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The Triumph of Substance Over Style: 5 Ways to Prove Your Worth

Posted on 04/21/2016 by ·
The Triumph of Substance Over Style: 5 Ways to Prove Your Worth by Laura Stack #productivity #leadership

Perception creates reality in most people's minds, but this tendency can lead you astray. You set the tone for your team, so make a commitment to putting substance over style. Refuse to lock your team into rigid ways of thinking and doing, in which the company line matters more than the bottom line. Within ethical, moral, and legal limits, do what benefits your organization most and gets you closer to its goals. To wit: 1. Break Free from Bureaucracy. Many organizations settle on what they consider "best practices" and stay there indefinitely. But "best" changes with technology and culture. Don't become so hardened that you refuse to take advantage of new "bests" as they become available and the old bests become outdated. 2. Stop Confusing "Busy" with "Productive." Who cares how many … [Read more...]

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

The Zen of Teamwork: 4 Steps to High Efficiency

Posted on 04/19/2016 by ·
The Zen of Teamwork: 4 Steps to High Efficiency by Laura Stack #productivity

The greatest advantage of teamwork is that it achieves what individuals can't, through the medium of simple cooperation. Making personal goals secondary to group goals may seem difficult, but it pays off for everyone in the end. Instilling effective teamwork as one of your team's core val¬ues will make the team: 1. More Efficient. Typically, more efficient also means faster, since many hands make light work. Teamwork is much more effective when team members work together closely throughout the process. Many tasks have no clear-cut edges, so when people work separately, performing separate parts of a project in isolation and then piecing them together later, overlap and duplication may occur. On a team where the members inform each other of their progress, that's easier to avoid. Ongoing … [Read more...]

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Looking Back on What Worked and What Didn’t: Conducting a Project Post Mortem

Posted on 04/14/2016 by ·
Looking Back on What Worked and What Didn't: Conducting a Project Post Mortem by Laura Stack #productivity

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result."—Attributed to Albert Einstein, German-American physicist. If the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term "post mortem" is a medical examiner or the novel by Patricia Cornwell, then you're in good company. But the term is useful for more than describing autopsies; it also has a long history of use as a business term, at least when applied to recently finished projects. The idea here is to examine the entire venture, from beginning to end, and identify two categories of actions: things you and your team did right, and things you did wrong. That said, don't treat a project post mortem as a blame game. Use the process as a teachable moment so you can move forward confidently, having … [Read more...]

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Running a Tight Ship: 4 Ways to Maximize Efficiency

Posted on 03/29/2016 by ·
Running a Tight Ship - Laura with the Captain's Hat by Laura Stack #productivity

Maximizing personal and team productivity requires notable efficiency. Make sure these practices get your attention: 1. Leverage Technology. Embrace and encourage new trends, devices, and software as they appear. Let your workers use their own devices for business purposes if they want. Why not take advantage of a productivity source you don't have to pay for? Meanwhile, provide instant "anywhere" access to workplace information. Let team members work from alternate locations with Wi-Fi when it's practical. When a member of my office manager's family is ill, it's easy to let her work from home for the day, so she can still be productive. With Wi-Fi, Evernote, and all the snazzy apps we have access to, workers can tap into work information no matter where they are. Give them a secure, … [Read more...]

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Five Productive Ideas I Learned From Jason Womack

Posted on 03/17/2016 by ·
Five Productive Ideas I Learned From Jason Womack by Laura Stack #prductivity

I had the pleasure of attending a seminar today from a fellow faculty member of the Institute for Management Studies (my husband John Stack is the Chair of the Denver chapter), JASON WOMACK. Here are five awesome ideas I gained on how to boost your productivity: 1. If a meeting suddenly gets canceled, what’s the first thing you usually think? “Ooooh I can catch up”! Instead, Jason suggests you can never get caught up. Even if you “do email” all day on a Sunday, you’ll never get caught up. Instead, you should get ahead with any unexpected “found” blocks of time. Work on a long-term project and make progress—not just maintain. 2. Technology is massively key to personal productivity! Here are some great resources Jason offered: www.usemyiphonebetter.com and Speedkeys. Also use … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, Time Management · Tagged: , , ,

The Information Flood: 5 Lifelines to Save Leaders

Posted on 03/15/2016 by ·
The Information Flood: 5 Lifelines to Save Leaders

The only way to overcome "infobesity" is to triage merci­lessly, reducing the amount you take in forever. Keep these tips in mind as you work toward stemming the info-tide. Limit Your Exposure to External Information at Work. Instead of checking social media during your lunch and breaks, actually take those breaks. Eat, talk to people, go for a walk—just get away from your desk. You have enough work-related information to deal with. If you check the news, don't let links and ads to drag you off in unproductive directions. Check Your Email As Little As Possible. Focus on email several discrete times a day, rather than keep­ing your inbox open and constantly monitoring it. I process email five to seven times a day, getting the inbox down to zero (using Outlook's "Move to Tasks" … [Read more...]

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Whip Your Meetings Into Shape: 4 Tips for Maximizing Leadership Productivity

Posted on 03/10/2016 by ·
Whip Your Meetings Into Shape: 4 Tips for Maximizing Leadership Productivity

As you can likely attest, most business meetings waste pro­ductive time and last far longer than they should. But until we learn to communicate telepathically, meetings will remain a necessary evil—not only as a means of exchanging ideas and information, but also as a way of building relation­ships with others. That doesn't mean you have to like them, but you can cer­tainly make them more tolerable by applying these tips: Decide If the Meeting Is Even Necessary. Can you handle the issue with a few emails or a conference call? If so, do it. Why call a full meeting if you don't need one? Start On Time. If people don't arrive on time, tough. Start when you agreed to, and don't start over just because individuals arrive late. Latecomers can check the minutes later to find out what … [Read more...]

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Time = Money²—3 Leadership Tips for Stretching Your Most Valuable Resource

Posted on 03/08/2016 by ·
Time = Money² 3 Tips for Stretching Your Most Valuable Resource by Laura Stack #productivity

How much do you value your time? Maybe you've never seriously considered the implications of that ques­tion. To lead effectively, however, you have no choice but to address time-wasters and why they matter. You're important to your organization; otherwise, you wouldn't hold the position you do. Therefore, your time must also matter a great deal. Don't assume your value is equivalent to your salary; the amount of money you earn is likely to be a lot less than the true worth you bring to the table. That's one reason your leaders value you. To do the best job possible, value your time both realisti­cally and highly. Depending on your leadership position, your value to the organization may be thousands of dollars per hour. Once you've pinned down the value of your time, use these tips as … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Time Management · Tagged: ,

The Carrot and the Stick: Choosing the Right Motivators

Posted on 02/23/2016 by ·
The Right Motivation by Laura Stack

Forget offering bored employees the same old brass rings to grab for. Make them want to go for the gold. I don't necessarily mean financial motivation, though that may help. What they really need is purpose: a chance to excel at something that matters. Here's how to help them avoid boredom: Keep the Communication Lines Open. Touch base regularly with your top employees, allowing them open access to you. Stay alert for signs of boredom. Ask them what they're working on that excites them—or what would excite them if nothing currently does. Offer Them Tasks With a Real Chance of Failure. You likely have blue-sky projects that could be extremely profitable if done well. They're challenging enough that most people can't achieve success, so hand these to your bright but bored. The … [Read more...]

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Taking Your Team from Good to Superior

Posted on 02/16/2016 by ·
Taking Your Team from Good to Superior by Laura Stack #productivity

Why do merely good companies still outnumber the superior ones by a factor of hundreds to one? The problem isn't the concept of moving from good to great to superior; it's the implementation. Leadership frequently fails because we can't see our greatest flaws. It's not just a matter of not seeing the forest for the trees; too often, we can't see our flaws because we aren't humble enough to accept a forest exists at all. So I recommend the following four practices: 1. Set Aside Your Ego. You are not your company, your division, or your team. You lead and represent them, and therefore have an obligation to provide vision and guidance in all things. So when you make a decision, don't assume that because it works for you, it works for everyone. Step up to the plate, lead by example, and … [Read more...]

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