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#Leadership : Secrets of the Most #ProductivePeople -The Best Way to Use All those 5 Minutes of #Downtime Every Day…When you Have a Few Spare Minutes During the Day, you Probably Default to Checking Email. Here are More #ProductiveWays to use “Found Time.”

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Whether your meeting ended early or that project didn’t take as long as you thought, chances are you’ve got some found time on your hands at some point during the day. If you’re like most people, you default to checking email. If you had a system in place, however, you could use those unexpected minutes to get something done, says productivity consultant Leslie Shreve, founder and CEO of Productive Day.

“Most people don’t know how to jump in and take advantage of time because nothing is prepared and sitting in front of them,” she says. “The key is to proactively plan for those five-, 10-, or 15-minute bits of time that often appear throughout the average workday.”

And there are a lot of them. A study by the staffing firm OfficeTeam found that the average employee squanders 56 minutes every day, which adds up to nearly five hours a week that could be used on meaningful work.

START WITH AN INVENTORY

We’re not being proactive with our time because we’re managing tasks from paper to-do lists, emails, voicemails, conversations, notes, files, and ideas. “Those are tools; not systems,” says Shreve.

What’s necessary is a master list, or inventory, of all of your tasks. Shreve likens it to creating a mission control. Bigger than a brain dump, she suggests going around your desk and recording all of your tasks and projects. Look at files and papers on your desk: Things that are left out are often done so as reminders of what needs to be done, she says. As you note action items, you build your task inventory.

“You have to take time in your busy day to do this, but it can help you save a lot of time in the end,” says Shreve. “To make progress on meaningful work you need small action steps. You cannot get progress without project management. Unless you’re prepared, things will be lost or forgotten.”

Tasks should be small, Shreve says, only reflecting the first action step to get something started, or the next action step to keep something moving forward. “These small but powerful steps can move multi-step tasks, projects, and initiatives forward consistently and with ease,” she says.

Use a digital system, such as a spreadsheet, to record your full inventory of tasks—everything you need to do, no matter the source of the task or when action will take place. A paper to-do list needs to be completed, while a digital list is a system, says Shreve. With all your tasks in one system, you can plan and prioritize for certain days, weeks, and months into the future.

When you have found time, check your inventory and find a task that fits. For example, five minutes is enough time to make a phone call that you know will go to voicemail, schedule an appointment, or knock out a quick action step that will keep a priority or a project moving forward.

“Having an inventory of all tasks in one system allows you to make smart decisions about how to use your time, because all tasks are documented and ready for action,” says Shreve. “You can easily become more proactive and less reactive throughout the day.”

PLAN YOUR DAY

An inventory of tasks also helps you plan your day. When you get to work in the morning, check your task list and get to work. Looking at your inventory, priorities often bubble to the top, and Shreve suggests choosing four to seven items to do that day.

“You can always change it, and make it reflect what you really want or need to do that day,” says Shreve. “Your day and task list is never static.”

Working without a system is like grocery shopping; it’s easy to miss items because there’s often no order to the layout of the store, says Shreve. “You only buy the items you can find or that are in front of you,” she says. “Similarly, you can only do the tasks that you know about or see in your vision, and if you don’t have time to check 10 different places for the possibilities, something will be missed.”

MINUTES DRIVE RESULTS

While they seem inconsequential in the moment, those small amounts of time are essential for achieving results. “Inner work life matters for companies because, no matter how brilliant a company’s strategy might be, the strategy’s execution depends on great performance by people inside the organization,” write Harvard Business School professor Theresa Amabile and development psychologist Steven Kramer in their book The Progress Principle. “When progress happens in small steps, a person’s sense of steady forward movement toward an important goal can make all the difference between a great day and a terrible one.”

Knowing what’s possible allows you to take action on the most important tasks at the right times throughout the day, says Shreve. “You can use your time more wisely and with purpose,” she says. “You stop guessing and start knowing what to do and when to do it. It’s a priceless benefit from having a complete system and a workday strategy that works.”

 

FastCompany.com | May 29, 2018 | BY STEPHANIE VOZZA 4 MINUTE READ

#Leadership : Dan Pink Reveals The Perfect Time For #Meetings, #SalesPitches, & #CreativeTasks ….Your #Decision on When to Hold a #Meeting should be a #Strategic one, Not one Made Out of Convenience. Knowing When you’re at your Best for Specific Tasks Could Give you a Competitive Edge.

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The famous TED speaker and New York Timesbestselling author Daniel H. Pink, along with his team of researchers, spent two years analyzing more than 700 studies in fields ranging from economics to psychology to unearth the hidden science of perfect timing. I recently sat down with Pink to talk about the results in his new book, When.

Specifically, we talked about Pink’s research and what it reveals about the timing of meetings, sales pitches, and creative tasks.

When to time meetings

Pink says the biggest mistake business professionals make when scheduling meetings is “lack of intentionality.” In other words, we set meetings when it’s convenient without considering whether the time of day unleashes the team’s best ideas. “When we schedule meetings, we only think about one criterion—availability,” says Pink. “Instead, we should be thinking about what kind of meeting it is: analytical, administrative, creative. We should be thinking about what type of people are there. Are they morning people or evening people?”

 According to Pink, your decision on when to hold a meeting should be a strategic one, not a decision made out of convenience. In one extraordinary study, a group of business school professors studied whether a CEO’s mood during earnings calls impacted the stock price. They studied 26,000 earnings calls from more than 2,000 public companies over a period of six years. They found that the time of day influenced the emotional tone of the conversations, and by extension, perhaps even the company’s stock price.

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Calls held first thing in the morning—when moods are generally high—turned out to be reasonably upbeat and positive. The tone grew more negative as the day progressed, especially if the calls were held in the early afternoon when Pink says our moods tend to dip (before rebounding after five o’clock). “Afternoon calls were more negative, irritable, and combative than morning calls,” writes Pink.

The takeaway: When you can, schedule important calls and meetings earlier in the day.

When to time sales presentations

Pink’s research shows that when we approach a decision, we come to the table with a ‘default position.’ Asking your boss for a raise? Their default position might be to say “no.” Approaching a potential customer to make a sale? Their default position might be to say “no.” Once again, timing matters.

Pink says salespeople are more likely to overcome a prospect’s default position earlier in the day—when moods are elevated—or immediately after a short break. We all suffer from cognitive fatigue. The brain consumes a ton of energy and we get tired from all that thinking. We need short, frequent breaks to achieve peak performance.

The takeaway: Schedule a sales call in the morning or after your prospect comes back from a break.

When to time creative tasks

Dan Pink surprised me with the timing of this activity. I assumed that if our energy levels are highest in the morning, it would be the best time to do our most creative work. Not necessarily, says Pink. Think about the mood cycle once again, Pink reminded me. In general, our positive moods rise in the morning, dips in afternoon, and rises again in the evening beginning around 5 p.m. The second thing to keep in mind is “vigilance.” Vigilance refers to our cognitive ability to be hyper-focused and to keep distractions at bay. Vigilance spikes in the morning. The research shows that analytical decisions are best made in the morning hours precisely for this reason. One study found that students perform better on math tests in the morning. Math requires sharpness, vigilance and focus.

But all brainwork is not the same. ‘Aha moments’ or creative insights often occur later in the day after 5:00 p.m. or so. At the time, most of us have an elevated mood and less vigilance. According to Pink, “At those looser moments, a few distractions can help us spot connections we might have missed when our filters were tighter.”

Takeaway: Tackle analytical problems in the morning and save creative pursuits for later in the afternoon and early evening.

Our cognitive abilities fluctuate during the day—often extremely so. Sometimes we’re sharper, faster, or more creative. Knowing when you’re at your best for specific tasks could give you a competitive edge.

Carmine Gallo is a keynote speaker and author of The Storyteller’s Secret and Talk Like TED and his new book Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get From Good to Great.

 

Forbes.com | February 28, 2018 | Carmine Gallo , CONTRIBUTOR

#Leadership : 7 Beneficial Tips for Managing Your Virtual Work Team…Add These Tips to your Work Routine and your Team Will Run Like a Well-Oiled Engine.

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When I began doing most of my work online as the head of a virtual team, I realized that the first problem I needed to resolve was a personal one — and kind of an embarrassing one: I would lounge around on the sofa with my laptop perched on my knees, as I drifted between work and sleep. And I always shuddered at the thought that my virtual team was doing the same.

Free- Laptop Cellphone at home

Related: 10 Ways to Successfully Manage Virtual Teams

Having a virtual office isn’t different from having a physical one, or at least it shouldn’t be, if you want any semblance of success. So, it should make no difference that you’re online.

But there are differences. Consider the issue of security: You don’t leave your office unlocked, and in the same way, you don’t leave your virtual office unguarded. My first piece of advice, then, is that if you are going to make or receive online payments, you’ll want to invest in a virtual private network (VPN); if you can’t afford the big boys, choose a cheap VPN service and stay protected. This is vital.

Next, if you’re working at home, create a special space where you can focus on work. Better yet, set up a workspace away from home. Once you, as the manager, have created some order at your end, you’ll have the moral high ground to demand the same from your virtual staff.

A virtual staff is understandably more difficult to handle for obvious reasons: no direct supervision, no structured workplace, different geographical locations which may cut across nations and time zones. Given those constraints, the following tips will help you manage your virtual work team better in spite of the constraints.

1. Be specific and detailed in your demands.

I kept getting such a variety of quality in delivered jobs that I would often fight off a migraine just trying to harmonize them. Using emails to correct errors didn’t seem to work, because often a different kind of error would then crop up.

I soon realized that the problem started with me, so I took time to put together a detailed guideline covering all aspects of the business, from minor to major. I accompanied this with a proper sample of what I expected.

This move dramatically improved the quality of the work that the staff did in a short time. If you expect a clear outcome, then give a clear example. The aim is to set professional standards, because setting professional standards contributes to being efficient and puts people into the right mindset. The devil is always in the details.

 

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2. Specialize your team.

Talk about trying hard to fit round pegs into square holes! In fact, that is exactly what many virtual team managers try to do, and it is usually nearly impossible to make things work this way.

The virtual nature of your staff leaves little room for close supervision and teaching your team how to do particular kinds of jobs.

After working a while with my team members, I began recognizing their individual weaknesses and strengths and the kinds of jobs that each of them did with ease. According to those observations, I switched up positions and started delivering specialized jobs. This yielded a noticeable rise in the quality of the work done and reduced my stress considerably.

The advantages of such specialization are numerous, Team members enjoy their work, and I have less need to stock Aspirin.

Related: 5 Must-Ask Questions When Recruiting A Virtual Team

3. Create a virtual meeting place.

Emails are a good way of communicating and receiving instructions and job orders, but are a poor means for proper discussions. To get around this, I created a group on WhatsApp, where I added all my team members. Other options are available, and the choice will vary from manager to manager, since online platforms, social media and instant messaging apps abound.

Investing in video conferencing may be another very reasonable option if your budget can manage it. The idea is to remove the impersonal feeling that email gives, and instead bring some personality to your communications.

For me, creating a virtual meeting place was a life saver, as it seemed to revitalize my virtual workspace. There is a strange power in seeing someone’s face for the first time; happily, the internet now allows for that too.

4. Utilize the overlap in working hours.

It is often a struggle when your virtual team works in different time zones; it’s difficult to make demands that are binding on all team members. It is also difficult to fix meetings or get urgent communications responded to quickly.

I had to study the time zones for all staff and determine the time of my day that overlapped with their work hours. We mutually agreed to always be online at a certain period of the day because it was generally convenient. You should do the same and utilize those few hours, fix regular meetings and send urgent correspondence across.

5. Set up reward systems to motivate your team.

I began paying slightly higher when I made a greater demand, like a demand that required a job to be done in much shorter time. I would also give extra stipends and encouragements to team members who showed consistent quality work. Trust me, people don’t want to sit before their computer for hours on end, but they will if you give them a reason to.

Setting up a kind of meritocracy is a good idea. It worked for me.

6. Give more jobs to the best of your team.

The good thing about virtual teams is that oftentimes only you are aware of how much work you give each team member and how much each is paid, so there is little room for the rancor and jealousy that may brew in a regular office workspace.

There is no need to be masochistic, so reduce your headache quotient by giving a greater volume of jobs to the people who show consistent quality.

7. Establish some order in your personal work systems,

Working with documents on your computer can get messy; you need to create proper systems and arrange jobs for different clients and team members in different and properly named folders. You also need to avoid the mess that emails can bring. So, explore the various ways you can manage your emails for greater productivity. Tools like Hiver can help you keep a sane email box.

Also, set up reminders for jobs so you can send reminders and alerts to your team and avoid failing a client or forgetting the time demands on your team members. This saved me a lot of stress and made the job much easier. It’s like having a efficient file cabinet.

Related: How to Manage Employee Trial Periods for a Virtual Team

Add these tips to your work routine and your team will run like a well-oiled engine.

 

Entrepreneur.com | December 14, 2016 |  Chidike Samuelson

 

#Leadership : How to Disrupt Your Next Meeting — and Look Like the Smartest Person in the Room…Even the Most Ineffective Meetings Represent Opportunities for Leverage.

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Eighty percent of success, the saying holds, is about just showing up.  By this measure, the millions of meetings that are held in offices across the U.S. every day provide attendees with a strong chance to make the other 20 percent happen.

top view, group of students together at school table working homework and have fun

If they could appreciate being there, that is.

 Last year, a survey of 2,066 Americans by Harris/Clarizen showed that almost 50 percent preferred just about “any unpleasant activity” to sitting in a meeting. Alternatives included taking a trip to the DMV (18 percent), watching paint dry (17 percent) and undergoing a root canal (8 percent).

But is taking this attitude a winning strategy for an ambitious professional? Spoiler alert: not so much.

Related: Let’s Give Meetings a Much-Needed Makeover

Worse, it drives your boss nuts. Recently, one senior executive of an American-based tech multinational told me that members of her team routinely “check out” during meetings.

“These are very smart people,” she says. “But often, they either start multitasking or just aren’t fully present at meetings.”

Behavior like this can hurt even the most valued high-potential employees, because it shows passivity, rather than leadership and initiative. To be sure, there are plenty of reasons to mentally check out during an endless round of meetings — including fuzzy agendas, vague objectives and the general feeling that one just doesn’t need to be there.

In theory, anyone who calls a meeting will have a purpose in mind: to arrive at a decision, solve a problem or share updates that require feedback. In practice, that’s often not what happens.

So that kind of meeting is a waste of your time, right? Wrong. Even the most ineffective meetings represent opportunities for leverage.

Here are three ways to look like the smartest person in the room, even when a meeting feels like the dumbest time-suck ever:

1. Challenge up.

When the CEO or a senior executive attends a meeting, lower-ranking team members can wind up feeling intimidated or tongue-tied. Even when they have valuable ideas to offer, they can feel obliged to defer to authority — or worse, wholly succumb to group-think, which occurs when an organization appears to value harmony and conformity over rigorous analysis and critical evaluation.

But reticence in meetings often leads to flawed decision-making, so bosses hate it. (You may snort at this with disbelief, but my coaching experience bears this out.)

Recently, the president of a Detroit-based automotive parts manufacturer, whose VP of sales I coached for executive presence, shared that he wanted his lieutenant to “challenge [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][him] more in meetings.”

Recent research supports this. A 2013 Center for Talent Innovation survey of 268 senior executives found that integrity and speaking truth to power are highly sought-after qualities in emerging leaders. Similarly, a 2014 paper by the American Psychological Association showed that being courageous and speaking from the heart are characteristics of executive presence that help people get ahead.

But that begs the question: how do you successfully challenge the boss and not get fired? The answer is to offer substance — through sound reasoning and compelling evidence — and in a way that doesn’t threaten his or her status. This is important to get right: Neuroscience research has shown that a perceived status threat — such as a condescending tone, a scowling facial expression or thinly veiled sarcasm — is as painful as a blow to the head, leading to increased cortisol levels and anxiety.

A boss experiencing this sudden flash of stress hormones may react emotionally (translation: negatively) rather than focus on the value of your perspective.

Related: 5 Tips For Better Meetings

 

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Conveniently, success can lie in a simple swap-out of prepositions. Replace “but” with “and” when challenging your boss. Try saying it out loud to yourself right now, and see which sounds better: “I appreciate everything you just said, but we should consider XYZ.” Or, “I appreciate everything you just said, and we should consider XYZ.” The latter conveys a collaborative spirit whereas the former just sounds oppositional.

But you can’t approach this half-heartedly. A challenged boss may challenge back by probing for context or detail, or both. You responding with a sheepish expression and a half-baked argument can do more harm than if you’d said nothing. Still, if you’re immediately short on the requested details, offer to provide additional information post-meeting.

2. Disrupt the seating order.

It’s natural to sit with those who make us feel comfortable: friends, allies or teammates. But you’ve already established those bonds. Because organizations run on relationships, use your next meeting to expand your network.

Try sitting next to someone to whom you’ve never spoken, someone with a vastly different skillset or professional background — even someone who, at first blush, you may not like. This takes effort, but the approach can yield significant benefits, allowing you to establish new connections, gain a new perspective on a problem or cooperatively brainstorm ideas.

What’s more, the gesture signals to someone that you respect them. And if there isn’t an opportunity for a quick sidebar chat, you’ve created an opening to connect after the meeting — provided you actually speak to them, of course.

You can break the ice, and avoid a threat response, by elegantly justifying your disruption of the usual seating order. Ask, “’Mind if I sit next to you? I wanted to run something by you.” Or offer a firm handshake and say, “We haven’t officially met. I’d love to learn a bit more about you.” The options are endless.

The point is to take advantage of the many opportunities at meetings for smaller conversations with your colleagues, especially in problem-solving sessions. Reduce emotional distance by reducing physical distance.

3. Commit to providing something of value.

Providing value is the antithesis of “just showing up.” But if you think that value means the loaf of banana bread that you distributed at the last meeting, think again. People will gladly accept your kindness and thank you politely, but no one will see you as a serious player or respect you for filling their tummies with empty calories, however delicious.

Meetings are about progress, results and relationships. Being prepared is a good foundation for providing value, but as corporate meetings go, especially impromptu ones, you may not always be clear on a meeting’s objective until it starts.

Related: An Introvert’s Guide to Communicating With Results

Regardless, the key here is to be engaged. When a meeting begins, commit yourself to providing value in one form or another. Don’t hang back and wait for others to speak. Instead, take the lead — humbly (especially when you’re not in charge). This could mean asking thoughtful questions that broaden everyone’s understanding of an issue. It could mean offering fresh ideas that lead to possible solutions to a pesky problem. It could mean bringing the meeting back on track when it’s been hijacked by an off-topic rant, or using humor — judiciously — to de-escalate tension in the face of a frosty exchange between participants.

There are many ways to contribute value. Deciding in advance that you’ll do so can sufficiently prime you to shine in a meeting, even as others in the room silently wish they were somewhere else.

 

Entrepreneur.com | November 15, 2016 | HARRISON MONARTH

 

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#Leadership : The 5 Worst Body-Language Mistakes you can Make in a #Meeting …It’s All In the Eye of the Beholder, So it’s Not What you Mean When you Do Something, It’s How Others are Going to Perceive It.

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It’s Monday morning and you’re slouched in the corner of the team meeting, still slightly stuck in weekend mode.  You may think that your grogginess doesn’t really matter, and that your contributions will speak for themselves. However, the way you carry yourself is often just as important as what you say and do.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., a body-language expert and the author of “The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work,” says things like posture, angling, and eye contact can all have unintended consequences in a meeting setting.

“It’s all in the eye of the beholder, so it’s not what you mean when you do something,” Gomansays. “It’s how others are going to perceive it.”

Since body language influences both likability and success, here are five common mistakes you’d be wise to avoid:

 

Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design/flickr

1. Crossing your arms

In many settings, there’s nothing wrong with crossing your arms — you may be cold, or it may just be a comfortable resting position.

In a meeting, though, you should always avoid sitting with your arms crossed, Goman says. Most people are going to interpret that gesture as you being resistant or closed off.

Flickr/US Embassy Canada

2. Slouching in your seat

Good posture is important wherever you are, but especially so in meetings where you’re sitting for an extended period of time. Slouching can translate to a lack of respect for the speaker and communicates an apathetic attitude.

“Sitting in a condensed posture, where you’re slouching or hunched over, rather than in an expanded or open posture is a big mistake,” Goman says. “It makes you look submissive and like you don’t have much to offer, and that’s not a good look for anybody — particularly if you’re trying to have leadership presence in your organization.”

Inspired by the work of my friend, Andrea Nierenberg, author of Nonstop Networking, I’ve created a few networking thoughts, or NT for short. Please, try these at home.

 

Sean Gallup / Staff

3. Texting or emailing on your phone

Anything that takes your attention away from the speaker is a big no-no in a meeting, Goman explains. High on the list of diversions: texting or checking email on your smartphone.

“It’s just such a huge sign of disrespect. People justify it with, ‘Oh, but I can still hear! I’m still listening!'” Goman says. “But that has nothing to do with it. You’re still taking attention away from the speaker.”

flickr / San Francisco Foghorn

4. Losing eye contact with the speaker

Goman says that failing to keep your eyes on the speaker during a meeting is just as bad as checking your phone.

“This is one of the biggest mistakes I see,” Goman says. “It sends a message to the person speaking: I’m not interested in what you have to say.”

flickr / VFS Digital Design

5. Not speaking up early enough

In any meeting, sitting silently for too long can be perceived as disinterest in the discussion. Speaking up in a room full of people can be difficult if you’re shy, but it’s important to contribute early on.

“Say something early, just get your voice out there, even if it’s something that’s not crucial to the conversation,” Goman says. “You need to be vocal and jump in, because it’s often more difficult to interject as the meeting goes on.”

 Businessinsider.com | March 25, 2016 |  

#Leadership : How to Rewire Your Brain for Serious #Productivity …If your Meetings are Sputtering, Rewiring the Gray Matter May Help Get Employees Reconnected.

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The co-founders of Aditazz, which uses software to design and construct hospitals and other specialized buildings, were beyond frustrated. Zigmund Rubel, an architect, wanted to design buildings in one direction, either from the outside in or from the inside out, depending on the project. Deepak Aatresh, the CEO and an electrical and computer science engineer, was interested in simultaneous outside-in, inside-out design aided by computation.Free- Big Photo Lense

It was one of many seemingly irresolvable conflicts. “We knew we were well-intentioned, very smart, accomplished people, but it was hard to make forward progress,” Aatresh says.

This type of clash is familiar to neuroscience expert Ajit Singh, a partner at VC Artiman Ventures and member of the Aditazz board of directors; it has its roots in the brain. Innovation comes from com­bining disciplines, but people in different disciplines don’t think the same way. The idea that the right brain hemisphere controls creativity and the left logic has been debunked. But research shows that the left brain is more responsible for language, whereas the right takes care of spatial processing and attention. “People don’t select professions,” Singh explains. “Professions select people.”

These differences were interfering with decision making. Aatresh would schedule one-hour meetings for the startup team to make major decisions, but the conversation would go off-track. An hour would pass and little was accomplished. When he asked Singh how long decision making should take, the answer was: “I don’t know. Let’s let it go.” The solution was to create a lounge area with comfortable seating where people could sit as a group. Meetings began at 6 p.m., included wine and snacks, and had no planned end time. Some went as late as 1 a.m. But Aditazz’s best innovations came out of these sessions.

You may not want all-nighters, but Aditazz’s approach is broadly applicable. It works by creating a setting in which employees feel safe and open to collaboration. Making your people feel safe is key, because without that, “we go into protect behavior,” says Judith E. Glaser, author of Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. “The amygdala takes over. The prefrontal cortex gets shut down.” The amygdala is linked to fear responses and pleasure. The prefrontal cortex enables empathy, intuition, higher-level social skills, and three-dimensional thinking, Glaser says. “It allows a level of innovation that’s off the charts in a way people have trouble explaining.”

“The idea that the right brain controls creativity and the left logic has been debunked.”

Glaser begins meetings by asking those present to describe what success looks like. When someone hears that others share his or her goals, it stimulates the rostromedial prefrontal cortex, which governs social decisions. “It says, ‘Let’s be friends. I’m more like you than you think,'” she explains. Singh made Rubel and Aatresh start meetings by telling each other that they understand their thought processes are different. “It sounds like kindergarten,” Singh says. “But over time, I saw there was a lot moreempathy.”

 

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That empathy led Aatresh to change his behavior. “Engineers love to go to the whiteboard,” he says. “I realized that’s intimidating to the intuitive people, because they know you’re going to force their thinking into those boxes.”

Now he sometimes ditches the whiteboard and wanders the room. Invariably, the architects are doodling while the engineers take notes. “For years, I believed people who doodled in meetings were time wasters,” he says. “Now I see there’s a connection between drawing on a sheet of paper and drawing one’s thoughts out.”

Neuro Lessons

Here are three places to reprogram for better performance.

1. Beware the Nonconscious

“People communicate powerful cues by body language. We process these cues nonconsciously, in a fifth of a second,” says Dr. Evian Gordon, CEO ofMyBrainSolutions.com. When we feel threatened, our nonconscious mode can assert itself. If someone says, “But I’m concerned” and crosses her arms, she can nonconsciously give a cue meaning she is switching off.

2. Mind Over Matter

Prime yourself for success by elevating your mood before a speech or meeting–for instance, with 20 minutes of moderate exercise, suggests Josh Davis, director of research at the NeuroLeadership Institute in New York City, and author of Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done. When stressed, try picturing something calming, such as a flower or landscape.

3. Make People Comfortable

New Jersey-based Pirch, a retailer of luxury appliances, uses neuroscience to create spaces where people feel safe and can enjoy themselves, says co-founder Jim Stuart: “We rationalize our choice of one store or another, but what really happens is that the nonconscious limbic brain hijacks your cerebral cortex. For the nonconscious brain, the priority is avoiding risk and seeking rewards.”

Inside the Mind of the Entrepreneur

Born entrepreneur? New research shows that some people are wired that way.

Greater Mental Flexibility

According to Heidi Hanna, author of The Sharp Solution: A Brain-Based Approach for Optimal Performance, entrepreneurs excel at switching tasks quickly: “It may be from taking on too much at once or that multitasking is more important for their success.”

Higher Perceived Stress

“Most successful entrepreneurs say they have high levels of stress but thrive on it,” Hanna says. In their next phase of research, her team will look at biological markers to see whether stress is harming entrepreneurs or not.

Positively Above Average

A positivity bias is the nonconscious presumption that you are safe, whereas someone with a negativity bias sees threats everywhere. On a negative-to-positive scale of 1 to 10, the average person scores a 5.5, but entrepreneurs hit an average of 6.5.

Accurate and Agile

Entrepreneurs have above-average motor coordination. At first Hanna thought this was insignificant, but then she realized it might be linked to a key trait. “As I talked to entrepreneurs about what makes them different, they said they make quick decisions. If one turns out wrong, they’re confident they’ll be able to make it right.”

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The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
FROM THE MARCH 2016 ISSUE OF INC. MAGAZINE

#Leadership : 5 Bad Habits That Make Meetings Miserable & Unproductive…Report Found that 67% of Meetings are Considered Unproductive by Executives & They take Up Roughly 15 % of every Institutions Time.

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In 2015 organizations held more than 25 million meetings per day in the United States. This translates to more than $37 billion in lost productivity, according toa study by Fuze. One Harvard Business Review report found that 67 percent of meetings are considered unproductive by executives and they take up roughly 15 percent of every institutions time.

Free- Office Works

As a recent college graduate working at my first full-time job, this calculatorestimates $3,000 of my salary has already gone toward meetings. While some advocate for nixing meetings altogether, we see a lot of tools that help capitalize on that time and money spent. Sticking to an agenda, setting clear goals, sending reading materials in advance are a few items to start the list. Even though many people spend countless hours in meetings every week, meeting time doesn’t have to be money down the drain. I’ve learned a lot and completed numerous team projects as a result of meetings.

But even if meeting organizers use all the tools available, we can still waste time when employees do not conduct themselves well in meetings. As a newbie in the professional world, I’ve had to learn a lot (the hard way) about the flip side of productive meetings: how to be a good meeting attendee. I think the main guiding principle boils down to knowing what to say and when to say it.

 Nevertheless, here are five bad habits we often see in meeting attendees. They each take on a life of their own. I have observed or experienced all of the during my first six months in the professional world.

1. Offline Commenter: We see this trait manifested when people share any comment that would be better made “offline” from the current meeting. It’s easy to over-share because we want our coworkers (and by coworkers I mean our boss) to know how hard we’re working throughout the hum drum of our daily tasks. But there’s nothing worse than wasting everyone’s time with something that should have just been sent to one person in an email.

Offline Comments likely show up during transitional moments in department-wide meetings and sound like this: “I was thinking that the thirteenth graph on page 41 should fade from blue to green because it really captures the essence of the numeric transition happening there,” and “Could you send out that production schedule for me while I’m on vacation next week?” If it pertains to less than three people in the room, one should jot it down and share it later.

 

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2. Interrupter: The most surprising element of my short time in office culture is just how often sophisticated, adult humans interrupt each other. I thought everyone’s parents were like mine, forcing me to stop and realize my error every time I spoke over another person. While my parents were trying to teach me that interrupting is just plain rude (which is still true), this tendency is also an obvious meeting-time-waster because of how many interrupted comments end up needing to be re-said. An interrupter is skilled at convincing office attendees that whatever he has to say cannot wait even one second. This is almost never true. But he is easy to tame. One must simply default to only speaking when others have finished.

3. Brainstormer: If you want to waste a lot of people’s time, send in an untimely Brainstorm. I only know this because of all the evil stares I got the first time I threw out a new, unformed idea at the end of a long meeting. Everyone was gearing up to head back to their desks and finish daily tasks when I said something to the effect of, “Hey guys. What if we did this really cool, time consuming thing that just popped into my head but hasn’t been fleshed out at all. Dear Boss, aren’t I brilliant?”

Brainstormer will try to convince you in the moment that she is more impressive than she is. But the truth is most new ideas aren’t formed enough to be shared with large groups on the spot, and co-workers are not prepared for an unplanned creative discussion. People will tune out while the person entertaining Brainstorm verbally babbles through the rough sketch of a new idea. Ultimately, the time will pass at an unproductive caliber.

Brainstormer is tricky, though, because offices shouldn’t throw this character out completely, unlike some others that need to die forever. Brainstormer brings a timeliness learning curve with her. One has to work with her for a while while before she is ready to be unveiled, and there is an optimal setting for such unveiling: generally in a meeting that has been dedicated solely to this Brainstorm, and one where all the attendees have already been briefed on what is to be Brainstormed.

4. Side Noter: Side Note is a tricky guy because he will drop little clues that make you feel like something you wish to say is more important and relevant than it is. Being able to consistently discern what constitutes a Side Noter comes with the benefits of being a meeting veteran. But it’s not too difficult to catch on. Side noter is similar to Offline Commenter, but carries an aura of false importance because he likely has at least a tangential relationship to something that is already being discussed.

However, the easiest way to lose the attention of half the people in the room is to start a sentence with, “And Just as a side note…” Upon hearing these words, one person will check their watch, another will respond to an email, a third will be whispering to the colleague beside them, and someone will get up to refill their coffee. If something seems to be a Side Note, then it should be shared from its rightful place, which is on the side.

5. Late Starter: It may seem like a no-brainer, but Late Starter still plagues more meetings in the professional world than she should. A Bain and Companyreport says that typically 8 percent of the time and money spent on a meeting is lost when the meeting starts only five minutes late. Late start will whisper to you,just finish sending this last email, the elevator will definitely come quickly, oryou need fill your water bottle and it’s no big deal if you’re a few minutes late.She’s lying, though. The truth she tries to hide from you is that there is almost never a good reason to be late to a meeting.

Late Startr serves only one purpose: rendering those precious beginning minutes as useless. We’ve all been there—the awkward moments when we try to eek out the perfect amount of small talk so as not to launch a too-long conversation, tip-toeing around words that might need to be repeated when the late person arrives, pinging said late person to see when they will show up. And then somehow, like the universe has slowed so that everyone can feel the meaty weight of this wasted time, all three of those things likely took place in only two and a half minutes. And then everyone browses their phone in silence. Precious minutes (and therefore dollars) wasted.

 

Forbes.com | February 14, 2016 | The Berlin School Of Creative Leadership

 

#Leadership : 7 Reasons Why your #WorkMeetings are a Waste of Time — & How to Fix Them…There are a Few Small Fixes you can Make that will Transform your #Meetings from Breaded Blocks on your Schedule into Efficient Ways to Realign your Team.

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Team meetings can be massive wastes of time. Instead of taking a few moments to catch up and develop ideas, you and your colleagues proceed to either doze off or check email as someone drones on.

Free- Locks

The good news is there are a few small fixes you can make that will transform your meetings from dreaded blocks on your schedule into efficient ways to realign your team.

We asked Jessica Pryce-Jones, co-CEO of iOpener Institute and co-author of “Running Great Meetings & Workshops For Dummies,” to share her best advice.

After working with companies like American Express and Coca-Cola, she found common reasons why most meetings are wastes of time and how to fix them.

1. They have no purpose or structure.

Even a single daydreaming employee is a bad sign.

If your meetings are stretching on much longer than they should be, they likely lack a clear purpose. Before the meeting begins, tell your team what the main objective of getting together is, and determine how it will progress.

Pryce-Jones recommends saving the “meat” of the meeting for the middle, after everyone has focused on the task at hand but before their minds start drifting.

 

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2. The moderator is stretched too thin.

The person running the meeting may be trying to juggle too many things at once.

You can’t properly manage the meeting if you’re trying to do everything at once.

Pryce-Jones suggests having a “wingman” who is responsible for the little things, like bringing refreshments and making sure the projector is working, as well as ensuring the team sticks to the agenda. Ask them to let you know if you’re falling behind schedule or if the meeting is no longer constructive.

 

3. The moderator isn’t the best person to run all parts of it.

The moderator should know when to turn the meeting over.

If you know that a particular team member knows more about a topic of discussion than you do, let them lead that part of the meeting to keep things moving quickly. It keeps you from stumbling and keeps your team alert and ready to speak.

4. There are no ground rules for conduct.

Allow employees to say what they need to, without letting the meeting go off the rails.

Pryce-Jones says that frustration arises when employees hold back their feelings in meetings because they’re afraid of stepping on each other’s toes.

Avoid this frustration by establishing a code of conduct. Set a time limit on the meeting and consider allotting set portions of time each employee will speak. Ask the wingman to be responsible for letting the team members know if they are being too vague or verbose, and don’t let politeness interfere with getting things done.

“You’ve got to have a little bit of tension, because that’s where the real value is added,” Pryce-Jones says.

 

5. The meetings aren’t relevant to everyone in attendance.

Avoid “submeetings.”

If employees are constantly sneaking emails on their smartphones or tablets rather than writing down relevant notes, “that is a strong signal to me that the content of the meeting is not correct,” Pryce-Jones says.

Likewise, if you find that your meetings have become a series of “submeetings” in which you’re only fully engaging one or two employees at a time while everyone else checks their phone or daydreams, then you’re wasting time. Keep meetings relevant for everyone involved by utilizing other forms of communication that don’t require getting the team together, whether that be through one-on-one meetings or business group messaging services like Slack.

6. There are no followups.

Make sure the objectives you discussed get completed.

Communication is key to successful meetings, especially if you’re experimenting with finding the ideal format for your team. Keep track of your meetings, and don’t rely on just your own thoughts. If you tried a time limit, ask your employees if they felt that the meeting went more smoothly or got cut short. Get a sense of whether or not your team thinks the purpose you set out to achieve at the beginning was actually fulfilled. Be open to suggestions on how the meeting can be improved.

7. They’re getting stale.

Go out for coffee every now and then.

Regular meetings can become repetitive and boring and therefore not as productive. Sometimes all that’s required to bring energy and good ideas back to the table is a change of scenery, Pryce-Jones says. Try going to a nearby cafe or even a bar and treat your team to coffee or beer.

As always, ask your team if they enjoyed the change of pace. If they enjoyed it but didn’t find it constructive, try something else the next time. It’s never a complete waste of time, says Pryce-Jones, since “a bit of socializing is never going to hurt things.”

 

Businessinsider.com | December 19, 2015 | Richard Feloni

 

#Leadership : How To Make Your Company’s Culture of Innovation More Than Just A Nice Idea…In the #Workplace, Encouraging Creative Problem-solving is far easier in theory. By Taking the Needed Steps to Alleviate any Overpowering Fear of Failure, You can Steer your Team Onto the Right Path.

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Here’s what I Did to Turn our Office Culture Around & Encourage Employees to Share their Ideas Without Worrying about Rejection. – Manpreet Singh, Founder and President of TalkLocal

Develop an Effective Knowledge Transfer System

As a startup founder & investor, it’s not enough for me to merely value innovation and creativity: I must also manage the hazards associated with new ideas. After all, employees who routinely bring novel ideas to their colleagues are likely to experience more rejection, failure and even embarrassment than others in their career. The question is, how do you encourage your team TISI NaN% to innovate despite the risks?

Ultimately, I’ve learned that my personal values alone can’t create a robust culture of innovation. For example, at my company, a social media editor recently started noticing a persistently dismissive attitude coming from certain quarters regarding her collaborative projects. In one extreme case, she was mortified when a project (a stylized promotional video) was scrapped over what boiled down to the employee’s editing choices. Team members lambasted the video, getting it pulled without offering constructive criticism beforehand.

Imagine if that were our response to every lost sales lead or dip in quarterly performance: it would be both paralyzing and counter-productive.

In the workplace, encouraging creative problem-solving is far easier in theory. By taking the needed steps to alleviate any overpowering fear of failure, you can steer your team onto the right path. Here’s what I did to turn our office culture around and encourage employees to share their ideas without worrying about rejection.

Lead by Consensus: Put Feedback on the Meeting Agenda

My team used to email one another to get feedback. Besides being inefficient, emails offered an easy out for those who preferred to avoid confrontations. Ironically, this silence only increases the risk of failure and can still hurt feelings. To nip this communication method in the bud, we’ve placed all projects on the weekly meeting agenda to mandate those uncomfortable conversations. There are now face-to-face discussions about each project, which makes the office a safe space for critical engagement with one another. This in turn also produces shared clarity on project design and purpose while generating ideas for improvement and greater results. And with more engagement comes more shared responsibility for both successes and failures.

 

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Have the Last Word

Another barrier to direct critical feedback among team members was my own presence. I’m less risk-averse than most, yet my very vocal feedback made some team members too reliant upon me to catch every possible pitfall. Given my position and involvement, it was easy for team members to bring their concerns to management rather than have that possibly awkward dialogue with the project leads themselves. Now, my silence during meetings opens the door for the voices of other team members. Of course, I maintain the last word at every step of the process, but the emphasis is on last – and that makes all of the difference.

Make the Non-Starter a Conversation Starter

Most off-the-wall ideas never get implemented, so giving a constructive response to unviable suggestions early on can help your team members come up with more effective plans in the future (as opposed to shutting down their creative thinking). It’s critical that everyone has an evolving understanding of company goals, priorities and resources. At TalkLocal, we now deliver more frequent and detailed reports on our analytics, resource allocation, and where improvement is most needed. As a result, team members feel more empowered to offer informed feedback, and rather than falling silent, they are ushered towards a new way of critical thinking that allows them to produce more sophisticated and viable ideas over time.

Highlight the Anonymous Idea Box

As employees grew more seasoned, I saw fewer of those enthusiastic but naive suggestions, which was a problem in and of itself. In order to encourage new employees to not fall into a similar trap, we decided to dust off our suggestion box and encourage the team to bring up and discuss any anonymously submitted ideas. Through this process, we’re bringing new employees into our growing culture of innovation, while still helping them shape their thinking as they grow with the company.

Today, our social media editor remains creative, recently reducing our e-marketing costs while increasing click rates through better targeting, proving that one success is worth a dozen failures. Furthermore, not a day goes by that a team member doesn’t propose a way to change the company for the better — which makes us better regardless of whether the idea is implemented or not. As the inherent value of an innovation-powered workplace continues to energize and inspire our team, I’m confident that our tangible value will continue to grow as well.

Manpreet Singh is Founder and President of TalkLocal, a home services marketplace that turns online service requests into a live conversation with the right available business in minutes.

 

Forbes.com | August 7, 2015 |  Young Entrepreneur Council