Pet Peeves
One of my pet peeves is people or organisations that “hide” behind email or text messaging to avoid difficult conversations. If I’ve decided I don’t want to work with someone, I pick up the phone, let them know and give them feedback as to why. If I mess up, I also prefer to pick up the phone and explain myself rather than send an email. If someone else has messed up, I prefer to chat with them, let them know that things happen and focus on what we are going to do to fix or rectify the situation. When we …
What do your colleagues know?
I recently worked with a digital marketing manager and one of her team. They were reviewing two sets of data that needed to be compared and decisions made to determine if the data was up to date. They were both quite skilled with Excel…..and that was the problem. They were exploring creating a complicated formula that would check one to the other when I was asked for feedback. A few clarifying questions and some simple suggestions that didn’t require formulas of any kind, enabled them to have a short discussion and support each other in finding a simplistic solution that …
Distractions
When I ask people how long it takes to get back to where they were after they are interrupted by a phone call, a colleague with a “quick question,” an email or instant message ping, I get varying responses. Online learning platform Udemy’s 2018 Udemy In Depth: Workplace Distraction Report found 84% of workers estimated when they are distracted they are able to refocus in 30 minutes, but 60% of Baby Boomers believe they can get back to work in less than 5 minutes. The report quotes a UC Irvine study that indicates workers tend to compensate for interruptions by …
Time vs Money
I recently keynoted at a professional industry group luncheon on a range of quick Word & Excel tips, tricks and shortcuts. As part of the presentation I asked people to share their top 3 tips from the presentation on a card, which they gave back to me at the end of the program. I mention the 3 tips card at the start of my presentations to act as a reminder that I want them to walk away with tools they can immediately use. I want to make their investment of time worthwhile, because I believe time is more valuable than …
Specific is better than generic
Specific is better than generic. That’s why we have specialist doctors. Whilst we may initially visit a general doctor for a referral to say, a cardiologist, we ultimately go to specialist doctors for help with specialised needs. So why is it when we come across a problem, such as how to do something in Excel, Word or even Outlook, the default position is to go to Google for the answer? A search via Google will instantaneously bring up a buffet of resources for you or your team to work their way through. However valuable time is lost looking for the …
Are you overlooking the obvious?
Whenever I work with teams on their productivity, I notice a number of things, but there is one thing that regularly stand out as an opportunity to increase connection and collaboration that is regularly overlooked. The Expert Every team or organisation has one. The person “labelled” as the expert in Excel, expert at saying “NO”, getting stuff done, whatever it is. They are the “measurement tool” the organisation and their teams use to compare and contrast their own expertise. Am I better at this than that person, or are they better than me? If a person is considered to be …
Every one is NOT like you!
When I was a child, my mother used to espouse the old adage… “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.” Whilst we know that not everyone will like you, it’s important to also know not everyone is like you. What’s the difference? Often when I speak to people about sharing ideas or information with their team, all I hear is frustration. For example, a finance manager who tried to upskill one of his team members by presenting her with, what was for him a life changing book, on how to use various Excel features. A few …
The Gift of Attention
Motivational Speaker and author Jim Rohn is quoted with saying “Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.” In a world where a majority of people are constantly shifting from one task to another, where two minute noodles take is too long to cook, the art of presence and attention is often lost in amongst the “ticking” off of to-do items. Whilst multi-tasking may make you feel like you are getting more done without the gift of attention you may miss the one thing that could have made a difference. A difference to …
Collaboration
Ever driven somewhere only to arrive and realise you don’t actually remember HOW you got there? I don’t mean how, you actually got there, you know that you drove there, but you have no conscious memory of the drive. It’s almost like you travelled on “auto pilot”. A common route you take turning each corner and arriving at your destination unconsciously. So every year, I go to the United States to attend a professional speakers conference. A few years ago it was in Orlando the Walt Disneyworld Resort. Going there was exciting, but I wanted to share with you something …
Plan B, C, D & E
On the odd occasion when I present at conferences or events something goes wrong. On this occasion we’d tested everything, the audio and the data projector prior to me presenting and everything was working fine. There was a break before I started and I took the opportunity to check everything again….glad I did because the data projector had gone all blurry. My first thought was the focus had been knocked, so I checked that, no everything was OK. We restarted my computer and the data projector but still blurry. With 5 minutes before we were due to start, I ran …
