Improve My Business

What’s in a [brand] name?
Companies that are marketing their services may tell you that they live, and die, by their brand. But how important is a brand when you are working on continual improvement? Is it something you should be paying attention to?
Absolutely, the marketing gurus say. Brand is the way that folks will identify you; find you; and associate a set of feelings, memories, and emotions with you. So, if we take that to be true, should we be branding our improvement work?
If so, how? Post a comment and tell me how you envision branding your improvement ideas.

Technorati Tags: branding, improvement

Earlier this month we talked about “dividing and conquering” your to-do list. The very next week I received my Mind Tools newsletter, titled “Delegate and Thrive”. The newsletter article goes into detail on the what, why, how, and when to delegate. There’s also a free downloadable Delegation Worksheet and a quick “How Well do you Delegate” quiz.

I scored a 36, which indicates I’m making progress on my delegation skills. How about you? What challenges do you face with delegation?

Technorati Tags: communication, delegation, leadership, newsletters, problem solving, Streamlining, teamwork, working smarter

Now, after two posts on the importance of taking “time outs” for thinking and re-charging the mental batteries, it’s time to discuss the dirty habit that lies just on the other side of productive time off-task and task avoidance. Yes, I’m talking about procrastination.

According to Dr. Piers Steel, an expert in the study of procrastination, at least 95% of people procrastinate and for 15-20% of us it is a consistent problem. (http://www.procrastinus.com/)

There are many theories on the causes of procrastination, and much debate over the validity of these theories. There are even more people and companies with websites and programs offering advice on how to overcome procrastination. In fact, I was overwhelmed (and intrigued) at all the info out there. You can count on hearing more on this topic in future posts. In the meantime, I ask you, “Why (or what) do you procrastinate?“

To get the ball rolling, I’ll admit to procrastinating on getting my car serviced.

At first there was just the engine light, which was explained to me as a secondary sensor being out, and that it was not crucial to be fixed immediately. Next the brake light came on, of which I was told the brake pads need to be replaced soon, but I could get by until my next payday. The third warning was the add coolant light – which I would never ignore, although I have been able to postpone repair by periodically adding water. The final straw for me was when the display read “SERVICE!” with an accompanying high pitched beep. So now, the car is screaming at me for attention. And just yesterday, I noticed the A/C not blowing as cold as usual. Finally, I’ve made the appointment to bring my car in. The main reason I didn’t do it before was simply the inconvenience of having to arrange for alternate transportation. I am sure I’ll pay for this when it’s time to pay the service bill!

Technorati Tags: efficiency, problem solving, Procrastination

I’ve been using calendars (and organizers, and to-do lists) for years.  I’ve tried electronic and paper; web-based and not; and have found the following to be my personal preference for this:

1)      Web-based if you move from machine to machine, or if you need to share your calendar with others. If my team wants to meet with me for a conference, why should they have to request my free times – when they can simply pop on the web and see for themselves?  Most web-based cals will let you set preferences (read only or read-write; busy/free only or they can see the actual meeting subject, etc.) and it handily color codes entries so multiple cals can be overlapped on one.

2)      One calendar that contains everything.  I used to try and manage separate calendars – one for work and one for personal.  The work cal had only work appts on it, and could be sent to anyone; the home cal had my personal appts written in, and may include things I didn’t want sent out to the world at large (everyone doesn’t need to know when I’m having my annual mammogram, for instance).  However, I’ve double-booked, or forgot, too many things to do this any longer.  So now I have one calendar for everything – personal, professional, and everything in between.  It has birthdays on it, travel itineraries, business meetings, luncheon dates, wine parties, and kids’ sporting events.  As for when I have my annual exams, I simply mark them ‘confidential’ first, so it only shows up on my cal with details.

What’s your preference for calendars?

Technorati Tags: calendar, planner, schedule

OK, here’s our saga to date:  In part one we talked about definition; in part two we discussed data identification and collection, and interim containment; part three discussed identifying the root cause.  Part four discussed fixing the true causes of the problem, and part five was about fixing other potential causes at the same time.

So, we’re done now, right?  We’re taking our data, verifying that our fixes work; we’re the heroes of the organization (or at least no one’s yelling at us right now), and we can go back to our other assignments… but wait!  There’s one last step (actually, it’s 1.5 more steps)…

Step 0.5:  Make sure that all the work is documented and in a repository somewhere.  No, you won’t remember in eight months what you folks did to fix this.  No, you can’t rely on memory.  Yes, it would be good to have this stuff all captured somewhere.  So do it.  Corporate knowledge - good.  Relying on memory - bad.

Step 1:  Celebrate! You’ve all done some incredible work - so take a moment (or two) to recognize and celebrate what you’ve done - who’s gone ‘above and beyond’ in the call of duty; whose crazy idea was the breakthrough you needed; and who remembered to bring the food to keep the team fueled (hey, brownies are the cornerstone of many a sugar-induced great idea…)

“Let’s all celebrate and have a good time”, as Kool and the Gang says…

Technorati Tags: celebrate, document repository