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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: , ,

You Reap What You Sow: Creating an Environment of Accountability

Posted on 10/24/2012 by ·

"A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody." -- Thomas Paine, American Founding Father. "Corporations are like bacteria; you hit them with accountability and they mutate and change their names." -- Doug Anderson, American writer. Have you ever looked around and wondered, "Whatever happened to accountability?" Many of us have, especially when both business and government seem determined to rescue the worst troublemakers from the consequences of their actions at our expense. Remember the banking fiasco of 2008? Do you suppose any of the perpetrators suffered for their self-indulgence? Well, consider this: Immediately upon receiving a huge government bailout check, AIG—which posted a fourth-quarter loss of $62 billion, the largest in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Performance · Tagged: ,

Check Your Six: Practical Measures of Workplace Success

Posted on 10/22/2012 by ·

"If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us." -- Jim Rohn Even after a century of constant refinement, flying an airplane remains a hazardous occupation. Pilots must pay constant attention to altitude, direction, speed, and potential obstacles. This holds true whether they can see for a hundred miles, or no farther than the cockpit's windshield. So how do pilots maintain contact with reality when they can see nothing but clouds? By flying with instruments—a requirement every pilot must master before soloing. They monitor compass, altimeter, horizon indicator, speedometer, and a dozen other instruments, while using radio and radar to check their … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Time Management · Tagged: , ,

Sharpening the Scalpel of Strategic Focus

Posted on 10/17/2012 by ·

"Strategy renders choices about what not to do as important as choices about what to do." -- Michael Porter, business author and professor at Harvard Business School. Business people have no time for the irrelevant. We certainly can't afford to chase poorly defined goals, so hardnosed practicality generally rules. The less important aspects of one's work must either take a backseat to the crucial or be removed altogether, leaving only the lean, profitable core. The best tool for achieving this result at a managerial level is strategic focus. Use these tips to sharpen that focus to laser keenness: 1. Define your marketplace position. Assess your current state, vis-à-vis items like fiscal health, market share, infrastructure, and labor costs. Can your resources keep up with current … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Performance · Tagged: ,