Improve My Business

Great post from Michael Bungay Stanier from Box of Crayons, on 10 small actions you can make to shift your thinking (cut/pasted from his newsletter):

On the road

I fail on lots of the standard “You Are A Real Man” tests.

I’m not into cars at all. I’m generally useless at fixing things up. I’m a distant second in the Sports Fan rankings in our household, and there’s only two of us.

But if there’s one thing I do admire, it’s a good bicycle.

I remember reading that it was the most effective machine at converting energy into motion, and when you combine that with the elegance of its design - as little as possible, but no less - you have a thing of beauty.

The bike I ride is a Cervelo, a fancy road bike that’s designed here in Toronto and is ridden by teams in the Tour de France (well, fancier versions of what I’ve got are in the Tour).

Shift

This summer I’ve upgraded my shifters, so I can change gears by flicking my brake levers back and forth. Generally speaking, I’m trying to keep a steady tempo as my legs spin around - 90rpm is what I’m going for - and mastering gears is a key part of that.

I’m changing gears all the time to adapt to what’s happening. It’s a subtle and constant thing. As the road rises slightly I shift one way, as I want to pick up pace I shift down a click or two, as I notice a headwind I shift back again.

You get the metaphor here, I’m sure. Just like a good cyclist is constantly using the full range of her gears to best maintain momentum, we all can adjust our own gears to maintain the pace we want in our own lives.

When I was growing up, racing bikes were simply known as “10 speeds”. So here are 10 gears you might like to try out and see what works for you.

10 Speeds

1. Pulse
Tony Schwartz writes convincingly that it’s a fallacy to try to manage our time. What we’ve got to do is to manage our energy. One thing he talks about is our bodies working on 90 minute cycles. We can go go go for 90 minutes, but after that you’ve got to take a break to shake things out, refresh and renew.

This is of course impossible to remember without a little help. I’ve started using a great little app on my Mac called Time Out that blanks my screen for 60 seconds every 15 minutes, and for 15 minutes every 90 minutes. It’s annoying as heck at times. But it forces me to step back from my work regularly and ask myself, “Really? Is this the best thing I could be doing? And is it time to take a bit of a break…?”

2. HVA
Start each day by defining your High Value Action - the thing that’s truly going to move you towards your Great Work. Taking time to actually get clear on the thing you need to do, rather than just trying to cope with the flood of work, can make all the difference.

My friend Molly Gordon is masterful at this. Every morning, as part of our Brain Trust mastermind group, she articulates her HVA and then the next day reports in on how it went. It’s no exaggeration to say this has changed her life.

3. Appreciate
Simply put, spending some time being grateful will make life sweeter for you. We’ve got a blackboard at home with “I’m grateful for…” written on it. While I make an espresso in the morning, I take time to reflect upon something I’m lucky to have working for me.

If you’d like some inspiration on this, check out Neil Pasricha’s blog 1000 Awesome Things. He’s masterful at this.

4. Abandon your goals
I’ve just had the pleasure of hanging out with Leo Babauta of Zen Habits at Chris Guillebeau’s World Domination Summit. Recently Leo has sent out a call to abandon goals. It’s hard to get my head around that totally, but his general point is that goals can become chains that bind us, set us up for failure or unsatisfying success, and contribute to us missing opportunities that float past.

So if you’re tangled up with lots and lots of goals, endless lists of to-do’s and a general sense of heaviness, consider letting some of it go. (You can check out #8 on this list - it might help.)

5. Create systems
Jonathan Fields has a fantastic new book coming out in September, called Uncertainty. He looks at the paradox that although we’re wired to avoid ambiguity and uncertainty, it’s only in ambiguity that we get to explore the edges of ourselves and our Great Work.

He’s interviewed lots of people who are excellent at consistently being creative, and one of the things he noticed is that these people build lots of systems and processes. It allows them to be efficient and “on automatic” for much of the mundane stuff in their lives, and consequentially be able to be more focused and creative for the work that matters.

6. Do something badly
The pressure to be a polished high-performer is something that many of us feel. Or maybe I’m just projecting. It’s a wonderful thing, then, to be able to step away from that and into a place of being a learner. Daniel Coyle writes about this in his book The Talent Code as does Joshua Foer in his book Moonwalking with Einstein. Growth comes not from repeating what you already do well, but from putting yourself in that place of incompetence that is both painful and vaguely exhilarating as new neural pathways are being created.

7. Savor and Serve
Another friend from my mastermind group, Jen Louden, is building a wonderful community around the concept of Savoring and Serving the World. It’s a marvelous insight. How do you both step up your game to make the world a better place, and  step up your game to enjoy the wonders of the world as it already is.

8. Cut 90%
I spoke recently at Andrea J Lee’s Wealthy Thought Leader conference in Vancouver and talked about ways of making ideas stronger and more powerful.

One route I offered up seemed to strike a real chord with people. Cut 90% of what’s going on. It’s a provocative challenge. You can’t just trim and tinker when you’ve got to cut 90%. You’ve got to make some bold decisions and get serious about the No’s.

What’s powerful about this, is it will force you to focus on the essential, your best guess at what will really make a difference.

9. Find a hero
For a good part of my career I kept hoping for a fabulous mentor who would show up and with gentle but profound wisdom guide me down the right path and make my journey a bolder and braver one.

Still waiting for that. You waiting to be rescued too?

Seth Godin has a great point of view on this. If you’re waiting for a mentor before you act, you’re just finding a reason not to act. Rather, pick a hero - someone whose work and style you admire - and decide what you might learn and emulate from that person.

Three of my current heroes? Eddie Izzard (for his willingness to constantly stretch himself and the impact he has in the world), Bob Dylan for his sense of mystery and resilience and James Schamus, CEO of Focus Features, for exploring the edges and for espousing “moderate weirdness”. How about you?

You can download a template from Do More Great Work on an exercise on heroes and role models here.

10 (+7). Pick one of the Irresistible Principlea of Fun
The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun. I know you’ve seen it. But hey - it’s irresistible, right?

Take another look and pick one to work with, play with, savor and explore. See where it takes you.

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Michael Bungay Stanier is the founder and Senior Partner of Box of Crayons, a company that helps organizations do less Good Work and more Great Work. He is the author of Do More Great Work and Get Unstuck & Get Going, and the creator of The Alchemy of Great Work, The Great Work Movie, The 5.75 Questions You’ve Been Avoiding and The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun. Michael was a Rhodes Scholar and the 2006 Canadian Coach of the Year. He is Australian and now lives in Canada.

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so, that’s my inspiration for this post - what do you think?  I’d love to hear your comments…

and, if you like this, sign up for his newsletters - they’re definitely worth the read…

Technorati Tags: Box of Crayons, inspiration, Michael Bungay Stanier, shift thinking

our friends at Crucial Skills offer the following advice if you are plagued by one of these

Top 5 Career-Limiting Habits:

1. Unreliability
2. ”It’s not my job”
3. Procrastination
4. Resistance to change
5. Negative attitude

Luckily, they also provide some tips on how to overcome them…

Technorati Tags: Business Relationships, eliminating defects, improvement, leadership, managing your time

It’s the last Friday of the month, which means that it’s “Funny Friday” - the time when we post something that may (or may not) teach a lesson, but definitely is not in the serious vein!  This month’s post is ad placement - you can design a great advertisement, but it may backfire depending on where it shows up in the media, as evidenced by these posts on Business Insider:  take a peek!

Technorati Tags: ads, funny friday, placement

Thanks to a post on flight travel by Chris Brogan, and a semi-challenge to post my own travel tips, I’ve decided to semi-take him up on the challenge — here’s my (additional or converging opinion) travel tips (not just limited to flying):

Planning your trip:

• Check out what there might be to do in the city, and plan on doing it - if necessary, even slightly rearranging your schedule to do so.  For example, in one city I frequent, their museum is open until 8 pm on one weeknight, so I make sure that I am out by 5 pm that night so I can go there and enjoy.
• Pay attention to loyalty programs - to a point.  If all things are equal (distance from work site, price, amenities, etc.) I’ll stay at some place that will allow us to get free hotel rooms for my niece Katie’s wedding in August, vs. staying at someplace that I don’t have a lot of points.  However, I wouldn’t pay significantly more just to garner some points…  ditto for airlines.  Chris recommends being active in a couple of loyalty flight programs, and I agree!
• Get your seat assignment ahead of time whenever possible.  Even if you can’t garner the extra legroom seat or the exit row, you can at least get an aisle or a window, depending on your preference.
• I also spend a ton of time determining the best place to say before I go there the first time; but on subsequent trips, I note on the outside of the manila folder what I want to make sure and do again - things like “Continental has best connections to arrive by mid-day”, or “Hampton and Fairfield are both good properties to stay at; don’t stay at the __________ here though…”

In Chris’ tips for flying - at the airport, I thought he left off one important suggestion - answer questions that haven’t been asked yet.  I do this when I see a perplexed traveler in a concouse - asking them “Do you need some help?”; or providing my frequent flyer number to the counter / gate agent without being prompted; or even ordering food (I’d like the coney dog with onions and chili, but no jalepenos; a med diet drink; and no fries, thanks.)  Don’t wait to be asked the obvious questions (would you like fries with that?); answer it without being asked.

As far as flying goes, I’ve got a few words for my fellow passengers:

• please entertain your child quietly.  I do NOT need to hear Barney at the top of your little tyke’s lungs, simply because you haven’t bothered to teach him what “inside voice” means yet.  And find the button that turns off the audio to their game system - and use it.  Bing, bong, boing, chirp!
• Flight attendants are there for our safety; they are not your personal maid/butler.  Stop treating them like they are car hops/housekeeping - if you spill your drink, don’t curse them because they didn’t get to you with three ply towels immediately.  They’ve got 130+ folks to contend with - try being in the top 10% of those they’re dealing with that day.
• If you’re “larger than life”, try curling in on yourself a bit.  I’ve seen folks who are pros at this - they only take up their share of the seat although they could easily take up more if they wanted to - they cross their arms to pull their shoulders in (at least part of the time); or move/angle a bit so they’re only taking up their fair share of the seat and adjoining (arm room) space.  It is not my fault if you are a big person; so don’t make me feel as though I’m not entitled to my seat just because you could spill into it due to your larger mass.
• I don’t want to hear about your sexual exploits, your latest fisticuffs, or anything else.  [One guy in first class across the aisle from me tried to impress the curvaceous blonde he was seated next to by explaining how he got into a fight in a bar - complete with graphic blow-by-blow accounts of spurting blood, crushing bone, etc.]  I finally asked him to lower his voice, and said that I didn’t need to hear him - he was making me sick to my stomach.
• and finally - you don’t HAVE to make a phone call as soon as the plane touches down.  Most of the calls I hear go something like this:  “Hey, it’s me. Yeah, we just touched down.  Yeah, I’ll be at baggage claim in a few minutes.  OK, I’ll call you then.  Bye.”  Really?  We had to call to tell them that we’d call them again in 5 minutes?  We couldn’t just wait?

That’s my tips for now - what tips do you want to add?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted… because work has gotten in the way.  In a big way.  Let me explain a bit…

A nice Request for Proposal came out that I thought would be a good fit for McDonald Consulting Group. It had a pretty short turnaround time; made even shorter by a potential partner who bailed out 1/2 way through the process. After scrambling to find a new partner, we put in long hours getting everything ready for the submission. [If you've ever prepared a government RFP, it will not surprise you to learn that we had to build 3 ring binders, with seven tabbed sections, and submit an original and six copies, each clearly labeled... so once we were finished writing, we still had hours and hours AND HOURS of administrivia to deal with...]

OK, got that submitted, and thought I could get back to my other work - but No! A long-time client got in touch with us to let us know that, instead of calling us ahead of time to help with a submission to their customer on a standard they had no prior experience in, they “thought they could do it on their own” and didn’t pass muster with the customer, who was asking for an action plan to address the shortcomings.  So now, instead of getting back to what I’d put on hold to get the RFP out the door (including writing some blogs to get ahead of the curve), I’m helping them dig out of the deep trench they’ve gotten themselves into - which requires my rearranging calendars and priorities (because of COURSE it’s a rush job) to meet their customer deadlines; undoing the damage that the initial submission did, and working with Asia (where the customer visit took place) to understand what that factory has, and what we have to create, to support them to address the requirements (what we should have done initially).

It’s a grueling job (7 pm phone calls to China sound familiar to anyone else?) and very time-consuming due to the dual language issue. [I have all the respect in the world for them working with me in English; my Chinese is very rudimentary/touristy and I couldn't work with them in their language...]

Which brings me to the point - when am I supposed to blog in all of this? I’m already juggling and dancing just to find time for my family and myself; when am I supposed to carve out time away from them to blog?

My answer: I’m not. I’m supposed to be doing exactly what I’m doing. And blogging will just have to wait.

Technorati Tags: asia, blogging, customer satisfaction, emergency, rush