“Life is one big pitch, so you’d better start practicing.” — Dan Shawbel, personal branding expert

“What’s a brand? A singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect.” — Al Ries, coauthor of The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

“All of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me, Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.” — Tom Peters, American business writer

Back in 1997, Tom Peters articulated a concept that had been around for decades: “Brand You.” In an influential article in the magazine Fast Company, Peters argued that it’s no longer enough to be quietly talented and hardworking in order to get ahead. While skills remain crucial, he noted, success in the modern global marketplace also comes from self-packaging.

In other words, to really get ahead, you have to become your own number one product. You must be uniquely you, the CEO of Me, Inc., selling yourself before you can sell anything else. You can no longer be defined by your job title; you have to be your own recognizable brand in all ways. In addition to your skill-set and knowledge base, which must constantly evolve, your personal brand must also include your appearance, attitude, and an active positioning strategy.

At first glance, this concept may seem to have little to do with productivity; but I think it does, at least in a wider “metaproductivity” sense. Brand You is a way of refining your focus so that you can maximize your ability to attract “buyers,” which in turn keeps you personally productive (and solvent).

Keeping ahead of the game requires frequent review and revision . Consider the pop singer Madonna. Love her or hate her, she’s been at the top of the music industry for decades, mostly because she’s been savvy enough to grow and evolve her personal style, reinventing herself as necessary. That’s a necessity in any business, even more so now than it was when Peters first called the trend to our attention. You have to remain focused on Me, Inc., or you’ll be left behind. It’s as much a matter of survival as success anymore.

Everything you do, from your domain name on the Internet to your personal business cards (and you should have both) must be about presenting yourself and your brand unapologetically to the world. In my case, I’m Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro®. That’s Brand Me, from my perspective: instantly recognizable and entirely unique. What’s your personal brand?

If you don’t know yet, then you need to start figuring it out fast. The idea is to position yourself clearly in other people’s minds, so that you’re the first person they think of when they’re looking for someone with your skills. Here’s how you do that:

• Know yourself. What are your specialties, and what do you want to accomplish? How do other people perceive you? What do you want to be known for? Start with that raw clay and use it to mold Brand You. Be frank when assessing yourself and your abilities, accepting who you are and where your strengths lie.

• Create a personal style. This should start with a relaxed, professional appearance. Now, this is a difficult guideline to set hard-and-fast rules for, since professional attire varies from field to field. Do some research in your field, and choose a non-objectionable look that will attract attention without being overwhelming.

• Learn to sell yourself. Develop a brief, pithy pitch that conveys who you are and what you’re selling in just a few minutes. Imagine if you were in an elevator with someone, and had only a few minutes to sell yourself. You must be able to project credibility and authenticity quickly in order to sell Brand You.

• Provide fantastic customer value. It’s not all about you, you, you. A large part of Brand You is giving people so much more than what they ask for that they come back repeatedly. Even if you remain within the corporate structure, you need to establish a series of skills and behaviors that you’re famous for in the organization. Maybe you’re the go-to girl for Java apps, or the company-wide expert on database management.

• Get social. These days, the use of social media is absolutely necessary in order to publicize yourself. Become active not just on Facebook and Twitter, but also on professional networking sites like LinkedIn and Biznik. Start your own blog. If there are local professional groups in your field, join them and attend meetings religiously. Talk to people. Start aggressively developing your professional contacts, and never let up. You never know where the next gig will come from.

• Communicate your brand. Get your name known in your field in every way you can think of without being obnoxious. Post on message boards, forums, and discussion groups. Send out an electronic newsletter to your clients and prospects. Relentlessly hand out business cards. In addition to establishing your own self-named website domain, set up an email address is this format: firstname.lastname@you.com. Include a title that encapsulates your specialty in all of your communications, and if necessary, create a logo and use it liberally.

I realize that the advice I’ve provided sounds selfish—but if you want to maximize your likelihood of success (and survival), don’t you need to be selfish? It’s not like you’re building a clever façade to hide behind: your goal with personal branding is to present to the world the very best You possible.

As Seamus Phan points out in his book DotZen, “The core of branding, beyond telling the truth, is to be true to yourself.” Do that in an honest, attractive way, and the world will beat a path to your door.

No related posts.

“It is your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.” — Zig Ziglar, motivational expert

“Whether you believe you can or you believe you can’t, you are right.” — Henry Ford, American industrialist

Your Attitude is your state of mind toward the world around you—the precious combination of motivation, drive, and proactiveness that help define who you are. If you want to succeed in the workplace, you need to ensure that the sum of those factors is positive, so that your Attitude can pull you forward, rather than drag you down like an anchor. You must be willing to look beyond (or around or under) the expected, and take steps toward achieving what you find there. Not only will such an outlook help you achieve the improbable on a regular basis, it’ll help you get through those inevitable times when everything looks dark and difficult.

SuperCompetents always think positively, because they’ve learned that when your reach exceeds your grasp, you can accomplish amazing things.

This remains true even when your Attitude takes you to the rarified heights of the C-Suite. Attitude is one Key that translates more or less intact from the lower management levels; the name doesn’t even change. Like all the Keys, though, at the higher elevations it grows into something more encompassing than it was before. It’s now your responsibility—and your privilege—to expand that Attitude beyond your personal space to the entire organization that you’re in charge of.

Now, the elements comprising Attitude always remain the same, no matter where you stand in the corporate hierarchy. You’ll always have to safeguard your health; relentlessly persevere; harness your personal creativity; play well with others; and maintain a positive, upbeat approach. It’s hard work, admittedly—but it’s hard work with a purpose. And it’s not going to get any easier as you rise in the company, despite a pervasive belief to the contrary. If it does, you’re probably doing something wrong.

Here’s what I mean by that. While you’ll always have people upstream and downstream from you who are affected by your Attitude in one way or another, when you’re a lower-level employee, your influence is minimal. If you twist off and don’t get a report done, it’s going to be an annoyance more than anything else; and if it’s annoying enough, you might find yourself out of a job…and that’s about as far as it’ll go.

But as you rise in power, you also rise in influence. Whether you like it or not, the people subordinate to you will be looking to you for guidance, while anyone above you will eye you with certain expectations. That’s why, when you’ve finally hit the heights, your drive to achieve personal SuperCompetence must evolve into a drive to achieve organizational SuperCompetence as well.

You’re still just one person, but your influence at the C-Suite is so substantial that a failure of Attitude can affect the whole company. Last blog, I deplored the old “le etat, c’est moi” outlook, because it can destroy a company if upper-level execs let it go to their heads. But the thing is, it’s true to some extent. As the CEO, President, VP, or Chairman of the Board, you may not be “the state” per se, but people do look to you for leadership—and you can be sure that your Attitude, whatever it may be, will be adopted by others. If you don’t maintain a positive Attitude of striving toward excellence, then others will assume that’s acceptable…which it certainly is not in a world-class organization.

Worse, even those who attempt to maintain a positive attitude may end up being dragged down by those who don’t. The result will be a toxic work environment where the best workers can’t accomplish anything and don’t stay long.

Does it sound like the weight of the world is on your shoulders? In a way, it is. It’s one of the prices you have to pay for the kind of ambition that takes you to the C-Suite in the first place. If you want to enjoy all the perks at the top, you never really get to slow down. But that’s fine; because you get to shape the organization toward your own personal vision—and one way you do it is by maintaining a strong, steady Attitude. You must remain unremittingly positive, always striving to achieve that winning outcome.

No related posts.

“Save the cheerleader, save the world.” — An often-repeated phrase on the NBC-TV series Heroes.

“In the early days, I didn’t have the money to pay decent salaries, so I didn’t get good people. I got nice people, but I didn’t get good employees.” — Louise Hay, self-help author

Recently, I introduced you to my Productivity Management Matrix, a quick way of categorizing your team members that compares an individual’s competence with their level of work engagement. When constructing the matrix, I realized that workers tend to fall into four basic types, which I call Campers, Cheerleaders, Defectors, and Productives.

Last time, I described Campers: the low-performance, low-engagement chair-huggers who come to work for one reason and one reason only: to get a paycheck. This time, I’ll take a look at Cheerleaders, who bring together a happy, high level of engagement with a complete inability to produce.

How to Spot a Cheerleader
Cheerleaders are usually fun people to have around, because they simply love the company. Maybe it’s the money, or the health benefits, or the free gym membership, or the environment—or more likely, it’s the whole package. They’re enthusiastic and dedicated, because they’re working in a super place and they know it. You can count on a Cheerleader to willingly take on just about anything you ask them to do.

Too bad they’re no good at it.

Sadly, the Cheerleader’s lack of performance makes them a liability, though by no means as much as a Camper or Defector can be. As a manager, your job is to realize what they are, and then guide them into becoming as productive as they are engaged.

How a Cheerleader Can Impact Your Team
Cheerleaders are great when you need to maintain a positive atmosphere in the workplace…but it’s not the Cheerleader who gets the football into the end zone, now is it? You can’t carry them forever. Their excitement about and dedication to the company isn’t going to overcome their sheer lack of productivity, so others will end up doing what they should be doing. As with the Camper, this can result in overstressed, resentful co-workers whose own productivity and engagement may start to sag.

How to Handle a Cheerleader
Cheerleaders are generally keepers, but only if you can help them become results-oriented. With a little careful cultivation, a Cheerleader might just bloom into a Productive — and those are the people that you build an organization around.

So closely investigate the Cheerleader’s lack of productivity. You may find that they’re either overwhelmed by their job (or possibly even just a few aspects of it), or aren’t challenged enough to be as productive as they could be. They may not even realize they haven’t hit your productivity milestones until you tell them. That may sound naïve, but it does happen, especially if the individual has just transferred in from an organization with lower standards.

How to Coach the Cheerleader
The best way to help a Cheerleader is to approach them gently. Point out that while you appreciate their enthusiasm for the company, what really matters is results, and that they need to become productive in order to be a full member of the team. Be encouraging and supportive, and don’t lay down the law as you might with someone who’s deliberately being difficult, like Campers and Defectors often are. If you prick the bubble of their engagement, you just might ruin the Cheerleader’s potential altogether.

Explain that they need to fix just a few things to rise to the Productive level, which is generally true. Offer to provide what they need to get there, whether training or equipment, and be willing to invest in them. It’s usually worth it in the long run.

In Conclusion…Cheerleaders are great people who are seriously into the company. Even if they’re non-productive, they love their environment and want to do well—and that’s half the battle. So just tell them what you expect of them, treat them well, point them in the right direction…then get out of their way and watch them go!

No related posts.

Hopefully by now we all get it: this economy is challenging, things are changing, and everyone is looking for ways to do more with less. Unfortunately, as many companies struggle to adjust to this new reality, opportunities are being missed. Often we are so focused on stretching an organization’s financial and other resources that we become less effective in managing our human resources.

(C) Copyright 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.

No related posts.

Are your employees bogged down with business processes that make no sense? Laura gives an example of a United Airlines policy that not only inconveniences customers, but also wastes employee time. Eliminate business processes that don’t make sense! (C) 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.

No related posts.

Pretty much anybody you ask will tell you they’re pressed for time. There just aren’t enough hours to get it all done, yadda yadda yadda.  So we prioritize, streamline, and simplify.  You can improve your efficiency until you’re blue in the face, not to mention very tightly wound, but you still aren’t addressing one of the biggest time and energy wasters in your day: incoming information.  As my 13-year-old daughter, Meagan, would text on her phone: “TMI” (translation: Too Much Information). If the 21^st century has brought us anything, it is WAY too much information. You can watch several channels full of cable news 24 hours a day. You can surf the internet on any topic until you can’t see straight. Most people could heat their home with the amount of junk mail they receive on a continuous basis.  Imagine the time and productivity lost just sorting though it all! So why not join me and put yourself on a low-information diet? Make this the year that you say “NO MORE!” to the endless onslaught of time-wasting, productivity-eating, stress-inducing STUFF coming at you.  Listen to the full podcast episode

(C) 2009 Laura Stack.  www.TheProductivityPro.com

No related posts.

http://www.theproductivitypro.com/newsletters/num115Dec2008.htm visit for full newsletter

Importance of Productivity during Down Times

In the summer of 1900…

• The average life expectancy in the United States was 47.
• A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11, which was an incredible sum because the average American made .22 cents an hour, or about $400 per year.
• Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
• Only 6% of all Americans had graduated from high school.
• Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores.
• There were about 230 reported murders in the US annually.

Amazing what a century will change. Amazing what a few months will change. Growth ends, recession sets in, the stock market stops booming, and companies go bust. The recession is impacting our clients in various ways: we’re hearing of layoffs, hiring freezes, reduced budgets, not rehiring for positions as people leave, go on maternity, etc.

Tough economic times are packing a one-two punch in the workplace.

First, everyone is forced to do more with less (POW!).

Second, you have to do it all while dealing with the nagging anxieties that come with an uncertain economy—threats of downsizing, bankruptcies, cost containment, you name it (POW, again!).

So how do we cope—as leaders and as productive employees?

To succeed and keep their doors open, companies must make more money but spend less money and create greater results with fewer resources. You could attempt to cut salaries, benefits, staff, costs, or the quality of your products—all poor options. A better choice? Increase employee productivity. If you have 10 people, and you can get them to improve their productivity by 10%, you just effectively added another staff person without increasing salary expense—a much more attractive response. To do this, your employees need your help.

First of all, get a grip on your personal negative feelings that result from your lack of control. You DO have control over your friends, your love relationships, and your career. You decide for yourself what’s right and what’s wrong, whether you should stay in this weekend or go out, whether to vote Democrat or Republican. You decide who to see, what to wear, what to eat.

However, you have VERY LITTLE control over the government, economic policy, the rise and fall of the stock market, Mother Nature, international events, and even your company direction. Changes can often disrupt your life and force you to change your plans. Often there is little you can do and yet you are overwhelmingly affected by it. Accepting what is means realizing you can’t control certain things and to stop trying. You can sit around and wonder, “Oh, my gosh, how is this going to affect me? What if I’m next to go? How will I pay the bills? I’m going to be a bag lady!” You stew and worry and literally make yourself sick.

These things will happen. They just will. You will get no warning, and nobody will prepare you. And that’s frustrating. Because people will tell you to “reach for the stars—you can achieve whatever you want!” But they don’t mention you might get hit by a comet in the process.

It’s time to accept the things that you cannot change and focus on the things you can. What can you do?

Give yourself a break. Try to stay positive, despite the doom and gloom. Overdosing on pessimistic, overly dramatic news coverage is just going to weigh you down with bad thoughts—not good for those looking to clear their heads and get things done! It’s important to be informed about what is happening in the world, but you definitely don’t want to overdo it.

For months now, we’ve been bombarded with bad economic news every time we turn on the television or pick up a newspaper. No wonder everybody seems to be in a rut. Follow the daily news as much as you need to so that you feel in the loop and understand the issues that affect your industry. Other than that, it might be time to shut off the TV and catch up on some fun reading or spend some more time with family.

Know your job. Seems like this one should be a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed at how often our responsibilities can change and evolve without our even knowing it. Small incremental changes in how employees or departments do business can add up over time, leaving groups of people that work hard, but aren’t contributing to business objectives as effectively as they once did.

For example, in an effort to provide an exceptional level of service, you might find yourself doing work that is below your pay grade. Maybe you end up doing a large portion of the administrative work associated with a project that needs your input. Consider the value of your time!

Make sure that the things that occupy your time are worthy of your talent and expertise and hold your staff to the same standard. With any project, you should be able to look at the time spent, multiply by the pay rate of the ones doing the work, and still feel that your resources were well spent.

If you’ve got a $40,000/year employee stuffing a bunch of envelopes (even just that one time) or a six-figure manager assembling an important presentation page-by-page, then that work becomes awfully expensive!

These examples might seem outrageous to you, but believe me, it happens all the time. Never make the mistake of treating your time like it’s free. Time and other resources are limited, and we need to treat them that way.

As your company and your department are undoubtedly being asked to do more with less, now is the time to step back and take stock of the type of work you’re doing. Many times roles and responsibilities change, but job descriptions do not. As a result, we end up drifting away from core priorities and towards dong work that, while challenging, doesn’t really meet the organization’s immediate needs.

Now might be a good time to step back and ask that all important question: “Why am I (or we) doing this?” If you can’t answer that, or the answer doesn’t make sense, it’s time to purposefully make a change.

Break habits, build systems. Every office that has been around for any length of time has certain unwritten policies and procedures that exist simply because “we’ve always done it that way.” Now is a great opportunity to analyze your existing business practices and find opportunities to break the bad habits that may be bogging your operation down. Take you entire department for example. Do you and your people have a clear idea of your area’s specific responsibilities? Do you have the confidence and determination to say “no” when someone is asking you to do work that is outside your scope of responsibility?

Perhaps over the years your group took on the responsibility of coordinating quarterly meetings with senior managers. It might have made sense for you to be doing the legwork then, but now that the work has become routine, is it really the best use of your talent and resources?

That’s just one specific example, but there are many more out there. Usually, these are the kinds of tasks and responsibilities that make employees want to ask the all-important “Why am I doing this?” question. Rather than spend another day mindlessly plowing though projects that may or may not be a good use of your time, force yourself to take a hard look at what you are doing and why you are doing it.

If you had to pick three tasks or responsibilities that should be the top priorities for your department, what would they be? Once you know, evaluate how much time and energy is dedicated to those things. You might be surprised at how much time we can spend doing things that aren’t even close to the top of that priorities list.

It isn’t always easy to say “no,” but fortunately, that’s where your systems can come in. As you work to create smooth, efficient systems to do work within your department, you can give yourself some ammunition to fend off others in the company that might be inclined to slide work onto your plate where it doesn’t belong. If you don’t have firm policies and procedures in place to identify who should be doing what, it is much more difficult to make the case for “no.”

Analyze your relationships with other departments. Have trouble turning down work coming from other areas of the company? Now is a perfect time to start fresh and rebuild your department’s boundaries. In a frank and honest way, simply explain to others that in light of the current economic situation, your group has taken a critical look at its daily operations and needs to decline certain types of requests in order to build efficiency.

Perhaps you need to apply a little systems thinking and rethink the flow of information. Is there a procedure in place for other business units to request your assistance or input? If there’s not, you’re probably being hit from all angles with requests that may or may not be the best use of your time. Diagram how work moves through your department. Where does it come in from and go out to other departments? Interview your internal customers and find out how you can provide value through reduced services. Can you provide a report monthly instead of quarterly? Can you cancel the weekly project meeting and get everyone to email updates instead? Question travel requests if you feel a conference call will do. One of the best ways to take stock of the situation is to survey your group, ask them what gets in the way of productivity, and to genuinely ask how they would redesign things if they could.

Find the bottom line. Right now, businesses everywhere are taking stock of their must-haves versus their nice-to-haves. From an organizational perspective, which are you?

Economic necessity can force budget cuts and cost containment that might otherwise be unnecessary. One way to prepare yourself for this reality is to make sure you have a good understanding of how you and your people contribute to the company’s bottom line.

Sometimes, it’s easy. If you work in sales, for example, the correlation between what you do every day and the company’s financial success might be very straightforward—my group sells our most profitable product, which makes the company money.

Sometimes that correlation is not so obvious. If you operate in a support role, like Human Resources, you may want to start looking at your various responsibilities and deciding which among them have the greatest influence on the company’s bottom line—either by somehow driving revenue or by controlling expenses. Perhaps you help contribute to developing talent within the company, which clearly has an impact on the overall success of the organization. Employee development always seems to be one of the first things to go during down economic times, but this is not the time to reduce training if you’d like to get more work from fewer people. Or maybe you’re managing clerical or administrative functions that would be expensive to secure elsewhere.
If you can’t draw a line from what you do each day to the financial well-being of the company, then it might be time to do some hard thinking. Your other contributions might be valuable, but in difficult economic times, corporate leadership often becomes must more focused on dollars and cents, for better or for worse.

Where am I going with this? If it isn’t obvious how your contributions benefit the company, be prepared to explain how they do. If you CAN’T explain why certain aspects of what you do are valuable, then it’s time to stop doing them.

At the end of the day, productivity is about more than getting things done. It’s about getting the RIGHT things done and getting them done efficiently.

Make it a productive day! (TM)

(C) Copyright 2008 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.  www.TheProductivityPro.com

No related posts.

I recently interviewd Dave Kutayiah, SR. VP of HR at ING Clarion Partners about how to increase employee productivity during down times.  I specifically asked him,”How do you get more work out of fewer people?”  He gave me permission to share his reply, because I believe my readers will also benefit:
Laura,

I am currently going through the same scenario with my HR team and my business partners are experiencing the same due to a recent workforce reduction.

In a case like that, as a manager, you have to do the following:
- ensure everyone understands why the team is leaner and meaner,
- make sure everyone understands the strategy or gameplan and how they fit into the refined organization,
- reinforce the importance of each team member and the fact that the stakes are much higher than before,
- define your expectation for each member as well as the collective group,
- inform them of the accountability framework that you are putting in place (ie consequence at an individual level if they don’t get the job done according to the new rules of engagement),
- identify resources that they may access to help get the job done, and
- ensure they know that you are supportive, available and understanding of the limitations of the smaller team, but you see opportunities for them to step up and take on stretch assignments and learning opportunities that might have otherwise been more limited with a larger team.
Dave G. Kutayiah
Senior Vice President
Human Resources
ING Clarion Partners

No related posts.

With all the US Presidential election behind us, regardless of your political persuasion, let’s talk about the big message of the Obama campaign: change.  If you want to become more productive, you’ll have to be willing to make changes and create new, positive habits and leave old habits behind.  It is easy to become set in our ways and continue doing things the way we’ve always done them because, well, it’s how we’ve always done them.  I’ll take a line from Dr. Phil and ask “How’s that working for you?”  Content, satisfied people are not apt to make changes.  After all, if everything is going along swimmingly, what’s to change?  But people and organizations must continue to change for things to improve.  If your relationship with your significant other never changed, it would never grow stronger over the years.  If organizations didn’t change, the buggy whip industry would have died if it didn’t become the transportation industry.  If the company you work for doesn’t change, you should be very, very worried.

How do we get ourselves in the mindset where we are ready for change?  People are ready for change when the pain of not making a change outweighs the stress of actually taking the action to change.  Some people just naturally are go-getters and constantly seek ways of being more productive while most people need a little more motivation to change.  If you’re the latter, take some time to think about why you want to change.  I talked before about finding your “why.”  Once you’ve done that, it’s time to actually take the steps to make changes.

Don’t try to change EVERYTHING right now.  Pick a couple of things to work on over the next 21 days.  Make a concerted effort each day related to that habit you want to break or create and in just three short weeks, turn around and look at how far you’ve come.  Each time you take a step in the right direction, it will become easier to do more and eventually be as productive as you desire to be.

(C) 2008 Laura Stack.  www.TheProductivityPro.com

No related posts.

Have you ever taken an honest look at how you are perceived around the office?  Your behavior, attitude, and reputation play a huge role in how you interact with coworkers and subordinates.  Others may listen to you because of your job title, but if that’s the only reason, you have a serious problem on your hands.

I’m not talking about superficial issues like dressing well or keeping a tidy office.  It goes deeper than that—to your attitude towards work and your attitude towards personal productivity.

Do you have a reputation of exceptional organization, follow-up, and time management? 

Or do people dread sending you an e-mail, because they know there’s a slim chance that they’ll ever hear back?

Is your desk a black hole, where papers and requests go in, but never come out? 

Does it take you thirty minutes to find something that you would expect someone else to find in thirty seconds?

The bottom line is that to be an effective leader and coworker, you need to be a good role model that others will choose to emulate.  Your employees and coworkers might pay attention to what you say, but they’ll ALWAYS pay attention to what you do.  You’re a role model—good or bad—through your image.

Take a personal inventory of how others see you in the workplace.  Your goal is to identify—and correct—your own personal productivity demons.  Need help getting started?  Begin by asking yourself these questions:

Are you the bottleneck?  The only thing worse than the person at the office who seems to do nothing is the person who tries to do everything. 

Say it with me folks, “I can’t do it all.”

The sooner you come to terms with that troublesome fact, the better off you’ll be.  In pursuit of being the undisputed office superstar, you may in fact be buried.  The more you try to do everything, the less able you are to do anything.

Sure, the business world can be demanding, but nine times out of ten, helplessly buried office workers put themselves in the overworked situation they’re in.  As a leader (and as a human being) you need to understand how to prioritize, which means understanding how to say “no.”

If you constantly accept additional responsibilities, without being able to keep up with what you’ve already committed, you will eventually be unable to devote proper attention to any one of your many duties. 

If you think that being overextended and perpetually frazzled sounds bad, imagine reporting to someone in that situation.  Being spread too thin generally leads to missed deadlines, poor response times, and a constant source of unnecessary stress.

Do your subordinates, coworkers—and yourself—a favor.  Keep your priorities focused and your schedule realistic.  You need to be able to work as hard for your people as they do for you.

If it takes you days to respond to a voicemail or weeks to review a proposal, you aren’t setting others up for success.  Don’t be the bottleneck!

Do you micromanage?  You have a staff at your disposal…so why are you still doing everything yourself?  The best thing you can do as a manager is to put people in place whom you can trust—and then trust them.

Always remember, however, that your way isn’t the only way and that sometimes “good enough” is, well, good enough.  Does that mean that you keep slack standards and let people get away with sub-par work?  Of course not!  It just means that you pick your battles and allow your team to do their jobs without having to constantly worry about your “helpful” interventions.

There will always be some things that absolutely need to be done a certain way and kept to a certain standard.  These are the tasks and priorities that you should keep a close watch on to ensure that they are completed properly. 

But what about the others?  Just ask yourself what would happen if a given task was completed adequately, instead of perfectly.  Or if a project was done correctly, although perhaps not in exactly the same way you would go about it if you were to do it yourself.  Most of the time, you’ll find that it really isn’t that big a deal.  In these cases, it is important to step back, let go, and focus your energies on more important initiatives. 

Is your schedule realistic?  Take a look at your schedule for this week.  Are you booked solid, running from one meeting to the next all day every day?

If you’re overbooked, not only will you leave yourself no time to accomplish important, high-priority tasks, you’ll also make yourself unavailable to your team.  It doesn’t do any good if a project is completed on deadline if it takes three days for you to have a moment to take a look at it.

Besides, what does it say about the value of your time if you are booking yourself silly day in and day out?  By accepting every invitation you receive, you are letting others control you time and determine your priorities.  That isn’t what leadership is about!

Don’t attend any meeting where the organizer can’t clearly articulate the objective.  And make sure that when you do attend a meeting, others understand why you are there and know what they can expect in terms of your involvement.  If you regularly find yourself in meetings “just in case” you’re needed, you aren’t placing much of a premium on your time. 

What are your other productivity demons?  Everyone has their downfalls, and the ones discussed above are just a starting point.  Take a good, hard look at yourself and come up with a fair assessment of the impression you give others at the office.  This is no time to tell little white lies or shy away from the truth.  The only way to fix the problem is to tackle the issue head on.

Whatever your demons are—too much socializing, excessive email surfing, time management problems, over scheduling your time, responding slowly to e-mail, dealing with personal issues on work hours, or procrastination—identify them and then work to put them to rest.

That’s the beauty of it.  You really can fix many of these problems right away.  If you’re honest with yourself, you know the right things to do.  You just need to listen to that nagging voice in the back of your mind and make it happen.

Make it a productive day! ™
© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time®.  She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations.  Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces.  She is the bestselling author of three works published by Broadway Books: The Exhaustion Cure (2008), Find More Time (2006) and Leave the Office Earlier (2004).  Laura is a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and Day-Timers®, Inc and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and 3M.  To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401. 

Receive a free eBook “111 Ways to Improve Your Personal Productivity“!

No related posts.