Productivity

“I Know You Can Do It!”

18 Aug
by Bridget DiCello

“I know you can do it!”  Why are these such powerful words?  When voiced by a someone about a colleague or team member, they express confidence in that person.  Despite the independent, confident, maybe egotistical approach of people who are difficult to work with, I believe there is a great lack of self-confidence under the surface, being hidden by confident speech.  When someone who they respect, whether because of a great relationship or by only an official relationship, says they believe they can do something, it energizes that person.

You are telling them that you believe in them and that they should believe in themselves.  Too mushy for you?  Well, it’s powerful and used well, can bring about significant changes in performance and levels of cooperation.

Do you tell team members this who you find difficult to interact with?  Can you get yourself to believe it for those who have less than stellar performance?

Why would you say this if you don’t believe it 100%?  There is power in what we say about ourselves and what others say about us.  By saying, “I know you can do it,” you are instilling a determination in that person.

You will find the most success when you follow up by holding them accountable to what they have agreed to.

What if they fail?  Doesn’t that mean you were wrong?  No!  It just depends on what timeframe you are talking about.  If you say they can accomplish something and they get frustrated because they didn’t get it done in a week.  Push harder.  Insist you know they can do it and ask them what the next step they are going to do is.  Everything is accomplished with a series of small steps.

Sometimes team members may at first look to prove you wrong in order to stay in their comfortable current level of performance.  Insist you believe they can do what needs to be done, that they have the ability to learn and to accomplish more than they have.

Try it.  Say, “I know you can do it!” with conviction to each person important to your success once a week and see what happens!

Time Consuming Conversations – Time Wasters or Absolute Best Use of Your Time?

21 Jun
by Bridget DiCello

One of the biggest time wasters in your business day is time spent talking with other people!

AND

One of the absolute best uses of your work time is productive conversations with people important to your success!

Where is the difference?  Working productively with the right group of people is the key to multiplying success.  However, people are social creatures, who often fear something new, who wish to preserve their self-image and self-confidence, and don’t always get to the point in a conversation.  Therefore, if you wish for your ‘people time’ to be productive, it must be done purposefully.

Schedule appointments to talk.  If you plan to meet with another person and have a conversation, do it purposefully.  If you just ‘stop by’ their office or give them a call without a plan, you may end up wasting both of your time.  And they may do the same with you.

Set expectations ahead of time.  If you need to talk to them, plan a time and day and have an “agenda.”  Set a time and day on your calendars, even 15 minutes from now, to give each person time to “have their first reaction” and to prepare for the meeting.  Have the conversation ahead of time:  “When we speak, I will… and you will.. in order to accomplish [goal, task or decision].”  This works both up and down the chain of command.

For example, “I’d like to talk to you about the production logs.  How about Tuesday at 1pm for 30 minutes?  Before then, I will review the log for my areas of concern.  And you could review the log compared to last month’s as well as looking for overall opportunities for improvement.  When we sit down, we’ll go though the last two months, each sharing our observations.  Does that work for you?”  Make sure you get their commitment to the agenda you suggested.  If they don’t agree, edit or change it so that you can both prepare appropriately and not end up arguing about the agenda during the meeting.

If someone comes to you and wants to talk right then, tell them you are right in the middle of something, would like to be able to give them your full concentration and are wondering if you could come see them in 20 minutes.  Then, ascertain from them what it is they need from you when you come see them.  This asks them to think through the results they desire (which they may really not have done yet), and allows you to prepare as well, saving you both time and potential frustration.

Get very good at asking questions.   In these situations, you want to remain in control, specifically of making sure something productive comes out of the conversation.  Gladly take that responsibility.  In order to do that you need to ask questions from the standpoint of genuine curiosity to see where they are coming from and how that relates to what you are trying to accomplish.  With the information you gather, you can then notice excuses, frustrations in the form of roadblocks, and cries for attention that can get in the way of productive discussion.

When you talk, you share information.  You rarely can change anyone’s mind by talking.  By asking curious questions, you get the other person talking.  When they talk, you hear how they are really thinking.  When they talk, you can prompt them to consider your point of view.  Help them to get to a conclusion, considering what you value.  When they talk is when they think through things and may change their mind as a result.

It’s up to you to work to understand the other person.  The difficulty with having a conversation is that it is with a person – who has their own feelings, experiences, biases, expectations, etc.  The first thing they say is rarely the whole picture – as it is for you.  Ask your questions.  Give them time.

Schedule a follow up conversation if important to them or to you.  Set a time and date and the agenda for that conversation as well.

Top 10 Productivity Tips – A Focused Mind

16 Jun
by Bridget DiCello

With summer officially ready to start next week, have you finished your spring cleaning?  Spring cleaning is not only about pulling out the cleaning products and getting rid of clutter.  These practices are great and can clear your workspace and make you more productive.  However, productivity also comes from a clear head which allows you to be focused and efficient.

Top 10 Productivity Tips – Try them and see if you ‘spring’ forward:

1.  Make the right decision every moment of every day. This is my definition of good time management.  It’s a realization that we make many decisions every day of how to spend our time, whether planned or unplanned.  The more we can make those decisions consciously, according to clear goals, the more productive we will be.  Most people welcome distractions to some extent – as a relief from something stressful, difficult or unpleasant.  Act very purposefully in each moment of the day and pinpoint those times you tend to make decisions to do things not in line with your goals, however small.

2.  Revisit your goals. Dust them off.  Clean them up – do the reality check and adjust the ones that are unrealistic, get excited again about ones that might be a stretch but that you are passionate about, tweak others given your knowledge of the year so far.   And if you never did write them down, do it now.

3.  Identify what must be done this month, this week and today/tomorrow to achieve your goals. One of the best ways to be productive and make the best use of your time is to be focused and plan.  I’m not talking about the strategic five year plan.  I’m talking about knowing the 3-5 non-routine things that you want to accomplish this month to ensure you are further ahead and closer to your goals than when you started the month.  Then, decide what 2-3 things you need to do this week to make that happen.  Then look at your plan for today or tomorrow and decide what 1-3 things you need to do in those 24 hours to move forward on the week’s goals.

4.  Know your Best Time of Day. We all have a time of day where we are most productive.  Are you a morning person?  A night owl?  You only really wake up at noon?  Observe your productivity and effectiveness.  What time of day are you at your best?  When you determine when that is, schedule your most important activities at that time.  Avoid doing trivial tasks or putting out fires during that time.

5.  Schedule your day, week and month. Very few of us have schedules that never get interrupted or rearranged.  But, that is not a reason not to plan at all.  Plot out your month, schedule your week and map out your day.  Leave some “Wing it” time to fit in the little things that pop up.  Schedule a block of time to do the emails, phone calls, etc. that fill your day if you are not careful.  When at the end of the day you have not done everything you wanted to because of fires and interruptions, immediately reschedule the activities that you didn’t do for tomorrow or later in the week.

6.  Get rid of the Things to Do List. They haunt most of us.  Instead of putting something on the list, simply schedule it somewhere in your day or week.  If you cannot find anywhere to put it, that means it is really not important enough to you to get done, so don’t torture yourself with leaving it to haunt you on a list.  You may want to keep a “To Do Someday” List for those things that are great ideas, but are just not a priority right now.  Then, put it away and only look at it periodically.

7.  Schedule appointments to talk. If you plan to meet with another person and have a conversation, do it purposefully.  If you just ‘stop by’ their office or give them a call without a plan, you may end up wasting both of your time.  And they may do the same with you.  If you need to talk to them, plan a time and day and have an “agenda”.  More thoughts on that next week…

8.  Do a time log. After you have planned your month, week and day, and taken all the things to do list items and scheduled them somewhere, for just a few days – record what you actually did.  Compare your reality to your plan.  Maybe you need to adjust how you do what you do, become more effective, learn to say no, or delegate more.  Unless you have a good picture of what you are actually doing, it’s hard to have a basis for productive change.   And no, you really don’t know what you spend your time doing until you log it.  Try it and you’ll see!

9.  Stop Procrastinating. Many managers and leaders are procrastinators.  I never believed that about myself until I understood the connection between procrastinating and being a perfectionist.  For the perfectionist, it is rarely ever the right time or there is not enough time to do it right so, “Why do it?”  Not to say that perfectionists are not productive, just that certain things that are new, different or particularly important get put off for the more immediate, urgent and familiar tasks at which they can more easily succeed.

10.  Keep track of information. You may mistake being able to do a lot with being organized.  It’s amazing how much time we spend looking for something, finding information twice, having a conversation or part of it a second time, or sorting through the volumes of information we use to run our business.  Review your systems for collecting, sorting and using information in your business and to develop your team members.  Do they effectively support your mission or do they slow you down?

Comment here or join in our LinkedIn Discussion.

Playing Nice in the Sandbox

27 Apr
by Bridget DiCello

“I can teach people skills. I can’t teach them how to play in the sandbox.”

–Caryl M. Stern, president and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, as quoted by The New York Times

Yes you can! This mindset that is voiced by Ms. Stern is a common way of thinking for many managers and leaders.  However, I am living proof that you can learn these skills as a valedictorian in high school and college who thought the world revolved around book knowledge.  Needless to say you would not have described me as one who knew how to play in the sandbox when I entered the workforce.  Without the mentoring of several important figures in my life, I would have continued to reach a certain level of success because of my competence, but would have been limited in the area of bringing out the best in myself and in others.

The fact is that playing well in the sandbox requires a set of skills just like any other job task.  However, they tend to be a set of skills that many managers and leaders do not have themselves, so they find it very difficult to teach others.

Here are just a few of the skills that are essential to “play nice in the sandbox” that are not inherent in everyone’s personality, but can be taught:

§ Building self awareness – Most individuals do not have a high degree of awareness of why they act and react the way they do, especially to the point where they can change their reaction as necessary.

§ Identifying common goals – Focusing more on daily tasks, many people never take the time to identify goals, much less what goals are universal to their team or organization, and how each person’s contribution is essential.

§ Earning trust – There are a variety of ways people describe trustworthy behaviors.  One of the most common is that people Do What They Say They will Do.  Try this:  in a group of 10 people, ask them for a definition of that phrase, you will get a huge variety of responses.

§    Communicating effectively – Talking to one another is something that seems like it should be really simple, but based on the enormous volume of resources available on the topic, skills such as listening are on the forefront of what people need to learn more about how to do well.

§    Engaging in productive conflict – Rarely more than 5% of the room ever responds that they enjoy conflict when I ask the question.  Yet so much productive conversation, innovative thinking and utilization of creative and unique approaches are never seized without a productive discussion that may stem from or be full of conflict.

§ Interacting with those very different from you – Not only do many individuals not have a firm grasp on their own style and how they come across, but seeing the strengths and benefits of others’ approach is challenging to do without some good tools in your toolbelt.

§    Increasing confidence by improving one’s own performance – There is only so much that we can improve without continually asking and challenging ourselves with what we will do differently.  Consistently doing a great job often feels like enough to us, since our lives are so busy or stressful, and is considered enough by our supervisors who may not wish to challenge us or rock the boat if we are doing a good job already.  Without incremental and continuous success and improvements the confidence of any member of the team can erode, which may result in increased defensiveness.

Share your insights!  Agree or Disagree.  What other skills have you learned that make you a better sandbox member than you were years ago?  What skills have you taught your team that make them easier to get along with – resulting in better business results?

AGHHHH! Meetings!

09 Mar
by Bridget DiCello

“A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.”                                           – Gourd’s Axiom

Ever been to an unproductive meeting? Ever been to a meeting that went too long? Does the word “Meeting” make your skin crawl?

Here’s how to make your meetings more productive:

  1. Create an agenda. Communicate clearly what you hope to accomplish and what will happen at the meeting – make sure you know this before you call the meeting.  If you don’t have clarity, you probably don’t need to meet at this point.  Many meetings are called to address huge problems, but you have to climb that mountain one step at a time.  If your agenda will take six hours, decide on the first step or milestone and cover that in the first meeting.
  2. Consider who to invite. There may be reasons why you need to include certain people due to office politics, but the less the better.  People with a reason and a role make the best participants.
  3. Circulate the agenda. Indicate who is expected to participate and where. Expect preparation on the part of the attendees. Instead of having an agenda item like “Sales Performance”, consider having each person prepare to present their relevant numbers, new initiatives, progress, one challenge, etc. Have them come prepared to report – indicate their participation requirements on the agenda.  If you don’t have the authority to require their participation, have someone with the authority to ‘reply all’ voicing their agreement with the expectation that everyone come prepared.
  4. Start on time. End on time. Prohibit interruptions. Tell them you will start and end on time and stay true to your word.  Communicate that everyone will be expected to stay during the meeting – leaving even for a 3 minute phone call may require you cover material again when they return.  People will appreciate this stringency because their time will be well spent.
  5. Stay on agenda. Set time limits for each item if you need to.
  6. Get the results you said you would. If your plan was to come up with new strategies to address slumping sales, then make sure before everyone leaves strategies have been generated, responsibilities and deadlines have been assigned, accountability measures have been put into action and follow up timeframes have been clearly identified.  Have someone record and email these items.
  7. Address the elephants in the room. If someone is taking the meeting off track, obviously negative or thwarting progress with their participation, address it – everyone will appreciate you for it.  “Mark, I’m hearing that you have some serious concerns about our ability to increase sales.  We are addressing today how we will do that, not if we will.  It’s important we get all our ideas out on the table before we decide that they will not work.  Their viability could be covered in a future meeting.  I’d be happy to get with you after this meeting to address your concerns before that future conversation.  Does that work for you?”

Meetings do not run themselves and getting a group of great people in a room never guarantees that anything will get done, especially what you want to get done. Take charge-only call a meeting if you need one and can adhere to the above guidelines.

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