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The Good Manager: Building Your ROI by Building Your Team’s

Posted on 11/21/2013 by ·
The Good Manager: Building Your ROI by Building Your Team's by Laura Stack #productivity

"Vision changes a 'transactional manager' into a 'transformational leader.' While a manager gets the job done, great leaders tap into the emotions of their employees." -- Brian Tracy, American motivational guru. "Employees are the most valuable asset that any organization has. In the past managers said 'jump" and the employees said, 'How high?' Now, the managers are jumping with employees." -- Jacob Morgan, American business writer. During the past generation or so, something unusual has happened in business: managers have evolved from the boss to a team player. Figuratively, they are still in charge, of course, but leaders realized they got farther by being in partnership with their employees. They act more like a visionary facilitator, rather than a strategy imposer. Why? By … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership & Teamwork · Tagged: , , ,

Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: Five Enablers of Productive Achievement

Posted on 11/19/2013 by ·
Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy - Five Enablers of Productive Achievement by Laura Stack #productivity

"Without rest, a man cannot work; without work, the rest does not give you any benefit." -- Abkhasian proverb. "Getting in shape isn't just about looking and feeling better, it’s actually smart business." -- Susan Solovic, American small business expert. We all know we do better, more productive work when we feel well. And yet, we’re stuck in a vicious cycle: when we work long hours and run short on time, we cut into our precious free time—the time it takes to do the things that keep us healthy: exercise, eat and drink properly, and sleep enough. So we find ourselves in an unproductive, unhealthy rut. Clearly, productivity alone doesn’t keep us healthy. In fact, the exact opposite is true. As psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden points out, "Productive achievement is a consequence and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Life Balance · Tagged: , ,

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: ,

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: ,

Continued Progress Requires Constant Reevaluation

Posted on 10/18/2013 by ·
Continued Progress Requires Constant Reevaluation by Laura Stack #productivity

Like that children's song, some workplace tasks just never seem to end (“It’s a small world…”). They constantly cycle, and you can't shift your attention away for long, lest something slip out of whack (sorry for getting that song in your head). As exasperating as this may be, it's the reality. Consider, for example, the constant reevaluation of personal and team workflow. Few things are more necessary—or, in the end, more rewarding. The "good enough for government work" argument doesn't cut it in the white-collar world. So it makes sense to reexamine your tasks regularly, always looking for easier, faster ways to do them. Begin by reading widely in your field, so you know about new breakthroughs and theoretical approaches. Once you have a new workflow process up and running, keep a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: , ,