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Please Leave a Message: Business Voicemail Etiquette Tips

Posted on 10/19/2015 by ·
Please Leave a Message: Business Voicemail Etiquette Tips by Laura Stack #productivity

"Why do extroverts have voicemail? To never miss a call. Why do introverts have voicemail? To never answer the phone." ~ Devora Zack, American business writer Here is the weekly roundup of activity from Laura Stack’s blog, columns, podcast, and other featured articles. Scroll down to read the complete roundup of productivity resources to help you create Maximum Results in Minimum Time. This week on the Blog Please Leave a Message: Business Voicemail Etiquette Tips Of all the communication methods commonly used in modern business, telephony—e.g., telephone calls and associated technology—is probably the oldest and best established. For the Millennials among us, there hasn't been a time when voicemail didn't exist; in fact, many of you grew up with it on your cell phones. Some of us, on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Productivity · Tagged: ,

Deciding What NOT to Do Next

Posted on 10/16/2015 by ·

Sometimes NOT doing something is the more productive choice. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, Podcast · Tagged:

Where You Fit: Understanding Your Role on the Team

Posted on 10/12/2015 by ·
Where You Fit: Understanding Your Role on the Team by Laura Stack #productivity

"Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." – Vince Lombardi, American football coach. Here is the weekly roundup of activity from Laura Stack’s blog, columns, podcast, and other featured articles. Scroll down to read the complete roundup of productivity resources to help you create Maximum Results in Minimum Time. This week on the Blog Where You Fit: Understanding Your Role on the Team In some ways, the modern workplace represents an odd bundle of contradictions. At one level, each of us focuses on our own careers, the goal being to work our way up the ladder until we reach a comfortable spot—or even the top. We expect others to see to their own well-being and careers. But on another level, because … [Read more...]

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

Laura Stack’s Productivity Pro eNewsletter, September 29, 2015

Posted on 09/29/2015 by ·

Here is the weekly roundup of activity from Laura Stack’s blog, columns, podcast, and other featured articles. Scroll down to read the complete roundup of productivity resources to help you create Maximum Results in Minimum Time. This week on the Blog Quick Group Decision-Making: A Brief Guide  One of the hobgoblins of teamwork is groupthink. This occurs when a team rubberstamps the decisions of the team leader or a particularly strong personality without debate. Groupthink destroys creativity and innovation, and it often occurs because people have learned that fighting for something isn’t worth the effort. If they get punished for even trying, or no one listens to them anyway, they will stop giving input. This results in a declining, hidebound team that just goes through the motions … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged:

Quick Group Decision-Making: A Brief Guide

Posted on 09/28/2015 by ·
Quick Group Decision-Making: A Brief Guide

"Most of us are going through life without interrogating whether our decision-making processes are fit for purpose. And that's something we need to change - especially when the stakes are high and the decisions are of real import." – Noreena Hertz, English economist. One of the hobgoblins of teamwork is groupthink. This occurs when a team rubberstamps the decisions of the team leader or a particularly strong personality without debate. Groupthink destroys creativity and innovation, and it often occurs because people have learned that fighting for something isn't worth the effort. If they get punished for even trying, or no one listens to them anyway, they will stop giving input. This results in a declining, hidebound team that just goes through the motions and falls apart when the guiding … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: , ,

Avoiding Indecision and Analysis Paralysis

Posted on 09/25/2015 by ·
Avoiding Indecision and Analysis Paralysis by Laura Stack

Don't get sidetracked by overthinking and indecision. How? Listen in today. (C) 2015 Laura Stack, All Rights Reserved. www.TheProductivityPro.com … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, Podcast · Tagged: ,

Email Communication and Etiquette: How to Use Email Productively with Your Team

Posted on 09/21/2015 by ·
Email Communication and Etiquette: How to Use Email Productively with Your Team #Productivity

"One look at an email can rob you of 15 minutes of focus." – Jacqueline Leo, American magazine editor and media producer. Email has revolutionized global business, allowing for detailed 24-hour communication where telephone communication isn't practical, freeing us from bending over backwards to match up times zones across a large planet. Most of the same people who understand its advantages probably also consider email the bane of their existence, since they receive hundreds of messages a day. Like most technology, email has proven a double-edged blade, its nearly miraculous advantages often offset by pure annoyance. With a few precautions and a modicum of care and protocol, email offers invaluable benefits for team communication ( ←CLICK TO TWEET), whether your team works together in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Productivity · Tagged: , ,

Laura Stack’s Weekly Productivity Pro eNewsletter – September 15, 2015

Posted on 09/15/2015 by ·

Here is the weekly roundup of activity from Laura Stack’s blog, columns, podcast, and other featured articles. Scroll down to read the complete roundup of productivity resources to help you create Maximum Results in Minimum Time. This week on the Blog Quick and To the Point: Texting and Instant Messaging Protocols in the Workplace Communication may be the most important factor in any partnership, and it’s certainly a glue that binds a team together. But it comes in many forms, especially in the workplace. Two of those are texting and Instant Messaging (IM), which are common means of modern business communication today. How do we make the best use of each in a teamwork environment? Read the full article. This week on LinkedIn: Pairing Up: The Advantages of a Team of Two at Work Though … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Personal Productivity · Tagged: , ,

Quick and To the Point: Texting and Instant Messaging Protocols in the Workplace

Posted on 09/14/2015 by ·
Quick and To the Point: Texting and Instant Messaging Protocols in the Workplace by Laura Stack #Productivity

"Email, instant messaging, and cell phones give us fabulous communication ability, but because we live and work in our own little worlds, that communication is totally disorganized." -- Marilyn vos Savant, American newspaper columnist. Communication may be the most important factor in any partnership, and it's certainly a glue that binds a team together. But it comes in many forms, especially in the workplace. Two of those are texting and Instant Messaging (IM), which are common means of modern business communication today. How do we make the best use of each in a teamwork environment? At first glance, IM and text seem very similar, and sometimes we use the terms interchangeably. But they actually refer to distinct methods of electronic communication. Text is of course phone-to-phone, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity, Personal Productivity · Tagged: , , ,

Call Him, Email Me, Text Her: The Many Methods of Business Communication

Posted on 08/31/2015 by ·
Call Him, Email Me, Text Her: The Many Methods of Business Communication by Laura Stack #productivity

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said." – Peter F. Drucker, Father of Management Theory Recently, I read an article discussing how, in addition to basic methods of written and verbal communication, savvy workers also learn to decode non-verbal communication. While I agree that represents a valuable ability and an interesting subject, it struck me just how many different methods of language-based communication the average business has access to nowadays. Less than 30 years ago, we had just a few. All you Millennials now moving into management and starting businesses of your own have access to an amazing array of communication methods, whereas I can still remember the days before CDs and desktop computers (floppies, word processors, and interoffice mail). The … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity, Personal Productivity · Tagged: ,