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Delegation: An Extension of Your Hands

Posted on 11/28/2012 by ·

"I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow." -- Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States "The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it." -- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States. Smart leaders soon learn the value of delegating responsibilities and authority to team members. You can try to do it all, but if you do, you'll keel over within a few weeks from sheer exhaustion. Obviously, you need metaphorical hands to extend your reach. You have a staff for a reason. Ideally, each possesses talents, knowledge, and abilities that combine to form the extra hands Mother Nature didn't see fit to give you. That being the case, … [Read more...]

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

Every Day, in Every Way: Fostering an Attitude of Continuous Improvement

Posted on 11/19/2012 by ·

"He who stops being better stops being good." -- Oliver Cromwell, British soldier and politician. When he was 10, my son Johnny took guitar lessons. Before long, he'd taught himself to play Sweet Home Alabama. I was impressed—and surprised to discover he wasn't interested when his guitar teacher offered to show him how to play it even better. When I asked Johnny why, he just shrugged and told me, "None of my friends play the guitar, so they think it's cool no matter how I play. I figure I'm good enough, so I don't need to work to play it better." This answer rocked me back on my heels a little. I've based my career on helping people continuously improve their productivity, so my dad’s “good enough for government” expression (my dad the retired A.F. Colonel) expression doesn't fly with … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Performance · Tagged:

Encouraging Productive Team Behavior

Posted on 11/14/2012 by ·

"In motivating people, you've got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example—and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved." -- Rupert Murdock, Australian-American media mogul. "Productive achievement is a consequence and an expression of health and self-esteem, not its cause." -- Nathaniel Branden, Canadian psychotherapist and author. One of the best things about being a leader is being responsible for the productivity of an entire team. That's also one of the scariest things about being a leader. Your team's accomplishments (or lack thereof) reflect upon you, so you have to run a tight team. Now, that doesn't mean you have to channel a military commander. My father, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, taught me that … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · 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: ,

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: ,

Calling for Backup

Posted on 10/10/2012 by ·

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." -- Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Prussian Field Marshal. Sustained workplace productivity rarely flows from seat-of-the-pants, instinctive navigation. Only the strategic application of well-honed time management skills and advance planning will consistently keep you on your organizational course. This holds true, regardless of it your ultimate goals are fantastic profits or a better future for everyone. A crisis can always force the occasional impromptu response, of course, but you can minimize the disruption by making sure you always have a Plan B warming up in the wings. So take the following steps to drastically lower your odds of falling prey to the unexpected: Back up your electronic data properly. This statement may seem so obvious … [Read more...]

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No More Mr. Unreliable!

Posted on 10/03/2012 by ·

"Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible." -- Hannah Arendt, German-American political theorist. Some things we take for granted and never really notice them until they’re missing. Little things, mostly, like fried rice with our cashew chicken or those silly stickers on bananas. But we can take big things for granted too: good health, rain, and clean air. The sudden lack of any of these can prove devastating. In the workplace, reliability ranks high on the Taken for Granted list. Everyone taking part in your team's workflow process, from the boss on down, must be consistently reliable. Actually, your name should be synonymous with Mr. or Ms. Reliable, especially when other’s work depends on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Performance · Tagged: ,

High Performer or Average Worker? How Can You Quickly Tell?

Posted on 09/24/2012 by ·

"The best in every business do what they have learned to do without questioning their abilities—they flat out trust their skills." -- John Eliot, American author of Overachievement: The New Model for Exceptional Performance.   Adding a new person to your workplace team is always a gamble. Usually you can't tell, just by looking, who will consistently deliver top-notch performance that makes the entire team shine...and who will just show up, do an average job, and fade into the woodwork. To clarify, "average" does not mean "bad." Average people define the norm and provide the benchmarks by which we recognize high performance. They do their jobs adequately when properly directed, and you can depend on them in most things. But you build your team around high performers—the "quantum … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Performance · Tagged: , ,

With Us or Against Us?

Posted on 09/19/2012 by ·

Do your coworkers consider you a productive team player—or an annoying bottleneck in the workflow process? You may find this a hard question to face, but unflinching self-honesty is essential to maximizing your personal success. So no matter how helpful you believe you are, take the time every once in a while to review your workplace productivity through the eyes of your teammates. Never forget: your work represents part of a group effort that requires everyone involved to pull in the same direction. You may very well pull harder than anyone else on the team...but if you pull the wrong way, you're hurting, not helping. Seven Questions If you can't determine your productivity status at a glance, then ask yourself these seven questions—and answer them truthfully. 1. How much do I really … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Performance · Tagged: , ,

Unstylish Efficiency: On Delivering Substance Over Style

Posted on 09/05/2012 by ·

"The closest thing to a law of nature in business is that form has an affinity for expense, while substance has an affinity for income." -- Dee Hick, founder and former CEO of VISA. "Don't settle for style. Succeed in substance." -- Wynton Marsalis, American jazz musician.   If you've been working in your chosen profession for more than a few years, then you've probably run into your share of co-workers who seem to value style over substance. To these individuals, perception trumps reality—and sometimes even defines it. Remember comedian Billy Crystal's stint on Saturday Night Live back in the 1980s? Among other things, he portrayed a smarmy talk show host who liked to say, "It is better to look good than to feel good. And dahling, you look...mahvelous!" That captures the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Time Management · Tagged: , ,