by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Running effective meetings
— From Common Sense Leadership: A Handbook for Success as a Leader by Roger Fulton
Today is the 114th day since the beginning of the New Year. Q1 has ended, which means this is about the time when we’re having tons of meetings to analyze, compare, strategize and move forward. But whether it’s for this reason or any other, do we really need to meet?
In Common Sense Leadership, Roger Fulton says, “too many otherwise productive hours are spent in long, boring, marginally productive meetings.” He suggests looking at the alternatives:
“Don’t conduct a meeting if a memo will do.
Don’t send a memo if a phone call [or an email] will do.
If there’s information to disseminate, maybe [the best way is indeed] face-to-face. Out where the action is! Among your people.
However, if you must have meetings, they should always:
- Start on time.
- Have a definite agenda.
- End as quickly as possible.
Get everyone back to what they do best: working!”
Think about meeting time in a different light: a 1-hour meeting where 5 people convene is really a 5-hour meeting if you look at the man-hours invested to make it happen. Is that the best use of everyone’s time? Is the “investment” on the outcome of the meeting worth 5 hours? Or are there other ways to communicate in order to free up that time and dedicate it to something more productive? And what if your meeting runs longer than anticipated?
Look at meetings as an investment and create a budget for them. For instance, if you have 3 meetings every week, assign a budget of 1.5 hours total. You can spend those 90 minutes in meetings, any way you want (e.g. 45 min in one meeting, 30 min in another and 15 minutes on the third one). Once you run out of meeting minutes, do not meet again until the following week. I will assure you that your meetings will quickly start running on time and will not go over your budget.
ACTION
TODAY: Do you have any meetings today? Take some time to think how can you achieve the same results while cutting down the time and making them more efficient? Is it possible to do a video chat instead of a meeting and save travel time for all involved? Is it possible to send an email instead? Is it possible to assign 1-2 min talking turns, so that attendees don’t ramble on forever? How about having the meeting standing up? How about taking turns on attending the meeting? Today you attend and share notes with a colleague, next week your colleague attends and shares notes with you. Test some of these ways today: even if no one else knows, test them on yourself, and once you know they work, then start sharing them with your meeting group. They will thank you! And please share those ideas with me, I’m always looking at ways to become more effective and productive!
FUTURE: Create a time budget for your meetings and stick to it. What is your return on the time you are investing (ROI)? Is it worth your time or do you need to cut down some more? Keep expanding on the many options from the action above. Do some brainwriting on how to make your meetings über-effective and achieve the results you want in less time. Test, test, and then test your ideas some more until you can find a way that suits you and your needs.
Know someone whose meetings run way too long? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 43 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: How do you spend your time?
— From 100 Blocks a Day (blog post) by Tim Urban, WaitButWhy.com
One of my favorite blogs is Tim Urban’s WaitButWhy.com, the ideas are brilliant and the stick figure illustrations make me laugh so much! A while back he wrote a blog that made me reconsider how I use my time and I want to share it with you here.
The idea is simple but very insightful: if we are awake for about 16 or 17 hours a day, that means that our days are made up of an average of 1,000 minutes. Urban says, “let’s think about those 1,000 minutes as 100 10-minute blocks. That’s what you wake up with every day. Throughout the day, you spend 10 minutes of your life on each block, until you eventually run out of blocks and it’s time to go to sleep.”
How are you using those 100 blocks on a daily basis? How much of that time is spent on working towards your goals? How much of it is spent in doing not-so-important tasks? How much is devoted to entertainment? Family? Friends? Exercise? Food? And how do one-day’s blocks differ from another? Are there any similarities?
The most important thing to keep in mind here is to “think about everything you might spend your time doing in the context of its worth in blocks.”
Imagine they’re laid out in a grid such as this one below that Urban created (click on the image to print it directly from WaitButWhy.com) and that you are going to label them with a purpose.
“Cooking dinner requires three blocks, while ordering in requires zero—is cooking dinner worth three blocks to you? Is 10 minutes of meditation a day important enough to dedicate a block to it? Reading 20 minutes a night allows you to read 15 additional books a year—is that worth two blocks? If your favorite recreation is playing video games, you’d have to consider the value you place on fun before deciding how many blocks it warrants. Getting a drink with a friend after work takes up about 10 blocks. How often do you want to use 10 blocks for that purpose, and on which friends? Which blocks should be treated as non-negotiable in their labeled purpose and which should be more flexible? Which blocks should be left blank, with no assigned purpose at all?”
Interesting concept as to how to see and use time, don’t you think?
ACTION
TODAY: Think of your day in 10-minute blocks. How are you going to use them? What would be the best use of your 100 blocks?
FUTURE: Go through the exercise of labeling the blocks, especially the daily, non-negotiable ones. What is most important to you? Devote at least one block daily to an activity that moves you closer to your goals. Analyze how you are spending your time and determine whether that is the best use of it. If not, find help, delegate tasks, automate them, or, if you can, eliminate those activities that are not getting you closer to your goals. And since you are reading this blog, a big, wholehearted THANK YOU for devoting half a block to it! 🙂
Know someone who needs to organize his/her blocks better? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Leading by example
— From Common Sense Leadership: A Handbook for Success as a Leader by Roger Fulton
Actions speak louder than words. Nowhere do we see a clearer case of this as in children who do as parents do, not as parents say (!). This gives way to the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do phrase that usually comes from an exasperated parent…
🙂 All joking aside, what about in the business world? What should we pay more attention to: the actions or the words of our leaders?
Roger Fulton, in his book Common Sense Leadership, shares the following:
“One Fortune 500 executive told his people, ‘You may do anything you see me doing.’
Subordinates will emulate, consciously or subconsciously, their bosses.
If you are forward-thinking, innovative and progressive, then your department will move consistently forward.
True leaders are also willing to roll up their shirt sleeves and do whatever is necessary to make a project succeed. Their commitment and dedication in such a situation sets the example for all of their people.
True leaders are excellent role models.”
Truth is, no matter our age and no matter the setting, actions indeed speak louder than words. We seem to have a radar to detect the word-action disparity when it exists. And because we know others are watching, we must be congruent in word and deed.
“The example of good men is visible philosophy.” – English proverb.
ACTION
TODAY: Think about what you do and what you say in your business. Are your words congruent with your deeds? If not, why not? Ask yourself why five times (or as many as needed) to get to the bottom of it. Once you find the real reason why, address it and change it so that you can speak and act in a way that sets an example for others to follow.
FUTURE: Take inventory of the things you do and say in the different areas of your life. Where are you being incongruent? Don’t judge yourself harshly, we all do it at some point or another. The important thing is to detect it and find the reason why we do it. Ask why five times or keep asking until you find the real reason behind it. Once you know why there is a disparity, you can change it and lead by example.
Know someone whose words are not congruent with his/her actions? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 16 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Believe
— From Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
The U.S. Navy SEALs are back, yay! In their fabulous book, Extreme Ownership, SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin state that knowing the reasons why, understanding and, most importantly, believing in the ultimate goal, is the absolute basis for a team to work well together.
It begins with the leadership, but it must permeate to all levels of the team or organization. “In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission.” This resolute belief, the authors state, “is far more important than training or equipment. […] Actions and words reflect belief with a clear confidence and self-assuredness that is not possible when belief is in doubt.”
But what to do when belief is in doubt? It all boils down to one simple question: WHY? “Leaders must take a step back, deconstruct the situation, analyze the strategic picture and then come to a conclusion. If they cannot determine a satisfactory answer themselves, they must ask questions up the chain of command until they understand why.” When you don’t understand why your company established that new sales policy, ask why. When your client is giving you a particular instruction or a change in scope and path, ask why. When your favorite non-profit asks you to change your volunteer tasks, ask why. Leadership in this instance is wide and varied, and has nothing to do with rank.
At the same time, it is also important for you as a leader “to take the time to explain and answer the questions of [your] junior leaders so that they too can understand and believe… [you must] explain not just what to do, but why.” And also, goes without saying, but you must continually emphasize that you are open and accessible for your team members to further ask questions on their quest to understanding why and believing.
The authors share a case where many managers did not understand a new policy implemented by the CEO, and didn’t ask for clarification for fear of looking stupid (despite them all agreeing that the CEO was smart, experienced and not unreasonable). “People talk about leadership requiring courage. This is exactly one of those situations. It takes courage to go to the CEO’s office, knock on the door, and explain that you don’t understand the strategy behind the decisions. You might feel stupid. But you will feel far worse trying to explain to your team a mission or strategy that you don’t understand or believe in yourself. […] If you don’t ask these questions, you are failing as a leader and you are failing your team.”
And it goes both ways. It is the responsibility of the leaders to ensure that the team understands and believes; yet since leaders are not mind readers, the team members are also responsible for asking for clarification until they fully understand and believe too.
ACTION
TODAY: Where are you unclear about a directive? Who do you need to ask in order to understand and believe in the project or mission? Go ask why today, you’ll be glad you did! Conversely, if you recently started a project, who do you need to make sure is on board with you? Ask them if they need further clarification to fully believe in what you are doing.
FUTURE: I’ve found that Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions at the beginning and end of a project—as well as throughout—are a wonderful source of information (above and beyond one-on-one sessions with team members). How can you make use of such sessions, that you can run in any scenario (from your family on the living room couch, to your teammates at work, to a group of volunteers at your favorite nonprofit, to your company’s Board members at the quarterly meeting) to make sure that everyone fully understands why, and thus is truly on board and believing in the mission?
Know someone who needs to believe? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 40 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Illusions of agreement
— From REWORK: Change the way you work forever by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been involved in putting together a report that is still sitting on a shelf somewhere accumulating dust… Oh, geez, both of my hands are raised!
Fried and Hansson in their excellent book Rework, say, “The business world is littered with dead documents that do nothing but waste people’s time. Reports no one reads, diagrams no one looks at, and specs that never resemble the finished product. These things take forever to make but only seconds to forget.” So true.
What they suggest is removing layers of abstraction and “getting real.” But what does this mean?
“Instead of describing what something looks like, draw it. Instead of explaining what something sounds like, hum it. […] The problem with abstractions (like reports and documents) is that they create illusions of agreement. A hundred people can read the same words, but in their heads, they’re imagining a hundred different things.” That’s why this famous cartoon about a tree swing is so funny and so on point!
It is similar to when you and your friends read a book: you all have different ideas of what the characters look like in your heads. And when you all go see the movie, you know exactly what each character looks like. “That’s when you get true understanding” and only then, everyone is on the same page.
The authors go on to cite the case of Alaska Airlines building up the Airport of the Future. “They didn’t rely on blueprints and sketches, they got a warehouse and built mockups using cardboard boxes… The team then built a small prototype in Anchorage to test systems with real passengers and employees.” The result was a success, as it increased efficiency by decreasing wait times and passenger frustration.
But this doesn’t apply just to large projects. The book quotes renowned furniture craftsman Sam Maloof who “felt is was impossible to make a working drawing to show all the intricate and fine details that go into a chair or stool.” He would simply get out the appropriate tool for that job and start working on it.
What project are you working on now where you could take out your proverbial chisel? Let’s avoid the illusions of agreement and have something real that we can indeed agree on!
ACTION
TODAY: Take some time to think about the many projects you are working on. Which ones are being handled under illusions of agreement? Don’t feel bad, it’s natural to work that way as we’ve all been conditioned to think it’s the best way. But now that you now the benefits of getting real you can speed up your goal by avoiding the distractions that come with abstractions. (Ha! I’m a poet and don’t know it…)
FUTURE: Keep in mind the distractions and the time spent on illusions of agreement. Share this info with your team and clients. For each project that you start, big or small, get in the habit of asking yourself and those involved, How can we make this real? That will push you to find better ways to accomplish your goals.
Know someone who needs to get real? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Planning, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 51 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: The truth about multitasking
— From The ONE Thing: The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan (watch the book trailer)
Much has ben said about multitasking, both for and against it. In The One Thing, Gary Keller and Jay Papasan finally bust the myth: multitasking is a lie.
The book cites Clifford Nass, a professor a Stanford University, who set out to study multitaskers as he realized he did not possess the skill. “I was sure they had some secret ability,” he said, but at the end of the study, multitaskers “were outperformed on every measure. Although they’d convinced themselves and the world that they were great at it, there was just one problem… multitaskers were just lousy at everything.”
“The truth is multitasking is neither efficient nor effective.”
There is no doubt that we can indeed “do two or more things at once, such as walk and talk, or chew gum and read a map; but… what we can’t do is focus on two things at once. Our attention bounces back and forth [‘task switching’]… Switching between two simple tasks—like watching television and folding clothes—is quick and relatively painless. However, if you’re working on a spreadsheet and a co-worker pops into your office to discuss a business problem, the relative complexity of those tasks makes it impossible to easily jump back and forth. It always takes some time to start a new task and restart the one you quit… [and] the cost in terms of extra time from having to task switch depends on how complex or simple the tasks are.”
So, let’s set the record straight: we can do two things at once, but we cannot focus effectively on two things at once. Need more proof? Here’s a fun little game (you’ll need a stopwatch):
Say the alphabet out loud and time how long it takes you: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc.…
Now count to 26 out loud and time how long it takes you: 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7, etc…
I assume you had no problem doing both tasks, and that those are two things that you can do masterfully well, right?
Now intertwine them out loud and time how long it takes you: A, 1, B, 2, C, 3, etc…
What happened? Did you slow down at some point to figure out which letter corresponded with a number? Yep, that’s normal. Did you eventually give up before you finished because it was harder than you expected? Most people do. If you did go through the whole thing, I bet it took you much longer to do this letter-number combination than to say the alphabet followed by counting to 26 the first time.
This is exactly what happens when we are trying to switch from task to task, “[it] exacts a cost few realize [we’re] even paying.”
The book mentions that people who work with computers change windows, check email or switch programs close to 37 times per hour. This means less than 2 minutes devoted per task, and that is further reduced by the time that it takes to switch and (re)focus from one to the other. It’s no wonder we feel stretched to thin and squeezed for time when we are taking more time to get things done because of the lies we’ve been told about multitasking.
“Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.” – Steve Uzzell
The authors then ask: if we wouldn’t allow a pilot or a surgeon to multitask, and instead demand full focus from them, “Why are we living another standard? Do we not value our own job or take it as seriously? Why would we ever tolerate multitasking when we’re doing our most important work? Just because our day job doesn’t involve bypass surgery shouldn’t make focus any less critical to our success or the success of others. Your work deserves no less respect.”
Eye opening, isn’t it?
ACTION
TODAY: Don’t feel bad if you get distracted, we all do. Simply bring your focus back to the task at hand and focus solely on that until you get it done, or until which point you are done with what you needed to do (say, now you have to wait for a coworker to give you his part of the slide deck). Repeat with your other tasks.
FUTURE: Build the habit of focusing and not switching from task to task. Remember the alphabet-number game: combining tasks or switching from one to another takes additional time that you may not realize. Here are 11 Exercises That Will Strengthen Your Attention.
Know someone who needs to stop multitasking? Tell them to focus on this post by sharing it via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
