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Teaching the Mission: Helping Your Team Understand and Achieve Alignment

Posted on 10/16/2013 by ·
Teaching the Mission: Helping Your Team Understand and Achieve Alignment by Laura Stack #productivity

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance." — Brian Tracy, American motivational speaker and writer. In 2001, energy company Enron self-destructed in a scandal that still amazes those of us who witnessed it. Despite the core values literally carved into the façade of its Houston headquarters—Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence—top executives completely lost track of their company's official Mission and Vision. Instead, they focused on feathering their own nests and defrauding stakeholders to the tune of billions of dollars. As a leader, you can't allow anything like that to happen on your watch. … [Read more...]

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

Constant Improvement Through Feedback Loops

Posted on 10/11/2013 by ·
Constant Improvement Through Feedback Loops by Laura Stack #productivity

When he was 10, my son Johnny took guitar lessons. One week he taught himself to play the song Sweet Home Alabama, practicing it for hours. When Johnny showed off his new song, his music teacher said, "That's great! Here's how you can play it even better," and showed him how to do a riff. To our surprise, Johnny was resistant to learning it. Later, when I pressed him about it, he said, "None of my friends play the guitar, so they won't know if I'm doing a bad job. They think it's cool no matter what I play, so I don't need to work so hard to change it." Naturally, I gave him the "mom talk" about how personal improvement is also done for the sake of it, not just for other people; that you take pride in knowing you did your best; that you should always strive to get better; and besides, … [Read more...]

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Crack That Whip! The Importance of Self-Discipline

Posted on 09/23/2013 by ·
Crack That Whip! The Importance of Self-Discipline by Laura Stack #productivity

Do you complete your workplace tasks within the promised timeframes? Or do deadlines ever slip past you, even as you curse your own stupidity? When that happens, it’s hard to focus on anything productive, because a dark cloud hangs over your head, and guilt sucks the energy right out of you. If you ever think, "Maybe I shouldn't be doing this right now," you're probably right. How much time could you save by tightening your self-control? If you arrived at work and didn't stop for coffee, didn't talk to a friend, didn't fall into the email trap for 90 minutes, where could you use the extra time? Instead of wasting your day, start cracking the whip of self-discipline. Several areas to think about include procrastination, tardiness, and perfectionism. Um, Can We Talk About This … [Read more...]

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Accept the Credit When It’s Due—and the Blame, Too

Posted on 09/20/2013 by ·
Accept the Credit When It’s Due—and the Blame, Too. Moving from the “Employee” to the “Employer” Mindset by Laura Stack #productivity

Accept the Credit When It’s Due—and the Blame, Too. Moving from the “Employee” to the “Employer” Mindset Accountable people follow through on their promises, and they don’t blame others if unforeseen circumstances trip them up. They honor Harry S. Truman's favorite expression: "The buck stops here." To what extent do you refuse to blame other people or external factors when things don’t go right? Accepting personal responsibility is challenging, even for otherwise competent professionals. Case in point: before every speaking engagement, I send my client a ten-question email survey to forward to 15-20 random audience members (the responses help me tailor my comments to the group and make sure I'm addressing the correct issues). One of the questions is, "What is the number one thing you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership & Teamwork, Performance · Tagged:

Beyond the Talk: Why Only Performance Matters

Posted on 09/18/2013 by ·
Beyond the Talk: Why Only Performance Matters by Laura Stack #productivity

"An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises." -- Mae West, American actress. "Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live." -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States. If talk got things done, humanity would already have colonies all over the solar system, and we'd probably be reaching for the stars. Instead, we all but gave up on manned spaceflight more than 40 years ago, and decided to send (relatively) cheap robotic probes to the planets instead. Not that they've been a waste; we've learned a lot. But our entire species is still living on one planet. My point? Simply that with a few therapeutic exceptions, no amount of talking and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Performance · Tagged: ,

Excellence, Planning, and Effort: Baking the Productivity Cake

Posted on 09/04/2013 by ·

"One of the great challenges of our age, in which the tools of our productivity are also the tools of our leisure, is to figure out how to make more useful those moments of procrastination when we're idling in front of our computer screens." -- Joshua Foer, freelance American journalist and 2006 U.S.A. Memory Champion. As a rule, you don't just stumble across productivity—and it doesn't strike you out of the blue like a gift from Heaven. One of the most cogent observations I've seen on the subject comes from motivational speaker Paul J. Meyer: "Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort." Print out that quote, frame it, and hang it prominently on your wall. Take it to heart—because Meyer certainly … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: ,

The Execution Continuum: Your Means of Spinning Victory from Chaos

Posted on 08/28/2013 by ·
The Execution Continuum: Your Means of Spinning Victory from Chaos by Laura Stack #productivity

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."—Sir Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of the U.K. "Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99 percent alignment." -- Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, American authors of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. As with so many other things, business has borrowed the concepts of "strategy" and “tactics” from military and games theory, where the two are typically regarded as discrete if interrelated topics. When business still moved at human speed, we could afford to consider them separately. In the Electronics Era, we no longer can. We need to perceive tactics and strategy as what they truly are: points on an Execution Continuum, along with several other critical … [Read more...]

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Productive Mentoring

Posted on 08/26/2013 by ·
Productive Mentoring by Laura Stack #productivity

Leaders tend to have one of two opinions on the value of mentoring inexperienced workers: either "it's something that would be nice to do if only I had the time," or "it's a complete waste of time." But in truth, mentoring is never a waste. In fact, it can boost the productivity of both the mentee and mentor significantly, and by doing so, it contributes to the success of the entire organization. But mentoring becomes a productivity accelerator only when taken seriously—i.e., when it becomes more than lip service or an educational tool indulged in as time permits. Productive mentoring kicks it up a notch, driving performance and challenging mentees to grow into their roles in profitable ways. Making It Work Everyone involved must be willing to take time for mentoring; you can't … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: ,

How to Escape a Workplace Productivity Rut

Posted on 08/23/2013 by ·
How to Escape a Workplace Productivity Rut by Laura Stack #productivity

By now, you've internalized the basics of time management in an effort to maximize your productivity. You know you must be self-disciplined, shut down distractions, eliminate time-wasters, improve information handling, and make every effort to smooth out your workflow. The problem is, you can do everything right and still end up with poor results if you're not careful. After following the straight and narrow path for a while, you may discover that you've worn yourself into a constrictive rut, where speedy reaction to the evolving business environment becomes difficult. In the end, your efforts to save time might result in a willingness to do no more than necessary to meet minimal standards. It's happened to us all at one time or another, sneaking up on us due to lack of time, poor … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Productivity · Tagged: , , ,

Million Dollar Productivity

Posted on 08/19/2013 by ·
Million Dollar Productivity by Laura Stack #productivity

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Filed Under: Personal Productivity · Tagged: