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Get Back On the Horse: Recovering After a Bad Decision

Posted on 10/28/2014 by ·
Get Back On the Horse: Recovering After a Bad Decision by Laura Stack

"Sometimes you make choices, and sometimes choices make you." -- American writer Gayle Forman. No matter where you stand in the company hierarchy, no matter how well you've done your due diligence, and no matter how careful you are before committing yourself to a course of action, sometimes you're going to crash and burn. Bad decisions are inevitable, and they're rarely obvious except in retrospect. I’ve taken speaking engagements that, looking back, I shouldn’t have agreed to accept. It was a bad decision, and I wish I hadn’t done it. But I learned a lot through the process. Sure, you can minimize the occurrence and impact of mistakes, but short of hiding in your office and refusing to make any decisions at all, you'll never be able to avoid them. Your leaders expect you to make … [Read more...]

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Butting Heads: How to Argue Productively

Posted on 08/05/2014 by ·
Butting Heads: How to Argue Productively by Laura Stack

It’s been said that every person brings joy to others: some when they enter a room and some when they leave it. The latter disagrees just to be disagreeable. But no matter how good natured people are, if you bring any two human beings together, they'll find something to disagree about eventually. The strong personalities inherent in any business endeavor can result in people butting heads at all levels. You might find yourself at odds with a team member, another leader, or with your own superior. When you find yourself at loggerheads with someone for any reason, you’ll want to find the most efficient way to resolve the issue quickly, so you can move forward with the business at hand. Needless to say, I'm not talking about small opinion issues that don't matter in the long run, like what … [Read more...]

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Gearing Up For Success: Preparing for a Quantum Leap in Productivity

Posted on 07/22/2014 by ·
Gearing Up For Success: Preparing for a Quantum Leap in Productivity by Laura Stack #productivity

"Doing is a quantum leap from imagining." -- Barbara Sher, American speaker, author and goal achievement guru. In physics, the term "quantum leap" refers to an electron's sudden jump to a higher energy state without, apparently, passing through the intervening distance. At subatomic scales, things happen that would never happen in our “big” world. Yet, it’s still such a fascinating and attractive notion that people have taken to using the term “quantum leap” when referring to spectacular feats. While it doesn't quite mesh—quantum effects can't really manifest at human scales—it does serve as a useful shorthand for sudden improvement in performance or productivity. But unlike an electron's quantum leap, the productive equivalent leaves clues as to how it happened. Let’s look under … [Read more...]

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Sharing For Success: Smashing Data Silos and Breaking Up Fiefdoms

Posted on 07/15/2014 by ·
Sharing For Success: Smashing Data Silos and Breaking Up Fiefdoms by Laura Stack #productivity

"Data are becoming the new raw material of business." -- Craig Mundie, Head of Research and Strategy at Microsoft. Given the importance of information technology (IT) in the modern business environment, IT terms have inevitably leaked into the common parlance of today's office. For example, "data silos" occur when incompatible systems lack an interface through which they can share data. Databases become isolated from each other, and it becomes increasingly difficult to collect all the data needed to make effective decisions. Often this becomes institutionalized. Groups within the organization consider themselves isolated entities, with no need or desire to work together. Some even compete for limited resources. Ultimately, productivity stagnates due to lack of cooperation, … [Read more...]

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Effective Persuasion: How to Sell an Idea at Work

Posted on 06/19/2014 by ·
Effective Persuasion: How to Sell an Idea at Work by Laura Stack #productivity

"Persuasion is often more effectual than force." –- Aesop, ancient Greek storyteller. Every innovation—from the fishhook to the miniskirt to the Space Shuttle—started with a simple, intangible idea. In business, new ideas help us improve everything from mechanical and work processes to our product lines. In a very real sense, businesses depend upon ideas to survive. This does not mean, however, that those who operate those businesses are invariably open to new ideas. They may prefer sticking with what they know, rather than taking a chance on something unproven. You can yank up your ideas like weeds before they have time to mature. This may be a good thing, but may also prove bad if you can't—or won't—distinguish between the true weeds and the flower seedlings. There may come a time … [Read more...]

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Bitter Reality: Making the Wrong Decisions vs. Making No Decisions At All

Posted on 06/10/2014 by ·

"It doesn't matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions." –- Jim Rohn, American motivational speaker. By the time you reach management, you certainly know the consequences of paralysis analysis. This "vapor lock" of the brain can kill a project through indecision and perfectionism as surely as pulling its funding. In fact, pulling a project's funding represents a cleaner fate, because the project dies suddenly, rather than flopping around like a fish out of water, pretending to be viable for months or years, causing damage to the entire organization. One of my clients, a massive consumer products organization, has a highly “collaborative” culture, which is code for taking forever to guy buy … [Read more...]

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Challenging Your Best: Dealing Proactively with the Bright But Bored

Posted on 05/22/2014 by ·
Dealing Proactively with the Bright But Bored by Laura Stack #productivity

"We must accept life for what it actually is -- a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature." -- Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist. America has enshrined the concept that we're all created equal into the very foundations of our culture. As such, there’s also “the American Way,” which has unwritten ground rules around certain benchmarks of education, work ethic, intelligence, and drive. However, these expectations of equality doesn’t mean we're all the same, though many people misinterpret it that way. Certainly, some people are unequal, in the sense their average is a notch above the mean. You probably fall into this class yourself, since you’re reading this article. I didn’t say that as an attempt at … [Read more...]

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Workplace Conflict: Some Surprising Benefits of Office Friction

Posted on 05/08/2014 by ·
Workplace Conflict: Some Surprising Benefits of Office Friction by Laura Stack

"Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means." -- Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States. Many workplace leaders consider conflict between employees a dangerous thing, and it’s no wonder. We've all seen the results of clashing personalities and company politics: distraction, discontent, resentment, gossip, lost jobs, resignations, and other productivity killers. As a result, some managers go to great lengths to avoid conflict. But overcompensation can prove equally dangerous when it devolves into complacency, or worse, groupthink—where everyone thinks alike and disagreement can't or won't be tolerated. "Yes men" have doomed more than one company, especially when the groupthink became tinged with arrogance (think Enron). For a … [Read more...]

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Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Why Good Enough Usually Is Good Enough

Posted on 05/01/2014 by ·
Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Why Good Enough Usually Is Good Enough by Laura Stack #productivity

Perfection is a lofty goal, but it rarely happens in the day-to-day workplace. And why should it? In most things, striving for perfection represents a waste of resources better used elsewhere. No one really expects you and your team to do everything exactly right every single time. Most of the time, good enough really is good enough—as long as you achieve the minimum requirements necessary and maintain your forward momentum. While you do owe yourself, your team, and your organization a consistently high level of performance, there's a certain point in all everyday tasks where attention to detail turns to perfectionism and, worse, to micromanagement. Both practices inevitably stall productivity. Exceptions to the Rule Admittedly, some tasks require a higher standard. When it's … [Read more...]

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Four Ways to Make Your Business Trips More Productive

Posted on 04/24/2014 by ·
Four Ways to Make Your Business Trips More Productive by Laura Stack #Productivity

As long as there have been business travelers, we've struggled to make our travel time more productive. At one time this involved little more than reading and annotating paperwork, so little could be done while on the move. A bit more was possible with access to a telephone in a hotel, but not much more. The electronics revolution changed all that. With smartphones, laptops, and WiFi, there's no excuse not to be productive while on the go. That said, you can tweak your productivity higher with a few logical preparations before you even step out the door. Try these tips: 1. Prepare well in advance. When you return from a trip, prepare for the next. Unpack your back and refill toiletries as necessary. Reorganize your spare cables for your electronics and recharge as necessary. Pack a … [Read more...]

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