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#Strategy: 11 Things Ultra-Productive People Do Differently……When it Comes to #Productivity, We all Face the Same Challenge-There are only 24 Hours in a Day. Yet Some People Seem to Have Twice the Time; They Have an Uncanny Ability to Get Things Done

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When it comes to productivity, we all face the same challenge—there are only 24 hours in a day. Yet some people seem to have twice the time; they have an uncanny ability to get things done. Even when juggling multiple projects, they reach their goals without fail.

Directions Man

Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose. —Thomas Edison

It feels incredible when you leave the office after an ultra-productive day. With the right approach, you can make this happen every day. You don’t need to work longer or even do more—you just need to work smarter. Try these 11 productivity hacks that ultra-productive people rely on:

1. They Never Touch Things Twice

Productive people never put anything in a holding pattern, because touching things twice is a huge time-waster. Don’t save an email or a phone call to deal with later. As soon as something gets your attention you should act on it, delegate it or delete it.

 

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2. They Get Ready for Tomorrow Before They Leave the Office

Productive people end each day by preparing for the next. This practice accomplishes two things: it helps you solidify what you’ve accomplished today, and it ensures you’ll have a productive tomorrow. It only takes a few minutes and it’s a great way to end your workday.

For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned. —Benjamin Franklin

3. They Eat Frogs

“Eating a frog” is the best antidote for procrastination, and ultra-productive people start each morning with this tasty treat. In other words, they do the least appetizing, most dreaded item on their to-do list before they do anything else. After that, they’re freed up to tackle the stuff that excites and inspires them.

How Successful People Stay Calm

4. They Fight The Tyranny Of The Urgent

The tyranny of the urgent refers to the tendency of little things that have to be done right now to get in the way of what really matters. This creates a huge problem as urgent actions often have little impact. If you succumb to the tyranny of the urgent, you can find yourself going days, or even weeks, without touching the important stuff. Productive people are good at spotting when putting out fires is getting in the way of their performance, and they’re willing to ignore or delegate the things that get in the way of real forward momentum.

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. —William Penn

5. They Stick to the Schedule During Meetings

Meetings are the biggest time waster there is. Ultra-productive people know that a meeting will drag on forever if they let it, so they inform everyone at the onset that they’ll stick to the intended schedule. This sets a limit that motivates everyone to be more focused and efficient.

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot. —Michael Altshuler

6. They Say No

No is a powerful word that ultra-productive people are not afraid to wield. When it’s time to say no, they avoid phrases such as I don’t think I can or I’m not certain. Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them. Research conducted at the University of California in San Francisco shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Learn to use no, and it will lift your mood, as well as your productivity.

7. They Only Check E-mail At Designated Times

Ultra-productive people don’t allow e-mail to be a constant interruption. In addition to checking e-mail on a schedule, they take advantage of features that prioritize messages by sender. They set alerts for their most important vendors and their best customers, and they save the rest until they reach a stopping point. Some people even set up an autoresponder that lets senders know when they’ll be checking their e-mail again.  

8. They Don’t Multitask

Ultra-productive people know that multitasking is a real productivity killer. Research conducted at Stanford University confirms that multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time. The researchers found that people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information cannot pay attention, recall information or switch from one job to another as well as those who complete one task at a time. But what if some people have a special gift for multitasking? The Stanford researchers compared groups of people based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps their performance. They found that heavy multitaskers—those who multitask a lot and feel that it boosts their performance—were actually worse at multitasking than those who like to do a single thing at a time. The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another. Ouch.

Multitasking reduces your efficiency and performance because your brain can only focus on one thing at a time. When you try to do two things at once, your brain lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully.  

9. They Go off The Grid

Don’t be afraid to go off grid when you need to. Give one trusted person a number to call in case of emergency, and let that person be your filter. Everything has to go through them, and anything they don’t clear has to wait. This strategy is a bulletproof way to complete high-priority projects.

One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week. —Charles Richards

10. They Delegate

Ultra-productive people accept the fact that they’re not the only smart, talented person in their organization. They trust people to do their jobs so that they can focus on their own.

11. They Put Technology to Work for Them

Technology catches a lot of flak for being a distraction, but it can also help you focus. Ultra-productive people put technology to work for them. Beyond setting up filters in their email accounts so that messages are sorted and prioritized as they come in, they use apps like IFTTT, which sets up contingencies on your smart phone and alerts you when something important happens. This way, when your stock hits a certain price or you have an email from your best customer, you’ll know it. There’s no need to be constantly checking your phone for status updates.

Bringing It All Together

We’re all searching for ways to be more efficient and productive. I hope these strategies help you to find that extra edge.

What productivity hacks do you rely on? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

Travis co-wrote the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and co-founded TalentSmart, the world’s #1 provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, serving 75% of Fortune 500 Companies.

 

Forbes.com | May 13, 2015 | Travis Bradberry 

#Leadership: Naturally Successful People do these 5 Things at Work Every Day…Try Working in Highly Focused Bursts of about 45 Minutes, & Then take a 15-Minute Break. Adjust Up or Down from there to Determine what Ratio Allows you to Remain Fully Charged Throughout the Workday

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Small tweaks to how quickly you fire off emails, take breaks, and ask questions can make all the difference in how happy, productive, and effective you are at work.

FullyCharged

1. They are 80 percent positive

Being blindly positive or perpetually negative can cause others to be frustrated or annoyed or to simply tune out.  This is why some of the best research on daily experience is rooted in ratios of positive and negative interactions. Over the last two decades, scientists have made remarkable predictions simply by watching people interact with one another and then scoring the conversations based on the ratio of positive and negative interactions.

Researchers have used the findings to predict everything from the likelihood a couple will divorce to the odds of a work team having high customer satisfaction and productivity levels.

More recent research helps explain why these brief exchanges matter so much. When you experience negative emotions as a result of criticism or rejection, for example, your body produces higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which shuts down much of your thinking and activates conflict and defense mechanisms. You perceive situations as being worse than they actually are.

The release of cortisol is also a sustained response, so it lasts for a while, especially if you dwell on the negative event. When you experience a positive interaction, it activates a very different response. Positive exchanges boost your body’s production of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that increases your ability to communicate, collaborate, and trust others.

When oxytocin activates networks in your prefrontal cortex, it leads to more expansive thought and action. However, oxytocin metabolizes faster than cortisol, so the effects of a positive surge are less dramatic and enduring than they are for a negative one.

We need at least three to five positive interactions to outweigh every one negative exchange. Bad moments simply outweigh good ones. Whether you’re having a one-on-one conversation with a colleague or a group discussion, keep this simple shortcut in mind: At least 80 percent of your conversations should be focused on what’s going right.

Workplaces, for example, often have this backward. During performance reviews, managers routinely spend 80 percent of their time on weaknesses, gaps, and “areas for improvement.” They spend roughly 20 percent of the time on strengths and positive aspects. Any time you have discussions with a person or group, spend the vast majority of the time talking about what is working, and use the remaining time to address deficits.

Courtesy of Tom RathThis story is excerpted from “Are You Fully Charged?” by Tom Rath.

2. They keep their mission in mind

Reminding yourself why you do what you do every day could also make you a lot more productive.

Consider what happened when Wharton School of Business professor Adam Grant first studied the motivation of call center workers who spent their days calling the school’s alumni to request donations for future scholarship recipients.

Given the job’s degree of difficulty (calling people in the evening and asking them for money) and its high level of turnover, Grant wondered if introducing call center workers to an actual scholarship recipient would provide additional motivation.

So Grant and his fellow researchers brought in a scholarship recipient to speak with one group of these workers for a mere five minutes.

A month later, the call center workers who had spoken with the scholarship recipient were remarkably more productive. This group made almost twice as many calls per hour. Before the intervention, each caller raised about $400 per week; afterward, each raised about $2,000 per week.

Another example: As part of an experiment, patient photos were included when radiologists reviewed CT or MRI scans. In most cases, radiologists simply looked at scans and did not see or meet the actual patient. However, when a photograph was included, the radiologists admitted feeling more empathy toward the patient, and they wrote 29 percent longer reports. Most important, when a photo was attached, the radiologists’ accuracy of diagnosis improved by 46 percent.

Other organizations coordinate regular “field trips” so employees who do not typically see the results of their work can make that connection. John Deere invites employees who build tractors to spend time with the farmers who use the company’s products.

Wells Fargo shows its bankers videos of people describing how low-interest loans saved them from severe debt. Facebook invites software developers to hear from people who made connections with long-lost friends and family members through its vast social network.

Find a way to infuse each day with a reminder of your mission. It can be as simple as keeping a story of the impact of your work on hand or having an image, quote, or statement that brings the “why” of your job to life.

3. They focus for 45, then break for 15

coffeeFlickr/thevelvetbird

While I was working on this book, I stumbled across an article written by Tim Walker, an American schoolteacher who moved to Finland in 2014 and began teaching fifth grade at a public school in Helsinki. What grabbed my attention was his skepticism about a nuance of the Finnish educational system.

In Finland, for every 45 minutes in the classroom, students are given a 15-minute break. At first, Walker resisted following this routine and instead kept his students in the classroom. But he eventually decided to test the 45/15 model, and he was astounded by the result.

Kids were no longer dragging their feet in a “zombie-like” state. Instead, they walked into the room with a renewed bounce in their step after each 15-minute break, and they were more focused on learning throughout the day.

The more Walker studied this model, which has been in place in Finland since the 1960s, he discovered that it’s not about what students do during this break time; instead, simply giving them freedom from structured work gave them renewed energy and focus.

More formal experiments on this topic have found that students are consistently more attentive in class when they have regular breaks. The research also suggests that it is important that these breaks consist of free time, as opposed to activities structured by teachers.

When the makers of DeskTime, a software application that meticulously tracks employees’ time use throughout the day, looked at the most productive 10 percent of their 36,000-employee user base, they made some surprising discoveries. What the most productive people have in common is an ability to take effective breaks. These elite 10 percent work for 52 minutes at a time, then take a 17-minute break before diving back into their work.

According to Julia Gifford, who works with DeskTime and wrote the report, the top 10 percent treat the periods of working time like a sprint. “They make the most of those 52 minutes by working with intense purpose, but then rest up to be ready for the next burst,” Gifford wrote. During the 17 minutes of break, the group was more likely to go for a walk or tune out rather than checking email or Facebook.

While the ideal ratios will vary by profession and occupation, there is a great deal of support for the general notion of working in intense bursts paired with a period of time to recharge.

If it is practical for you, try working in highly focused bursts of about 45 minutes, and then take a 15-minute break. Adjust up or down from there to determine what ratio allows you to remain fully charged throughout the workday.

4. They use questions to spark conversation

Whether you struggle to strike up a conversation or it comes naturally, you will benefit from talking to new people. I have learned that it’s easier to start talking with people when I focus on asking good questions and then listen to the answers. Asking questions reduces my social anxiety because I no longer feel the need to say something interesting to join a conversation or fit in.

Asking questions is even more effective when others may be skeptical of your influence or credibility or when you are engaged in a debate. A team of researchers in the United Kingdom who have been studying recordings of expert negotiators for many years found that questions are one of the most effective forms of bringing people into agreement.

The average negotiators spent less than 10 percent of their total time asking questions during a given session. However, the most successful group of negotiators spent 21 percent of their time asking questions.

Remember, people love to talk about themselves. By some estimates, 40 percent of everyday speech consists of people telling others what they think and feel.

According to scientists, talking about oneself triggers the same reward centers in the brain as food or money.

5. They push “pause” before responding

When you face an immediate and acute stressor, your instinct is to fight back and respond immediately. While this served your ancestors well when they were being attacked by a wild animal, it is less helpful today unless you are actually being attacked physically.

Technology makes it much easier to exacerbate a stressor with a quick response. I know I have been guilty of responding too quickly to people, on email in particular, in a terse tone that only made things worse.

Instead of reacting right away, simply hit the pause button in your mind. The more something gets under your skin, causes your heart to race, and makes you breathe a bit more quickly, the more important it is to step back before speaking or typing a single word.

Take a moment to gather your thoughts, and then have a rational discussion. This will give you time to think things through and determine a way to deal with the other person in a healthier manner.

Excerpted from “Are You Fully Charged?“, by Tom Rath. Silicon Guild, May 2015.

http://www.rd.com/advice/work-career/successful-people-work-habits/#ixzz3ZvOXIXhD

#Leadership: Hesitating to Accept Help? 5 Great Reasons to Get Over It…Smart Managers/Entrepreneurs Know Why Going it Alone is a Surprisingly Stupid Move

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What should you do when someone offers assistance or support for you new business, product, or other project? If at all possible, you should always say yes.

OvercomeFear

This may be counter-intuitive. Turning down an offer of help might make you feel proud and self-sufficient. You might also feel reluctant to accept help for fear of inconveniencing the person who offered it. You may even want to save the help for a later time when you might need it more.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Saying yes to an offer of help is almost always better than saying no. Here’s why:

1. You don’t know what the offer means to the person making it.

I learned this the hard way a few months back. I was overseeing a series of events at a local bookstore. Because I had my own mailing list and was accustomed to doing my own publicity, I consistently turned down offers of publicity help from the bookstore. Accepting would have meant changing my planning schedule, and besides, the person doing the publicity was a volunteer and I didn’t want to add to her workload.

It was a truly boneheaded move. Instead of being grateful that I’d saved her some work, the publicity person felt dissed that I was ignoring her efforts. She was also frustrated because she really wanted to let her audience know about the events I was producing. After this happened a few times, she got angry. By the time I recognized my mistake it was much too late to fix things.

Don’t let this happen to you. When someone offers to help you, you may have no idea what that offer means to them. Don’t assume that you do.

 

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2. Helping makes others feel good.

Think back to the last time you helped someone out. It felt terrific, didn’t it? To refuse an offer of help is to deprive someone of that same wonderful feeling. That’s a very unkind thing to do.

3. You may insult the helper.

Why would someone feel insulted that you turned down an offer of help? Because they may believe you feel their help has no value. That’s the message I inadvertently sent when I turned down the publicity offer from the bookstore. Don’t make the same mistake–if you simply can’t accept help for some reason, make sure to say how much you value and appreciate the offer.

4. Going it alone is a bad strategy.

Being an manager/entrepreneur, especially a solomanage/solopreneur, is a lonely business. You’re already likely to feel that you have to make every decision, complete every task, and be good at everything. Why on earth would you make that loneliness worse by refusing help when it comes along? Having someone support you, even if only with companionship or advice, will create a connection for you, for your business, and also for the person doing the helping. Being more connected is good for everyone. Don’t turn away those connections if you can possibly avoid it.

5. Someone who’s helped you once is likelier–not less likely–to do so again.

Some people believe that if they accept help now, it may not be available later when they really need it. And it may be true that someone with a limited sum to lend or invest can provide that money only once. But for other types of help the opposite is more likely to be true. That’s because people who’ve helped you once will feel invested in your business, even if all they gave you was advice. If your business succeeds, it will validate their choices and make them feel good about themselves. If it fails, it will make them feel like they’ve failed as well.

Since most people would prefer to be right than wrong, they’re likely to go the extra mile to prove that their decision to help was the correct one–if you’ve accepted that help and thus created a connection. So use that fact to you advantage by accepting help from as many different sources as you can. You’ll have that many more people in your corner if you need them later on.

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#Leadership: How To Handle A #PR Crisis…Think a Reputation-Destroying #Crisis will Never come Calling at your #Company? But in the Event that it Does, Are you Confident that you Could Handle It?

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Think a reputation-destroying crisis will never come calling at your company? But in the event that it does, are you confident that you could handle it? Like any other pressing business risk, a possible PR crisis should be approached with deliberate preparation and planning. That is the best way to cope with the day you hope will never come, argues Yago de la Cierva in his practical book on the subject. Responsible leadership should include crisis prevention, preparation and a calm, straightforward approach to communication in the event that a PR disaster must be weathered.

Directions Man

The ABCs of Crisis Communication

Based on common-sense principles, crisis communication aims to minimize risk. De la Cierva highlights a series of action items that consider the person, the organization and society carefully. In times of crisis, key actions include:

Address perceptions. The gravity of a crisis is directly proportional to the public’s perception of it, rather than to what has actually happened on the ground.

Listen to the people who are complaining. It is very important to try to understand what is making people angry. Anger hinders communication, and the person you are addressing will not listen to your message until they have had their say.

Tune in emotionally. You need to know how to interpret the public’s mood. Communication should not be treated as an impersonal means for spreading ideas.

Reason from the point of view of those you represent. Make it clear that the company is defending the interests of the people it serves.

Distinguish between law and public opinion. You may be in the right, and yet be wrong. It’s best to have both legal advisers and communications experts on hand.

Always tell the truth. Honesty is essential to credibility. In times of crisis, one of the worst things you can do is lie.

Be accountable for your actions. Assume responsibility. That may mean fixing the problem, acknowledging the mistake or mistakes that were made and repairing whatever damage has been caused.

Be professional. Crisis communication officers must have a service-minded mentality. They need technical skills and the ability to formulate clear, inoffensive and unequivocal messages.

 

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Ready, Set, Crisis!

There are three parts to preparing for a crisis: foresight, prevention and provision. Foresight requires knowing a company’s internal and external context thoroughly enough to see crises coming and to perceive their likely consequences. Prevention means taking a proactive approach to avoid obvious crises. Provision requires creating an action plan.

Or, more plainly, a crisis plan: that is, a series of immediate measures to respond to each situation adequately. But how does communication fit into all of this?

The first step is to form a crisis management team to gather information, assign responsibilities and decide on the organization’s position regarding the crisis. The trick is to think before acting.

The crisis team’s tasks also include defining the problem, assessing whom it will affect and then deciding how the company should act. Members of the team should also, ideally, consider how the situation might evolve or play out.

Next, information should be collected systematically to create an understanding of each group that has been affected by the crisis. This data will also be used to form the company’s official response.

To communicate this response, choose a spokesperson adept at transmitting the corporate message to the various groups affected and to the media. The choice of spokesperson will depend on the nature of the crisis (technical or personal), its relevance, its location and how long it is expected to last.

Once the company’s message, spokesperson and next steps have been decided, communication channels also need to be chosen. These will normally be the same channels used for day-to-day communication; however, for rapid responses, priority should be given to interactive tools — namely, social media.

In addition, an overall plan encompassing all channels is needed. The company web site should serve as the backbone for all communications — including the intranet to keep employees informed. The media should be kept up-to-date via press conferences and email.

But the most important factor in all this is that the company takes the initiative in communication. It must transform itself into a trusted source, acting positively and creatively to control the dimensions of the problem and manage time. Updates should be made continuously and should anticipate people’s needs.

What Happens Next?

Each action plan should be measured and analyzed afterward. Even while the communications plan is still being executed, it’s necessary to analyze the press and social media landscape and monitor how well the plan is working. Once the crisis has passed, an overall assessment should be carried out, and a plan for the post-crisis period needs to be agreed upon.

Accounts of the crisis and analyses of them are highly valuable for the future. But in order for such learning to be useful, internal reforms need to be devised and implemented.

 

By IESE Insight, the knowledge portal of IESE Business School. For more visit http://www.ieseinsight.com/

 

 

Forbes.com | May 7, 2015 | IESE Business School 

#Strategy: 6 Ways To Confidently Say “I Don’t Know”….Senior Leaders Don’t need People Who Think they Know every Answer. They Want #Leaders Who can Ask the Right Questions & Find the Answers.

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The hardest three words to say aren’t I love you – they’re I don’t know. That’s the opinion of Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, authors of the behavioral economics bestseller Freakonomics. From my experience coaching executives, I have to say they’re on to something.

businesswoman-thinking-2

I’ve seen even the most accomplished and seasoned leaders get tripped up when they’re confronted with a question they can’t answer – especially when the person asking is in a position of authority. This gets more fraught the higher you go in an organization. At some point you have to oversee a wider span of activities, and can’t be effective in your role if you have an execution-level view of every function. More often, you won’t have the answer.

Yet, leaders often prepare for an important meeting as if they’re cramming for an exam. They try to anticipate any question and have a prepared answer ready. They can make their direct reports crazy with requirements for pages of metrics and explanations. (Preparation for board meetings can be a particular bit of fun.)

Our propensity to always provide an answer starts young. In a study, kids and adults were given an unanswerable question. For example, after hearing a description of a family car ride, asking if the riders had lemonade, when that was never mentioned. When asked this irrelevant question, 75% of kids tried to provide an answer. Perhaps this is the result of conditioning, as students are encouraged to try to answer a teacher’s question no matter if they know the answer or not.

 

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The researcher, Amanda Waterman, development psychology researcher at the University of Leeds, provides this perspective: “There’s a power differential between a child and an adult who’s asking them a question. And the child will feel that the adult is the person that has more of the power, and therefore perhaps they feel slightly disadvantaged. They feel like they want to show what they can do, and they don’t feel as comfortable admitting when they don’t know something.”

Looks like that conditioning runs deep. In the same study, 25% of adults tried to answer the unanswerable question as well. Note that the explanation above could just as likely describe a conversation between a boss and subordinate.

Certainly there are corporate cultures where not having an answer is career jeopardizing. But more often, we assume this to be the case when it’s not. Some neuroscientists believe that our need to know is actually linked to our brain function. When we have an answer, we get a hit of dopamine so we feel compelled to try.

I’ve conducted hundreds of feedback interviews with board members and senior leaders to gather information for my coaching clients. I’ve heard repeatedly that they want their leaders to show open mindedness, agility, courage, and presence. They want leaders who can deal with uncertainty and take risks. Having an answer for everything has only come up as a fault – discussed as a by-product of close-mindedness or parochialism.

In other words, senior leaders don’t need people who think they know every answer. They want leaders who can ask the right questions and find the answers.

Cultures suffer when leaders lack the courage to say I don’t know. Dubner and Levitt posit that if you have to be the expert and have the answer then you foster a culture that’s afraid to experiment. Without experimentation, there’s no innovation or risk. Further, being able to admit what you don’t know has been shown to increase trust. Just consider your own experience. If someone is selling you hard with an answer for everything, it shuts you down. If they can admit what they aren’t sure about, it’s an opening to a real conversation.

All this said, there are many ways to say I don’t know. The reaction you get is directly related to how you say it. You can come across as an absent-minded manager or a courageous innovator. Sometimes a simple, direct, “I don’t know” does the trick. At times, it can be helpful to have a few phrases at your fingertips that allow you to be transparent and remain centered. Here are a few other ways to say it that can help preserve your credibility, and even build it.

“I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m anxious to find out.”
“Let me tell you what I know, and what I’m still learning.”
“That’s an important question and I don’t want to give you a half answer. Let me get back to you on that by end of day.”
“I can’t tell you that with certainty. I do have an informed opinion on it which is…”
“Sarah on my team can get you the exact numbers on that. The performance metrics I’m managing show…”
“That’s an interesting question. Tell me more about what’s driving it?”
Kristi Hedges is a leadership coach, speaker and author of Power of Presence: Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others. Find her at kristihedges.com and @kristihedges.

 

Forbeswoman.com | May 4, 2015 | Kristi Hedges

 
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#Strategy: How to Cope with a Disorganized Boss…You Can Protect your #Career,& your Team, even IF your #Manager is Constantly Dropping Balls

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An ineffective boss might get fired. So might a bullying boss. A disorganized boss, however, can linger in an organization causing trouble for years. He can be perfectly nice, so no obvious alarm bells go off. The work gets done, but only because everyone reporting to him works around the clock before deadlines. “Having to deal with conflicting priorities can be extremely stressful,” says Richard Wellins, senior vice president of Development Dimensions International and coauthor of the new book Your First Leadership Job.

Messy Desk

Unfortunately, the modern workplace isn’t exactly helping managers on the organization front. Copious emails and changing conditions mean that “it’s much easier to become disorganized even if you’re not a disorganized person,” says Wellins. If you’re laboring under a disorganized boss, here’s how to make life better for yourself and your team.

OFFER TO HELP

Some disorganized bosses simply have too much on their plate, and haven’t yet mastered the skill of delegation. So ask to be delegated to. Wellins suggests saying, “I’d like to help you be successful. I see that as one of my roles. Are there things I can help you with, where I can add value to what you need to get done?”

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SCHEDULE REGULAR MEETINGS

In high-functioning situations, no one needs a meeting to report that she’s still doing her job. If you have a disorganized boss, though, “regular meetings can minimize chaos in the workplace,” says Wellins.

Michael Lee Stallard, a consultant, speaker, and author of the new book Connection Culture, suggests making these “W3” meetings: figuring out what, who, when. Take notes on these answers. “I’m a big believer in getting them in writing,” he says. “That brings clarity.”

ASK FOR EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED

If your boss is a bottleneck to your team achieving its goals on time, then don’t wait for information or approval to come to you. Go in with a list of exactly what you need. Try not to leave without getting it.

EMBRACE THE DIGEST FORMAT

One reason bosses get disorganized is that they have five teams cc-ing them on every email. Propose sending one daily email with the highlights. Even better? Reach an agreement with your boss’s other direct reports to do the same.

BE AN EXAMPLE OF ORGANIZATION

If your boss’s disorganization stems from stress, then “trying to step in and be a supportive confidant, as much as your boss will let you, will really help,” says Stallard. Your boss is probably not trying to drop balls, so being the ball that never gets dropped will help you become a trusted colleague. People also tend to reflect those around them, so being extremely organized yourself can set the tone.

HAVE BACKUP PLANS

In the workplace, as in chess, the masters think a few moves ahead. Your boss has given you a deadline. What would you do if he moved it? If you need some vital piece of information and your boss doesn’t come through, how else will you get it? “Sometimes you can work around the boss in ways that will help the boss,” says Stallard. It isn’t fair, but you can keep performing even without the support you want. Finding other trusted mentors in your organization is a wise move in general. A broad network gives you options.

CONSIDER DIRECT FEEDBACK

We all have weak spots, and your disorganized boss might be trying to improve. If you sense that this is the case, you can bring up what specifically would help you. If the situation seems hopeless, though, you may eventually need to enlist help from higher up. Company leaders generally do want to know when there’s a problem somewhere down the line. “If team members don’t communicate, there goes the company,” says Jenny Ta, CEO of Sqeeqee, a social commerce platform. So “don’t be afraid to knock on my door. If you’re afraid to knock on my door, write it on a slip of paper and slip it under my door.” That’s preferable to whole teams walking out the door because they can’t stand the stress.

Fastcompany.com | May 6, 2015 | 

Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management and productivity books, including I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time (Portfolio, June 9, 2015), What the …

#Leadership: 4 Ways To Drive Opportunities To Your Company With #Executive Branding…Understanding Executive #Branding is Like Unlocking the Secret to Getting Picked 1st in Middle School Dodgeball. It Centers on 2 Things: Being Good & Being Liked

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Understanding executive branding is like unlocking the secret to getting picked first in middle school dodgeball. It centers on two things: being good and being liked. Similarly, executive branding verifies your value in the field and creates familiarity that enhances trust between you and potential customers.

shutterstock_142999720

As Bryan Kramer puts it, people want a natural human-to-human connection with brands. Unfortunately, companies now have less time to form that bond. In fact, most B2B buyers don’t talk to a sales rep until they’re 57 percent of the way through their purchasing decision.

With executive branding, however, the audience feels connected to the individuals behind the company long before the first point of contact. You can spark conversations with prospects and influence their decisions before they’re ready to reach out to you.

Forging a Connection Through Executive Branding

Thought leadership has been a core part of Influence & Co.’s success; we’ve consistently shared this information in whitepapers like this one. From the start, we’ve positioned our leaders as subject-matter experts. And we’ve seen firsthand how executive branding can build the company brand, dissolve trust barriers, attract and nurture leads throughout the marketing funnel, and keep us top of mind when prospects and customers are ready to buy or provide a referral.

We recently had a large account sign up for our services because its leader read one of my articles, “Be A Leader In Your Industry: Help Others.” It was a simple yet transparent view of what I had done to help grow the company by helping people.

I received several emails from readers who have attracted more opportunities since adopting this mentality. But it also begs the question: Would people have related in the same way if the “help others” message had come from my company?

Looking at it from the other extreme, a company that blasts out a PR blitz to confess its wrongdoings won’t have the same effect. By openly discussing Target’s struggles, Jeff Jones has helped humanize the brand because the audience can sympathize with him in a way that doesn’t translate with brand-sponsored messaging. I use this example a lot because there just aren’t other brands that will take the leap like this, so there aren’t a lot of examples out there.

 

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Hone Your Executive Branding With These 4 Strategies

Executive branding doesn’t just draw you closer to your audience; it also positions your company as an authority in its industry. Some companies do this through product development, but when a company can monetize key employees’ expertise through content creation and speaking engagements, the brand-building effects are astounding.

Beth Comstock and Dave Kerpen are two illustrative examples of executive branding done right. Dave has combined consistent publishing, paid speaking engagements, and book writing to fuel both his Likeable Media brand and his growing startup, Likeable Local. Beth has also positioned herself as a prominent figure in the marketing world by offering valuable content online and makingmemorable speeches.

As a result, both have become revered industry leaders and have driven continuous opportunities back to their companies. There’s a huge size difference between Likable Media and General Electric, but the results are the same. Having leaders who authentically engage with your target audience makes a big difference.

You, too, can reap the benefits of a comprehensive executive branding strategy by promoting your key employees through these four strategies:

1. Create thought leadership content. Publishing guest-contributed content is the core initiative that nurtures every other executive branding opportunity. If you’re consistently building a web of content that keeps you top of mind, it will be a catalyst to more speaking, networking, and publishing opportunities.

2. Secure speaking engagements. Speaking is one of the best ways to authentically engage your audience. From the moment you walk into a conference or event, others perceive you as an authoritative figure. If you tailor your speech to the right audience and have the content to back it up, your audience will walk away with a renewed level of trust in you that will drive valuable opportunities your way.

3. Network. Every leader can verify the brand-building ripple effect of strategic networking. The more connected you stay within your industry, the more your brand will shine. The cornerstone of any effective networking strategy is treating people well, helping them achieve their goals, and connecting them with other valuable people.

4. Publish books. The notoriety that comes with authoring a book can feel tempting, but this strategy should be last on your executive branding list. Until you tackle thought leadership content, speaking engagements, and networking, don’t try to justify the time it takes to write a valuable book. However, when you’re ready, there are some unique opportunities that come from publishing a book.

The objective of any branding strategy boils down to establishing a human-to-human connection. People don’t want to have a conversation, eat dinner, or share secrets with a company; they

want to do those things with real people. Executive branding is the secret ingredient that will position you as a likeable industry figure and encourage prospects to always choose you first.

John Hall is the CEO of Influence & Co., a company that specializes in expertise extraction and knowledge management that are used to fuel marketing efforts.

Forbes.com | May 3, 2015 | John Hall

#Leadership: How the Wrong People Get Promoted & How to Change It…Research Revels that Companies Consistently Choose the Wrong People for #Management Roles. Here’s what you Can Do to Avoid the Same Mistake

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Have you ever quit a job just to get away from a bad boss? If you have, it turns out you’re in sizable company. According to a April 2015 Gallup study, one in two U.S. workers have at some point in their career felt compelled to make that same difficult choice.

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Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? Don't be that guy.

Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? Don’t be that guy.

That the business world may be filled with managers who unwittingly drive their people away is at the heart of Gallup’s 50-plus page report “State Of The American Manager: Analytics And Advice For Leaders”. What the research reveals is that organizations consistently choose the wrong people for management roles, and pay dearly for it through poor engagement and costly turnover—and the inevitable decline in overall performance.

But Gallup also discovered what distinguishes the very best managers—new and truly groundbreaking insight into the talents, motivations, and practices of bosses who make workers want to stay.

Here are five of the most significant findings of the report:

1. THE MAJORITY OF MANAGERS ARE WRONG FOR THEIR ROLES

Perhaps the most important—and disruptive—conclusion from the study is that too many companies have a flawed methodology for selecting people into management.

How? They base hiring and promotion decisions on an employee’s past experience, and then reward them by giving them an entirely different role. According to the research, at least 80% of the time this methodology backfires.

“It is the rite of passage in most organizations that if you are very good at your job—whether it be in sales, or accounting, or any number of specialties—and stay around a long time, the next step in your progression is to be promoted to manager,” says Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist. “But the talents that make a person successful in a previous, non-management role are almost never the same ones that will make them excel as a manager.”

The Gallup study states pay structures at most companies reinforce this career progression, and must be redesigned to ensure employees are given more than one path to earning higher compensation and prestige. According to the report, organizations back themselves into a corner when they tie pay to managerial status creating an environment in which employees compete for roles to which they’re not a fit.

 

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2. GREAT MANAGERS POSSESS A RARE COMBINATION OF FIVE TALENTS

Gallup studied individual managers at numerous organizations, and discovered those managers who most consistently drove high engagement, loyalty, productivity, profit, and service levels all shared five uncommon talents:

  • They motivate their employees.
  • They assert themselves to overcome obstacles.
  • They create a culture of accountability.
  • They build trusting relationships.
  • They make informed, unbiased decisions for the good of their team and organization.

Gallup confirmed this combination of innate talent is so rare that it exists in about only one out of 10 people. They also believe another two out of 10 people have some of these five talents, and can become great managers with the right coaching and development.

Ironically, Harter is convinced that the most highly talented manager prospects are hiding in plain sight within organizations, and the use of some predictive analytics tool can help them make more informed hiring decisions. The rewards for doing so are impressive. Companies already employing these disciplines have realized a 48% increase in profitability, a 22% increase in productivity, and 30% jump in engagement scores, the Gallup report notes.

3. MANAGERS HAVE THE GREATEST IMPACT ON ENGAGEMENT

Hiring the right people for manager roles represents the single greatest opportunity facing organizations today simply because of the upside it signifies. According to the study, managers account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores. When a company raises employee engagement levels consistently across every business unit, everything that matters to an organization’s long-term viability gets better.

Gallup has studied engagement since the 1990s, and has repeatedly found that companies with happy and committed employees outperform all others in terms of business outcomes including absenteeism, turnover, innovation, and productivity. Getting the decision right in who you name manager and how you develop them is the most important decision any organizational leader can make, the report stresses. The best strategies in the world will likely fail in execution without the highly talented managers in place.

4. FEMALE MANAGERS ARE MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE AT DRIVING ENGAGEMENT

Another stunning finding is that employees of female managers on average are at least 6 percentage points more engaged than those who work for a male manager. In fact, out of the 12 different questions Gallup uses to diagnose a person’s engagement, employees of female managers outscore male managers on 11 of those items.

Only one out of three workers has a female boss today, yet women leaders eclipse their male counterparts in many of the ways known to inspire high levels of commitment, initiative, and loyalty in 21st-century workers. They more consistently cultivate the potential in their people by creating challenging assignments. They praise and value people for their efforts and contributions. They take steps to foster a positive and cooperative work environment.

In their 2013 book, The Athena Doctrine: How Women And The Men Who Think Like Them Will Rule The Future, authors Michael D’Antonio and John Gerzema note the skills required to thrive in today’s world—such as honesty, empathy, communication, appreciation, and collaboration—are widely regarded as being on the feminine side of human nature.

Gallup’s data suggests many of these same qualities have a significant and meaningful impact on driving engagement.

5. HIGH TALENT MANAGERS FOCUS ON STRENGTHS, NOT WEAKNESSES

Accentuating the positive behaviors and traits in people proves to be a wildly more successful approach to driving engagement than a well-intended focus on mitigating weakness, Gallup says.

In a study of more than 1,000 random U.S. workers, nearly two-thirds, or 61%, of employees who felt they had a manager who honored and intentionally amplified their positive characteristics were engaged –- twice the national average.

Overall, Gallup has discovered that the managers—male or female—who routinely motivate the greatest employee engagement have an instinct for investing emotionally in their people. Workers describe them as being more human and relatable—someone who cares about them personally and with whom they can discuss non-work related issues.

These same high-talent managers also make communication a priority. They hold regular meetings and interact with each employee in some way every single day. Simply put, they make their people feel valued and connected which has the direct effect of sending engagement soaring.

THE REWARDS OF A CARING MANAGER

With 70% of the working population admittedly disengaged in their jobs today, we’ve reached a crisis that’s not just harming organizational performance; it’s profoundly undermining human potential.

But we now realize there is a cure. If we accept the idea that every person working today deserves to have a supportive, caring, and effective manager—and we make that happen—the rewards will be simply inestimable.

 

Fastcompany.com | May 2015 | Mark C. Crowley 

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#Leadership: How To Build A Mentally Strong Dream #Team…A Mentally Strong Team Starts with a Mentally Strong #Leader. Role Model, Healthy Habits, & Refuse to Participate in the Things that Could Sabotage the Team’s Best Efforts.

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Mentally strong team TISI +0.23% members cooperate, build on one another’s strengths, and openly learn from their mistakes. When you teach individuals how to be mentally strong – and how to work together to form a strong team – they can accomplish incredible feats.  Yet, most teams struggle to reach their greatest potential because issues of resentment, fear, and entitlement lurk beneath the pleasant conversation. When left unaddressed, these issues can lead to hidden agendas, communication breakdowns, and reduced productivity.

How to Build a Mentally Strong Team

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A mentally strong leader who is knowledgeable about group dynamics can influence the way team members work. Here are three ways to build a mentally strong dream team:

1. Create a Culture of Strength

 Teams create their own subculture, which may be very different from the rest of the organization’s culture. Team members who remain silent about upcoming policy changes in large company meetings may express their fears during smaller team meetings. Or employees who outwardly congratulate another team’s success, may express resentment toward those team members when behind closed doors.

 A team’s subculture will either help or hinder their performance. Members will either engage in tasks that help the team become better, or they’ll get caught up in counterproductive habits that will prevent them from moving forward.
Mental strength is about learning to think realistically, manage emotions effectively, and behave productively despite the circumstances. Building a culture of strength means establishing social norms that will help people perform at their best, while also helping them avoid bad habits that could hold them back.
2. Facilitate Productive Behavior

Emotions and irrational thinking can be contagious. Whether you’ve got an employee who thinks the company is going bankrupt, or you’re dealing with a team member who insists on being a people-pleaser, these issues can create a toxic environment if left unaddressed.

Encourage team members to confront issues and provide feedback respectfully. Show employees that conflict can be healthy – as long as everyone is uses direct communication and works together to address issues as they arise. You won’t get maximum results from all your members unless everyone feels safe and respected when they share their opinions.

Turn negative thinking and distraught emotions into productive behavior. If employees want to turn a weekly meeting into a pity party, turn their concerns into active problem-solving. Or, if the team tries to blame their problems on the company’s new policy, help them focus on things that are within their control.

If you allow the team to engage in bad habits, it’ll undermine their strength. Be vigilant in facilitating productive behavior that will advance the team’s efforts.

 

3. Train Employees on Mental Strength

Skill will only take your team so far. A productive team also needs to be able to work together successfully. If certain individuals – or the team as a whole – lacks mental strength, they’ll struggle with certain tasks no matter how much talent they possess.

Teach employees how to become mentally strong on an individual and team level. Show them how seemingly minor bad habits – like spending just five minutes complaining during each meeting – adds up over time. Don’t be afraid to talk about issues like mental health, personal development and resilience in the workplace.

 

Assess team dynamics from time to time. Proactively address problems as they arise and be willing to confront members who are undermining the team’s strength.  A mentally strong team starts with a mentally strong leader. Role model healthy habits and refuse to participate in the things that could sabotage the team’s best efforts.

Amy Morin is a psychotherapist and the author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, a bestselling book that is being translated into more than 20 languages.

 

Forbes.com | May 3, 2015 | Amy Morin

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#Leadership: Biggest Doesn’t Mean Best: How Leading Companies Get To The Top…Recent Bain & Company Analysis of 320 Companies Across 45 Markets Worldwide Demonstrates that Scale Alone is often Not Enough to Confer Real Economic Leadership

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Bigger is not always better when it comes to succeeding in business. Who, for example, makes the most money producing tires? It’s not Bridgestone, the industry’s global scale leader. Germany’s Continental AG takes home three times more profit than Bridgestone and is far and away the tire industry’s economic leader. How? What the smaller company lacks in scale it makes up for with lower manufacturing costs and a more lucrative customer mix.

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"The Art of War" contains more than military strategy. It's also a guide for getting ahead at work.

“The Art of War” contains more than Military Strategy. Remember, Sun-Tzu. defeated Armies 5 times the Size of his.

A lot of corporate strategy revolves around building scale, and for good reason. The largest companies enjoy huge advantages: They can spread costs over the widest base, wield the most market influence and benefit from the most accumulated experience.

But a recent Bain & Company analysis of 320 companies across 45 markets worldwide demonstrates that scale alone is often not enough to confer real economic leadership. In fact, 36% of the scale leaders in our study didn’t even manage to generate a positive return on capital. And 40% of the economic leaders, like Continental, weren’t the largest companies in their industries.

Related: The Journey North

None of this argues that scale isn’t a powerful competitive advantage: the scale leader in our study was also the economic leader in its industry 60% of the time. But companies like Continental demonstrate that the classic strategic imperative for challengers—build scale or get out—is only one of several options. Our study also suggests that most scale leaders need to step up to the next level of performance if they want to keep challengers from eating into their profits.

The best performing companies in our study share four critical attributes: Valuable assets, superior capabilities, the most attractive customers and the benefits of scope. They achieve economic leadership by linking these elements together to develop an ambitious strategy that explicitly targets higher performance. That’s how Continental outperforms scale leader Bridgestone by such a wide margin. Its manufacturing plants in low-cost countries deliver operating margins that its competitors can’t match. It has developed a world-class set of capabilities for running those plants, standardized across all its facilities. Through strong relationships with the leading German auto manufacturers, it has adapted its product mix for the most lucrative customers. And by expanding its scope selectively to provide other automotive systems and components, Continental can bundle products and create distinctive partnerships with its manufacturing customers.
Among the patterns that emerged from our study, the most powerful challengers tend to take advantage of three broad strategies:

  • The hitchhike strategy — Although large incumbents have scale advantages, they are also married to the rules they set. Challengers can hitch onto an existing market and win by using differentiated capabilities. In smart phones, for instance, Samsung hitchhiked on Apple’s iPhone strategy and pricing. But it used strong network relationships and go-to-market capabilities to carve out a place as the industry’s scale leader and low-cost producer.
  • The hijack strategy — Hitchhiking may be the easiest strategy if the scale leader lets you get away with it. But aggressive challengers can also hijack the industry profit pool by winning over the best customers. BMW, for instance, pulled off this strategy in the global automotive market by developing a premium brand and gradually extending it into every corner of the car business, from city cars to SUVs and super cars.
  • Disruption — The ultimate judo move is to change the rules of the game entirely, as Amazon did when it wreaked havoc on big-box retailers with its ubiquitous Internet retailing engine. Southwest showed how to make money in air travel with its low-cost, no-frills service strategy. Digitalization continues to open opportunities for disruption in almost every industry. Witness Netflix: First it disrupted the Blockbuster brick-and-mortar model. Then it disrupted that disruption when it moved from mailing DVDs to streaming.

All of these strategies have one thing in common: They take direct aim at the weakness that so often accompanies scale. The paradox of leadership is that the largest companies often fail to take full advantage of leadership economics. The top performers in our research returned an average of nearly two times their weighed average cost of capital. But among the scale leaders in each market, only 26% hit or surpassed that target and, as we noted, a full 36% of the scale leaders didn’t even manage to generate a positive return on capital.2

 

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Very often, an industry leader has achieved its scale position by virtue of superior assets and capabilities. But then the company settles in to defend its position and becomes complacent. The strongest scale leaders in our study prevent that from happening. They are significantly more focused about what they do with their leadership, amplifying their scale advantage deliberately in other ways. Typically they follow at least one of three paths:

  • Play by the rules — Industry incumbent shave the unique opportunity to extend their economic leadership by sticking to the established rules of the game and executing better than anybody else. While this sounds simple, it is anything but. The company must continuously reduce costs and build quality, learning and investing more, while avoiding the complexity that can crush returns. Intel is a prime example. The semiconductor giant set the rules of the game early on in the chip industry and has not strayed from them. Others have threatened, but Intel has managed to stay ahead by moving rapidly down the learning curve to introduce a more powerful chip every 18 months.
  • Bend the rules – Playing by the rules is fine as far as it goes. But stretching toward full potentialmay require bending the rules a little bit — or a lot. That often means using core strengths to create new opportunities as Starbucks did when it created an international brand and standardized a carefully designed coffee drinking “experience,” allowing it to transform local coffee markets and extract greater pricing from customers.
  • Break the rules – This is clearly the most difficult strategy for a large, incumbent company, since most leaders are heavily invested in winning by the current rules. Sometimes, however, leading companies can use their size and clout to reshape the rules to their advantage. That’s what IBM did when it used its scale, deep customer relationships and technical expertise to move from being a hardware producer to a high-margin provider of software and services.

Scale is immensely valuable, without a doubt. But the companies that achieve the highest levels of leadership economics — two times their cost of capital and above — think and act beyond scale. They make important choices about where to focus their time and investments and work rigorously to develop the key assets and capabilities. That’s a path to sustainable, market-beating returns.

 

Forbes.com | April 30, 2015 | Bain Insight

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