Over the next week I’m going to be taking a slightly different approach to the daily posts: so far, it’s been one idea per day from a different book, and while I have repeated a few books, the ideas are stand-alone, and it’s never been the same book back to back. Since the book that I’m reading now goes over five strategies on how to become more effective, and since we’re always looking at making the most out of our time and effort, I want to share all five ideas with you in sequence. Call this a miniseries of ideas, if you will. The miniseries will be coming to you in six posts: today’s plus the next five days. I hope you enjoy it and benefit from this, and I would love to hear from you on what you think of this miniseries approach!
In Two Awesome Hours, Josh Davis, Ph.D. says that we all fall into the efficiency trap one way or another. “Regardless of how high up the ladder we are, we typically respond to being overwhelmed by work in two ways. One is to force ourselves to stay on task without breaks in order to make the most efficient use of our days. The other is to work more hours…to make the most efficient use out of our weeks.”
The problem with that approach is that the underlying idea of “efficiency” doesn’t work. We’ve all tried to do more in less time and to forage for time by using any would-be down time to work (breaks, lunch, dinner with family, etc.). How has this worked for you? “Many of us feel stifled rather than accomplished at the end of the typical day,” says Davis.
The key to our productivity lies not in being efficient at doing more and to stop wasting time (seeing down time as a waste). What we need to do is understand how our brains and bodies work so as to become effective.
“Staying on task without a break and working longer hours are wonderful solutions for a computer or machine. [They] don’t get tired, so the quality of work is identical every time they are used.” We’re human, and a continual demand for one kind of work with a consistent level of effectiveness would be the equivalent or asking a runner to stay at the same speed under any circumstance: whether a sprint or a marathon, after pulling an all-nighter, after being hung-over, or after being well-fed and well-rested.
The idea that being biological creatures affects how we think and feel is called “embodied cognition.”(Cognition definition.) How many times have you felt tired and do not feel like working? Or how many times have you felt great and plowed through all your workload successfully with extra time at the end to go do something fun? That’s what embodied cognition means. Yes, your body influences your thoughts.
While we are not machines or computers and cannot sustain that level of efficiency, “each of us has a vast, untapped potential as a human that computers and machines do not have. And trying to be efficient all the time will block us from harnessing it.”
The author points to the example of doing ten thousand pushups. It would be a feat of Herculean strength to do them uninterrupted, but we’d have no problem doing a few pushups a day until we hit the 10K mark. My friend Josh Spodek has done more than 100,000 burpees since 2011 with his daily, ten-minute exercise routine!
“We may all be capable of impressive feats of comprehension, motivation, emotional control, problem solving, creativity and decision making when our biological systems are functioning optimally. But we can be terrible at those very same things when our biological systems are suboptimal. The amount of exercise and sleep we get and the food we eat can greatly influence these mental functions in the short term—even within hours.”
The key to being truly productive then, says Davis, is to “ditch efficiency and create, instead, the conditions for two awesome hours of effectiveness each day.”
Tomorrow I’ll share Davis’ first strategy to get this done.
ACTION
TODAY: Think of the many ways in which you have fallen into the “efficiency trap.” Do you go from task to task without breaks? Do you skip breakfast to leave in a hurry? Do you “fuel” your body with caffeine and sugar all day to keep you going? Where are you asking your brain and body to perform steadily and uninterrupted in an unrealistic way?
FUTURE: Keep reading this miniseries over the next few days to find out the five strategies that will help you create the environment for you to be awesomely effective!
If you know of someone who could benefit from reading this miniseries, please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
One of the most creative and inspired dreamers of the 20th century was Walt Disney. “Any person who could create the first sound cartoon, first all-color cartoon, and first animated feature-length motion picture is definitely someone with vision,” says leadership guru John C. Maxwell in his insightful book The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. He continues, “But Disney’s greatest masterpieces of vision were Disneyland and Walt Disney World. And the spark for that vision came from an unexpected place.”
The story that follows is wonderful. When Disney’s two daughters were young, he would take them to an amusement park where the girls and he would have a blast. The carousel, apparently, captivated Disney, “a blur of bright images racing around to the tune of energetic calliope music.” Yet upon a closer look, especially when the carousel stopped, he realized he had been fooled because the horses were shabby and had cracked and chipped paint, and the only ones that moved up and down were the ones on the outer row.
That disappointment is what gave him the grand vision of Disneyland, “an amusement park where the illusion didn’t evaporate, where children and adults could enjoy a carnival atmosphere without the seedy side that accompanies some circuses or traveling carnivals… [and specifically where there’s] no chipped paint [and where] all the horses jump.”
Vision is indispensable for a leader, says Maxwell. “Vision leads the leader. It paints the target. It sparks and fuels the fire within, and draws him forward. It is also the fire lighter for others who follow that leader.” And to improve your vision, he suggests the following actions:
Measure yourself. If you have previously thought and shared your vision for your life or business, measure how well you are carrying it out by talking to key people. If your significant other, friends and colleagues can tell you with certainty what your vision is, very likely it means that you are living it.
Write it down. If your vision has stayed in your mind all this time, it’s time to get it out in writing. “Writing clarifies your thinking. Once you’ve written it, evaluate whether it’s worthy of your life’s best. And then pursue it with all you’ve got.”
Do a gut check. “If you haven’t done a lot of work on vision, spend the next several weeks or months thinking about it. Consider what really impacts you at a gut level. What makes you cry? What makes you dream? What gives you energy?
Lastly, Maxwell says, think about what you’d like to see change in the world around you. I’ll leave you with this question as food for thought: “What do you see that isn’t—but could be?” Remember that you can seize only what you can see.
ACTION
TODAY: Take a moment to review your vision. Measure yourself as per the exercise above. Are you living/embodying your vision? If yes, SUPERCONGRATS!! If not, what changes do you need to make to start living it?
FUTURE: When embarking on any new plan or project, always keep your vision in mind. Ask yourself if what you are about to start gets you closer to fulfilling that vision.
Know someone who could use help for his or her vision? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
Do you remember Jack Mitchell talking about hugging as a mindset? Jack is the chairman of the Mitchell’s stores and a renowned personality in the field of extraordinary customer service. His second book, Hug Your People, talks about creating a Niceness Culture to inspire, empower, recognize and reward associates.
We’ve all heard that we shouldn’t mix business with pleasure. Mitchell says that the opposite is true, “Work and fun shouldn’t be considered antonyms. We think of them as synonyms.” And he points out that, “Scientists have discovered how quickly we adopt the emotional state of those around us by measuring the physiology, heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, etc., of two people sharing a conversation. As the conversation gets started, the vital signs of the two bodies are different. But after fifteen minutes, the physiological profiles of the two bodies become very similar.”
This point is incredibly important because “one associate’s happiness becomes the other associate’s happiness.” Mitchell says that in many companies, people feel guilty if they’re having a good time. It goes like this: “associates are chuckling over something when the big boss arrives and everyone immediately adopts a somber face and scurries to their desk to look like they’re ‘working.’ ”
When you have a Niceness Culture and this scenario happens, the boss joins in the laughter. Mitchell continues, “we want people to bring their real selves to work, not some artificial ‘business self.’ ” And he practices what he preaches: he joins in the laughter, the dancing, the singing and the overall cheering. But it doesn’t stop there.
Mitchell makes a point of fostering the fun in all he and his associates do. He will close the store for an evening and invite the associates to play poker. Or he will take all associates bowling. And he will also do it in smaller ways: at meetings he’ll ask everyone to think of positive words that start with a letter, write them down and share them in his CEO letter that goes out to everyone. Or some of his associates will kick off meetings by asking questions like, “What is one word that describes you?” Or “If your great-aunt died and left you more money than Bill Gates, what would you do with it?”
The sky is the limit in terms of what small or big actions you can take to have fun yourself and make your team have fun too. You can even start your own holidays! Work is such an important part of our lives that we should do something that we like and enjoy it fully!
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw
ACTION
TODAY: How can you imbue some fun in the things you do? Think of small and big ways to do it. Can you record a fun message in your voice mail so that every caller that goes to voice mail gets a chuckle? Can you start a meeting in a fun way, such as “tell us something few people know about you” and then go around the room? Can you plan to go bowling or plan an ice-skating escapade during winter? Your imagination will lead you to come up with many fun ways to spice up your work and your business culture.
FUTURE: Commit to have more fun from now on. Think about fun “traditions” that you can establish either at work or at home, or both. Could you do an annual picnic? I once went to a “picnic” held at an office conference room where the organizers had set a red and white checkered table cloth and had sprinkled plastic ants all over it. It really was a fun touch and everyone had fun with the ants! One of my favorite invented “traditions” with my family in Spain—since we see each other once a year—is to celebrate all birthdays at the same time by adding the amount of years we will turn or have turned that year. Thus, last year we celebrated our 599 birthday! (Below is the picture of our cake). Could you do something similar at work, perhaps on a monthly basis? For example, “the September babies are turning 349 this year!” Think of fun and creative ways to celebrate and enjoy life.
Know someone who could use more fun in his or her life? Send this post to that person! You can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
“The only purpose of starting is to finish,” writes Seth Godin in his remarkable book Linchpin. Finishing or shipping, as Godin calls it, “means hitting the publish button on your blog, showing a presentation to the sales team, answering the phone, selling the muffins, sending out your references. Shipping is the collision between your work and the outside world.”
But one of the things that makes shipping so difficult is thrashing. Thrashing is “the apparently productive brainstorming and tweaking we do for a project as it develops… sometimes thrashing is merely a tweak; other times it involves major surgery.”
Thrashing is essential; however, it’s the timing of the thrashing that can make or break a project. In the video below, Godin insists on thrashing early because that is when it’s easy and cheap. He is right. Professionals thrash early and then they get to work so as to ship with top quality and pride, respecting deadlines and other people’s time, and doing so within budget. It’s not a dream, it can be done.
The problem comes when people behave in an amateur way and do all the thrashing near the end. Godin continues, “the closer we get to shipping, the more people get involved, the more meetings we have, the more likely that CEO wants to be involved. And why not? What’s the point of getting involved early when you can’t see what’s already done and your work will probably be redone anyway? The point of getting everyone involved early is simple: thrash late and you won’t ship. Thrash late and you introduce bugs. Professional creators thrash early. The closer the project gets to completion, the fewer people see it and the fewer changes are permitted.”
Thrashing allowed at the end leads to missed deadlines, much stress, unnecessary changes, late nights, much heartache, frustration and resentment. Coordinating all the thrashing from teams of people that increasingly get larger as the deadline approaches is very difficult. “Projects stall as they trash. Nine women can’t have a baby in one month, no matter how closely they coordinate their work.”
So, what to do? Godin offers two solutions. Both will make people uncomfortable, yet they are the only way in which projects will be shipped on time and without the unnecessary heartache that too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen brings. Here they are:
1. “Relentlessly limit the number of people allowed to thrash. That means you need formal procedures for excluding people, even well-meaning people with authority. And you need secrecy. If you have a choice between being surprised (and watching a great project ship on time) or being involved (and participating in the late launch of a mediocre project), which do you want? You must pick one or the other.”
2. “Appoint one person to run it. Not to co-run it or to lead at task force or to be on the committee. One person, a human being, runs it. [His or] her name on it. [His or] her decisions.”
In the video, Godin tells the story of how his boss loved to show up the day before with “just a little suggestion” that led to a domino effect of changes resulting in missed deadlines. Godin’s solution was to adopt a disciplined approach: thrash at the beginning and allow people to share their input and ideas early on. Then, have the thrashers sign a form stating that they have given their input and that they will not provide further input or changes after a certain deadline. This allows the people who are working on the project the necessary time for completion and shipping.
ACTION
TODAY: Think of ways in which you can apply early thrashing to your projects. How can you also instill the discipline in your team of thrashing early and shipping on time?
FUTURE: As you encounter the start of new projects, think of the optimal time and way in which thrashing should take place. Should it be a meeting? Should it be one-on-one? Should it be via a form? Think also of the time when thrashing should come to an end. Don’t veer away from the discipline of thrashing early and having a cut off point. Then take the best ideas, incorporate them into the project and get to work so that you can ship the best possible project on time and on budget.
Know someone who needs to stop thrashing at the end of a project? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
I recently went through an experience where an airline performed a procedure a specific way one time, and then—under the same circumstances—performed a completely different procedure a second time.
As I pointed out the discrepancy in performance (because it was to the detriment of my time and money), the airline started pointing fingers at possible culprits of said discrepancy. It was very unfortunate: instead of fixing it, airline personnel were focused on making up excuses and blaming.
This reminded me of M.J. Ryan’s book Habit Changers, specifically the passage where she says, “When a crisis hits, fix it. Don’t waste time analyzing why or who. Then afterward solve for the pattern so that it doesn’t happen again.” Or put another way: “First correct, then prevent.”
ACTION
TODAY & FUTURE: Don’t blame or point fingers: focus on correcting first and preventing second. Learn what happened so that you can apply those valuable lessons towards the future.
When we think of the bottom line, the first thing that comes to mind is money. However, in Thinking for a Change, leadership guru John C. Maxwell says that if we solely focus on financial matters as the bottom line, we may miss something critical. He says, “Instead, think of the bottom line as the end, the take away, the desired result. Every activity [and organization] has its own unique bottom line. If you have a job, your work has a bottom line. If you serve in your church, your activity has a bottom line. So does your effort as a parent, or spouse, if you are one.”
Maxwell tells the story of Frances Hesselbein who headed the Girl Scouts of America for many years and turned it around into the successful organization that it is today. When she became CEO of the organization, it was in trouble because it lacked direction, and interest in it was dwindling from girls to participate as well as from adults to volunteer. She needed to focus on the bottom line. In her words, “We kept asking ourselves very simple questions. What is our business? Who is our customer? And what does the customer consider value? If you’re the Girl Scouts, IBM or AT&T, you have to manage for a mission.”
Asking these questions and her focus on a mission led Hesselbein to find the Girl Scouts bottom line: “We really are here for one reason: to help a girl reach her highest potential. More than any one thing, that made the difference. Because when you are clear about your mission, corporate goals and operating objectives flow from it.”
In this case, her bottom line was not measured in dollars but in changed lives.
If you are wondering how you can put bottom-line thinking to work for you, Maxwell shares the following five points to do this.
1. Identify the real bottom line.
“It can be as lofty as the big-picture vision, mission or purpose of an organization. Or it can be as focused as what you want to accomplish on a particular project.” Be very specific. “What are you really trying to achieve? When you strip away all the things that don’t really matter, what are you compelled to achieve? What must occur? What is acceptable? That is the real bottom line.”
2. Make the bottom line the point. Your bottom line will be your guide and goal for all you do, and everything else revolves around it. “Sometimes, for example, an idealistically stated mission and the real bottom line don’t jibe. Purpose and profits [seem to] compete [… but] profits serve purpose—they don’t compete with it.”
3. Create a strategic plan to achieve the bottom line. Organizations should identify and focus on the “core elements or functions that must operate properly to achieve the bottom line. […] The important thing is that when the bottom line of each activity is achieved, then THE bottom line is achieved.”
4. Align team members with the bottom line.
“Ideally all team members should know the big goal, as well as their individual role in achieving it. They need to know their personal bottom line and how that works to achieve the organization’s bottom line.” (A post to reinforce this point is Believe.)
5. Stick with one system, and monitor results continually. “Bottom-line thinking cannot be a one-time thing. It has to be built into the system of working and relating and achieving. You can’t just tune in to the desired result every now and then. Achieving with bottom-line thinking must be a way of life, or it will send conflicting messages.
ACTION
TODAY: Do you know the bottom line for the various aspects of your life? Take a moment today to pick one area you want to focus on and find out the bottom line.
FUTURE: Don’t lose sight of that clarity and the bottom line you just figured out. Everything you do should revolve around that bottom line. As you embark in any action or project, ask: is this in alignment and getting me closer to my bottom line? If the answer is yes, go for it! If it’s no, then course-correct and do something instead that gets you closer to your goal.
Happy bottom-lining!
Know someone who could benefit from figuring out his or her bottom line? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
TODAY’S IDEA: Be Awesomely Effective Part 1: Embodied cognition
