Updated December 21/2009
"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way. "
-- John C. Maxwell, Author and Speaker
The
Boss drives his men - the Leader inspires them.
The Boss depends on authority - the Leader depends on goodwill.
The Boss evokes fear - the Leader radiates love.
The Boss says 'I' - the Leader says 'we'.
The Boss shows who is wrong - the Leader shows what is wrong.
The Boss knows how it is done - the Leader knows how to do it.
The Boss demands respect - the Leader commands respect.
Author Unknown
http://a5lions.homestead.com/toolbox.html
http://www.theleadershipresource.com/
http://www.lifeclever.com/584-ways-to-design-a-business-card/
Seven Pillars of Character
Trustworthiness
Respect
Responsibility
Fairness
Caring
Citizenship
Personal Honesty
The Lions Toolbox provides you with ideas that work as you recruit and retain Lions! Some of the articles here come from International Lions Toolbox which has many valuable chapters on how you can make your Lions club stronger. In this section, I am hoping to explore some of these and maybe refresh your memory on others.
I will also include other articles which may help us on our Lions quest. If you have found interesting tidbits about improving the Lions Movement over the years, please feel free to send them to me so I can add them here and everyone can profit from them. Remember that some of these articles can very well apply in your everyday work life or even your personal life. Enjoy and if they do help you, I usually add the link so you may either comment to the author himself or go search out more about a specific topic. Happy reading.
Just click on the article you are interested in and you will be taken to it. Hope this index helps. Thanks.
Here is a little postscript to always remember:
Index
A project needs a vision July 7
ABCDE Method for Setting Priorities Nov 12/08
Accelerate your career and get noticed Nov 8/07
Accentuate the Positive and Save Time Oct 19/07
Accepting Compliments Graciously August 24
Accomplish more each day: easy delegation steps Feb 25/09
Accomplishing your goals Feb 20/07
Accountability Jan 20/09
Achieving Success by Expecting Success Nov 21/07
Achieving success in business and life Feb 11/08
Appreciation in Action July 5/08
Applications to increase your productivity-all free May 31/07
Appreciative Teambuilding April 10
Are You a Builder or a Climber Nov 8/07
Are You a Positive or Negative Thinker April 30/08
Are you fighting yourself Feb 7/07
Are you listening to me August 18
Are you making a difference? March 6/07
Are you rationalizing your decisions Jan 23/09
Art of effective criticism Nov 1/07
Art of giving criticism Feb 13/09
Art of leadership: To influence willingness Jan 21/09
Art of persuasion Feb 11/08
(The) Art of Persuasion May 29/07
(The) art of no July 9/07
Art of taking criticism Feb 9/09
Art of verbal intimidation: Learn to fight back July 30/08
As a Leader, What is Your\ Priority
Ask for what you want without fear of rejection Feb 15/08
Assertive Communication March 2/07
Attitude and Goals October 12
Attitude determines Altitude April 8
Attributes of a Leader August 21
Avoiding Common Managerial Mistakes July 10
Avoiding Micromanagement Oct 8/09
BACKSTABBERS LOSE Oct 14/08
Balance Leads to Success Feb 12/09
Balancing Task - and People-Oriented Leadership November 1
Barriers to Great Communication Dec 14/07
Barriers to success Oct 14/08
Be a team player April 7/08
Be Positive, But Realistic July 28
Be professional anywhere June 4/07
Be the guy who wears the nametag everywhere May 11/07
Become a Better Presenter May 8/09
Become a highly effective speaker/Presenter April 15/09
Become a Positive Thinker August 24
Becoming a better networker Nov 8/07
Becoming a great leader Sept 21
Becoming a Motivational Leader Oct 14/08
Being a team player April 30/08
Being Coachable Feb 25/09
Beliefs and Values About Leadership July 11/07
Better Relationships at work Oct 29/07
Better Time Management May 18
(The) Biggest Barrier To Success October 14
Blow Your Own Horn Nov 3/07
Body Language Tips that will help you make a good impression July 6
Bouncing back from bad feedback April 7/08
Brainstorming August 18
Brainstorming Dec 2/09
Break Away From Old Ideas Dec 30/08
Break through the barriers June 14/07
Breakthrough the illusion of limitation June 11/08
Bring Something Check Your Ego June 22
Budgetting August 18
Build a better team Oct 29/07
Build a Positive Team Feb 10/07
Build Friendships With Good Listening Skills July 6
Build New Leadership Skills: Experience Greater Success Oct 22/07
Build Your DreamTeam August 15/07
Building a Good Team April 9
Building a Great Board June 11/07
Building A Successful Team April 25/08
Building Client Relationships August 2/07
Building Positive Attitudes December 13
Building Positive Attitudes at Work February 1/07
Building Strong and Supportive Relationships at Work March 21/08
Building success from the ashes of failure Feb 19/07
Building team collaboration Feb 11/08
Building Trust November 30
Business and entrepreneurship course you can take Oct 31/08
Business decisons you will be proud of April 21/08
Business Fundamentalism, One-track Minds and Magic Bullets October 4
Can you lead Feb 11/08
Cant miss ways to defeat procrastination habit June 27/08
Caring and Sharing Projects April 28
Celebrations and Events to Build the Team
Challenges to Pursue June 17
Change: Embrace or Resist It April 8/09
Change Your Circle Of Friends Feb 25/07
Change your midset to improve your productivity June 11/08
Changes: Resistance is futile October 19
Changing Your Focus Can Produce Remarkable Results June 7
CHARACTERISTICS *OF A GOOD LEADER! - June 6/07
Characteristics of Highly Effective Entrepreneurial Employees October 5
Characteristics of successful people May 25/07
Charismatic Leaders October 11
Chasing the dreams or Chasing the money Aug 18/08
Classic Principles of public speaking Nov 8/07
Coaching Persistence May 25
Collaboration requires trust and respect Sept 8
Coming To Grips With The Time Management Myth June 3/09
Commandments Of Success May 30/08
COMMITMENT May 23
Common Sense Management Tips January 7/2007
Common trait of highly productive people companies and countries Feb 19/08
Communicating Ideas July 26
Communication and self management to reduce stress Feb 20/07
Communication, Thought and Time August 29
Communication Works for those Who Work at it August 2/07
Completing your projects on time July 5/08
Conduct your own leadership seminar Feb 11/08
Conducting Meetings October 19
Confident Coaching Oct 23/07
Confident non-verbal communication Feb 14/07
Conflict Management December 3
Conflict Resolution and Communication Skills Sept 2
Conflict: Your guide to resolving any heated argument July 30/08
(The) CONNECT Model Sept 13/09
Conquer Your Fear of Rejection Nov 3/07
conquering stage fright March 1/08
Constructive Criticism August 25
Constructive Criticism: A Process that Works! Sept 11
Contrarian Leadership July 4
Conversation and Interpretation tips August 18
Cooperative Conflict Resolution Sept 21
(The) Cost of Competence August 31/07
Cracked Foundations of Project Management Feb 10/07
Cracking the leadership code Feb 12/09
Crazy like a fox persuasive like a weasel Nov 13/07
Courage in the face of failure June 11/08
Create Links to Communicate at Your Best August 24
Creating High-Impact Nonprofits Oct 17/07
Critical Behaviors in the Crunch Feb 2/09
Danger! Do You Groupthink May 30/08
Dealing With A New Boss October 2
DEALING WITH BURN-OUT July 11
Dealing with burnout without quitting Nov 3/07
Dealing with difficult coworkers Oct 29/07
Dealing With Difficult People Sept 21
Dealing with difficult people Aug 29/08
Dealing With Disappointment Oct 19/07
Dealing with feeling unappreciated April 3/09
Dealing With Jealous Coworkers October 2
Dealing with Manipulative People May 25
Dealing with Workplace Stress in 2009 Nov 2/09
Decision Making: Cautious or Courageous? May 16/07
Declutter Your Career Feb 10/07
Defeating the inner procrastinator with Life Coaching Feb 15/08
Define your Goal and Get There May 27
Definitions of Leadership August 21
Deliver a Presentation Feb 11/08
Delivering a Powerful Speech -Fail Proof Tips Jan 14/08
Describing a task Sept 13
Detecting Lies July 6
Developing A Vision For Your Future April 6/09
Developing Compelling People Skills Oct 26/07
Developing Leadership Qualities August 25
Developing Your Vision to Succeed December 13
Difference between mission and vision-what is it? Sept 11
Discovering Work Life Balance May 27
Do you have the characteristics of an effective leader Sept 22/07
Do you make the mistake of describing a task as easy or no big deal
Do You Trust Yourself Sept 13
Do you walk your talk May 21
Does Your Presentation Pass the Google Test April 8/09
Don't be so quick to judge June 4/07
Don't try to control everything Sept 6
(The) Driving Force Behind Success March 29/07
Dynamics of Decision Making April 10/09
Earn the Respect of Others March 10/09
Effective Communication August 24
Effective Employee Recognition April 25/08
Effective Meetings - Tips October 19
Efficient vs. Effective August 21
Ego: Friend or Foe August 24
(My) eight best negotiation tips June15
Eight Keys of Creative Leaders Sept 8
Embodied Leadership Dec 3/08
Embracing Change August 25
Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: The Optimal Thinking Way June 3/09
Empower other people to help you achieve what you want Feb 25/09
Empowering Other Sept 9/08
Employee communication tips Nov 28/07
Empowering Others Can Bring Success to You March 16/09
Encouraging young people to be entrepreneurs Jan 31/08
End Conflict Now! April 22/09
Enhancing Success by Enhancing Accountability October 14
Essential areas to being a great leader Sept 9/08
Essential tips for productivity Feb 28/08
ensure your project gets done April 21/08
Evaluating Your Associations Sept 2
Evaluation Your Associations Part 2 Sept 13
Evaluating Your Goals July 10/09
Everyone is Important Dec 9/08
Everyone is a leader March 19/08
Everything i needed to know about being a dad i learned from being a CEO Nov 30/07
Excuse Buster April 3
Executive Decisions-What really goes into them? Sept 11
Facing The Enemies Within May 12
Fail proof tips for delivering a powerful speech Jan 23/08
Failure Is Not An Option...Or Is it Jan 23/08
Fake deadlines don't motivate people June 24
Fear Of Failure: The Leading Cause Of Procrastination May 31/07
Fifty Phrases that Kill Creativity October 25
fifty success habits Mach 19/08
FIND_BUSINESS_TIPS_IN_EASTERN_THOUGHT
Find the hidden message in your prospect handshake Jan 16/08
Finding the Slacker-Worker Equilibrium Feb 7/07
Finding Time June 7
Finding ways to save time and accomplish more towards goals June 25/07
Fit Volunteerism into your busy day May 11/07
5C’s of Leadership July 11/07
Five Es of Meetings Sept 11
5-Point Plan for better meetings July 28
5 Reasons To Journal Your Goals June 5
Five Weeeeeeird Tips...for Great Meetings Oct 26/07
Focus on Membership Growth July 5 From the June Lions Magazine!!
Focus on the fundamentals Sept 22
Focussing on the essentials May 8/07
Formulas for Business Success May 7/08
Fostering Responsibility Sept 26
Foundation of Leadership Oct 20/08
Freeing Your Inner Think Tank July 2/07
Friendship and success Oct 5/07
Fulfill Your Boss’ Expectations June 18/07
Fundraisers do and don'ts May 27/08
Fundraising April 4
gaps that separate inaction from action June 4/07
General Leadership October 19
Generating ideas when you're drawing a blank August 11/08
Gentle Art of Saying NO May 3/07
Get A Handle On Conflict July 18/07
Get around roadblocks October 1/08
GET ORGANIZED & ENJOY! October 12
Get the Recognition You Deserve March 6/08
GETTING ALONG WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE July 11
Getting High Performance out of High Potential People December 8
Getting others to help you succeed Nov 15/07
Getting others to help you succeed-a team effort Jan 22/08
Getting Power and Pizzazz into your speaking August 31/07
Give feedback directly July 7
Giving Yourself More Time Jan 20/07
Go/No-Go Decisions Dec 2/09
Goal Setting to Goal Getting March 31
Goals - What’s In It For Me June 18
Good business management April 21/08
Gossip Rumors and Innuendo Jan 16/08
Great Leadership Challenge Sept 9/08
Great Managers Teach Jan 26/-07
Growing Leaders Sept 21
Guide to Decision-Making March 2/07
Guide to making big goals achievable March 25/09
Guide to Project Management June 1
Hamburger Management July 10
Handling Insults with some of your own July 30/08
Harness the Power of Questions Nov 8/07
HAVING FUN AT CLUB MEETINGS Feb 19/08
How to Accelerate Your Success with a Mastermind Group July 11/07
How Are Your-Ratings April 19
How brainstorming works best October 13
How Complete Things on Time November 28
How do leaders learn, develop and grow October 18
How empowering beliefs shape success Oct 31/08
How Good Are Your Communication Skills Oct 14/08
How Good Are Your Leadership Skills June 5/09
How Good Is Your Problem Solving Dec2/09
How Leaders take Responsibility
How strengths, passion and effort all intertwine with one another Oct 1/07
How to achieve ambitious goals April 27/09
How to achieve anything Dec 13/08
How to Appear Confident and Assertive, in an Interview
How to arrive on time at meetings Feb 23/07
How to associate yourself with success May 10/08
How to Be a Better Boss March 12/08
How to be A GOOD LEADER June 6/07
How to be a great leader Dec 21/09
How to be a Good Listener March 2/07
How to be an effective Team Leader October 19
How to be an Effective Team Member October 19
How To be Respected May 27
How to become a great public speaker Dec 23/08
How to become a master communicator Oct 27/08
How to Become Super-Positive August 13/07
How to boost your confidence at work Nov 13/07
How to Break a Bad Habit June 8/07
How to Build Leaders May 24/08
How to command respect Feb 11/08
How to convert failure into the proverbial stepping stone for success July 30/08
How to create an agenda October 19
How to create an entrepreneurial niche Sept 19/07
How to create great ideas May 20/08
How to deal with criticism Mayy 29/09
How to Deal with Impossible People May 26
How To Deal With Negative People May 24/07
How to Devastate Productivity Feb 3/07
How to Diffuse an Argument May 28
How to earn respect in administration March 12/08
How to engage employees and lead from the heart Jan 23/08
How to Exercise an Open Mind May 26
How fear of failure destroys success May 30/07
How to get out of a job you hate June 4/07
How to get over the fear of approaching people Oct 1/07
How to get over your fear of public speaking April 6/07
How To Get People To Trust You Sept 27
How to give a killer evaluation April 30/07
How to Give and Receive Criticism Jan 23/09
How to give and take criticism like a man Nov 10/08
How To Give Constructive Criticism December 24
How to give constructive feedback May 31/07
How to Handle Chronic Complainers Dec 14/07
How to Handle Criticism Jan 8/2007
How to handle criticism2 May 24/07
How to handle criticism from a supervisor April 10/08
How to handle unrealistic demands Dec 12/07
How to Improve Productivity: All Tasks Are Not Created Equal JJuly 10/09
How to Keep a Sharp Mind and Good Attitude May 31
How to keep productivity simple June 11/08
How to lead your team Successfully April 14/07
How to Make your Speaking Easy May 20/08
How to make your speaking easier and More Effective May 26
How to Multitask Feb 20/07
How to perform easy good deeds
How personal productivity and personal development are connected to personal finance May 14/07
How to persuade more effectively-nonverbal strategies that work April 17/09
How to persuade your audience through public speaking June 27/08
How to power up your secret success team Jan 22/08
How to promote resourcefulness Feb 2/07
How to read people: a three part essay March 3/07
How To Remember Names July 9/07
How to remove productivity bottlenecks April 7/08
HOW TO RESOLVE CONFLICT June 6/07
How to run a great unconference session October 19
How to Say NO, and Still Feel Good About Yourself Jan 27/09
How To Say No to People July 6
How to sell yourself and why your career depends on it Oct 22/07
How to Solve Recruitment Problems
How to stay productive when you make your own schedule Aug 21/08
How to support friend s projects
How to tackle any project Feb 12/09
How to turn Failure into Success May 15/07
How to understand and deal with difficult people Sept 26/08
How to win friends and influence people Feb 19/07
How Well Do You Delegate Sept 5/08
Ideas and the potential for leadership
Implementation is more important than ideas Feb 20/07
Importance of a goal April 21/08
Importance of a good presentation June 3
(The) Importance of Thank You June 9
Improve your chances of success in business with these 10 tips May 22/08
Improve Your People Skills July 10
Improving Club Meetings April 6
In Praise of failure Dec 16/08
In Whom Can We Trust July 5
Increase Your Self-Confidence July 10
Inferiority of Superiority Sept 17/07
Inspire Others to Be Their Best July 11/07
Integrity Sept 20
Invest in people Feb 11/08
Inviting Members Sept 18
Irrefutable laws of leadership October 18
Irrefutable, Non-Negotiable Laws of Leadership You Must Know Now Feb 11/08
Is Dread Driving Your Decisions May 6
Is it management or leadership
Is it more important to promote myself or the team Nov 8/07
Is Perfectionism Blocking Your Success Sept 8
Is the Jingle in Your Pocket Worth the Jangle in Your Head October 10
Is the Quick Fix mentality killing your progress Oct 12/07
Is Your Calculator Broken Being on Your Case versus Being on Your Side March 11/09
Is your manager DEMONSTRATING respect Sept 4
Is Your Team Too Big Too Small June 19
It's not how you start but how you finish May 13
Its OK to Say NO Sometimes March 12/08
Keep Your Resolutions or Goals Feb 16/07
Keeping Valued Team Members Sept 28/09
Keeping Your A-Team Sept 7/07
Key Components to Any Successful Change October 7
Key qualities of leaders Aug 16/09
Key to Influencing Othe April 14/09
(The) Key To Leadership August 2
Keys for Dealing with Manipulators July 27
Keys of Creative Leaders Sept 25
Know When to Say NO Nov 14/08
Knowing When to Say NO Jan 14/08
(The) Law of Clarity May 22/08
Laws of Leadership March 6/07
Lead From the Front Aug 21/08
Leader's Mood August 25/07
Leaders and Priorities April 12
Leaders vs. Followers August 21
Leadership and Decision Making July 18/07
Leadership effectiveness: The power of communication, motivation and emotions May 13/09
Leadership In Hard Times May 8/09
Leadership is action, not position Nov 6/08
Leadership is a Choice, Not a Position Sept 24/09
Leadership is Everybody's Business March 29/07
Leadership lessons from a Board President June 19/08
(A) Leadership Physical Sept 4
Leadership Power Tip 5 April 20
Leadership Power Tip 6 April 22
Leadership Power Tip 8 May 21
Leadership Power Tip 9: June 19
Leadership Power Tip 10 August 8
Leadership Power Tip 11 August 16
Leadership Power Tip 12 August 23
Leadership Power Tip 13 August 29
Leadership Power Tip 14 Sept 6
Leadership Power Tip 15 Sept 15
Leadership Power Tip 16 November 4
Leadership Power Tip 17 November 15
Leadership Power Tip 18 November 22
Leadership Power Tip 19 November 29
Leadership Power Tip 20 December 7
Leadership Principles in a Changing Workplace August 2/07
Leadership Revisited January 9/2007
Leadership Strategies To Address Today's Most Common Team Building Problems Sept 20
Leadership training begins with personal leadership skills April 7/08
Leading a Meeting October 19
Leading by Example June 14/08
Leading Equals Jan 9/2008
Learn Assertive Communication July 6
Learn to Deal in Challenges August 14
Learn to delegate July 9/07
Learn to say no and reserve your mental energy June 11/08
Learning about your strengths Sept 4
Learning Better August 18
Learning Management August 18
Learning to delegate is not trivial July 7
Lessons from Leaders-From the world s Highest mountains May 29/09
LESSONS FROM UNEXPECTED PLACES October 12
Lessons in productivity from Ralph Waldo Emerson July 5/08
Life Would Be Easy... If It Weren't for Difficult People July 20
Limiting Beliefs of Nonprofits Jan 6/09
Listening, Learning and Leading March 6/07
Listening Power March 24/09
Lockes Goal Setting Theory July 27/07
Logframes, and the Logical Framework Approach June 28/07
Long term success-what is the key Feb 11/08
(The) Macaroni and Cheese Project March 31/07
Made to be an Entrepreneur June 27
MAKE A GREAT IMPRESSION October 12
Make A Powerful Impression Sept 10/07
Make Decisions in Advance Sept 13
Make decision quickly Feb 11/08
Make Meetings Fun October 19
Make your meetings more effective October 25
make yourself look good at a meeting April 21/08
Making decisions May 21
Making Executive Decisions Sept 4
Skills to Improve Conversation May 22/09
Management Myths October 13
Management or Leadership August 24
Manager or Leader July 7
Managing Presentation Nerves January 10/2007
Managing up April 30/08
Mark of a true leadership role April 3/09
Maximizing Productivity through Improved Focus Sept 22/07
MEETING NEW PEOPLE: May 11
Meetings April 23/07
Meetings: Why do we meet October 18
Memorize A Name Jan 21/08
(The) Mindless Mantras of Management December 7
Miracle of Optimism: Jan 23/08
Mistakes that sabotage your productivity March 1/07
Mistrust and Trust July 7
Most valuable part to success May 7/08
Most Valuable Question You May Ever Ask Dec 7/07
Motivating Club Members April 3
Motivating Others: Leadership Sept 22
Motives, Manipulation and Morality July 4
Must-Have Conditions to Goal Setting Sept 25
Must-Have Leadership Traits Jan 15/07
(The) Myth of Thinking Big June 4/07
Nail Meetings Down Tight June 24
Nature_of_Character July 30/08
Negotiation Conflict: Psychological Dynamics August 11/07
(The) Negotiation Process March 14/07
Negotiation Tango - Learning The Steps That Lead To Success June 23/08
Networking April 27
Networking is not a dirty word March 19/08
Networking Made Easy May 19/07
Never Expect A Soft Landing When You Jump to Conclusions… June 9
Never let anger sabotage your greatness Jan 22/08
Never Let Them Hear You Sweat Feb 18/09
New Rules for Project Managers Feb 10/07
New Year s Resolutions and Deficit Thinking December 28
Nine Rules for Effective Teams
Nine Social Skills to Practice April 5/07
No may be your best friend July 10/09
Old Habits Don't Die. They Hibernate Sept 8
One Way to Facilitate Change August 2/07
Only Life Will Teach You Feb 25/08
Opening your mind August 23
Opportunity of Conflict March 12/08
Organize Your Ideas, and Then Start Implementing Them Nov 2/09
organizing Team Decision-Making Sept 28/09
Orientation Guide April 8
Outcome Thinking®: Getting Results Without The Boxing gloves Aug 28/08
Overcome the fear of failure Oct 8/07
Overcome Your Fear of Confrontation and Conflict Oct 10/08
Overcoming Adversity. April 21
Overcoming intimidation Nov 10/07
Overcoming Procrastination May 31
Overcoming Procrastination through the Pull Method June 7
Overcoming the obstacles to self changeNov 2/09
Overcoming the fear of failure Oct 15/07
(The) Paradoxical Commandments May 23 A Must read by everyone!
performance appraisals A new way of looking at them Sept 8
Performing well under pressure May 6/08
Perseverance and Success April 25
Personal Characteristics Of A Good Leader June 8/07
Personal leadership words Sept 13/08
Personal SWOT Analysis Jan 1/09
Personality and the Team April 20
Persuasive techniques June 4/08
Phasing your presentation May 8/09
Physiology of Success Oct 5/07
Planning a Workshop Aug 7/08
Possibility Vs Probability of Success April 30/07
Power and Pitfalls of Competition May 30/08
Power of Asking June 19/08
Power in serving others Oct 1/07
Power of a second opinion May 6/08
Power of Determination Feb 25/08
Power of No April 7/08
Power of Persistence May 3/07
Power of Praise Sept 27
Power of Thanks March 11/09
Power Problem Solving Tips Sept 21
Power Wounds June 28/07
Powerful tips to help you become a hightly effective speaker/Presenter April 22/09
(The) Practice of Leadership October 18
Pre conference Travel and Logistic Planning Sept 27
Prepare Thoroughly Before You Begin Feb 4/09
Presentation How To's August 2
Principle of the Objective Jan 6/09
Principles For Higher Leadership Effectiveness Sept 2
Prioritizing your activities Sept 13
Problem Solving Discussion Dec22/08
Productivity Feb 20/07
Productivity & Organizing Myths March 23/07
Productivity Equation Sept 13
Productivity in a hostile environment April 7/08
Productivity lists to rock your tasks July 22/08
Productivity secrets from the other Getting Things Done Book March 31/07
Productivity with Humanity July 4
Promote Yourself (something we as Lions, should do more of!) June 7
Public Speaking Survival Tips August 24
Purpose of competition April 10/08
Purpose, Vision And Goals August 7/09
Putting the work in teamwork March 24/09
Qualities of Skillful Leadership Feb 5/08
Quality Leadership August 16
reach your goals_..._automatically
Reading Body Language Feb 12/08
Reasons people never set goals and never succeed May 25/07
Reasons why dreamers can be leaders Aug 28/08
RECOGNIZE JOB BURNOUT December 12
Re-Engaging Team Members June 24/09
Reevaluate your goals Feb 16/07
Reining in Rule Breakers Sept 25
Reinvention: Its something you can do June 3
Relating to Others June 13
Remember any name Nov 24/08
Repairing a dysfunctional workplace Sept 24/09
Respect: Is kindness your weakness July 30/08
Rewarding Your Team Oct 31/08
Riding the line of over cautiousness Feb 12/09
(The) Role of the Manager November 10
Rules Of Leaders Jan 15/07
Rules of self management April 23/07
RULES FOR BEING HUMAN... October 12
Rules to boost your productivity May 4/07
Run a WOW Campaign June 24
Saying No Creatively June 19/08
Scheming VS Collaborating May 3/07
Secret ways to persuade and influence people Sept 2/08
Secrets of Top Communicators Dec 13/08
Secrets to a Knockout Business Presentation Oct 5/07
(The) Secret to Productivity A must read! June 7
Secrets to Success Feb 6/07
SEE THINGS BIG BUT KEEP THINGS SIMPLE May 16
Seek Feedback June 9
Selecting New Projects Sept 6
Serious side of put down humor Jan 22/08
Setting Organizational Goals 03/31
Setting perfect deadlines March 10/08
Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals Jan 22/08
(The) Seven Army Values - They’re not just for the military Sept 2
Seven Cs of Success March 6/07
Showing Vulnerability is a Source of Power Nov 8/07
Signature Projects April 11
Silent Language of Leadership March 6/08
Simple things you can do to encourage others Feb 20/07
Simple Ways to Make a Difference
Simplicity May 1
Six steps to success August 24
Six strands of Success April 14/07
Skills to Improve Conversation May 22/090
Skillful Leadership July 11/07
S.M.A.R.T. July 11/07
(The) Smell of Success August 25
So You Think You Want to be a Manager Jan 26/07
Solving Problems Effectively Sept 30/08
Soothe Your Shyness August 24
Speak In Public - Part I March 6/07
Speed Accidents and Anxiety Sept 6
Speed, Simplicity, and Bad Choices Sept 6
Spiritually Intelligent Leadership March 26/08
Stage manage Your World Jan 27/07
Stand and Deliver May 11/07
Standing Out By Standing Up July 18/07
Standing Up to Adversity May 1/09
Starving for Recognition May 9
Stay Positive Sept 6
Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone Sept 8/09
Steps to Achieve Goals Nov 6/08
Steps to Achieve Momentum NOW October 19
Steps to an effective apology August 22/07
Steps to better public speaking May 10/08
Steps to coachability Nov 12/08
Steps To Working In Harmony May 30/08
Stop Running After Time May 18
Stop talking and start communicating Feb 12/08
Stop Whinning and Take Charge of Your Life Sept 6
Strategic storytelling -A leadership development tool Feb 11/08
Strategic vs Tactical April 4/07
Strategies for better decision making Aug 7/08
Strategies for Working With Powerful People November 15
Strengths Test October 7
Stretch Goals Matter August 28
Success formula -Creating a plan March 12/08
Success-4 weeks at a time Feb 25/08
Successful Delegation May 30/08
Successful Goal Selection Avoids Self-Sabotage Dec 5/08
Successful meeting with the boss Oct 29/07
Successful Public Speaking Techniques
Suggested Service Initiatives May 7
Surviving April 11
Tackling the multitasking virus June 14/08
Tail Twister: Function and Duties April 5
Take a Stand for Yourself August 25
Take Ownership of Your Job July 5/07
Take Responsibility April 7
Take responsibility for your actions July 12
Take Your Laundry Off the Line June 27
Taking Time to Think May 26
Taking Your Time Sept 6
Talisman of Leadership - Authenticity March 20/09
Target Marketing May 5
Teachability Feb 12/08
Teachable Moments October 13
Teaching Team Behaviors Earlier...Much Earlier April 26
Team Based Incentives - Do They Work May 1
Teambuilding Lessons from Geese April 10
Team Effectiveness Assessment Sept 13/09
Team Motivation April 10
Team Rebuilding Sept 11
Team Think vs. Individuals August 24
Teamwork in 50 Words or Less October 11
10 Commandments of a Meeting October 19
Ten Commandments of Good Retention Program April 14/07
TEN DON'TS July 11
10 R s to Success Feb 20/07
10_Tips_For_Successful_Public_Speaking
The Clear Leader June 1
The HOW of a Positive Mental Attitude Oct 8/09
There Is Always A Good Side May 24
Things Employees Need to Learn—from You Feb 25/07
Things that matter most October 2
Things to Consider When Preparing for a Meeting October 19
Think Learning for a better budget
THINK LIKE AN ENTREPRENEUR Nov 15/07
Think, think again August 25
Thinking about Trust August 2
Those Much-ignored Essentials: Time, Thought, and Proof October 4
Thoughts, Actions and Habits Sept 20
(The) Three Bears: Arrogance, Timidity and Honesty June 22
3 Ds of Leadership Jan 18/07
Tiger Woods rulebook to begin a huge success June 27/08
Time Boxing July 31
Time management in a multi tasking world December 13
Time Management Techniques April 5
Time Management Tips March 14/07
Time Management Tips_Part 1 and 2 Sept 10/07
Time Management Training August 8
(The) Tipping Point Of A Great Leader Feb 22/07
tips by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs Feb 15/08
Tips for a great meeting Feb 23/07
Tips for giving good praise July 5/08
Tips for Long Public Speaking June 3
Tips for more Effective Meetings October 19
Tips From Charismatic Leaders Jan 15/07
Tips from Lincoln on Writing a Kick ass Speech April 26/07
Tips that will turn you into a powerful leader Nov 15/07
Tips to increase your productivity June 23/08
Tips to Improve Your Self Esteem May 18
To Become More We Must be More Sept 20
Top_10_Worst_Ways_To_Handle_Conflict
Toughness June 11/08
Toward a More Civil Work Place Oct 19/07
Training the Trainer Feb 3/07
TRAITS OF EFFECTIVE LEADERS Jan 8/09
Traits of true leadership Aug 21/08
Traits you will need on your way to becoming a leader March 10/08
Transform your negative self-talk Sept 13
Transformational Leaders Dec 1/08
Transformational Leadership May 19/09
Trust Your Subordinates Jan 6/09
TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT May 19
20 Attributes of a Leader July 11/07
Types of Productivity August 23
(The) Ultimate Formula For Success
Unanticipated Events Screw Up Schedules October 2
Understanding non-verbal communication Oct 5/07
Unfinished Business May 21
Unlocking Your Creativity July 14/07
Ultimate productivity habit Sept 20/08
Unwritten Rules of Management Sept 25
Use Body Language to Power Your Perception July 5/07
Using Stumbling Blocks as Stepping Stones Nov 24/08
Verbal Interventions July 20
Vision May 16
Volunteer Management and Environs Jan 27/07
Watch Your Words: They May Come Back to Bite You March 10/09
Ways to avoid unproductive meetings July 12/08
Ways to Show Honest Appreciation May 29/09
Ways to help your fellow human being May 24/08
Ways to take it to the next level Aug 18/08
Ways to work on yourself at work Nov 6/07
Welcoming Adversity Sept 2
What a Real Leader Knows Jan 21/09
What are The Symptoms of Success Nov 28/07
What Everybody Should Know About Setting Goals June 14/08
What holds so many back from success April 7/08
What is personal power March 6/07
What is so great about teamwork June 11/08
What it takes to be a genuine leader April 3/09
What Makes A Team Strong July 9/07
What Not To Say in a Presentation March 14/07
What really goes into an executive decision
What we can learn from successful entrepreneurs July 22
What we have most to fear is fear itself Feb7/07
Whatever you do don't do this Feb 20/07
When a Boss Gives You The Silent Treatment Jan 20/07
When Personalities Clash Jan 24/07
When you don't remember a persons name June 14/07
Why acting like a success can help you be successful August 24
Why do some people inspire others to follow their lead Feb 11/08
Why Some Leaders are Efficient
Why Employees Leave An Organization
Why is planning critical June 10
Why is time management important Nov 25/09
Why it’s essential to set a goal Feb 28/08
Why leaders fail: Business planning March 30/09
Why Organizational Change Fails May 10
Why Some Leaders are Efficient and Others Not April 22
Win-Win Negotiation March 1/07
Winning an argument August 18
Working less to get more done Oct 15/07
working with an introvert Jan 30/07
Yes to the Person, No to the Task July 10/09
(The) “Yes” Trap December 13
You are a map maker Dec 21/09
You Can Make a Difference April 7
Your Decisions are Critical for Success Feb 3/09
Your Deck of Cards August 25/07
YOUR SUCCESS DEPENDS ON OTHER PEOPLE. April 27
By Alan Zimmerman, Ph.D
"Become the kind of leader that people would follow
voluntarily,
even if you had no title or position."
--Brian Tracy
Have you ever wondered why some good, competent, nice people fail so miserably in their attempts to lead others? I certainly have. And so has speaker and author Phillip Van Hooser. In fact, he asked hundreds of people nationwide, "If you could tell your supervisor/manager one practical thing he/she needs to know about leading people, what would it be?" He received some wonderfully helpful responses, and of course, that excited me ... because his findings reinforced my research on the topic. Among the most important pieces of advice were the following:
1. NEVER FORGET ...
you're always setting an example.
Don't kid yourself. Your coworkers watch everything you do and everything you
say. And from their observations, they deduce what is important and not
important in the organization.
That being the case, you need to be consciously aware of the example you're setting. Is your example bringing out the best in people or inadvertently reinforcing the worst?
As syndicated columnist Josh Hinds puts it, "Whether or not we realize it, each of us has within us the ability to set some kind of example for people. Knowing this would you rather be the one known for being the one who encouraged others, or the one who inadvertently discouraged those around you?" And then ...
2. WALK your talk.
You simply cannot say one thing and do another and expect your leadership to
work. You can't preach the importance of returning customer phone calls but not
do it yourself. You can't emphasize punctuality at meetings but show up late.
And you can't talk about the importance of a good attitude but never have one.
Of course, walking your talk sounds like nothing more than honesty or ethics. But it also has a very practical, motivational side to it. As one person said so very well, your walk talks and your talk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.
Or put another way, if you're not excited about what you're doing, it's a sure bet your employees won't be excited about it either. Enthusiasm spreads from top down.
It's kind of like the three men working in a quarry, all doing the same job, but all with different bosses. The first boss didn't care about anything; the second boss just wanted to put in his day's work and get out of there, and the third boss had a vision for the work being done. When their employees were asked about their jobs, the man who worked for the first boss said all he did was lift rocks. The man who worked for the second boss said he was simply a poor man who toiled all day long, from dawn to dusk, earning a living. But the man who worked for the third boss responded with enthusiasm, saying he was building a cathedral.
3. Show your employees
that you actually CARE about them.
You know the old saying, "Your people don't care how much you know until they
know how much you care." And it's still true and always will be true.
You've got to show a genuine interest in your employees. Make it a point to ask your employees how their family is doing. And when you learn that a family member is ill, has had an accident, just entered college, got married, had a child, or whatever, follow up.
The best leaders seem to know that it's not only "nice" to treat their employees with caring, it's also good business. As I always tell my audiences, "Your people will go to the ends of the earth for you when they know that you care about them as individuals."
Maybe that's why Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM said, "Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate and generous - not just to some people in some circumstances - but to everyone all the time." He knew it was the right thing to do, not just personally but professionally and organizationally as well.
Or as Philip Van Hooser says, "How can we reasonably expect our employees, our followers, to respond to our leadership if we have not made every effort to let them know that we are there for them?"
So let me ask you, do your people know ... do they REALLY know you care about them? Do you always follow Jennie Jerome Churchill's advice, the mother of Prime Minister Winston Churchill? She always said you should, "Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light."
And in my 6-pack CD album called "The Relationship Factor: How To Make Bad Relationships Better and Good Relationships Great," I give you dozens more strategies used by effective leaders and relationship builders.
4. CLEAR the path.
Most people want to do a good job, but there may be some factors that make it
very difficult ... if not impossible ... for them to do a good job. So it's your
responsibility to clear the path as much as possible. Get rid of the obstacles
that get in the way of your people's success and achievement.
That's what John Manning, VP of the WOW Department at Commerce Bank, does. As he says, "At Commerce Bank we have a 'Kill a Stupid Rule' Program. If you identify a rule that prevents you from wowing customers, we'll pay you fifty bucks."
It's a great program. The employees know what the stupid rules are, and with this new program, they are encouraged to get rid of those rules and give the best possible service. They are motivated to keep the WOW factor alive and healthy in their organization. So you need to ask yourself what kind of obstacles are getting in the way of your employees' peak performance? And what are you doing to clear those obstacles out of their path?
Now I realize in some situations there's little you can do about some of the obstacles. If that's the case, keep your discontent to yourself ... or share it only with those who have the power to rectify the situation. As Van Hooser warns, "Complaining openly to followers, or even peers, can unfortunately reduce an otherwise respected leader to the status of a whining malcontent."
Finally, in our research, we found employees wanting to tell their bosses to ...
5. TRUST your people.
There's a fine line between being too strict and too lenient with your
employees. If you're too strict, they don't feel trusted. And if you're too
lenient, they think you don't care.
When you're too strict, or when you're micromanaging your employees, you're incessantly probing, questioning, analyzing, criticizing and second guessing every decision made or action taken by your followers. And after you do that long enough, your employees eventually feel like "you might as well go out there and do it yourself because you'll never trust me to get it right."
It takes a bit of trust to give your people some room to maneuver and make their own decisions. But as management guru Peter Drucker says, "In every success story, you find someone who has made a courageous decision." And that someone could be the boss or the employees.
Successful leaders and motivating managers know there is more than one way to successfully complete most jobs. So they, in essence, tell their employees, "Here's your rope. Go out there and see what you can accomplish. If you hang yourself, together we'll figure out what went wrong. I want you to have enough rope to discover new opportunities for the organization."
Truth be known, most of the time, an employee may not do a job exactly the way you would have done it. But the return on your trust investment ... more often than not ... is a more loyal, happy, involved and accountable employee.
Action:
Find at least one way to show every one of your coworkers this week that you
really, really care about him or her.
As a best-selling author and Hall of Fame professional speaker, Dr. Alan Zimmerman has taught more than one million people in 48 states and 22 countries how to keep a positive attitude on and off the job. In his book, PIVOT: How One Turn In Attitude Can Lead To Success, Dr. Zimmerman outlines the exact steps you must take to get the results you want in any situation. Go to Alan's site for a Free Sneak Preview.
****************
By Larry Agresto
Robert Frost once said, "I took the road less traveled and it has made all the difference." Map makers are not afraid to take the road less traveled as well. Often, at some point on the road of discovery, they realize they've failed. But they've learned to make one important distinction, just because you fail, doesn't mean you're a failure.
Like the Lewis and Clark Expedition, a map maker is someone who journeys where he/she has never been before. Map makers are not afraid to journey where no one has been before them. They know that to "create their own reality" the path they choose must be their path and no one else's.
In May of 1804, Lewis and Clark embarked from St. Louis on what was to become the most dangerous expedition in American history. Their mission was to explore and follow the Columbia River to its source, the Pacific Ocean. This mission would result in discovering what became known as the Pacific Passage.
They returned to St. Louis in September of 1806, successfully navigating the rough and dangerous terrain to report that they had in fact found the route to the Pacific. This expedition came with a high cost to the well being and lives of the many men who were a part of the expedition. Some men died as a result of illness, others perished from treacherous descents and climbing accidents.
At times they would travel weeks and hundred of miles in a westerly route, only to be turned back by a 500 foot precipice that could not be navigated. Countless times, provisions, serious injury or lost lives were the price they paid to achieve their destination.
A map maker knows that to fulfill their dream, the path they must embark on is not always the shortest distance between two points. Like each of us in our lives, Lewis and Clark did not have the luxury of someone before them leaving a trail or true compass to reach their destination unscathed. The only way that they were going to achieve their goal was to move forward each and every day in pursuit of their dream, not knowing when or where they were going to make a mistake but knowing that inevitably, they would.
It took great courage and stamina to push on day after day, week after week not knowing if the decision they had made that day or the direction they were pointed in was correct. This is true for each and everyone of us in our lives as well. I remember a quote I once read that said, "If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere."
It's this lack of certainty that stops so many of us from pursuing our dream and discovering our passion. As spiritual beings, we are all born explorers, constantly looking to discover what we do not know and yearn to, yet fearful of letting go of what we do know and have. Each of us is here for a sole purpose and it is our responsibility to create and live that purpose.
No one approached Lewis and Clark and dropped the map to the Pacific Passage in their hands; just as no one is going to approach you and hand you your dream or passion. They had to discover it for themselves, as do each and everyone of us. Although the expedition experienced pain and suffering on the path, the joy and honor comes in the journey, not the destination.
The journey calls up in each of us a level of spirit and strength that we never knew we had. We are reborn into a world of great hope, faith and courage and these become our true compass in life. Each of us will get lost, many will fall down but it is the power of belief in oneself and the power of the unknown that beckons to our spirit to push onward, to remain committed to the creation of our passion and the discovery of our purpose.
You will feel your self-esteem soar and your self-image will take on new heights of self-love and confidence that you never dreamt possible. You are a map maker! Lao-tzu said, "A journey of a thousand miles, begins with the first step." For the map maker, each step is a creation, each day is a new beginning and each day offers the potential of unlimited possibility.
To awaken the sleeping spirit within you must become "a map maker." A map maker is about the joy of discovery, the creation of positive energy; it's about an intention of hope and faith so powerful that you will not fear the possibility of failing. Yes, you may fail but to pursue your dream, your passion, one must totally believe in oneself and remember "I may fail but I am not a failure."
There is no fear in change, only the fear that you create in your mind. Remember that fear and doubt, can not coexist with hope and courage. Map makers experience fear but they carry their sense of hope and courage with them in their heart. The passions of the heart are more powerful than the fears of the mind. With God's grace, you will find the faith and perseverance you need to continue on your quest.
It may be a simple quest such as improving your self-esteem, increasing your self-confidence or finding the courage to search for a better job. Then again, it may be a major challenge such as overcoming an addiction, discovering well-being in your life by ceasing to be obese or committing to a relationship despite your fear of a previous failure.
My favorite quote of all time is also by Robert Frost, where he says, "There is a time for departure, even when there is no certain place to go." Honor your life by creating your own reality and living your dream. Remember that great achievement requires great risk. Take the road less traveled, your life is worth the journey!
Copyright
© 2008 Larry Agresto, Peak Performance Coaching
Larry Agresto is both the Founder and a Life & Success Coach at
Peak Performance Coaching in Boston. Larry provides one-on-one
coaching for clients based on his four Coaching Programs: Stepping Stones to
Change, The Path to Change, The Journey and the Breakthrough Program. He also
provides group coaching sessions and seminars to organizations and businesses.
Please contact Larry for your Free Coaching Consult at (978) 649-1020.
*******************
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_77.htm
Big decisions usually come after a considerable amount of research – discussions about the options available, about the criteria for choosing between them, and about the pros and cons of each possible choice. These kinds of investigations can take months. After you and others have invested so much time in choosing the best option, the last thing you'll often want to do is reject the whole idea, and stay with things as they are now.
But is going ahead actually the best thing to do? Or has the environment changed since you first started considering the change, so that your preferred option is no longer worth going ahead with? Is the cost of making the change greater than the benefit you would receive from it? Or has your organization's cash flow recently suffered, so that you now can't afford to make the change, even if it's valuable and useful?
When deciding whether to go ahead, you have to realize that the time and money you've already spent on the project are "sunk costs" – costs that cannot be recovered, and that you need to put behind you for decision-making purposes. You must evaluate whether or not you should go forward objectively, dispassionately, and on the basis of where you are now. It can take a lot of intellectual maturity to do this!
There are a number of tools that you can use to make good go/no-go decisions. This article helps you identify the right tool for the right situation.
Uncertainty is one of the largest obstacles you face when making a decision - after all, very few decisions are made with full knowledge of the consequences. With this in mind, our article on Decision Making Under Uncertainty gives you some good approaches that you can use to manage it. Whatever approach you use, it's most important to have a methodical process for making the decision, and to use solid decision-making tools. With these in place, it's much easier to do what needs to be done each step of the way.
With go/no-go decisions, as with any kind of decision making, your steps begin with defining the problem, developing criteria for a successful solution, and generating alternatives. (You can learn more about these steps in our article on the Dynamics of Decision Making.) From these potential alternatives, you can choose your best "go" option.
|
Where you need to make your decisions in a team environment, read our article about Organizing Team Decision Making. With teams, you need to pay as much attention to collaboration and participation among team members as you do to evaluating the options, if you're going to avoid the many potential problems that go with group decision-making. |
For go/no-go decisions, you have to choose between two options: to go ahead, or to do nothing. To make good decisions, you need to use two groups of tools:
We look at these below.
With these tools, you're making sure that you fully understand the options that you're considering. In particular, you need to check for expected and "unexpected" consequences if your "go" option is implemented, and do the same if you decide not to go ahead.
|
Tip: |
Once you've expanded your understanding of the decision that you're taking, it's time to make the go/no-go decision.
The approach you use here depends on the scale of the decision, and its context.
For large, financially-based decisions, there's a whole discipline of financial evaluation that your organization's finance department will be familiar with. This is a specialist subject that is beyond the scope of this article. If you're not a finance specialist, the best thing to do here is to get the help of your finance department to make sure that these evaluations are structured correctly.
For smaller financial decisions, and for decisions that have non-financial elements to them (most decisions are not exclusively financial), there are a number of good techniques that you can use to make decisions:
|
Tip 1: Tip 2: |
Decisions are part of everyday life. Often, your decision is whether to go ahead with a solution, or accept the status quo and do nothing. These are called go/no-go decisions, and they involve a thorough investigation of the problem from start to finish.
By treating exploratory work as a "sunk cost", and by following a clear process to decide between taking action and maintaining the status quo, you can ensure that the decision you make is the right one.
By using a go/no-go approach to decision making, you'll make sure that inaction is a proactive, conscious choice and not simply the result of the inability to make a decision. Similarly, it helps you ensure that decisions to go ahead are made for good reasons, and not just because a project already has 'momentum' within your organization.
*********
http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html
Brainstorming is a popular tool that helps you generate creative solutions to a problem.
It is particularly useful when you want to break out of stale, established patterns of thinking, so that you can develop new ways of looking at things. It also helps you overcome many of the issues that can make group problem-solving a sterile and unsatisfactory process.
Used with your team, it helps you bring the diverse experience of all team members into play during problem solving. This increases the richness of ideas explored, meaning that you can find better solutions to the problems you face.
It can also help you get buy in from team members for the solution chosen – after all, they were involved in developing that solution. What’s more, because brainstorming is fun, it helps team members bond with one-another as they solve problems in a positive, distraction-free environment.
|
Why Use Brainstorming? Conventional group problem-solving can be fraught with problems. Confident, "big-ego" participants can drown out and intimidate quieter group members. Less confident participants can be too scared of ridicule to share their ideas freely. Others may feel a pressure to conform with the group view, or are held back by an excessive respect for authority. As such, group problem-solving is often ineffective and sterile. By contrast, brainstorming provides a freewheeling environment in which everyone is encouraged to participate. Quirky ideas are welcomed, and many of the issues of group problem-solving are overcome. All participants are asked to contribute fully and fairly, liberating people to develop a rich array of creative solutions to the problems they're facing. “Brainstorming 2.0” The steps described here seek to take account of this research, meaning that the approach described below differs subtly from Osborn's original one. |
Brainstorming combines a relaxed, informal approach to problem-solving with lateral thinking. It asks that people come up with ideas and thoughts that can at first seem to be a bit crazy. The idea here is that some of these ideas can be crafted into original, creative solutions to the problem you're trying to solve, while others can spark still more ideas. This approach aims to get people unstuck, by "jolting" them out of their normal ways of thinking.
During brainstorming sessions there should therefore be no criticism of ideas: You are trying to open up possibilities and break down wrong assumptions about the limits of the problem. Judgments and analysis at this stage stunt idea generation.
Ideas should only be evaluated at the end of the brainstorming session – this is the time to explore solutions further using conventional approaches.
While group brainstorming is often more effective at generating ideas than normal group problem-solving, study after study has shown that when individuals brainstorm on their own, they come up with more ideas, and often better quality ideas, than groups of people who brainstorm together.
Partly this occurs because, in groups, people aren’t always strict in following the rules of brainstorming, and bad group behaviors creep in. Mostly, though, this occurs because people are paying so much attention to other people’s ideas that they're not generating ideas of their own – or they're forgetting these ideas while they wait for their turn to speak. This is called "blocking".
When you brainstorm on your own, you'll tend to produce a wider range of ideas than with group brainstorming - you do not have to worry about other people's egos or opinions, and can therefore be more freely creative. For example, you might find that an idea you’d be hesitant to bring up in a group session develops into something quite special when you explore it with individual brainstorming. Nor do you have to wait for others to stop speaking before you contribute your own ideas.
You may not, however, develop ideas as fully when you brainstorm on your own, as you do not have the wider experience of other members of a group to help you.
|
Tip: When Brainstorming on your own, consider using Mind Maps to arrange and develop ideas. |
When it works, group brainstorming can be very effective for bringing the full experience and creativity of all members of the group to bear on an issue. When individual group members get stuck with an idea, another member's creativity and experience can take the idea to the next stage. Group brainstorming can therefore develop ideas in more depth than individual brainstorming.
Another advantage of group brainstorming is that it helps everyone involved to feel that they’ve contributed to the end solution, and it reminds people that other people have creative ideas to offer. What’s more, brainstorming is fun, and it can be great for team-building!
Brainstorming in a group can be risky for individuals. Valuable but strange suggestions may appear stupid at first sight. Because of this, you need to chair sessions tightly so that ideas are not crushed, and so that the usual issues with group problem-solving don’t stifle creativity.
You can often get the best results by combining individual and group brainstorming, and by managing the process carefully and according to the "rules" below. That way, you get people to focus on the issue without interruption (this comes from having everyone in a dedicated group meeting), you maximize the number of ideas you can generate, and you get that great feeling of team bonding that comes with a well-run brainstorming session!
To run a group brainstorming session effectively, do the following:
Taking Your Brainstorming Further...If you're still not getting the ideas you want, try using these approaches to increase the number of ideas that you generate:
The techniques below help you in specific brainstorming situations:
|
Where possible, participants in the brainstorming process should come from as wide a range of disciplines as possible. This brings a broad range of experience to the session and helps to make it more creative. However, don’t make the group too big – as with other types of teamwork, groups of 5 to 7 people are often most effective.
Brainstorming is a useful way of generating radical solutions to problems, just as long as it's managed well. During the brainstorming process there is no criticism of ideas, and free rein is given to people's creativity (criticism and judgment cramp creativity.)
This tends to make group brainstorming sessions enjoyable experiences, which are great for bringing team members together. Using brainstorming also helps people commit to solutions, because they have participated in the development of these solutions.
The best approach to brainstorming combines individual and group brainstorming. Group brainstorming needs formal rules for it to work smoothly.
|
Next Steps: |
|
|
|
Subscribe to our FREE eNewsletter – Discover new career skills every two weeks, and receive our Brainstorming Toolkit worth US$9.99 FREE when you subscribe. Sign up here, and download right away! |
|
|
|
|
|
Join the Mind Tools Career Excellence Club – Boost your life and career with online access to skills training, resources, coaching and support from professional trainers and our unique community. Download the "Get It Done!" workbook plus 3 other bonuses FREE when you sign up at our special introductory rate. Click here to find out more! |
*******
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_72.htm
Good problem solving skills are fundamentally important if you're going to be successful in your career. But problems are something that we don't particularly like. They're time-consuming. They muscle their way into already packed schedules. They force us to think about an uncertain future. And they never seem to go away!
That's why, when faced with problems, most of us try to eliminate them as quickly as possible. But have you ever chosen the easiest or most obvious solution – and then realized that you have entirely missed a much better solution? Or have you found yourself fixing just the symptoms of a problem, only for the situation to get much worse?
To be an effective problem-solver, you need to be systematic and logical in your approach. This quiz helps you assess your current approach to problem solving. By improving this, you'll make better overall decisions. And as you increase your confidence with solving problems, you'll be less likely to rush to the first solution - which may not necessarily be the best one.
Once you've completed the quiz, we'll direct you to tools and resources that can help you make the most of your problem-solving skills.
Instructions: For each statement, click the button in the column that best describes you. Click the 'Calculate My Total' button to add up your score and check your result using the scoring table underneath.
© Mind Tools Ltd, 1995-2009.
| Score | Comment |
| 16-36 | You probably tend to view problems as negatives, instead of seeing them as opportunities to make exciting and necessary change. Your approach to problem solving is more intuitive than systematic, and this may have led to some poor experiences in the past. With more practice, and by following a more structured approach, you'll be able to develop this important skill and start solving problems more effectively right away. |
| 37-58 | Your approach to problem solving is a little "hit-and-miss." Sometimes your solutions work really well, and other times they don't. You understand what you should do, and you recognize that having a structured problem-solving process is important. However, you don't always follow that process. By working on your consistency and committing to the process, you'll see significant improvements. Find out more below. |
| 59-80 | You are a confident problem solver. You take time to understand the problem, understand the criteria for a good decision, and generate some good options. Because you approach problems systematically, you cover the essentials each time – and your decisions are well though out, well planned, and well executed. You can continue to perfect your problem-solving skills and use them for continuous improvement initiatives within your organization. Skim through the sections where you lost points below, and sharpen your skills still further! |
Answering these questions should help you recognize the key steps associated with effective problem solving.
This quiz is based on Min Basadur's Simplex problem-solving model. This eight-step process follows the circular pattern shown below, within which current problems are solved and new problems are identified on an ongoing basis.
Below, we outline the tools and strategies you can use for each stage of the problem-solving process. Enjoy exploring these stages!
Step 1: Find the Problem (Questions 7, 12)
Some problems are very obvious, however others are not so easily identified. As part of an effective problem-solving process, you need to look actively for problems – even when things seem to be running fine. Proactive problem solving helps you avoid emergencies and allows you to be calm and in control when issues arise.
These techniques can help you do this:
Step 2: Find the Facts (Questions 10, 14)
After identifying a potential problem, you need information. What factors contribute to the problem? Who is involved with it? What solutions have been tried before? What do others think about the problem?
If you move forward to find a solution too quickly, you risk relying on imperfect information that's based on assumptions and limited perspectives, so make sure that you research the problem thoroughly.
Step 3: Define the Problem (Questions 3, 9)
Now that you understand the problem, define it clearly and completely. Writing a clear problem definition forces you to establish specific boundaries for the problem. This keeps the scope from growing too large, and it helps you stay focused on the main issues.
A great tool to use at this stage is CATWOE. With this process, you analyze potential problems by looking at them from six perspectives, those of its Customers; Actors (people within the organization); the Transformation, or business process; the World-view, or top-down view of what's going on; the Owner; and the wider organizational Environment. By looking at a situation from these perspectives, you can open your mind and come to a much sharper and more comprehensive definition of the problem.
Cause and Effect Analysis is another good tool to use here, as it helps you think about the many different factors that can contribute to a problem. This helps you separate the symptoms of a problem from its fundamental causes.
Step 4: Find Ideas (Questions 4, 13)
With a clear problem definition, start generating ideas for a solution. The key here is to be flexible in the way you approach a problem. You want to be able to see it from as many perspectives as possible. Looking for patterns or common elements in different parts of the problem can sometimes help. You can also use metaphors and analogies to help analyze the problem, discover similarities to other issues, and think of solutions based on those similarities.
Traditional brainstorming and reverse brainstorming are very useful here. By taking the time to generate a range of creative solutions to the problem, you'll significantly increase the likelihood that you'll find the best possible solution, not just a semi-adequate one. Where appropriate, involve people with different viewpoints to expand the volume of ideas generated.
|
Tip: |
Step 5: Select and Evaluate (Questions 6, 15)
After finding ideas, you'll have many options that must be evaluated. It's tempting at this stage to charge in and start discarding ideas immediately. However, if you do this without first determining the criteria for a good solution, you risk rejecting an alternative that has real potential.
Decide what elements are needed for a realistic and practical solution, and think about the criteria you'll use to choose between potential solutions.
Paired Comparison Analysis, Grid Analysis and Risk Analysis are useful techniques here, as are many of the specialist resources available within the Mind Tools Decision-Making section . Enjoy exploring these!
Step 6: Plan (Questions 1, 16)
You might think that choosing a solution is the end of a problem-solving process. In fact, it's simply the start of the next phase in problem solving: implementation. This involves lots of planning and preparation. If you haven't already developed a full Risk Analysis in the evaluation phase, do so now. It's important to know what to be prepared for as you begin to roll out your proposed solution.
The type of planning that you need to do depends on the size of the implementation project that you need to set up. For small projects, all you'll often need are Action Plans that outline who will do what, when, and how. Larger projects need more sophisticated approaches - you'll find out more about these in the Mind Tools Project Management and Planning Techniques section. And for projects that affect many other people, you'll need to think about Change Management as well.
Here, it can be useful to conduct an Impact Analysis to help you identify potential resistance as well as alert you to problems you may not have anticipated. Force Field Analysis will also help you uncover the various pressures for and against your proposed solution. Once you've done the detailed planning, it can also be useful at this stage to make a final Go/No-Go Decision, making sure that it's actually worth going ahead with the selected option.
Step 7: Sell the Idea (Questions 5, 8)
As part of the planning process, you must convince other stakeholders that your solution is the best one. You'll likely meet with resistance, so before you try to “sell” your idea, make sure you've considered all the consequences.
As you begin communicating your plan, listen to what people say, and make changes as necessary. The better the overall solution meets everyone's needs, the greater its positive impact will be! For more tips on selling your idea, read our article on Creating a Value Proposition and use our Sell Your Idea Bite-Sized Training session.
Step 8: Act (Questions 2, 11)
Finally, once you've convinced your key stakeholders that your proposed solution is worth running with, you can move on to the implementation stage. This is the exciting and rewarding part of problem solving, which makes the whole process seem worthwhile.
This action stage is an end, but it's also a beginning: once you've completed your implementation, it's time to move into the next cycle of problem solving by returning to the scanning stage. By doing this, you'll continue improving your organization as you move into the future.
Problem solving is an exceptionally important workplace skill.
Being a competent and confident problem solver will create many opportunities for you. By using a well-developed model like Simplex for solving problems, you can approach the process systematically, and be comfortable that the decisions you make are solid.
Given the unpredictable nature of problems, it's very reassuring to know that, by following a structured plan, you've done everything you can to resolve the problem to the best of your ability.
**********
By Stephanie Marston
The purpose of time management is to get more done well in less time. This will enable you to spend more face time with the people you care about, doing things that give you the greatest amount of joy and satisfaction in life.
The majority of your happiness comes from satisfying relationships, especially with the people closest to you. The essential determinant of the quality of your relationships is the amount of time that you spend face to face with people you love and who love you.
You can get control of your time by stop doing the low value things and spending more time on the few activities that can genuinely make a difference in your life.
If you're like most people, you are overwhelmed with too much to do and too little time. As you struggle to stay current, new tasks and responsibilities keep pouring in. The reality is that you will never be able to do everything you have to do. There will never be a time when you are completely caught up. There will always be more to do than you can do in the course of a day.
Be Selective
It is essential that you are able to select your most important task at each
moment, get it done efficiently and well. Being selective will have more impact
on your success than any other skill or quality you can develop.
People who develop this skill of setting clear priorities and getting important tasks completed excel beyond those people who talk a lot, make great plans, but who get little done.
The rule of thumb is that if you have two important tasks in front of you start with the one that is most challenging first. Discipline yourself to focus until you complete this task before you go onto something else.
Consider this a challenge. Resist the temptation to start with the easier task. Regularly remind yourself that one of the most important decisions you make each day is what you will do immediately and what you will do later, if at all.
The key to reaching a high level of performance and productivity is to develop the habit of tackling your major task first thing in the day.
Act Immediately
Successful people are those who focus directly on their major tasks and then
discipline themselves to work steadily and single-mindedly until those tasks are
complete.
In the business world, you are paid and promoted for getting specific, measurable results. You are paid for making a valuable contribution and especially for making the most important contribution that is expected of you.
Failure to take effective action is one of the biggest problems in organizations. Many employees confuse activity with achievement. They continually talk, hold endless meetings, and make fantastic plans, but in the final analysis, no one does the job and gets the required outcomes.
Do It Now!
One of the simplest and most effective ways to be more productive is to repeat,
"Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!" over and over to yourself.
If you find yourself becoming distracted by socializing or low value activities say to yourself, "Get back to work!" In other words, work when you work. Don't waste time. Every minute you spend surfing the web or in idle talk with a coworker is time taken away from the work you have to accomplish and consequently, time away from your family and important relationships.
Nothing will help you more in your career than for you to get a reputation for being the kind of person who gets important work done quickly and effectively. This reputation will make you one of the most valuable and respected people in your field.
30 Days to Sanity
Did you like this article? If you did you'll LOVE my CD program -
30 Days to Sanity: Strategies to Reduce Stress and Live a Meaning Driven
Life. In my more than 25 years experience as a licensed
psychotherapist I saw countless people dealing with the same problems-feeling
overwhelmed, unfulfilled, stressed and just going through the motions of living.
Because my time and availability is limited, I created 30 Days to Sanity.
Let me assure you that I have struggled with many of the same issues that you
face today, and I have taken everything I know and designed this program
especially for you.
**************************
Organize Your
Ideas, and Then Start Implementing Them
Do you have so many ideas floating around in your head that you are having
trouble keeping track of them? Are you having trouble knowing where to start?
Here are some ideas to take away the feeling of chaos and help you to organize
and implement the wealth of ideas you have.
1. The first thing we need to do is get all of these ideas out of our head and
onto paper. Don't worry about organizing it yet, just do what is called a `brain
dump'. Write down every idea--don't try to do more than get them out of your
brain and onto paper.
2. Once you have gotten your ideas down on paper, it's time to start to
categorize them. Your categories will be specific to you and your situation but
could include home decorating, home improvements, craft projects, social
activities, family vacations, business projects, and so on. Don't try to do
anything more than brainstorm categories for now.
3. Now that you've listed your categories, use different colored highlighters to
mark each category a different color. Once you have a different color for each
category, it's time to start going through your list of ideas. Decide which
category you think each idea fits into, and then highlight it with the
corresponding color. Don't worry if you have ideas that don't fit any of your
categories. We'll deal with that next.
4. For those ideas that don't fit your existing categories, let them be your
guide for additional categories. Some additional categories might include
self-improvement, health goals, etc. Self-improvement may include continuing
education, learning a new skill or hobby or completing a college degree. You can
make your categories as broad or as narrow as you choose. Making them a bit
broader eliminates having too many categories.
5. Your categories can now be transferred to a notebook, index cards, folders in
your file cabinet, or on your computer or PDA. With the color coding on your
original brain dump page you should have no trouble listing the ideas in the
correct category. Remember that this is for you--so make it work for you.
6. Now that you've categorized your ideas, it's time to start implementing them.
Some of your ideas can be moved to a daily or weekly `TA-DA' list. Now you'll
notice that it is a TA-DA list not a To-Do list. TA-DA is what we say when we
complete something. It's a simple way to change the way we think. The
connotation of To-Do is undone. The connotation of TA-DA is DONE!
7. Are some of your ideas a bit more complex? For example, if one of your ideas
is to redecorate your bedroom, you will need several steps to complete it. It
may seem a bit overwhelming, but if you break these ideas down into small steps,
you'll have every one of them on your TA-DA list before you know it!
8. Are some of your ideas longer term goals like completing your degree? Start
by not only listing the steps required to complete them, AND include a time line for completion. Many times we put off doing
something like this because we want to wait for available time. Something will
fill that time regardless, you might as well fill it with something that will
help you to accomplish your goals. Decide that it is important, and do it.
9. As you work through your list of ideas in each category, don't cross them out
as you complete them. Instead, highlight each one as it is completed. When we
look at a list of crossed out items, it makes it hard to see what we have
completed and what is left to be completed. A list that has some items
highlighted however is an instant upbeat and bright note of TA-DA items.
10. Think of your categories as living documents. As living documents they will
change as you complete items and as you add new ones. You are also able to adapt
your category system to best suit your personality and your personal organizing
style. This is your document, make it work for you.
By Robert Darby
The extent of the psychological and or emotional damage we sustain from the process of growing up in, and adapting to, a dysfunctional society, will determine the level of damage control and difficulty in overcoming the effects of those early influences. Here are a few guidelines that helped me get past the more difficult challenges.
The Dysfunctional
Landscape
It should be stated from the start that the obstacles mentioned in this article
are those of a severe nature. I share the strategies and techniques for dealing
with them because they are the same for minor dysfunctionality as they are for
major train wrecks, the difference is only in degrees and depth. Also, one of
the most common questions people ask concerning self improvement is "how can
things that happened to us so long ago still affect us now?" and the second most
common question is "how do you know if something is wrong in the first place?"
The answer to the first question is, those things are still playing out in our
lives, we just don't recognize their existence because we closed off the
awareness of them long ago. The second question leads to the first door in the
journey of self healing, self awareness.
We live with the effects of damage because we no longer recognize them for what they are. We take them for granted, we've become accustomed to them, we are comfortable with them and so, we do not question them. Even the physical component of damage is hidden from us because we have become numb to the pain of severely tensed muscular systems. Yes, there is no separating the mind from the body, we can separate them intellectually for the purposes of talking about them and studying them, but in the real actual world, damage to the mind has a collateral effect on the body, a fact that will come in handy later on. For now though, just know that the effects of damage take the form of self deceit and denial as well as numb areas of our bodies that we are no longer aware of.
Self Awareness, The First
Door
Of course this is the first door because of the hidden nature of the problems.
Hardly anyone realizes that they have sustained any damage in the first place so
why would we need to fix what we don't think is broken? The truth here is that
we have become so good at self deception that we can now almost get away with
anything and the only price we need to pay seems to be awareness. Ah yes, self
deception and awareness cannot share the same space. This is the first and one
of the most difficult obstacles we will face.
First we need to arm ourselves with some information, a little prep work so to speak. By it's very nature, the journey of self healing is a journey into unknown and unfamiliar territory. Think about what that is going to mean in terms of our comfortable feelings of security, the security built on the foundation of our denial. Prepare to feel threatened, prepare to feel uncomfortable, prepare to encounter the specter of occasional feelings of panic. So, how do we prepare ourselves against these experiences? We stop at the pump and fill up on compassion, forgiveness and patience.
The Lights Are On But Are
We Home?
In a world oriented to the instant gratification of every whim, desire and
impulse, which is reinforced by the merchant agenda which serves the best
interests of an economic system rather than the interests of a species of life,
is it any wonder that self awareness efforts, if begun at all, rarely get past
the first encounter with frustration? The idea that we don't live in the here
and now rarely occurs to most of us, so we don't realize that we live mostly in
the past and future and fantasy land.
Our success in this journey will depend a great deal on our ability to understand our enormous power, which in itself is sometimes a big challenge. We must understand that while thoughts are a part of that power, thinking is not knowing, that thoughts alone are sterile and have little power to effect anything. We must bring the power of intense feelings into the equation. The first feelings need to be the desire to change and the will to see it through.
Armed with these, we can begin our journey of self discovery, and the first and most powerful tool for this will be meditation. The concept of meditation has become associated with various religions because it is a great tool for developing the particular skills necessary to the achievement of spiritual awareness and enlightenment. But meditation is a multi benefit tool that develops focus, concentration, awareness, silence and the ability to remain in the here and now. It is also the mechanism by which we can get in touch with our physical bodies in such a way that will result in deep psychological and/or emotional issues being revealed, that otherwise might be out of our reach.
The objective of meditation, of course, is to get ourselves to the only place and time that truly exists actually, the here and now, and it is only here that we can learn about ourselves and realize what needs to be worked on and what is just fine.
Power And Rebuilding
Eventually we reach a point where we need to replace the bad with the good, the
negative with the positive, the dysfunctional with harmony and rhythm. We need
to find our way back to the rhythm of life.
This part is not easy either, but if you did the self awareness challenge well enough, at least you have some definite targets to work with and there are proven tools out there that we can use to put ourselves back together according to new knowledge and understanding. The main essential objective in self change is the process of changing fundamental beliefs about ourselves, our world and reality.
When we leverage the power of conditioning through the use of tools like affirmations, visualization and meditation and bring the power of belief to the table, we can implement fundamental changes that will result in system wide changes that will roll over and manifest in every detail of life. These tools are designed to help us achieve a level of consciousness that will allow us to work with the extraordinary power of the subconscious mind. Once we tap into this power, most things will seem to fall into place like magic.
It is essential therefore that we have a clear, well described and well defined ideal or image of what we want to be before we start this stage or we may well be simply putting a new face on the same reality. Just another clever act of self manipulation and deception designed to allow us to avoid the real, without having to be conscious of, and responsible for doing so.
Essentially we have the power to change ourselves and our world by changing what we believe. The journey of self change may include other journeys such as the exploration of new and unfamiliar perspectives which have the potential for introducing us to new ideas and perceptions which in turn have the power to open our minds to more new ideas. Suddenly life is again a series of adventures that unfolds with the rising of the sun each day, just as it was before we sustained any damage, when we were new human life forms known as children.
Robert Darby is a self help and personal development specialist at Agenda of Life where we ask the questions that many are afraid to ask, and suggest answers few want to hear.
Posted on October 5, 2009, 12:25 pm
What to do if you choose not to cut bait and run but, rather, hold fast and stick it out.
A couple of new studies have identified the alternative of switching to low stress jobs for workers who are overcome with the stresses of their current positions, particularly in this current economy. You could, perhaps, secure one of these low stress positions if you really want to make the career move, but a catch twenty-two may exist, as the switching of jobs, itself, potentially brings on different stresses while dealing with the challenges of a new job learning curve and the demands of retraining. If you have a high stress job and are determined to stick it out, right where you are, and ride the waves, you can fortify yourself, and lower at least some of your job's stress, by practicing smart stress reduction strategies, such as:
1. Sleep well and long enough. Know the amount of hours your body needs to cope with the challenges of your professional day. Do you need 6 hours? 7? 8? more? Figure this out by observing your natural wakeup time on your off days (when you're not jolted into the next morning by a blaring alarm clock.) A fitful night's sleep sets you up for increased workplace stress the next day, which makes for another fitful night's sleep! Break that maddening (and stressful) cycle.
2. Eat well. Take what you intellectual already know about good eating habits and choose to actually practice them! Get up early enough to have a leisurely, relaxed breakfast that includes carbohydrates, fluids and protein. We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so why is it that so many otherwise smart professionals have only a cup of coffee for their first meal??? And best to have a solid breakfast, anyway, just in case you find you must skip lunch. With no breakfast and no lunch in your belly, how are you ever going to perform well on the job and make sound business decisions by 3 o'clock? Consider bringing your lunch from home, because it's often a bought lunch that gets short changed if your day gets too stressful and too demanding to tear yourself away from your desk.
3. Breathe. It's amazing how many of us never take a proper, full breath all day long, regardless of trade or profession. And those with sedentary, office/desk jobs are at the biggest disadvantage of all when it comes to proper breathing, for, as the day wears on, one's posture naturally begins to slump (and lungs squish, especially if you haven't peeled yourself out of your chair all day long!). Practice breathing awareness. Take a series of full, proper deep breaths once in awhile throughout your workday; and be sure to efficiently exhale, too. Studies show that inhaling is associated with drawing in stress, while exhaling releases. When on hold or waiting for another, take 10 deep breaths to help your muscles relax and reduce stress.
4. Practice Mindful Productivity. When you are very comfortable with the multiple daily tasks of your job, it's easy to coast through the day on auto-pilot, without conscious awareness. Such a cruise-control approach can increase the number of errors in one's performance, causing not only increased workload but, as well, increased stress and time-management issues.
5. Set Priorities and mange your time as best you can. Work with a Master/Best-Case/Ideal Daily "To Do" list, as well as a more realistic one that builds in, and even anticipates, interruptions and minor derailments. Work your plan, but be sure to build in enough flexibility so that you are not a prisoner of that plan and end up being stressed out by not achieving all that is on it.
6. Develop (or remind yourself of) gracious and communicative Assertive Communications Techniques, so that you can say, "No", more often while still maintaining positive and communicative workplace relationships.
7. Develop (or remind yourself of) efficient and effective negotiation techniques. If you can't possibly do all that's expected of you in a day, week, month, etc., learn how to earnestly and positively express those concerns to your powers that be. Share what you believe is actually doable in a day, and what is not, and why, complete with suggestions for resolution (as no one really wants to hear out a whiner who is not willing to be part of the solution).
8. Develop (or remind yourself of) efficient and effective delegation
skills. Do you
really have to do everything all on your own? Sleuth out credible others within
the workplace (or even beyond) whom you can engage to help you along with the
tasks at hand.
9. Surrender to at least some
interruptions. No day is ever full of only tasks. There are
people to consider as well, and there will always be some interruptions, for
sure. Rather than thinking of the interruptions as irritants, reframe your
perspective by recognizing interruptions as a natural (and sometimes even
productive) part of your business day.
People will call and people will drop by, undoubtedly. While surrendering to this truth, however, still do your very best to surrender on your terms. For example, negotiate a telephone-free 90 minutes each day (at a time of day that best works for your rhythms and job demands). And/or negotiate a literal or metaphoric "closed door" policy for a window of time each day--a dedicated quiet time when all colleagues know that your are "hands off "and "ears off" for that span of time. And minimize the length of colleague "visitor" interruptions at other times of your business day--when you're not on dedicated quiet time--by employing subtle strategies such as, e.g. placing books, papers, files, etc. on empty chairs at your work station/office and also by standing up to greet and chat momentarily with such visitors (a standing meeting and greeting always creates the illusion of movement and transit, while remaining seated telegraphs a relaxed and leisurely energy).
The faster you can complete on a little polite socializing with colleagues, the faster you can get back to the pressing tasks at hand, and the faster you can complete on those projects which create escalating stress in your day.
10. In cases where you get to declare the deadline for delivery on promised tasks, employ the philosophy of, "under promise and over deliver". Do your best to build in some subtle, yet realistic, slack time. When you are able to negotiate an "under promise" deadline, you give yourself breathing room to concentrate and focus on a quality delivery. You also set yourself up for greater professional credibility, as you are then perceived as a person who delivers either on-time or ahead of schedule--great for both your professional reputation and your sense of personal workplace satisfaction!
11. Embrace the old time-management philosophy, "Better to come into a
plan, rather than come in to plan."
Meaning, cash-out each
end-of-workday with a review of what was successfully completed and what still
needs to be tackled first, second, third, etc. thing tomorrow. Know the vision
of your next workday before you first step back into your office that following
morning.
12. Master your email volume as best
you can. 200+ incoming emails can freak out almost anyone. Do
what you can to adjust your SPAM filters to your satisfaction. At your next team
meeting negotiate agreement on the degree to which everyone cc's and/or replies
to "all". Educate as many as possible to use crisp, efficient and informative
subject lines. And consider the value of picking up the phone once in a while,
instead of feeding another meal to the various electronic gluttons that eat away
your day.
13. Hold meetings with formal agendas. Rambling meetings are often the bane of every employee's existence and can significantly increase workplace stress, as time spent in meetings--however well intended or necessary--is time not spent purely on-the-job. If you must meet, make those gatherings efficient by creating an agenda (which can be built for several days prior to the meeting). Make agreements as to the time parameters for each agenda item and assign (a roving, if you like) chair for each gathering.
14. Know the difference between what is important work to be done, what is urgent and what is merely, "I'll get around to that some day". However, recognize that even the "some day" work needs to be completed with some efficiency as, if it is not, it will fast become urgent and full of stress for you. For example, sooner or later be sure to file both your hard copy and electronic information. Nothing can drive you crazier, create more stress and consume more time than knowing you have that oh-so-important information "here somewhere", but not being able to find it.
15. Employ the "Do it now" philosophy, where you can. When you actually do have a few moments to, "do it now or do it later", do it now. Procrastination is a virus that can infect all you do, and that will eventually end up creating stressful emergencies of all your incomplete tasks.
16. Find some humour/some laughter in each day, whether through a book,
a comic, interfacing with a funny colleague or sharing a joke.
Humour and laughter breaks tension and brings colleagues together in a positive
way. Whatever works for you and whatever it takes, make sure that even the most
stressful and demanding of days includes at least one good workplace laugh.
Collegial laughter is like a much-needed rest stop in the daily workplace
marathon race. Like my piano teacher always reminded, "Rests are part of the
music".
17. Get to the gym, or exercise
elsewhere and somehow, if you are so inclined. Or, at the very
least, find ways in your daily workplace travels to move your body (especially
if you are tethered to a desk all day long). Take the stairs and, if you are
really daring, take them (up) two at a time to emulate walking lunges you'd
otherwise have done at the gym!
18. Change your voice mail daily so that your incoming callers know exactly where you are and when you'll return. Knowing this, some callers will choose not to leave (yet another!) voice mail for you at all but, rather, call you back when you're there once again. Less voice mail means less stress. And do the same for your email, too, by creating your out-of-office message every time you're away, even for a day.
19. Take a midday catnap (on your own time!). Even Albert Einstein knew the value of brief daytime naps to refresh one's mind, energy, creativity and productivity. If you can't actually find the time or place for a power snooze, develop your meditative techniques (to capture much of the same benefit of an unconscious, closed-eye, relaxed and quiet state).
20. Embrace routine and daily rituals. Much research shows that children are more relaxed and comforted/less stressed if surrounded by routine. The same is true for adults. Routine, although sometimes perceived as boring and predictable, can offer a stressed-out employee a much-needed anchor, sense of safety and peace. Personal rituals for starting and ending one's business day are terrific bookends for daily routine, too.
21. Say, "yes" to less. If you are one of those people that says yes to all that is asked of you, at least through the roughest days of your stressful workplace, learn to hold your tongue and let another say yes for a change.
22. Nurture at least one authentic workplace friendship,
so that you always have at least one "safe" person with whom to commiserate
about the job, the corporate culture, the workplace stress, etc. But make sure
that commiserating does not become a habit. Remember, "misery loves company".
Commiserating should be a stress-busting strategy employed with time
limitations, e.g. only 5 minutes a day, then let it go.
23. Observe your stress triggers and
take action. Note what happens to you on a physiological
level when you feel your stress levels rising. Does your jaw clench? voice rise?
palms sweat? heart race? head pound? teeth grit? Identifying your stress
triggers--when they are merely percolating, rather than exploding--can act as
early warning system for shifting perspectives, removing yourself from the
stressful situation, etc.
24. Take advantage of employer sponsored Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) if your stress levels get beyond your own ability to handle using simple stress reduction techniques. Be willing to accept that sooner or later most every professional--regardless of field, industry or position--could benefit from professional counsel.
25. Be determined to embrace a positive attitude, come what may...even if you have to, "fake it 'til you make it" some of the time. Whatever it takes, find the good, the lesson, the value in this stressful period of your professional life and embrace the philosophy that, "This too shall pass". And be comforted that, "Out of order comes chaos, and out of chaos, order will surely come again".
Bonus:
26. Be on your own side; be your own best friend; be good, kind and gentle to yourself.
Take charge of your own energy and then help orchestrate the energy of those
around you.
- Peter Drucker
Nina Spencer is a business/motivational keynote speaker, and workshop
facilitator, specializing in interpersonal communications and rebuilding
workplace passion. Nina can be reached at 416-588-3334. To book Nina's keynote
or workshop services for your organization's event, visit:
Nina Spencer, Business Motivational Speaker:
http://www.ninaspencer.com
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_90.htm
You've assigned an important task to a talented employee, and given him a deadline. Now, do you let him do his work and simply touch base with him at pre-defined points along the way - or do you keep dropping by his desk and sending e-mails to check his progress?
If it's the latter, you might be a micromanager. Or, if you're the harried worker trying to make a deadline with a boss hovering at your shoulder, you might have a micromanager on your hands - someone who just can't let go of tiny details.
Micromanagers take perfectly positive attributes - an attention to detail and a hands-on attitude - to the extreme. Either because they're control-obsessed, or because they feel driven to push everyone around them to success, micromanagers risk disempowering their colleagues. They ruin their colleagues' confidence, hurt their performance, and frustrate them to the point where they quit.
Luckily, though, there are ways to identify these overzealous tendencies in yourself - and get rid of them before they do more damage. And if you work for a micromanager, there are strategies you can use to convince him or her to accept your independence.
First, though, how do you spot the signs of micromanagement? Where is the line between being an involved manager, and an over-involved manager who's driving his team mad?
What follows are some signs that you might be a micromanager - or have one on your hands. In general, micromanagers:
If you are getting results by micromanaging and keeping your nose in everyone's business, why not carry on?
Micromanagers often affirm the value of their approach with a simple experiment: They give an employee an assignment, and then disappear until the deadline. Is this employee likely to excel when given free rein?
Possibly - if the worker has exceptional confidence in his abilities. Under micromanagement, however, most workers become timid and tentative - possibly even paralyzed. "No matter what I do," such a worker might think to himself, "It won't be good enough." Then one of two things will happen: Either the worker will ask the manager for guidance before the deadline, or he will forge ahead, but come up with an inadequate result.
In either case, the micromanager will interpret the result of his experiment as proof that, without his constant intervention, his people will flounder or fail.
But do these results verify the value of micromanagement - or condemn it? A truly effective manager sets up those around him to succeed. Micromanagers, on the other hand, prevent employees from making - and taking responsibility for - their own decisions. But it's precisely the process of making decisions, and living with the consequences, that causes people to grow and improve.
Good managers empower their employees to do well by giving opportunities to excel; Bad managers disempower their employees by hoarding those opportunities. And a disempowered employee is an ineffective one - one who requires a lot of time and energy from his supervisor.
It's that time and energy, multiplied across a whole team of timid, cowed workers, that amounts to a serious and self-defeating drain on a manager's time. It's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with analysis, planning, communication with other teams, and the other "big-picture" tasks of managing, when you are sweating the details of the next sales presentation.
So now you've identified micro-managerial tendencies and seen why they're bad. What can you do if you know you're exhibiting such behaviors - or are being subjected to them by a supervisor?
From the micromanager's perspective, the best way to build healthier relationships with employees may be the most direct: Talk to them.
It might take several conversations to convince them that you're serious about change. Getting frank feedback from employees is the hard part. Once you've done that, as executive coach Marshall Goldsmith recommends in his book What Got You Here Won't Get You There, it's time to apologize and change. This means giving your employees the leeway - and encouragement - to succeed. Focus first on the ones with the most potential, and learn to delegate effectively to them. Read our article on delegation for more about this.
And if you're not sure what you should be doing with all the free time, once you stop micromanaging, read our article on Team Management Skills for more information.
|
Tip: Part of being a good manager, one often lost on those of the micro variety, is listening. Managers fail to listen when they forget their employees have important insights - and people who don't feel listened to become disengaged. |
As for the micromanaged, well, things are a bit more complicated. Likely as not, you're being held back in your professional development - and probably not making the progress in your career that you could be if you enjoyed workplace independence.
But there's a certain amount that you can do to improve the situation:
Micromanagement restricts the ability of micromanaged people to develop and grow, and it also limits what the micromanager's team can achieve, because everything has to go through him or her.
When a boss is reluctant to delegate, focuses on details ahead of the big picture and discourages his staff from taking the initiative, there's every chance that he's sliding towards micromanagement.
The first step in avoiding the micromanagement trap (or getting out of it once you're there) is to recognize the danger signs by talking to your staff or boss. If you're micromanaged, help your boss see there is a better way of working. And if you are a micromanager, work hard on those delegation skills and learn to trust your staff to develop and deliver.
By Philip Humbert
Since the days of Norman Vincent Peale and W. Clement Stone, we've known the importance of a positive mental attitude. Stone thought it was so vital for success and achievement that he abbreviated it as PMA and said it was the single most important difference between winners and losers in life. A positive, optimistic attitude will over-come any obstacle, solve any problem, and keep us going no matter what. It is essential to be your best!
And who doesn't want to be positive, optimistic, cheerful and hopeful? Consider the alternatives! We all want to be confident, happy, and eager to move "full speed ahead" at all times. But it can be difficult.
We live in a world of "bad news" and hard times. Negative people and painful circumstances surround us much of the time. The news is filled with trauma and tragedy. We have sayings about this--"into every life a little rain must fall." And there's Murphy's Law that, "if anything can go wrong, it will," and there's always some cheerful by-stander to remind us that "Murphy was an optimist!" What's a positive person to do?
This week, a client asked me that question. He knows he needs to maintain a positive attitude in the midst of business and personal difficulties. He told me he's "tried everything" but the frustration, discouragement and sadness "pile up and I find myself wanting to throw in the towel." His question to me (after all, I'm the coach, right!?) was, "HOW can I stay positive with so much negativity around me?"
I thought about that and sent him an email with the following steps:
Let others worry and fret the small stuff, but not you! Let others whine and complain, but not you! While others moan and groan and suffer and shake, let yourself soar! You are still breathing, still working, still making a difference. Focus on these things and your Positive Mental Attitude will take care of itself.
Dr Humbert is a Success Strategist, author and popular speaker. Imagine what's possible! To inquire about having him speak to your group or organization, or to schedule an initial consultation, contact him or visit his site at Philip Humbert.com.
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_86.htm
While many of the decisions we make on a daily basis are quite simple, some are not. These decisions may involve assimilating a huge amount of information, exploring many different ideas, and drawing on many strands of experience. And the consequences of the right or wrong decision may be profound for the team and the organization.
So, should leaders be decisive, think the issues through on their own, and take firm action? In some cases, no.
There's a limit to how much information any one individual can process, and a limit on how many perspectives one person can see. Many decisions need full group participation to explore the situation, provide input and make a final choice. As you've probably seen, groups can often make better decisions than any one person operating on his or her own. This is one of the main reasons that good companies have boards, to which important decisions are taken.
What's more, many decisions need "buy-in" from the people affected by them if they're to be implemented successfully, and it's hard to get this buy-in if people haven't been involved in the decision-making process.
The problem is that when you bring other people into the decision-making process, you need to approach decisions differently. These approaches vary, depending on a number of different factors, including:
Understanding why and how best to organize decisions for your team is an important skill. We'll show you some key tools to use when you want to involve your whole team in the decision-making process.
Using team input is challenging, and it takes a fair amount of preparation and time. As the saying goes, if you put three people together in a room, you'll often get four opinions. People can often see issues differently - and they all have different experiences, values, personalities, styles, and needs.
Trying to include all of these differences in one decision that satisfies everyone can be difficult, to say the least. Team decision-making strategies should therefore be used when needed, for example, when consensus and participation are necessary.
When time is of the essence, a good decision is one that's made quickly. That doesn't usually happen with full team decision-making. And when one or two people have the necessary expertise to make the decision, it doesn't make sense to involve the whole team - the experts provide most of the input and make the final choice anyway.
However, where the situation is complex, consequences are significant, commitment and buy-in are important, and where team members can work together maturely, team decision-making is often best.
|
Tip: If the right way forward isn't obvious, see our article on The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Model. While it's quite complex, it gives you a well-thought-through decision tree that you can use to work out the approach to use. |
When your whole group needs to be involved in the process, you need to explore consensus decision-making models. With these, each team member has the opportunity to provide input and opinions. All members discuss alternatives until they agree on a solution.
With consensus, there's often compromise. Not everyone gets everything they want out of the final decision. However, because everyone has fair input, the decisions reached are often ones that can all live with.
Let's look at a few team decision-making strategies.
|
The other advantage of the Delphi Method is its ability to eliminate groupthink. In some situations, group cohesion and consensus can subconsciously become more important to people than reaching the right decision, with the result that the group may ignore anything that contradicts the newfound consensus. If groupthink isn't recognized and corrected, it can lead to very poor decision-making and severe negative consequences. |
Team decision-making is often time-consuming, meaning that it makes sense to prepare for it properly. Before you organize full team participation, make sure that it's appropriate, and that you have the necessary time and resources for it.
However, teams can often commit more enthusiastically to decisions reached through consensus. Using a variety of techniques, you can do this in such a way that everyone has a chance to contribute to the final result.
|
|
|
James Manktelow |
Privacy
Policy:
Mind Tools will
treat your email address with complete respect and will not circulate it to any
third party.
If you are not already a subscriber to this newsletter and you would like to be
one, you can sign up at
http://www.mindtools.com/subscribe.htm
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_38.htm
Which members of your team would you miss most if they left tomorrow? And what makes them so valuable?
Chances are, they've been there long enough to know exactly how the organization works. Highly competent at what they do, efficient, organized and with excellent soft skills, they know who to talk to in other departments to solve major problems. As such, they're the "go to people" whenever things get difficult.
When you've got these kind of people around, your team achieves more – not only through their direct contribution, but because they set the standard in attitude, behavior and results for everyone else.
As a manager, you really want to keep these valued players happy, so that your team continues to benefit from their exceptional performance.
But what if you notice signs that some of your leading people may feel that their futures lie elsewhere? If you get to the point where you receive their resignations, your team is likely to be in trouble. Just a few of the consequences are loss of knowledge, disruption, lower collective morale, and the time and effort wasted recruiting and training replacements. All in all, it might take months – or years – to rebuild your team.
Understanding how to handle this sort of situation, or even better, being able to avoid it happening in the first place, is critical to keeping valued team members happy, effective and engaged.
This article helps you to recognize and avoid the issues that might push a team member to leave. Use our step-by-step approach to help avoid potential pitfalls, so that you can continue to get the best from your team's star players.
Step 1: Identify the Warning Signs
The sooner that you detect that someone might be thinking of leaving, the better chance you have of changing their mind. This is why you should always be on the look-out for significant changes in the behavior of your members of your team.
The kind of signs that you might need to be concerned about include:
Be aware that any change in behavior may be significant when it comes to making sure that valued team members are happy. In some cases, a seemingly positive change may be just as much of a warning sign as an obviously negative one. For example, a team member whose productivity suddenly increases may perhaps see this as a way of impressing a potential new boss in another department, or she may be anxious to leave with a clear desk and conscience.
Similarly, a colleague who used to stay focused on his work, but who begins to chat at colleagues' desks, may be avoiding doing work that he no longer enjoys.
There's no need to become cynical about such changes, but do consider them in the context of that team-member's performance and behavior. Then you can decide the best way to sustain that person's contribution to the team.
|
Seasonal Factors Such “moments of truth” can also occur at the signing-off of long projects, or even at the end of the financial year. Team members who’ve been in their role for some time may feel a responsibility, or even a moral obligation, to make a move only when one activity is finished and the next hasn’t yet started. |
Step 2: Understand Possible Problems
Of course, it can often be difficult to link the symptoms of unhappiness with their underlying causes. For example, one team member may withdraw from office chit-chat because she feels overworked. Another with the same problem – feeling overworked – might take refuge in muttered discussions at the coffee machine.
However, there are several tools that can help you understand why someone might want to leave a job.
|
Although this step involves "guessing" what the problem is, when it would clearly be more efficient to ask this straight out, it helps to spend a little time up front to consider what might be going on: this gives you the opportunity to prepare responses. Time is often of the essence in fending off a resignation – especially if the person involved is already interviewing elsewhere. You want to avoid having to say "I see, well, let me go away and think about how I can help with that, and we'll talk again next week." |
Step 3: Talk to Your Team Member
Once you've thought about what the issues might be, it's time to have a friendly chat with your team member to see if anything's troubling him or her. Use informal, open questions, in a private, one-to-one session.
Sometimes all it takes is a question like "How's it going?" or "How do you feel about project X?" to get the person to open up. Make sure that you listen carefully, and that you both have enough time for everything that needs to be said.
Step 4: Fixing the Issue
Work on a plan to improve the situation together.
Depending on the situation, you should be able to find some helpful suggestions in Mind Tools articles like Dealing with Poor Performance and Re-engaging Team Members.
Try to find a solution which plays to your valued team member's particular strengths. This can often be more profitable for both the person and the organization than focusing on eradicating weaknesses in performance. Using the Reflected Best Self™ Exercise is a good way to help team members define exactly what their strengths are, helping them to go even further with their current job.
In the long term, remember that there are a number of things you should be doing on an ongoing basis to keep people engaged, productive and happy. These include:
|
Tip: Understanding that these kinds of factor do exist, and that you can't do anything about them, will help you manage these departures so that they minimize the impact on other key players. Explain the situation to your team, and use the methods outlined in this article to keep the rest of your valued team members on board. |
Keeping valued team members means not only maintaining the right work environment, but also being sensitive to signs of change. You can avoid resignations by paying attention to factors like team trust and job satisfaction. By appropriate monitoring of changes in employees' behavior, and careful analysis of the possible causes, you can handle problems with less effort and more success.
|
|
|
James Manktelow |
Privacy
Policy:
Mind Tools will
treat your email address with complete respect and will not circulate it to any
third party.
If you are not already a subscriber to this newsletter and you would like to be
one, you can sign up at
http://www.mindtools.com/subscribe.htm
By Margie Worrell
September 26th, is Women's Equality Day and I'm off to speak to a Federal Department here in D.C. to celebrate the occasion. The topic: "Leadership is a Choice, Not a Position." I think leadership ties in beautifully with women's equality, indeed with all equality. After all, the women's equality movement began in 1848 when five otherwise ordinary women, sitting around drinking tea, decided to put a notice in the local newspaper announcing "a convention to discuss the rights of women". It was to be held six days later in their hometown of Seneca Falls, upstate New York. Six days later they drafted a declaration stating that "we find these truths to be self evident: that all men and women are created equal." Of the 100 people who signed that declaration, only one, nineteen year old Charlotte Woodward, lived long enough to gain the right to vote 72 years later in 1920.
Now I'm not here to give you a history lesson on women's rights (given I only just learnt this stuff myself researching for my speech). Rather I want to challenge you to examine how you define leadership, and more particularly, how you see yourself as a leader. After all, how you see yourself (as a leader and as a person) determines how others see you. When it comes to leadership, I believe authentic leadership is about making a stand for what we believe in, expanding what we (and others) see as possible and for daring to create change regardless of our formal position, status or authority. Leadership ultimately calls us to step beyond our comfort zone and put ourselves at risk in some way. Then again, to be outstanding in life, we must first be prepared to stand out.
While women today in the U.S., Australia and most developed countries enjoy opportunities our grandmothers (dare I say, our mothers?) never knew, injustice and inequality still exist in every society around the world. Here are a few statistics to make you cringe (and feel grateful you were born with the opportunities you have):
Of course we don't need to look to Africa or the Middle East to find injustice and inequity. There's plenty of it out your back door... you just have to open your eyes to it. It's for this reason that we are each called today, just as those women were back in 1848, to step up to the leadership plate in our own way. If you are waiting for someone to give you the authority, status or permission to do so, you may well never take the actions you need to take, make the positive impact you're capable of making, or develop your innate leadership ability.
I have never labeled myself a feminist. I am, however, a passionate believer in the potential of all people to make a meaningful difference. But I believe this can only be accomplished when we are ready to step up to the plate and think bigger and challenge the status quo, however long its been in place. You don't have to have a name like Oprah, Bono or Angelina to create a vision for yourself, your community, organization and society that inspires you and to work toward creating a more prosperous, egalitarian and moral world. You just have to make a decision to do it.
As I said before, real leadership first begins with self leadership. How you see yourself determines how others see you. How powerfully you live your own life determines the extent to which those around you will sense their own personal power and express it in the world. When you light a candle in a dark room it's not just you who can see things more clearly.
On that note, I challenge you to take one action today (and then another tomorrow...) that calls on you to step outside your comfort zone and up to the leadership plate for the sake of a purpose or goal that is bigger than you. It might be speaking up about an issue to a colleague at work that you've been putting off (afraid of ruffling feathers), or sending out an email rallying friends behind a cause/charity you care about. It might be signing up to help a group that is doing something worthwhile for less fortunate people in your community or volunteering to coach you kids' soccer team this season. It might be taking on greater responsibility in your work and community, not because you'll get extra money or kudos but because you want to develop your ability to lead yourself and others to achieving more. Or it just might be something else entirely. My hope though is that you will do more than just delete this email and get on with your day as though you have no power in affe cting positive change in your own life or anyone else's. That, after all, is a big fat cop out.
So, dare to make a more meaningful impact in the world around you. In short, live and lead boldly!
*Statistics courtesy of UNICEF and Globalissues.org
Please leave a comment on my blog at
Find Your Courage.com. Also if you would like to get a copy of the
one-page handout "Leadership is a Choice" that I will be distributing at the
Women's Equality Day Program, please send an
email to me.
By Roxanne Emmerich
We've all been there. You walk into a bank, restaurant, or store and suddenly feel it, that vague sensation that all is not well. It drips from the ceilings and sits in puddles on the floor. The employees are lost in thought, unable to decide whether they'd rather be somewhere else or stay and kill each other. And you're the lucky one bathing in all the poison they can ladle up. Yeesh.
I hope you've experienced the other side, too. You walk in the door and are gob smacked by a sense of well-being. This isn't just a place where people work, it's a place that WORKS. The employees want to be there and they want YOU to be there. You feel your brow relax, and the corners of your mouth head ever-so-slightly north. You don't wanna leave. So which of these do YOU work in?
Now, which of these environments do you think YOUR employees rather work in? So you're wondering if that six-headed, chain-smoking, flatulent monster that's been "hiding" in the supply closet is the Beast we're talking about here.
Here Are 9 Symptoms of a Dysfunctional Workplace:
When you think of a dysfunctional organization, you might picture a lot of screaming and yelling. But take a close look at this list. There's very little that has to do with raised voices, and the only mention of "conflict" is the failure to deal with it directly.
You will have conflicts in the workplace. The key is to address it in a healthy and productive way. Yelling at someone isn't the best way to communicate displeasure, but it's a heck of a lot better than whispering behind that person's back, which gets us into the excruciating, crazy-making world of the passive-aggressive.
If I had to nominate just one thing from the list above as the most destructive symptom of the dysfunctional workplace, there's no contest. It's GOSSIP. A workplace full of whispered gossip is as painful and maddening as a buzzing mosquito at bedtime. It is destructive to the soul of your workplace and the souls of your people who never feel safe and always wonder who is talking behind their backs.
When people gossip about others, you may as well have them bring baseball bats and beat each other. At least that will heal. If a happy and functional workplace is your goal, there are few more productive places to put your energy than the absolute elimination of gossip.
How to End Gossip &
Create a Happy Workplace Environment Where People Actually Want to Work
Step one is to recognize that gossip is an attempt at communication--seriously
screwed up communication, sure, but communication nonetheless. You can't
eliminate the behavior without providing something to replace it--namely a good
and healthy way of communicating.
All Jack had to do was to go to Tom and say, "Dude, when you are late with that analysis, I end up on my knees to my boss because then my report is late. Please promise me you'll get that to me on time from now on." Reasonable. Direct. Easy.
If Jack came to you with gossip, simply say, "Gee, it sounds like you need to talk to Tom directly so you can work this out." Lather, rinse and repeat until the person wakes up!
Once you establish a zero-tolerance policy for talking behind another person's back, give your employees permission to address conflict head-on, out loud, courageously and honestly. Create a trusting and open environment and watch the dysfunctions in your workplace ebb away.
The Next Step to Ending
Workplace Dysfunctions: Build a Shared Vision
Now you've recognized the symptoms and diagnosed the disease. Time for the cure.
Most workplace dysfunctions amount to employees shooting their energy at each
other because there's nothing else to aim for. What's needed is a single, shared
vision.
Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Everyone wants to feel productive and be happy. Give yourself and your team members a clear and positive picture of where you want to go as a group. Most of them will jump at the chance to be a part of it. When people align around a vision of great service, pettiness and dysfunctional workplace behaviors fall away and people become who they need to be to make it happen.
Will there still be those who stubbornly hold on to their dysfunctions? I guarantee it. And for the sake of the rest of you, gently but firmly encourage those folks to find and follow their bliss elsewhere.
Are you ready to do what it takes to end the dysfunctions and create a can-do culture in your workplace?
Roxanne Emmerich is renowned for her ability to transform "ho-hum" workplaces into massive results-oriented "bring-it-on" environments. To discover how you can create a 20/20 business vision, motivate employees, ignite their passion and catapult performance to new levels, check out her new book - Thank God It's Monday! How to Create a Workplace You and Your Customers Love. You can get a free sneak preview here.
The CONNECT Model
A tested approach
for building good team relationships
Reflect for a
moment: have you ever seen a situation where a simple disagreement between
people has flared up into a bitter dispute?
If you’re like
most people, your answer is probably "YES!", and you’ll have seen this often! In
a personal context, these disputes can lead to ill-feeling and feuding that
lasts a lifetime. In a professional one, they can sabotage your team’s mission,
or can split good teams apart.
This is why
you need to manage these situations within your team. You need to defuse the
negative effects of conflict before they damage your team, at the same time that
you learn from and correct the underlying causes of conflict.
The problem with
this is that it's easy to believe that others are at fault where relationships
turn bad, and to ignore the problems that we ourselves may be causing. This is
why, while we each have the right to present our own viewpoint, we need to be
equally receptive and respectful to the views of others as well.
The CONNECT Model is an elegant tool for dealing with this problem. Developed by
Frank LaFasto and Carl Larson in their book,
When Teams Work Best, it's a proven approach for building and
sustaining healthy relationships between the members of a team.
This approach is used to improve relationships between two members of a team,
and has been tested and used by more than 5000 people in about fifteen different
organizations. Before we start explaining the CONNECT Model, a small word of
caution: the conversations that emerge when you use the tool may sound a little
weird, and you might feel uncomfortable about using it (in practice, you may
want to follow these steps informally). However, rest assured, you'll find that
this is a powerful and useful relationship improvement tool!
To improve a sour relationship, follow these steps:
By going through this exercise, you'll find that this effort has helped:
Next time you
run into a serious conflict, whether at work or at home, try using CONNECT. It’s
a great way of helping people to be happier – and of boosting teamwork at the
same time!
CONNECT is
just one of 44 team building skills taught within “Team Tools: Build and Lead an
Excellent Team”.
Until then, have an excellent week!
|
|
|
James Manktelow |
Teamwork has a dramatic affect on organizational performance. An effective team can help an organization achieve incredible results. A team that is not working can cause unnecessary disruption, failed delivery and strategic failure.
Nowadays it is almost impossible to avoid being a member of team. If you're not on an official team at work, chances are you function within one in one way or another. So it's important for your personal and career development to know your teamworking strengths and weaknesses.
This assessment helps you uncover common teamworking problems that you might be experiencing. Once you've completed the assessment, we direct you towards team tools that will help you to improve and develop these important skills.
Use the online test below, and click the 'Calculate my total' button at the foot of the test.
Instructions:
For each question, click the button in the column that most applies. Click the 'Calculate My Total' button to add up your score and check your result using the scoring table underneath.
© Mind Tools Ltd, 2007.
|
Score |
Comment |
|
46-75 |
You're a solid team member working well as part of an effective team. Lower scores in this range show that there is room for improvement, though. Read the following summaries of key teamwork functions and determine which of the tools will help you become a better team player and build a stronger team. |
|
31-45 |
Your effectiveness as a team player and your team's effectiveness are patchy. You're good at some things, but there's room for improvement elsewhere. Focus on the serious issues below, and you'll most likely find that you and your team are soon achieving more. |
|
15-30 |
This is worrying. The good news is that you've got a great opportunity to improve your effectiveness as a team member, and the effectiveness of your team. Start below! |
Team Development (Questions 1, 11)
Teams do not become effective overnight. Team building is a process that requires due attention and care. If you try to skip over important development stages, you risk not forming the solid foundation needed when trouble or setbacks occur.
To build, lead, or participate in a team requires an understanding of the stages of team development. Through extensive research, it has been found that successful teams have certain aspects of their development paths in common. The one that most people are aware of is Tuckman's Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing model.
Two other factors that significantly increase a team's chances of being effective are having a well thought out team orientation process, and developing a clear team charter. Both of these help you establish clear guidelines and set clear expectations. When the individuals on a team all know what they are supposed to be doing and how they are to go about doing it, you give the team a good start on maximizing performance. To read more about these processes see the Mind Tools articles on Successful Induction and Team Charters.
Feedback (Questions 2, 13)
One of the best ways of improving people's performance is by providing information to team members about their individual performance, as well as the overall team performance. After all, how do you know what is working and what isn't if no one gives you an objective summary?
There are usually plenty of people around who are ready and willing to give you their opinions on this. Unfortunately, this information is often conveyed in a manner that causes resentment and animosity.
For feedback to be positive and growth-inspiring, it has to be delivered properly, with enough attention being paid to how the receiver is going to perceive and process it. To learn more on giving feedback, see our articles on Giving and Receiving Feedback, The GROW Model, and 360° Feedback.
Participation and Articulating Vision (Questions 3, 9, 10)
Articulating the team's vision is fundamental to developing a high performing team. It's the vision that motivates and directs a team to reach its goal.
The best teams invest a great deal of time and energy into exploring and understanding the overall purpose and vision of the team. From this vision, a set of goals and objectives emerges that helps the team stay focused and on track.
The key to using vision successfully is making the process of discovering it a participative one. You can tell a team what the vision is and team members may or may not agree that the cause is worth working hard for. If, however, you allow the team to explore the vision, to see how their specific roles fit into the big picture, and provide meaningful opportunities for team members to assist in the team's success, then you have the basis for a high performing team.
To learn more about tying vision to goals see Performance Management and KPIs, The Balanced Scorecard, and Management By Objectives. To learn where you sit on the participative management scale, see the article on the The Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid. The articles on Avoiding Micromanagement and Successful Delegation discuss why it is important to provide challenges to your team members and allow them to use their skills and abilities to the fullest.
Managing Conflict (Questions 2, 12, 14)
Conflict can be an inevitable consequence of working with other people. Opinions, values, styles, and a whole host of other differences provide more than enough grounds for disagreement. This disagreement is actually part of the reason why teams can be so effective - the more perspectives that go into a process, the better the end result. usually!
Allowing the differences to get out of hand, though, causes unnecessary disruption and leads to breakdowns in working relationships. Team members and leaders should take it upon themselves to understand the basics of conflict management and also learn more about different styles and ways of thinking and working.
For more information on effectively managing conflict, see Managing Conflict, Theory X. Theory Y and Role Playing.
Group Roles and Structure (Questions 6, 8, 14, 15)
The differences between how people work and view the world make for interesting conversations and dynamic teams. An effective team capitalizes on these natural differences and maximizes performance by putting the right people in the right roles.
The articles on RACI and Task Allocation discuss this exact issue and provide practical methods for getting the most out of your team.
Some research has also been done on the different types of roles people play within teams. While the jury is still out on the detail of this research, having insight into the types of roles that are taken on in teams can help you see which roles and behaviors are constructive and which ones aren't. Mind Tools has featured two such models of team roles: Belbin's Team Roles and Benne and Sheats' Team Roles.
Team Member Development (Questions 7, 12)
No matter what role a person plays in a team, or what tasks he or she has been assigned to, there is almost always room for personal improvement. When the individuals on a team are functioning at high capacity, the team can flourish as well.
This is a critical understanding in team performance. Although there is no "I" in "Team" you have to remember there is no team without individuals. You have to build and foster the skills in the individuals that are congruent with the needs of the team.
To do this, requires a solid understanding of training methods and ways of identifying the needs of the team members. The article on Successful Induction talks about setting out a training needs analysis from day one. The articles on Understanding Developmental Needs and Training Needs Assessment provide practical tips for identifying areas that need improvement.
Understanding and Collaboration (Questions 5, 14)
The last area of team functioning explored by this quiz covers how well you and your team are able to collaborate and understand the key issues facing the team. Again, this goes back to the idea of cohesion. Members of successful teams all head in the same direction, and work for the same purpose.
When priorities and goals diverge, tensions appear within the team, and the whole is often no longer greater than the sum of its parts. This is a fundamental issue for high performing teams. Consensus, consistency and agreement are vital for effective teamwork.
Even if your test score didn't point to this aspect of teamwork, the articles on Concept Attainment and the Delphi Technique are highly recommended.
An effective team is much more than a bunch of people thrown together to accomplish a goal. Because teams are such an inherent part of how we work, it is easy to believe we know what makes a team perform well, however this is often not the case.
Using this test, you can uncover areas of improvement that will help you become a better overall team member and team builder.
It can be difficult to say yes when someone asks you to step outside your comfort zone. Your comfort zone is familiar and cozy. It's safe and easy. You know what to expect. If you step outside it, who knows what might happen? Anything is possible. Things could go very badly. Do you really want to take that kind of risk? Why bother?
I remember the first time I did a radio interview. It was about 10 years ago, and I was invited to talk about my computer games business for a small radio station. I didn't know what to expect, so I wasn't sure if I should do it. I said yes because I figured it would at least be a new experience for me. I felt a little anxious though. My mind started picturing all sorts of scenarios of how the interview might turn out. What if he asks me a question I can't answer? What if I give incoherent answers? What if I start rambling, and he has to cut me off? I didn't know what questions would be asked, so I couldn't really prepare for it.
The interview was less than 10 minutes long, so we didn't go into much depth, but it went okay. It felt good to do something I'd never done before.
The next time I was asked to do a radio interview, it was easier to agree to it. I'd already done it once, so how hard could it be to do it again? I said yes, and once again it went okay.
Further down the road, I got invites to do some newspaper and magazine interviews as well. And again I said yes. At one point the New York Times ran an article about successful indie games businesses. They featured me and one of my games in the piece and sent a photographer to my house to do a photo shoot for it. At the time I thought it was pretty cool to have my photo published in a major newspaper. It didn't do anything special for my business, but it was a nice motivational boost.
I kept saying yes to interviews. When I started my personal development blog in 2004, I started getting more interview requests. For the first few years, I probably did 1-2 interviews per month on average.
Then when my book came out in October 2008, I quickly started getting a lot more interview requests, mostly for radio and Internet radio shows. For a while I was doing 5-6 interviews per week, and then it slowly tapered off to about 1-2 per week. I've probably done at least 100 interviews in the past year. That's ironic in a way because my blog is still way more popular than my book (by a few orders of magnitude), but being a published author is seen as more credible in certain circles than having a high traffic website.
Since I write and speak about many different topics, I get interview requests on a wide variety of subjects -- personal growth, my book, relationships, health, raw food diet, the Law of Attraction, habit change, career development, financial abundance, spirituality, blogging, Internet marketing, starting and running a business, working from home, time management and productivity, and lots more. I even did an interview a few weeks ago where we talked about shoplifting for 30 minutes. I quite enjoy the variety. I think I'd be pulling my hair out if every interview was about the exact same thing.
This week I did two interviews: a 75-minute phone interview on blogging for a live webinar and a 40-minute in-person video interview on psychic development. Erin and I did the second interview together.
At one point doing interviews was outside my comfort zone. The first time was a stretch. It didn't feel comfortable or safe.
Fast forward 10 years though, and doing interviews is easily within my comfort zone, even if it's for a live audience of millions. It's easy because I've done it so many times before. The unknown has become the known.
Several years ago, I preferred to get the interview questions in advance (for a live or taped interview), since then I could prepare. But now I ask the interviewer not to send me the questions in advance. I prefer to go into it not knowing what to expect, so I can be more present and spontaneous. Having the questions in advance spoils the fun.
Years ago I favored written interviews since then I could take the time to craft intelligent answers. But now I'd much rather do phone or face-to-face interviews. They're a lot faster and a lot more fun.
Looking back, it's hard to imagine that I was once trepidatious about doing interviews, especially since I enjoy them and look forward to them. If I never stepped outside my comfort zone, I'd be missing out a lot of fun. Some part of me would have remained grossly underdeveloped.
Now when I do interviews, I can often tell when the person interviewing me feels a little uncomfortable or nervous. Many times I have more experience doing interviews than they do. If they seem a bit hesitant or robotic, I try to put them at ease and draw them out a little more by prompting them for reactions. Even though I'm the one being interviewed, I've learned how to interact creatively with the show hosts to stimulate more lively and interesting discussion for the listeners. That's quite a shift from where I was 10 years ago, and it all began with making the decision to step outside my comfort zone.
Saying yes to that first step can be very difficult. We have a tendency to fear the unknown. The mysterious seems like it could be dangerous. In most cases, however, there's very little real danger.
Where are the edges of your comfort zone? What areas of potential growth do you think about constantly, but you feel very anxious about taking that first step? If you keep obsessing over it, that's a pretty clear sign that it's important to you. Can you envision a place where the unknown eventually becomes the known, and what was once scary to you eventually becomes fun?
Accept that you may be a bit scared and nervous, and say yes anyway. Once you commit yourself to stepping beyond your comfort zone, you may feel more stressed at first. You may even be freaked out for a while after hearing the word yes escape your lips. But making some kind of commitment is key. When you commit yourself to taking a step beyond your comfort zone, you're giving yourself an incredible gift of growth. Your potential will grow, and your boundaries will expand. Things that were once impossible for you will gradually become possible... then probable... then certain.
One of the best ways to commit yourself is to sign up for a club, group, or activity where you're expected to show up regularly. If you show up for it, you know you'll be pushed beyond your comfort zone, and you will make gains over time.
If you fear public speaking, join Toastmasters International, and start going to club meetings. If you're afraid of looking like a fool and having people laugh at you, join a local improv group. If you feel clumsy and awkward on a dance floor, sign up for a dance class. Make some kind of commitment whereby just showing up will push you to face your fears and grow past them.
When you do something often enough, and it loses most of the mystery, it can become rather boring, even if you were once deathly afraid of it. In those situations it's up to you to keep increasing the challenge to create new growth experiences. Turn it into a game, and have fun with it.
Earlier today I went with Erin to her Toastmasters club to watch her give a speech. She's given many speeches at that club, but this time she was doing a new speech project unlike any she'd done previously. Her assignment was to tell a touching story that would impact the audience emotionally. She picked a story from when she was 12 years old and she discovered that a girl in her school was being physically abused. (The full story can be found on Erin's blog right here.)
Since Erin never gave a speech about such an emotional topic before, it was hard for her to stay emotionally connected to the story without breaking down in tears. This kind of speech was outside her comfort zone, so she was nervous about it.
As Erin gave the speech, she got very emotional at certain points and began to cry, but instead of that being a problem, it only made the speech more impactful. The audience was deeply moved by the story, and many were wiping tears off their cheeks by the time Erin was done. Erin received many compliments from audience members afterwards.
Before the speech, however, Erin was having second thoughts. She asked, "Why did I volunteer to do this? I don't feel good about this." But afterwards, she felt elated. She was glad to have had the experience, and since then she's been basking in that after-speech glow.
Life will occasionally nudge you in certain directions, but most of the time it's up to you to step outside your comfort zone. If you stay inside your comfort zone for too long, you'll begin to feel bored, apathetic, and disconnected. Life will feel like it doesn't have much meaning. But when you push yourself to stretch boldly into the unknown, your senses light up, you become more centered and aware, you discover new talents, and you have a lot more fun in life.
Occasionally people contact me who are bored with their lives and don't feel passionate about anything, and they ask me what to do. I often tell them to pick a fear and run straight at it. I encourage you to do the same. Pick a fear, and run straight at it -- even if your pace looks more like a slow crawl. Move toward something that scares you. Your fears are the keys that unlock tremendous growth experiences.
You didn't come here to hibernate. You came here to soar. But soaring may feel very uncomfortable if you're used to hibernating. Don't mistake that initial feeling of discomfort for something you should avoid. Take it as a signal that you've found something that really matters to you, and then pour your heart and soul into its pursuit.
Until next time, live consciously!
Pavlina LLC
http://www.stevepavlina.com
http://www.erinpavlina.com
PO Box 371664
Las Vegas, NV 89137
USA
By Lee Duncan
Leadership can be described as the process of engaging and including others for the achievement of a specific goal or aim. Be aware that leadership does not always need to go hand in hand with management, but for the vast majority of businesses, you can't afford a separate leader from your managers.
Indhira Ghandi said that "leadership at one time meant muscles but today it means getting along with people", and there is a great deal of truth to that, although more is required - as a leader you need to inspire and motivate your staff to deliver more together than they would alone. A leader without management skills is likely to become frustrated quickly - they'll know what they want, but be unable to co-ordinate activities to deliver it! Some key qualities for leaders are integrity, honesty, humility, courage, commitment, sincerity, passion, confidence, positivity, wisdom, determination, compassion, sensitivity, and a degree of personal charisma. As the leader you will have to make ethical and value judgements, alongside the technical and business decisions that come with management. It's not just about having your name printed with "CEO" or "Managing Director" next to it - you have to walk the talk.
The reason for this is that leaders who can demonstrate persistence, determination and consistency will bring out the same qualities in their teams. On the other hand if you demonstrate inconsistency, a lack of integrity and a hap-hazard approach to work, your team will follow your lead in that, too.
Flip Flippen's Personal Constraint Theory says that every leader is the cap that limits the performance of his organisation. If you are disappointed in the way your business is performing, look in the mirror - you have a leadership problem. Want to blame your staff for doing everything wrong? Ask yourself who hired them, trained them, built the systems and processes they use, and who ultimately manages them. The finger is pointing at you, not them! If you doubt this, I strongly recommend reading Flip's "The Flipside" book, which will tell you a great deal about improving yourself to improve your life.
It's not just your position that gives you authority as a leader, it's also the quality of the relationships that you build with your team. You see, as a leader you get your authority as one side of an exchange, but if you fail to deliver the goods and don't live up to your staff's expectations, they will reward you by performing like drunken slugs.
Leaders who take the time to develop a powerful vision for the business with their teams have the upper hand over their competition, because they'll follow you until the ends of the earth, working longer hours for less pay and with a passion that cannot be bought with mere money. A strong leader will be followed into the trenches by his people, because he understands that leadership is about being the best and showing that taking the high road is what sets the tone for the rest of his team. Winston Churchill in his leadership of the British during the bombings of the Second World War was inspirational. Who could not have felt excited, honoured and even privileged to be on Winston's team.
In the same way, Apple has Steve Jobs, the charismatic and visionary leader who understands what it means to be Apple. He has effectively created and policed a set of core values that define exactly what the company is. As a consequence of the creative environment that he's created, the business reinvented itself and delivered the iMac, the iPod and now the iPhone. People wondered whether or not the iPhone would catch on, but of course we now know that Jobs' ability to deliver products that people simply adore, a kind of product leadership, is unimpeachable.
On the other side of the fence you've got Microsoft and Bill Gates, a man once described as "paranoid" I believe, in that he would never rest on his laurels, always wary that Microsoft could become the victim of another upstart company, just like Microsoft over-hauled IBM, which suffered from a lack of real leadership for many years.
Now while you're wondering how to develop yourself to have these qualities, start to think a little deeper. Think what happens when you don't want to work anymore - who will be your company's leader then? How are you going to grow these people to help you? That's where business coaching can come in - to either mentor you in growing your staff, or to coach your talent directly for you and help them to grow to replace you. Whichever way you go, don't make the mistake that so many make - if you like the feeling of being indispensible to your own business, you're building a trap for yourself, too.
A comprehensive business coaching service is offered by Lee Duncan.com. It includes psychological profiling using The Flippen Profile and will help you to develop as a leader personally, as well as helping you to develop the future leaders in your organisation. A former international business executive, this Cambridge business coach works with companies throughout the UK to develop their business performance and staff.
Do you have a definite purpose that guides your ambitions,
vision, and goals?
It doesn't matter how you think you arrived here on this
planet or under whose direction -- the fact remains that
each of us has specific talents and gifts that are uniquely
coded within our own DNA.
As you go through life, you don't just pick up things you
like doing by chance. You discover what you're good at
because you were meant to discover it, just as you were
meant to figure out what your fingers do, and how your
elbows work. Your unique gifts are hardwired into your
system just as surely as your lungs are given their
blueprint to breathe.
And it's from these specific talents and gifts that you're
able to define and determine your definite purpose... the
reason why you're here. What's in you cannot be found in
another living human being.
In fact, it's quite possible that what you bring to the
table hasn't been duplicated -- ever -- since time began.
That's right! This "purpose" is serious business.
If you fail to determine your definite purpose, everything
else is wrong. It's like working with a broken compass --
you may think you're going North, but you're not. You're not
sure which direction you're heading, so, you're just
wandering aimlessly.
Without your purpose identified firmly in your mind, you
will wander through life, never quite feeling that you're
"in the flow." I say, then, that it's imperative you
recognize what it is you're good at -- what it is you really
love to do.
Your purpose in this lifetime is to do the thing that you
love.
People will tell you they already know what they're good at,
and what they love to do most, but they'll never earn money
doing it. Whoever gave you that idea? When you're sorting
out your purpose, I don't want you thinking about THAT non-
issue at all.
You can earn money at anything. Once you determine your
purpose, you won't even have to think hard on how to earn
money -- it's as if you're being guided by an unseen hand,
heading in the right direction... and everything falls into
place.
The key to your life is not that you settle for the "safe"
thing that will bring in the money. The key is to turn and
do what you really love. Fall in love with an idea. That's
your life! That's your purpose.
____________
If you enjoyed the article you just read from Bob Proctor,
you'll definitely want to take a moment to learn more about
his life-changing program Six Minutes to Success at
http://www.getmotivation.com/qk.cgi/sixminutes
By Dr. Linda Sapadin
Some people just don't know how to say "no", whereas others say "no" just as soon as the words tumble out of the speaker's mouth. If you lean more toward the former, this article is for you. It's time for you to develop the self-assurance to say "no" - to your kids, to your spouse, to your parent, to a friend, to a salesperson, to whomever.
The ability to say "no" will reap great benefits. Here are 3 of them:
Now that you agree that the word "no" may be your best friend, let's look at how to say "no"- without feeling bad or guilty. Here are 4 styles of saying "no." They are all useful at different times, in different situations and with different people.
Grant yourself the freedom to use the type of "no" that best fits the situation and the request. To make this article more personal for you, reflect on a situation in which you regretted saying "no." Which type of "no" do you think would have been best to use? Write down the exact words you wish you would have used. Put them in your wallet. Look at them every once in awhile. Guaranteed, a similar situation will happen soon, only this time you'll be prepared.
Copyright
© 2009: Linda Sapadin, Ph.D
Linda is a psychologist and personal coach in private practice who specializes
in helping people enrich their lives, enhance their relationships and overcome
self-defeating patterns of behavior. For more information about her work,
contact her
by email or visit her website at
PsychWisdom.
In a sporting event, the players are given a break at the
half in order to refresh themselves, look at how they played
in the first half, and set strategy for the second half. So
as you approach halftime, here are some thoughts.
Do you have a vacation planned in the next two months that
will give you the needed break and refreshment? If not,
schedule one this week! How did you "play" in the first half
of this year?
Have you met your goals that you established at the
beginning of the year? Here are a few ideas to evaluate
where you are at with your goals as you approach the halfway
mark.
Take some time to sit down alone and review your goals. How
many are you on mark to make? How many have you not even
begun on? How many have you achieved?
For those you haven't even begun, my suggestion would be to
reset your goal at 10 percent of the original goal.
Obviously this goal hasn't been a priority, for whatever
reason, and most likely won't suddenly become so. But you
can make some ground. Set a small increase for the remaining
six months and get ahead a little in these areas.
For the goals you are on pace to achieve, try to stretch
about 10 percent. So, to give it a numerical value, if your
original goal was 10 and you have already reached 5 after
halfway, stretch yourself to try to achieve 11 by the end of
the year. This will give you a good reason to kick into high
gear as the year progresses.
For those goals you are on pace to break strongly through,
try an increase of 50 percent.
And finally, for the goals you have already reached, try to
set the new goal at 100 percent of the original goal.
In all of these remember that it is better to try hard, and
even fail at a higher goal, than to take the easy route and
attain nothing at all!
Best of luck as you re-evaluate your goals!
You Are Made for Success!
Chris Widener
______________
Chris Widener is a popular speaker and writer as well as the
President of Made for Success, a company helping individuals
and organizations turn their potential into performance, and
succeed in every area of their lives and achieve their
dreams. You can learn more about Chris at
http://www.getmotivation.com/qk.cgi/chriswidener
"Yes" to the Person, "No" to the
Task
Asserting
Yourself While Maintaining Relationships
 |
 |
|
|
Offer an alternative to a straight "No". |
|
|
©iStockphoto/jacus |
The word
"negotiation" conjures up images of high-pressure situations, where people have
a lot to lose if they get things wrong.
In fact, you probably negotiate several times each day. You do it at home and at
work for all sorts of things, from deciding what to make for dinner, to settling
on terms for a job promotion. Because of this, you are a negotiator, even if you
don't think of yourself as one!
But how well do you negotiate? Do you know how to recognize situations where
negotiating is appropriate? And do you understand the elements of an effective
negotiation?
In this article, we'll discuss some of the fundamentals of negotiating
successfully, so that you can meet your needs without causing conflict when you
do have to say "no".
Negotiating Basics
Negotiation is simply the act of reaching agreement as to how you'll move
forwards. It's the process of communicating back and forth, and finally having
all parties agree to a solution.
There are many ways to arrive at this agreement. Some people view negotiation as
a game they have to win. They use "hard" negotiation tactics, and this often
leaves one party very satisfied and the other side with no choice but to agree.
The problem with this approach is that the relationship between the two parties
is often permanently damaged. The person asking for something may receive it,
but the second person probably feels taken advantage of and, perhaps, angry and
resentful. If it wasn't really a willing "yes," the second person is unlikely to
complete the work quickly, or with a positive attitude.
The opposite approach is to accommodate. This is when one party yields his or
her position and original goal, simply agreeing to what the other person wants.
This "soft" tactic is often the result of wanting to keep relationships
friendly. The end result, however, is that this person doesn't get what's
needed, and he or she loses control to the other person.
Negotiations that aim for mutually satisfying outcomes are often best. These are
sometimes called collaborative, integrative, or principled negotiations. The
techniques used to conduct these help negotiators find a solution that shows
high concern for the needs of both sides. The result is a
win-win solution: rather than one side
giving up a "position," the focus is on finding a new position where everyone is
happy and is satisfied.
In the book "Getting to Yes," based on the work of the Harvard Negotiation
Project, authors Roger Fisher and William Ury outline four parameters for
principled negotiation:
If you use
these elements as the basis of your negotiation, you'll be more able to find
creative solutions to the problems you're trying to solve.
Assertiveness and Negotiation
To use the principles of principled negotiation, you must be assertive. Forget
the idea that negotiation means giving something up. Instead, this new process
frees you to get what you need.
So, when your boss asks you to be on another committee, and you don't really
have the time, you don't have to say "yes" or "no." Instead, approach the
situation as an opportunity to negotiate.
Does the new committee offer career development opportunities that fit with your
long-term objectives? If yes, perhaps you can give up another assignment in
exchange, or maybe you can negotiate hiring an assistant so that you can reduce
your workload. This might even be the time to renegotiate your job description
and redefine your roles and responsibilities within the organization!
| See our articles on assertiveness and managing your boundaries for a full discussion of these topics, and for tips on how to communicate more assertively. |
Whatever the
situation, if you view negotiation as a collaboration, you say "yes" to the
other person by respecting his or her needs - at the same time that you give
yourself the opportunity to say "no" to the task itself.
When to Say "No" to the Task
Not all requests should be negotiated. Sometimes when your boss asks you to do
something, you need to say "no".
Here are some key questions to ask before saying "no" to a task:
If your answer
to any of these questions is "no," then you may be best off saying "no".
(There's more on how to do this below!)
On the other hand, it's usually unprofessional to say "no" to a task just
because you don't want to do it, you don't understand how to do it, it will take
a long time, or it's messy and complex.
| For further reflections on why you should sometimes say "no," see the Why Can I Never Say No? Coaching Clinic within the Club. |
How to
Say "Yes" to the Person but "No" to the Task
If your answer to the task request is "no," then figure out how to say "yes" to
the person at the same time. To do this, make sure that you explain your
justification, so that it's clear that you're only saying "no" to this
particular task - and possibly only on this occasion. If the other person
understands why you've said "no", they are less likely to be left with the
impression that you're simply being unhelpful. However, you may also have to be
firm about how you say "no".
As we've discussed, saying "yes to the person and no to the task" may also mean
negotiating different arrangements to accommodate the request in a different
way.
To say "yes" to the person, first answer three main questions:
High levels of
trust and good communication are essential to this process. Although there's no
guarantee that trust will lead to a good solution, mistrust will almost
certainly harm collaboration. People who don't trust each other tend to be
defensive, and this often leads people to look for ‘hidden agendas' or withhold
information.
When people trust each other, they're more likely to communicate their needs
accurately. When they share information about what they want, what they need,
and why they need it, this can lead people to cooperate to look for a joint
solution. And when you work in an environment of respect and trust, it's much
easier to reach agreement without compromising your needs in the process.
Examples
Saying "yes" to the person but "no" to the task generally involves a
conversation, rather than just a one-sentence response. However, here are some
examples of how you can do so in simple situations.
"I'm sorry, I
can't do that analysis this week. Can I do it for you next Tuesday after month
end is complete?"
"I'm sorry, I can't take on doing this analysis on a regular basis because Alex
wants me to prioritize development work. But I know Jane is working on
developing her Excel skills. Would you like me to show her how to extract the
data so she can take this on?"
"I could do that analysis, but I wondered what information you actually want
from it. If it's the conversion rate from the advertising campaign, would one of
the measures in the report that Marketing send round give you what you need?"
Key
Points
We all negotiate, and we do so regularly. And even though the extents of our
negotiations vary, one principle remains the same: when both parties win, the
outcome is often better. Whether someone asks you for a favor, or you need to
agree on terms for a contract or project, you must collaborate to achieve a
win-win solution.
When you collaborate, you consider everyone's needs. Therefore, even if you have
to say "no" to something, you're still concerned about finding a way to get the
other person's needs met, and this allows you to say "yes" to the person.
Integration and collaboration are keys to this process. So, the next time you
have to negotiate, look for a way to meet everyone's needs, rather than leave
one side with little or nothing.
A Final Note from James
Learning how to say "no" positively is helpful both in everyday life and in
business. We hope you'll enjoy practicing some of the techniques suggested in
the article!
If you know someone else who might enjoy this article or newsletter, why not
send them a link to it at our site? Click
here to create an email that's
preformatted with the link.
We'll be back in two weeks' time with more great articles from Mind Tools. The
featured topics will range from how to survive in difficult times to how to
solve problems effectively. In the meantime, enjoy
all that's on offer at Mind Tools!
Best wishes!
James Manktelow
email us
Mind Tools
Essential Skills for an Excellent Career!
How to Improve Productivity: All Tasks Are Not Created Equal
If there's one thing you must grasp if you wish to
experience an increase in productivity and a strong sense of
achievement day to day it's the concept that not every task
is created equal.
This is especially true when it comes to those things which
when completed will lead to a greater sense of
accomplishment & feeling of success and achievement.
Far too many people look at having completed the items on
their To Do lists as a sure sign that they're achieving at a
great level.
The problem with this line of thinking is that in many cases
the items which make it onto our lists are little more than
busy work -- items which do require attention, but in the
grand scheme of things having completed them doesn't serve
us in a greater capacity with respect to our larger, more
important goals -- the big things that when completed
actually move us closer to our grand vision -- the one we
hold for our lives, whether personal or professional.
The challenge is that while you may feel like you're making
progress, because after all, you are checking items off
during the day -- if you're not taking a careful inventory
and ensuring that the things you are working on in the first
place will yield your greatest R.O.I.O.T (return on
investment of time) then it's likely that you will end up
feeling as though the larger life plans you hold for
yourself aren't making any headway.
Which by the way you would be correct, they aren't, not
because you aren't working, but because you're not working
and putting forth the necessary effort into the specific
task needed to yield the exact true result you are after.
That's why I say, all tasks aren't created equal. Commit
this to memory -- and always be asking the question "If I
work on this task, when completed will it yield the greatest
overall result and sense of accomplishment for me.
Will having achieved it move me closer to my larger plan?"
If the answer you get back is anything but a resounding yes
then you need to reschedule what it is you're planning to
work on and replace it with a task that will yield you the
greatest return on investment of time (R.O.I.O.T). It's that
simple.
You and I have a choice as to what we give our time to. We
don't have a choice as to how much time we have. No matter
how hard we try we're not going to be able to squeeze
anymore than 24 hours out of our day. The good news is you
don't even have to try IF you'll grasp and put into practice
the ongoing habit of asking the question mentioned above,
and working on those items which when completed will yield
the greatest results.
To clarify here's a make believe To Do list item -- I've
made reference to an example which will serve you the best
and one which might be more in line with "busy work", which
may make you feel good to get them done, but in the grand
scheme of things won't serve you had you instead chosen to
spend your time on other things.
Example item that might appear on your To Do list...
* Vacuuming the house - while this can certainly be a
worthwhile undertaking, is it really as important say if
you're larger goal was to "increase your sales for the
month"?
No of course it isn't.
A far more effective use of your time would be to schedule
this as a lower priority item, or find a way to have someone
else do it for you if that's a possibility. While it may
feel nice to complete this task, it's not going to yield the
same result if you were to replace this task with one such
as "give a follow-up call to the people I met at the seminar
I attended who showed an interest in my product or service".
As you can see the latter is going to move you closer to
what you've identified as your most important goals. Plus,
once you've completed the tasks which will have the greatest
return on your investment of time then you can go ahead and
knock out the other things.
The key thing to remember is that you've got to be vigilant
in working on and first completing those items which will
give you the greatest return on your time spent.
____________
Josh Hinds is available for keynotes, breakouts and
personal development trainings. Visit
http://www.JoshHinds.com for speaker information.
Re-Engaging Team Members
Turning Negative
Back to Positive
|
 |
|
|
Engaged team members make a valuable contribution. |
|
|
©iStockphoto/dgilder |
"Excuse me,
I'm the new program office administrator, and I need to book a hotel for a
meeting. Could you help me with that?" you ask another administrator.
"Uh, just go on the intranet," replies your colleague, who then turns back to
the person sitting next to her and resumes her conversation about her weekend
plans.
"Okay..." you might reply uncomfortably, even though you've already spent half
an hour trying to find the right web page.
Sound familiar? You've just encountered a "disengaged" employee. If you had a
workforce full of disengaged employees, how devastating would that be to your
business?
Disengaged people exist in all types of businesses, across all industries. You
can spot them by their indifferent, blasé attitudes. They don't care about the
company, they probably don't like their jobs, and they send negative signals
everywhere they go.
Disengaged people are like poison - they don't perform their own jobs well, they
drive customers away, and they have a bad influence on your other staff. Yet few
people start off disengaged. It's typically a process that happens over time, as
employee and employer expectations grow further and further apart.
What Is an Engaged Team Member?
Fortunately, you can re-engage members of your team and build back their pride
and commitment. But you'll need to make a continuous effort and a strong
investment in positive human capital management techniques.
The first step is to understand what an engaged team member looks like: Engaged
people go above and beyond their job descriptions to get things done. They're
committed to the organization's success, and they're willing to do what's
necessary to reach goals.
| It's important to understand that while many "average" employees are not quite fully engaged, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're completely disengaged. However, these average employees need re-engagement as well. |
To reach a
level of full engagement, you must build a people-focused workplace - one that
recognizes that your people genuinely are your most important resource.
Re-engaging People
To achieve this, you need to meet people's expectations and provide a great work
environment. There are several key management practices that are fundamental to
this process. By providing these workplace conditions and continuously
reinforcing their practice throughout the company, you can re-engage people who
have fallen out of step with your purpose and vision.
We can divide re-engagement approaches into four areas:
1. Fact-Finding - Activities that help you (a) understand disengagement and your current situation and (b) monitor your situation on an ongoing basis.
3. Hygiene Factors - Activities that help avoid de-motivation by managing people's stress, putting people in the right jobs, and providing feedback.
Not all ideas
will apply to all situations however, as a whole, these are the conditions and
practices that will help you build people's engagement. We'll now look at each
of these in detail.
1. Fact-finding
· Ask yourself when you ever felt unenthused and unengaged. This is a good place to start your re-engagement process. When you understand the sorts of things that caused you to disconnect with your company in the past, you may gain some insight into what members of your team are feeling right now.
·
Talk to your people about their expectations and issues.
Having clear expectations is a fundamental factor in re-engaging people. If
people feel that they've been treated unfairly or have not been provided with
the employment conditions they expected, you need to know. Once discrepancies
are found, work toward a resolution as soon as possible. This lets people know
that you care and you take their needs seriously.
And ask them about the situations and issues that may be upsetting them. Push
beyond the issues that are immediately obvious - the problem may lie with issues
that are entrenched and systematic, and that the person thinks are just part of
the way things are.
This step is particularly important when you become the new manager of a group
of people who are already disengaged. Resist the temptation to blame the former
manager – instead, focus on moving forward from where you are now, based on what
you find out from talking to your new people.
· Schedule regular "one-on-ones" with members of your team. Talk with individual team members about what they believe is expected of them, and then clarify and make modifications as necessary. When you keep communication open, you can often avoid potential conflicts and misunderstandings that can grow worse and lead to major problems.
· Survey employee engagement on a regular basis. With any kind of change process, it's usually a good idea to regularly ask your people questions related to their dedication and commitment to the company. Use the issues you've identified as a starting point, and construct a questionnaire to discover what you're doing well and where there's room for improvement. Use the results to begin a re-engagement plan that will help you build a stronger and more devoted workforce.
2. Establishing an Environment for Engagement
· Be honest and forthright about your own role in people's disengagement. A little humility goes a long way toward re-engaging someone. What if your management practices have contradicted any of the above points? What if you've been weaker in your commitment recently, and you've contributed to the current situation? Admit it, apologize for your actions, and construct a solid plan to move forward. This is a great way to start rebuilding your team's trust and show how supporting one another can make huge differences for everyone. By demonstrating your commitment to your people, they will likely respond with a renewed commitment to you and the business.
· Practice participative management. People usually want to participate and be involved. They want and need to feel that they matter and that their contributions are valued. To engage them, provide lots of opportunities for them to be involved with decisions. It's also important that people feel able to voice their ideas and raise issues - without judgment or fear of punishment. To re-engage people, help them feel confident that you'll welcome their contributions and that you'll really listen to what they say.
· Be a model for commitment to the organization. When employees believe their boss and senior management are committed to the company, that can provide proof that the company is indeed worth committing to. If you have doubts or express negativity toward the business, you can't expect members of your team to be totally dedicated and engaged. They take their cues from you, and they'll react to your opinions and actions.
3. Hygiene Factors
· Identify and manage stress and burnout. Overworked employees can have a difficult time engaging. They simply have too many competing needs, the greatest of which is their own survival. If you want engaged people, develop a genuine concern for their health and welfare. By using regular one-on-ones and staying connected to members of your team, you should be able to keep on top of their workload and stress factors. Do what you can to alleviate their stress by using the tools on our Stress Management pages, and refer your people for assistance as necessary.
· Put people in the right jobs. As you get to know members of your team through regular contact and feedback, think about ways to capitalize on their unique strengths and talents. Rather than focusing on a specific smaller problem or disciplining someone, look at the bigger picture: Does the person fit the job? You may need to regroup which tasks go with which jobs, or allow people to rotate jobs in order to enrich their learning opportunities. Work with members of your team to meet your company's needs. When people know you're dedicated to their success, they will, in turn, dedicate themselves to your success.
· Provide fair and regular feedback. Most people respond incredibly well to praise and recognition. For effective employee engagement, this can be difficult if you restrict yourself to a formal program or yearly performance appraisals. Make a conscious effort to observe when people are doing things right, and show them every day that they're appreciated. When you need to provide corrective feedback, make sure it's timely, and centered on a specific task.
| For more on hygiene factors and motivators, see our article on Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory. |
4. Motivators
· Provide growth opportunities. A big factor in employee engagement is building long-term commitment. This is important because it retains knowledge wi
