched long and hard for a solution. One day they tried flipping a guitar over and plucking a few strings. To their delight,…

Leadership Productivity

Feeling overwhelmed with tasks? Here’s a 15 min solution.

December 9, 2011

Feeling overwhelmed, anxious or stressed about all your tasks at work or home? A simple and surprisingly therapeutic solution is to take a few moments and write everything down. I promise it’ll be worth the 15 minutes. Grab a blank sheet of paper or find an empty whiteboard. Write down all the words or phrases on your mind. Write until you exhaust what’s on your mind, until you feel a release of stress and anxiety After you get everything written down, you can focus on the underlying problem: lack of prioritization and awareness of deadlines. Now you can create a plan to handle all the tasks instead of being overwhelmed by them! Find three different color markers and start circling words or phrases based on whether they are of high, medium or low priority. When you finish prioritizing, put dates on items that have hard deadlines. When you’re done, go ahead and start working…

Leadership

That’s why we mow the grass

December 23, 2011

I grew up on a large cattle ranch. We raised Registered Brangus. The best cattle were sold for 10’s of thousands of dollars to ranchers looking to improve the genetics of their herds. The ranch was a mix of iconic cattle wrangling and sophisticated lab work, which melded together to produce the best bulls and cows possible. I worked on the ranch during the summers. Two days a week all I did was mow. I mowed acres and acres of grass. I mowed miles and miles of road edges. I’d finish those two days covered in grass clippings with a lingering hum in my ears. One day I asked my dad why we spent so much time mowing grass: “When people come to the ranch, they see how attentive we are to the grass. They assume that if we take that good a care of the grass, we must take…

Technology

Try speaking with pictures instead of words

July 8, 2011

The next time you’re putting together a presentation, ask yourself whether a slide can be replaced with a picture. If you can get your main point across with a picture instead a chart, bullet point list or block of text, do so. Pictures are engaging and memorable. Charts and text are boring and forgettable. As an example, I used the picture above in a presentation when discussing the perilous path ahead. As I made my case, this image stayed on the screen and really drove home the desired takeaway. I could have used complex charts, long bullet lists and blocks of small text, but my audience would have gotten lost in the supporting evidence instead of focusing on the main point. If a simple picture seems too risky, remember you can always supply the charts and text in a supplementary hand-out. A few tips: Use images that do not require their own…

Leadership

You ready to become a communication chameleon?

February 4, 2011

How often do you find yourself saying, “You misunderstood me”, and getting caught up in a prolonged conversation to explain what you really meant? At best, the frustrating exercise costs you time. At worst, the repeated misfires erode relationships. What if you focused all that time and energy on becoming a communication chameleon? A chameleon always changes its color to adapt to its environment, not the other way around. You can immediately become a more effective and others centered communicator by doing the same. Instead of assuming other people need to understand you better, what if you assumed you need to understand them better? Although it will take some time and effort to study your audience and you have to believe they’re worth it, the impact can be significant. The effort alone will help establish a healthier connection that will serve as a conduit for better communication. As you master the…

Productivity

Are you too responsive to unsolicited calls or emails?

November 10, 2011

How often do you take calls from numbers you do not recognize? How often do you feel obligated to reply to an email simply because someone sent it to you? Most people have the phone numbers of people they regularly talk to or want to talk to in their phone or address book. So, when that calls come in without caller ID or without matching one of hundreds of phone numbers you already have, why take the call? Unless you’re in a role or profession that requires fielding these calls, why not let the call go to voicemail and phone back when convenient for you? If you take an unsolicited call when you do not need to, you’re simply letting the caller dictate your schedule. What about the unsolicited email you get? I’m not talking about email from people you want or need to correspond with or spam, but all…

Leadership

Do your adversaries respect you?

September 27, 2011

I just finished reading the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, a wonderful, albeit lengthy, account of Grant’s military endeavors. In several scenes I was struck by the respect both sides showed for the other’s generals and in particular Grant. Prior to one of the battles, the picket lines for both sides were so close that the soldiers drew water from the same small creek the separated them. Grant rode out without his party one day to inspect the scene first-hand. As he approached the lines, the union picket guard called for the troops to salute, but Grant quipped, “Never mind the general”. As Grant rode on he neared the confederate line. Seeing Grant approaching, the confederate picket guard called for the troops to salute the general of their enemy as they would their own. Grant returned their salute. The men seemed to acknowledge that although Grant was waged in an…

Leadership

A quick gauge on relational strength

August 25, 2011

Wondering how strong a significant relationship at home or work really is? Here’s a quick gauge: How comfortable are you saying difficult things? If you shy or run away from difficult conversations, it’s probably because intuitively you know the relationship cannot weather the turbulence. Significant relationships that cannot withstand the turbulence caused by honest and transparent communication are weak. If you find yourself in this situation, how you can invest in the relationship so the thought of saying the hard things doesn’t make you queasy?

Reviews

My Recommended Toolkit – products and resources

August 16, 2011

I have a lot of conversations about tools that I or others find useful, whether products, books, videos, sites or services. In an effort to condense and consolidate the recommendations I collect, I maintain a Toolkit page. The recommendations span the core topics I discuss on this blog including leadership, productivity and technology. Please take a moment to look around and comment if you find something useful or believe a must have is missing!