Sometimes you just don’t know when your leadership makes a difference for someone. I witnessed one of these situations with a young colleague, who was sharing a story about an interaction on her team.
When I asked her if she realized the impact of her specific action, it was clear she hadn’t thought about it. Although she was genuinely pleased, it almost seemed like the surprise effect of my pointing it out was more thrilling than what she had actually done.
How prepared are you for the unexpected. “Life happens” – and doesn’t it always seem to do so at the most inopportune times?
You can perfectly plan your schedule, and then life inserts itself, throws you off base, and leaves you bewildered about how this could have happened when you were so well organized.
There are days when so much is going on that everything seems blurry. When this happens in the workplace, people can get distracted by the dangerous combination of chaos and minutia and miss important things. Lack of clarity can lead to one big blur.
When this happens to you, it’s important to regain focus and clarity as soon as possible.
A few years ago, one of my clients hosted a bowling outing as a morale/team building activity for her company. We laughed about the experience of bowling especially if you don’t play it often. She recommended that it’s easier to play when you use a lighter ball.
Of course, when I heard this, I thought about how often we do things the “hard way” in the workplace, when using a “lighter ball” would make life so much easier.
Last time, we looked at four areas of focus as a foundation for good time management when you’ve been promoted into a new managerial role. To review, these include managing priorities, determining needs of your new director reports, managing projects, and fitting in with the pace of the environment.
Today we’ll look at a way you can plan and manage your time through determining the level of importance and urgency for your tasks. This method went into broad based use from Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
To set and attain goals is an important process for nearly all high-achieving leaders. Whether you go through a formal process to set and monitor goals, or informally record your aspirations, the desired outcome is the same.
People typically identify tasks or activities as the stepping stones for goal achievement. For example, if you want to achieve a certain revenue number in your department, you can divide that number among your employees resulting in a goal of x dollars per employee.
As Independence Day in the United States occurs on Monday, it’s an appropriate time to reflect on freedom and food. If you hadn’t thought of pairing those two topics together, it’s a natural given the holiday.
Any time I hear people say that they’re trapped in their lives, they’re implicitly saying that they don’t feel free. But it also infers that they are holding themselves as victims to their circumstances. Victims are not free; they are captive to their conditions.
Something that differentiates top performers from others is that they stay focused on the end result. They don’t just write a report or complete an assignment; they think about how their work can have the greatest impact on the end result or user.
The workplace is filled with busy people, and some might offer the excuse that they’re just too buried to bring project x to the next level. Although this may be true, those who break through the busy-ness barrier do it regularly.
This weekend the holidays of Easter and Passover will be celebrated. Whether either is part of your tradition, celebrated formally or not, the feeling of renewal offers a time for hope and reflection.
Given the horrific events happening elsewhere in the world, especially the devastation in the Ukraine, we are blessed that we can pause and express gratitude for our individual circumstances.
Spring has arrived. It’s that time of the year when once upon a time spring cleaning was the source of household activity. Some researchers attribute the origins to the Iranian Norouz, the Persian new year, which is also the first day of spring. Tradition was that Iranians would “shake the house” prior to and in anticipate of the new year.
Closer to home, a colloquial version is to “redd up,” like the verb, to rid, meaning “clear, put in order, clean up.” If you’ve ever lived or passed through Pittsburgh, PA, you’ve probably heard this expression!