December has arrived and the holiday season is officially here.
Christmas, Hanukkah, Muharram or Kwanza … while they are all joyful observances, they can be associated with their share of stress. Not to mention the mounting pressure to get a lot of things done.
Here are our TOP THREE productivity tips to get you through the holiday season with that ho-ho-ho [...] Continue Reading…
There are many times during our day when we can (and should) cut redundancies and focus on better uses of our time (indeed, I spend most of my working hours helping people in this quest).
But, how many times have you said to yourself: “I wish I had just taken the five minutes to do …”? Hindsight is always 20/20, [...] Continue Reading…
Urban legend often speaks of a Harvard Business School study where a mere 3% of students wrote down their goals. Interestingly, ten years later, these 3% were earning ten times as much as the other 97% of students put together. Wow!
Turns out, despite how many times the above study is referenced, it appears to be mere folklore. But, other [...] Continue Reading…
The Tuesday was a busy day for me. Just back from Labour Day, client programs are ramping up for the fall and kids started back to school. I was running from one thing to the next all day long. And yet it felt like I got nothing done. Have you ever had one of those days?
It happens to ALL [...] Continue Reading…
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace … I sometimes wonder what I did with all my time before these existed. (And when I want to really get creative, I start to wonder what I did with my time before email existed – but that’s another story.)
As great as these sites are, I sometimes regret how much time they take away from [...] Continue Reading…
Have you ever stopped to think about whether you are a bottleneck? Bottlenecks (or constraints) can be huge barriers to productivity.
Manufacturing companies that eliminate their bottlenecks can improve their profitability. We can do the same in the office environment. Read on to learn more about reducing the chance of being a bottleneck to others.
It’s hard to think of ourselves as [...] Continue Reading…
Years ago when I was a management consultant and struggling to stay on top of an overwhelming workload, a wise woman said to me: “Ann, it’s all about the systems”.
That comment has stuck with me. And now, after years of practice and fine-tuning, I hear myself telling my clients: “It’s all about the systems”. [Hmm … Life has a [...] Continue Reading…
Have you ever experienced burn-out?
If so, you’re not alone.
With too much work and too little time, it can be oh-so-tempting to put in a few more hours to get one more thing done. But this comes at a cost.
Life is a marathon, not a sprint. And while we can dip into our energy reserves in the short-term, this is [...] Continue Reading…
The Proactive Manager
Are you a Proactive Manager?
Easier said than done …
Being ‘proactive’ all the time is a tough gig. Managers get pulled at from so many different directions. On the one hand, you’re a doer and on the other hand, you’re a facilitator. It is arguably one of the toughest jobs out there.
Sink or swim…
Often, people are promoted to a manager role because they are really good at being a doer. But we all know that it takes a much wider skill set to excel as a manager.
I recently started working with a group of highly skilled business professionals called the Performance Optimization Group. Together, we came up with some guidelines to make a tough job a little bit easier.
The 4 P’s
Proactive Managers clearly understand their core principles, and refer back to these principles to drive every decision and action. They consider others’ perspectives and accept problems. They also model a balanced life.
Personal productivity is critical to early and ongoing success of any manager. Proactive Managers have solid systems in place to manage their information, their time and their priorities.
Managing work is a process. It starts with a comprehensive intake, followed by interim reviews and ends with balanced, two-way feedback. Proactive Managers value and fulfil their important role in each of these steps.
A proactive Manager is intentional about establishing relationships. They continually assess engagement and address gaps through a variety of strategies, including standards and expectation setting.
A Simple Framework…
Of course, there is much more that could be said on the topic of management. But sometimes having a simple framework like this can be a really powerful way to direct our on-going learning.