Personal Emotional Connection
When teams are connected and feel part of a plan, or like a family they are more productive. When in Las Vegas several years ago, I went on a tour of a company called Zappos. Zappos (Spanish for shoe) are renowned for their fun culture, “family” style environment and amazing staff retention. Primarily an online retailer, Zappos induction process is lengthy and at the end, staff are incentivised to exit the business if they feel they aren’t a “fit” for the culture. Zappos figure it is cheaper to have someone exit the business early, than to exit the business in …
Circle of Trust
When I ask audiences what they do when they don’t know how to do something in Excel, Word or PowerPoint, the answer I hear 99.99999% of the time is “I just Google it!” Whilst one of the benefits of technology is the volume of information available to us to answer our questions with a few keystrokes, it’s also one of its downfalls. Amongst all the data, finding the answer you need in a context that is relevant to you, can produce slim pickings. An alternative I ask my audiences to consider is the Circle of Trust concept. The Circle of …
The compounding benefit of improvement
Every year I invest in my own professional development. Coaching, mentoring or learning from experts who can help me become better than I was yesterday, last week and last year. One of my resources is US consultant Alan Weiss (www.alanweiss.com). I’ve invested in attending several of his programs in Australia and the US as well as purchasing books and access to many of his resources. Alan’s The Tools for Change:1% Solution® says that if you improve by 1% a day, in 70 days you are twice as good. I was working with a CEO of a machinery rental company when …
Drowning in Data?
According to Harvard Business Review’s The Workplace Evolution Pulse Survey1 “Employees are often either drowning in data and content or don’t know where to find it. In a large organization, knowledge may be hidden in hundreds of different systems or emails or documents.” Whilst enterprise collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, Slack or Asana help containerise content, unless staff know, and are regularly reminded, where to look, they will continue to lose hundreds of hours looking for the information they need. When one of our clients first purchased access to our on-line knowledge bank of resources, their intent was …
Productivity Bahamas Style
I joke in my presentations about Productivity, Bahamas style. I use it in the context of the volume of work we deal with in today’s business world and what happens when we have a pleasurable deadline looming. Productivity Bahamas style is the ability we miraculously acquire prior to going on a holiday. It is the ability to easily determine the MUST be done before you leave tasks and activities and isolate those that can wait until your return. But what if we applied it every day? When working with clients I often hear of processes that staff do a certain …
Constructive Communication
I was interviewed on breakfast television about managing email when I was asked an interesting question. It wasn’t scripted or planned and, in fact, I’d never been asked that question before. “How do you know if the tone of your email is correct?” the interviewer asked. I paused for a moment before answering “if you are asking yourself that question, it’s probably a sign that you should be having a conversation instead.” After the interview, I reflected on the question. In business today we have become so email focussed. Whether it is to “cover” us from being told off or …
Choice – The Lens of Decision Making
We often find we are in a situation where we simply don’t know what to do. We may ask colleagues for input and ideas which we may take on board or disregard. In his book the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, former administrative assistant and renowned Leadership Development Expert Stephen Covey suggests start with the end in mind. Considering decision making as a choice made through the lens of “the end we have in mind” can help create clarity in the process. Questioning does the decision to do, or not do, move you towards or away from the end …
Workplace Productivity
The speed and scale at which data is sent and received means workers are literally drowning in data that needs processing. Even discarding irrelevant information, such as reply all emails requires time and decision making. A 2012 McKinsey Global Institute report, The Workplace Evolution1 found an opportunity lies in better utilising the technology organizations already possess. The report identified, the average interaction worker spends around 28% of their workweek managing email and almost 20% looking for information internally or interacting with colleagues to get assistance with specific tasks. Clearly, the answer to workplace productivity DOESN’T lie in adding more. In …
The Power of Internal Knowledge
After completing an in-house workshop for a client, I conducted a number of one on one and small group trouble shooting sessions. In one session, a manager and his two team members came along with a spreadsheet they were working on. Currently, to calculate the priority of various works based on dates and a grading criterion, they did manual calculations. Although they knew there must be a more efficient way, they were hamstrung by lack of time and lack of availability to sit down together and consider and explore ideas. Having a metaphorical “line in the sand” in the form …
Time for Thinking
There are points where organizations tend to take time to reflect on the past and the future. Traditionally these are at the end of the calendar and/or fiscal year. But reality is, regular thinking time is great for productivity. Management guru Peter Drucker once said “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection, will come even more effective action.” In a world of 24/7 ON, we often make the time to reflect and observe our experiences, decisions and interactions. We are too busy moving onto the next item on our to do list. It’s very easy to be …
