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Every Day, in Every Way: Fostering an Attitude of Continuous Improvement

Posted on 11/19/2012 by ·

"He who stops being better stops being good." -- Oliver Cromwell, British soldier and politician. When he was 10, my son Johnny took guitar lessons. Before long, he'd taught himself to play Sweet Home Alabama. I was impressed—and surprised to discover he wasn't interested when his guitar teacher offered to show him how to play it even better. When I asked Johnny why, he just shrugged and told me, "None of my friends play the guitar, so they think it's cool no matter how I play. I figure I'm good enough, so I don't need to work to play it better." This answer rocked me back on my heels a little. I've based my career on helping people continuously improve their productivity, so my dad’s “good enough for government” expression (my dad the retired A.F. Colonel) expression doesn't fly with … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Performance · Tagged:

Organizing Your Space

Posted on 11/16/2012 by ·

Tackle a single one-hour organizing project each weekend, such as a drawer, shelf, cabinet, closet, or box. Don’t attempt a huge task, such as an entire bedroom. Break it down into manageable bite-sized chunks. When it’s time to begin, don’t just dump everything out on the floor. You’ll run out of time and steam and shove everything back in, only to be more disorganized than before. Instead, get five sturdy boxes. The Put Away box contains items that are out of place and go somewhere else. The Give Away box is for items that are in good repair that you no longer want or use to give to charity or sell. Use the Store Away box for items that are going to be used again in a reasonable amount of time but not regularly. The Toss box contains items that are broken, old, worn, or in bad … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Tools & Systems · Tagged: , ,

Encouraging Productive Team Behavior

Posted on 11/14/2012 by ·

"In motivating people, you've got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example—and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved." -- Rupert Murdock, Australian-American media mogul. "Productive achievement is a consequence and an expression of health and self-esteem, not its cause." -- Nathaniel Branden, Canadian psychotherapist and author. One of the best things about being a leader is being responsible for the productivity of an entire team. That's also one of the scariest things about being a leader. Your team's accomplishments (or lack thereof) reflect upon you, so you have to run a tight team. Now, that doesn't mean you have to channel a military commander. My father, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, taught me that … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: ,

Think Beyond Your Desk: Applying Cross-Functional Thinking to the Workplace

Posted on 11/12/2012 by ·

"No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it." -- H.E. Luccock, former Professor of Homiletics at Yale Divinity School. In 1988, the great Peter Drucker predicted in a famous article, "The Coming of the New Organization," that most organizations would have embraced cross-functionality within 20 years. In contrast to the purely functional ethic defined by Adam Smith and Frederick Taylor, businesses would more readily coordinate and share tasks across all levels, increasing response time for the customer's benefit. As visionary as he was, Drucker missed the boat here. While most business schools do emphasize the cross-functional approach nowadays, relatively few real-world organizations practice it in any significant way. Indeed, corporate training often teaches the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: ,

Get Away From It All to Improve Your Productivity

Posted on 11/09/2012 by ·

  Want to know a sure way to improve your productivity? Take a vacation! Working non-stop without breaks is counterproductive, as is focusing on work to the exclusion of family, friends, and fun. Some people claim to be so swamped they don't have time for a break— not for vacation, not for a social life, not for anything. I am severely unimpressed by people who brag about the long hours they put in each week. All this tells me is they're not managing their time well. You have to figure out how to get the results your job requires, leave the office on time, and get home to your life. If you're working too many hours, perhaps you're not delegating properly…or you haven't hired enough people…or you don't trust your assistant…or you haven't learned to use your email program … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Life Balance · Tagged: , ,

Lead, Then Get Out of the Way: How a Good Manager Makes Life Easier for the Team

Posted on 11/07/2012 by ·

"A good manager is a man who isn't worried about his own career but rather the careers of those who work for him." -- H.S.M. Burns, former President of Shell Oil. "One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people's excuses for failure." -- Robert M. Townsend, American economist. From a productivity perspective, one can describe a workplace team using the metaphor of a precision machine. Team members are interlocking parts, which while they vary in significance, all require the others for the engine to function effectively. As in a car, alone and disengaged, the individual parts aren't good for much. As team leader, you play several crucial roles here: a) MECHANIC. You keep the productivity engine in good repair and provide the lubrication it needs to purr like a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: ,

The MEET Formula Long and the Short of It: Strategy and Tactics in the Modern Workplace

Posted on 11/05/2012 by ·

"All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved." -- Sun Tzu, ancient Chinese military strategist. All leaders must possess a strong understanding of the difference between strategy and tactics. Simply put, strategy represents long-term thinking: the framework organizing what you do over years or decades to achieve your ultimate goals. Tactics involves individual steps towards those goals—the things you do today to prepare for tomorrow to achieve that strategy. Leaders surely recognize these definitions, but employees don’t always understand the distinction, because most focus on the operational day-to-day activities required to keep the money flowing. As a result, it can be difficult to get them to invest time on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: ,

Nothing But Cream: Promoting Excellence in the Workplace

Posted on 10/31/2012 by ·

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of Heaven and Earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'"   -- Martin Luther King, Jr., American minister and civil rights leader.     We've all heard the saying "the cream rises to the top," and anyone who's ever handled raw milk knows this to be true. Business leaders love to apply this term to the workplace—but rarely do they bother to tell you that, with a little hard work on your part, your team's output can be mostly cream. Like everything else it takes time, careful planning, and consistent guidance—but that's why they … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: , , ,

Organize Your Life: Me time

Posted on 10/29/2012 by ·

Laura Stack on Channel 7 News in Denver on their special Migh High Living series. There are ways you can carve out time for yourself and not feel guilty or selfish. Time management guru Laura Stack tells you how you can find some "me time." … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Time Management · Tagged:

Tame Your To-Do List

Posted on 10/26/2012 by ·

To-do lists are helpful, because they relieve your brain of the need to remember everything. To effectively organize your time, you actually need TWO different to-do lists: a master list and a daily list. A master to-do list is an on-going, running memory list of everything you want to do someday. A daily to-do list is essentially your plan of what you truly intend to get done today. It's NOT an on-going list of everything you need to do, as in the master to-do list. A daily to-do list is the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see at night. It keeps you focused and on-target throughout the day. When you think of something to-do, ask yourself when you're going to do it and record it on the appropriate list: the daily list for today and the master list if not. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Tools & Systems · Tagged: , ,