Availability can be death to productivity. In big companies, my clients often use shared calendars that give other people access to see where they have “free time” to schedule meetings. It’s not uncommon for people to find themselves booked in meetings all day and unable to get to their own work until 5:00 PM. In smaller operations, or for self-employed people, there’s often a sense that they have to be available to respond to anything and everything. As a result, their agenda for the day, week or month can get hijacked by other people’s demands or by their own flexibility and lack of structure.
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When I drop my son Oscar at soccer practice, I bring a portable workout kit and I do a workout on the soccer field next to his. Continue reading…
The first thing you need to know about having a high productivity day tomorrow is that it starts with the last thing you do today.
Habit 1: End your day with a plan for the next day.
One of the biggest pits I see busy managers and leaders fall into is that they work to exhaustion and leave the office without setting a plan for what they need to get done the next day.
Starting the day with a plan for what you have to achieve is key to having a highly productive day. That plan can and should be crafted in advance so you can: Continue reading…
Odds are you could be far more effective at work if you didn’t spend quite so much time working.
One tenant of energy management and workplace effectiveness is to take breaks every 90 – 120 minutes. But convincing bright motivated people to take 5 or 6 breaks in a day is no easy task.
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I’m writing from the Kootenays, BC. I had planned to take the mountain bike ride of a lifetime this week but I strained some back ligaments while training. Now, I’m on the shelf and off the bike for a bit.
Yup the coach overdid it a little. So, I thought I’d eat some humble pie and share my lessons learned. Continue reading…
In theory, hiring a friend onto your team should be a great idea. You know them. You already trust them. You have mutual respect. Why wouldn’t it work?
The reality is that transitioning a peer-to-peer friendship to a manager-subordinate relationship rarely goes smoothly. Why? Because people don’t create new contracts upfront.
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I got turned down last week!
One of my clients, flat out said no to me.
We had a coaching appointment that I needed to change. I called to suggest a new time and he firmly said that he couldn’t accommodate me because he had another appointment. Continue reading…
Expectations weigh on all of us. But there are expectations, and expectations.
Managers are busy people, but if you’re non-stop busying yourself with meetings, emails and day to day operations you aren’t really doing what you were hired to do.
You weren’t hired to make the inevitable happen. Continue reading…
What would you do differently if – starting today – you were pregnant?
Now gentlemen, I want you to think about this too. Go with me here.
Since one of my clients became pregnant, she’s been looking at energy management in a new way. With a little someone depending on her body, energy management seems more critical. Continue reading…
Just as a complete breakfast sets you up for the day, starting your work day with a complete plan can set you and your team up to accomplish great things. Ideally, most days you start with a plan.
But when demands are at their peak, people often convince themselves to skip the plan and just dive in.
That got me thinking, what if there was a recipe – a fast and easy to remember checklist – of the leadership ingredients you fundamentally need to best serve your team; a Leadership Smoothie if you will.
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How’s your day going so far? How did it start?
One of the ways I get to know my clients is by asking them to walk me through a typical day. I get them to start with their wake-up routine and we move all the way through to when they go to bed.
Let’s do it.
Take a minute to think about the most important project on your plate. How big does it feel? How much weight does it have? How much time should you devote to it?
Now here’s the big question. What if you only had one hour to do it? That’s it. Just one hour. Gulp.
How would you prepare for the hour? How would you prioritize it? What would you absolutely have to get done? How would you wrap up it up effectively?
In all honesty, how familiar is this scenario: Over the holidays, you rush from one social commitment to the next throwing back the eggnog and butter tarts. Before you know it, it’s January 2nd. You are physically and emotionally spent, wishing you had an extra couple of days to recuperate, and oh yeah, you are 5 – 10 lbs up. Happened before? Continue reading…
In golf, winners dole out fewer strokes than their competitors. In management, the opposite is true.
A “stroke” is a unit of human contact and recognition: a pat on the back, applause, a congratulatory note, a hug, an award, or praise. Continue reading…
If you are like most people I work with, time is scarce right now.
For those of you looking for a quick exercise to wrap up the year and step into 2011, try this. Continue reading…
In every human culture, stories are used to pass down knowledge, history and wisdom. They are used to entertain, inspire and motivate. And they are used to connect people through recognizably similar experiences.
So why don’t more leaders share personal stories?
If you are holding back from sharing stories for any of those reasons, here’s why you need to get over them. Continue reading…
Everyone has a story. Your experiences and your perspective make you uniquely you. The stories you tell yourself, and the stories that you tell others shape your character – the way you show up in the world.
My son Oscar recently reminded me that your stories also shape the experiences and perspective of the people around you. Oscar has a new teacher. When we asked him what he thought of her he said, “She’s awesome!”
“She told us a story about how when she was our age she had a cat that fell in the toilet bowl!”
Last month, a colleague came to me with a sad, but all too common story.
A senior member of his team was under-performing and putting a wrench in the works for everyone. My friend was so focused on dealing with the fallout and figuring out how to handle the senior player that he dropped the ball on checking-in with the rest of his team.
Then whamo! During a real week from hell, one of his solid performers – a woman who did a GOOD job and operated quietly under the radar – up and quit, leaving a serious gap in his team. Not surprising. Continue reading…
This is the good life. Being home, with my family, here in Vancouver – this is where it’s at.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve given keynotes in Miami and Las Vegas. They are exciting cities and it was great work, but I found myself constantly jostling between high intensity and frustration. Continue reading…
About 10 years ago I did the Grouse Grind for the first time. It is a grueling 2.9-kilometer uphill hiking trail, which Vancouverites use to train and earn bragging rights.
I happened to mention my achievement to a buddy and he promptly asked if I knew that every year some poor 40- or 50-something dies of a heart attack doing the Grind. Yikes! Continue reading…