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Whistling Up an Orchestra: The Value of Teamwork in the Workplace

Posted on 11/14/2013 by ·
Whistling Up an Orchestra: The Value of Teamwork in the Workplace by Laura Stack #productivity

"There's no I in team, but there is in win." -- Michael Jordan, American basketball player. Those of us who gravitate toward leadership in business organizations—or create our own businesses as entrepreneurs—tend to be the independent sort. It seems ironic, then, that we achieve our highest levels of productivity only when we come together as teams. The fact remains that human beings are social creatures. We couldn't have been otherwise and risen to become this planet's dominant species. Nearly everything worthwhile we've achieved has come about as a result of team effort. Even those we often perceive as lone-wolf geniuses—people like Einstein, Mozart, and Da Vinci—worked in a collaborative milieu (e.g., science and music) or surrounded themselves with talented people they could … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: ,

Don’t Think Yourself into a Corner!

Posted on 11/08/2013 by ·
Don't Think Yourself into a Corner! by Laura Stack #productivity

The human imagination is a wonderful thing. When you throw open the floodgates of creativity and embark on a brainstorming session, you can formulate any number of ways to deal with an unsettling problem. Afterward, you can test your ideas to see which one will work best for your specific situation. This is where some of us run into the brick wall of overthinking. Ironically, creativity can be a drawback if allowed to range too freely, especially if you have trouble evaluating the ideas you've dreamed up. I recently read an article in which the authors criticized "idea monkeys," creative people with so many bright, shiny ideas they can't bear to settle on just one and explore it fully. Until they learn to prioritize and focus on their best ideas, they won’t accomplish much. The other … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Productivity · Tagged: , ,

Output, Not Busywork: The True Key to Productivity

Posted on 11/06/2013 by ·
Output, Not Busywork: The True Key to Productivity by Laura Stack #productivity

"Don't confuse activity with achievement." -- John Wooden, American college basketball coach. "Beware the barrenness of a busy life." -- Socrates, ancient Greek philosopher. All my career, I've personal fought my tendency to “stay busy,” as if by doing so, I’ll inevitably be more productive...as if constantly getting things done, one after another, were somehow enough to ensure success. Intellectually, it takes very little effort to refute this tendency, though the proof never seems to get through to the people who need it most—from the $100-an-hour executive micromanaging his $10-an-hour assistant, to the teams who spend fifteen hours a week in meetings and spin off report after report, trying to figure out why they aren't more profitable. Hard work is necessary to succeed in any … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Productivity · Tagged: ,

Worn Out On the Way to Great Thoughts: Dealing with Overwork, Overwhelm, and MDD

Posted on 11/04/2013 by ·
Worn Out On the Way to Great Thoughts: Dealing with Overwork, Overwhelm, and MDD by Laura Stack #productivity

"Man was made at the end of the week, when God was tired." Victorian novelist George Eliot once wryly noted, "It is very difficult to be learned; it seems as if people were worn out on the way to great thoughts, and can never enjoy them because they are too tired." No doubt she was poking fun at the celebrities and politicians of the day, for she had a keen eye for politics and social intrigue, and an astute knowledge of the tendencies of her fellow Britons. I say "she" and "her" because despite her penname, Eliot was actually Mary Anne Evans, a woman who dared write serious novels in a period where most women limited themselves to bucolic romances. Lacking a formal education, she read widely and was heavily influenced by the Greek classics and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. She … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Life Balance · Tagged: , , ,

The Virtual Office as a Versatile Business Tool

Posted on 11/01/2013 by ·
The Virtual Office as a Versatile Business Tool by Laura Stack #productivity

With nearly the entire world now accessible by instant, reliable communications, we can access the ideal specialists to fill out our workplace teams almost anywhere on the planet. The virtual office is no longer limited to the realm of science fiction. It has truly come into its own and can offer enormous time management benefits when built and managed properly. Hiring With Purpose  Your first challenge will be finding the right people to staff your virtual office; however, that's an issue with any team, virtual or not. You usually won’t meet candidates face-to-face, which may make it difficult to get a feel for their personality, integrity, and skill-set before you hire them. Body language tells us a great deal—more than most people realize. But again, technology can come to your … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Tools & Systems · Tagged: , ,

Toward More Productive Leadership: Seven Tips for Motivating Your Team

Posted on 10/30/2013 by ·
Toward More Productive Leadership: Seven Tips for Motivating Your Team by Laura Stack #productivity

"When people are crystal clear about the most important priorities of the organization and team they work with and prioritize their work around those top priorities, not only are they many times more productive, they discover they have the time they need to have a whole life." -- Stephen Covey, American educator and keynote speaker. You can spend months defining your team's core values, articulating your Mission and Vision, and fashioning a flexible, up-to-the-minute strategy—but your whole tower will crumble if your team members don't feel motivated enough to execute rapidly and consistently. If their collective attitude boils down to "Who cares?" then you've lost the game before you've even begun. If that's true, then who's at fault? Well, you can blame your team if you like. You can … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership & Teamwork · Tagged: , ,

Operational Efficiency: Energizing Accountability at the Leadership Level

Posted on 10/28/2013 by ·
Operational Efficiency: Energizing Accountability at the Leadership Level by Laura Stack #productivity

In the wake of the Enron scandal a dozen years ago, I saw a cartoon by Wiley Miller that nicely summed up the situation. The one-panel drawing showed an angry-looking man bursting through a door labeled "Accountability Department"—and finding no one there, because the office's sole occupant was hiding under his desk. In the post-Enron era, it sometime seems like accountability doesn't mean much anymore, especially when we see high-level executives duck responsibility for their mistakes or laziness with a wave of their C-Suite Golden Tickets. But these represent exceptions to the rule, not standard procedure. Accountability does still matter. Rampant Self-Honesty If you've made it to a leadership role, then you didn't get there by accident. Your superiors elevated you to the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership & Teamwork · Tagged: , ,

Maximizing Organization: Ordering the Inputs and Outputs of Life

Posted on 10/25/2013 by ·
Maximizing Organization: Ordering the Inputs and Outputs of Life by Laura Stack #productivity

One of the keys of workplace competence lies in your ability to organize the inputs and outputs in your work life, so you can more easily locate data and resources anywhere: in paper files, on your computer, on the company Intranet, or distributed in your team members' heads. Since information constantly bombards modern workers, the ability to access it efficiently can enhance personal and team productivity to a surprising degree. By now, you probably have the basics down pat: a handy, usable, and garbage-free (HUG) time management system that includes your personal schedule, task lists, and contact info; a clean and uncluttered workspace; a dedicated filing system; and a simple file-naming protocol that helps you locate information quickly. You had to master these survival skills … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Tools & Systems · Tagged: , , ,

Maximizing ROI: Continuous Improvement as a Core Value

Posted on 10/23/2013 by ·
Maximizing ROI: Continuous Improvement as a Core Value by Laura Stack #productivity

“If you’re any good at all, you know you can be better.” -- Lindsay Buckingham, British musician. Good enough is good enough, right? Perhaps that’s true for cleaning your house or writing an email, but as a leader, you know that can be a dangerous attitude. Complacency kills companies, much more quickly and thoroughly than ever before. You and your team must always strive to get better at what you do, because as Oliver Cromwell put it, "He who stops being better stops being good." If Cromwell's name rings a bell, that's because he was a master at bettering himself. He rose from relative obscurity in his 40s to become one of the chief politicians of early 17th century England. He participated in the English Civil War as a member of the Parliamentarians or "Roundheads," rising to a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Performance · Tagged: , ,

Creating an Environment of Accountability: As You Sow, So Shall You Reap

Posted on 10/21/2013 by ·
Creating an Environment of Accountability: As You Sow, So Shall You Reap buy Laura Stack #productivity

"A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody." -- Thomas Paine, American Founding Father. "Corporations are like protean bacteria; you hit them with accountability and they mutate and change their names." -- Doug Anderson, American writer. Have you ever asked your spouse or a friend the rhetorical question, "Whatever happened to accountability?" When both business and government seem determined to rescue the worst wrongdoers from the consequences of their actions at our expense, many of us are left asking this very question. Remember the AIG banking fiasco of 2008? Did the perpetrators suffer for their greed? AIG posted a fourth-quarter loss of $62 billion—the largest in history—and received a huge government bailout check as a prize. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership & Teamwork · Tagged: ,