There was a millionaire who was bothered by severe eye pain. He consulted so many physicians and was getting his treatment done. He did not stop consulting galaxy of medical experts; he consumed heavy loads of drugs and underwent hundreds of injections. But the ache persisted with great vigour than before. At last a monk who has supposed to be an expert in treating such patients was called for by the millionaire. The monk understood his problem and said that for some time he should concentrate only on green colours and not to fall his eyes on any other colours. The millionaire got together a group of painters and purchased barrels of green color and directed that every object his eye was likely to fall to be painted in green colour just as the monk had directed. When the monk came to visit him after few days, the millionaire's servants ran with buckets of green paints and poured on him since he was in red dress, lest their master not see any other colour and his eye ache would come back. Hearing this monk laughed said "If only you had purchased a pair of green spectacles, worth just a few rupees, you could have saved these walls and trees and pots and all other articles and also could have saved a large share of his fortune. You cannot paint the world green." Let us change our vision and the world will appear accordingly. It is foolish to shape the world, let us shape ourselves first.
Lets change our vision..!!
Think simple,Live simple.."
Showing posts with label Management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Management. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Monday, 9 March 2009
Managing To Succeed :After more than a decade of growing his family's business, one entrepreneur copes with the collapsing economy.
Like many business owners, I've never operated in a bad economy. Since trading in my reporter's notebook in 1996 after a 10-year career with Business , I caught the lucky break of only operating during good economic times. Undoubtedly our family-run plastic packaging manufacturer benefited. Over the last 12 years, we've increased sales to more than $60 million, up from $18 million when I joined, which had been the company high-water mark since its founding by my father and three partners in 1963.
Looks like my luck has run out. Today, like almost every businessperson on the planet, I'm acquainting myself with a scary new reality: a collapsing economy. Deflation threatens to undermine our margins, thanks to the sudden collapse of petrochemical prices in the late fall. Plastic, a byproduct of natural gas, plunged, sticking us with overpriced inventory while customers demanded price cuts. Some of those same customers suddenly began to pay beyond terms. Just two years ago, our average customer paid us in 21 days. Today, that has stretched out to 30 days. One customer basically hasn't paid us in five months. And though we've been cozy with our bank for years, they recently tried to renegotiate our credit line. No wonder I'm drinking a glass of wine with dinner, a practice I cut out several years ago in a bid to trim my midsection.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm worrying unnecessarily. Our sales continue to increase, up 10 percent since our fiscal year began Sept. 1. The market for our product—packaging for the produce industry—has historically been recessionproof. "People have to eat, after all," my father likes to say. As if to confirm his wisdom, our backlog stands nearly 35 percent fatter this year compared to last, thanks in part to new products designed to keep produce fresher longer. Add to that the addiction many Americans have to the convenience of packaged salads, one of our strongest sectors, and I should be feeling pretty secure, even with the economic turbulence.
But it's hard to feel secure when even industry veterans say they've never seen anything like this recession. Take food consumption. It's falling for the first time in years, and the fresh-salad market isn't bucking the trend. Industry groups figure salad sales will either stagnate or decline this year, an unprecedented development in an industry used to double-digit growth. If my customers look like they're starting to suffer, I have to ask, how long until it hits us?
Obviously, the early-warning signs have already flashed. Forget how fast sales are growing. I'm increasingly worried about getting paid. Rather than merely glancing over the report that tracks how quickly customers are paying, as I would have prior to last summer, today I go through the report line by line, demanding explanations from our finance department for any invoice unpaid after 45 days. Our bookkeeper has responded by peppering delinquent accounts with calls—one customer recently threatened to fire us after paying an overdue invoice—but we can't take chances. In fact, late last year, we fired a customer who hadn't paid on time in months. When they finally did pay, we refused further orders. Not worth the risk.
Deflationary pressures have spooked me, as well. Talk about whiplash: last summer, the price of raw plastic hit an all-time high. Then prices collapsed. One major tracking service says plastic prices fell 30 percent in November alone. Hearing news like this, our customers, under pressure to cut prices themselves by the major grocery chains, began demanding we fork over the savings. Only we were saddled with a large inventory built as a hedge against hurricane-related supply disruptions. So any cost cuts actually just came out of our margins. Now, rivals who've fallen into financial trouble are compounding matters by cutting prices further.
Friday, 4 July 2008
Six Thinking Hats
Six Thinking Hats
Looking at a Decision from All Points of View
"Six Thinking Hats" is a powerful technique that helps you look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives. It helps you make better decisions by pushing you to move outside your habitual ways of thinking. As such, it helps you understand the full complexity of a decision, and spot issues and opportunities which you might otherwise not notice.Many successful people think from a very rational, positive viewpoint, and this is part of the reason that they are successful. Often, though, they may fail to look at problems from emotional, intuitive, creative or negative viewpoints. This can mean that they underestimate resistance to change, don't make creative leaps, and fail to make essential contingency plans.
Similarly, pessimists may be excessively defensive, and people used to a very logical approach to problem solving may fail to engage their creativity or listen to their intuition.If you look at a problem using the Six Thinking Hats technique, then you'll use all of these approaches to develop your best solution. Your decisions and plans will mix ambition, skill in execution, sensitivity, creativity and good contingency planning.
This tool was created by Edward de Bono in his book "6 Thinking Hats".
How to Use the Tool:
To use Six Thinking Hats to improve the quality of your decision-making, look at the decision "wearing" each of the thinking hats in turn.
Each "Thinking Hat" is a different style of thinking. These are explained below:
White Hat: With this thinking hat, you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them.This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.
Red Hat:Wearing the red hat, you look at the decision using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally, and try to understand the intuitive responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning.
Black Hat :When
using black hat thinking, look at things pessimistically, cautiously and defensively. Try to see why ideas and approaches might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan or course of action. It allows you to eliminate them, alter your approach, or prepare contingency plans to counter problems that arise. Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans tougher and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance, leaving them under-prepared for difficulties. 
Green Hat :The Green Hat stands for creativity. This where is you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools can help you here. 
You can use Six Thinking Hats in meetings or on your own. In meetings it has the benefit of defusing the disagreements that can happen when people with different thinking styles discuss the same problem.A similar approach is to look at problems from the point of view of different professionals (e.g. doctors, architects, sales directors) or different customers.
Example:
Looking at a Decision from All Points of View
"Six Thinking Hats" is a powerful technique that helps you look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives. It helps you make better decisions by pushing you to move outside your habitual ways of thinking. As such, it helps you understand the full complexity of a decision, and spot issues and opportunities which you might otherwise not notice.Many successful people think from a very rational, positive viewpoint, and this is part of the reason that they are successful. Often, though, they may fail to look at problems from emotional, intuitive, creative or negative viewpoints. This can mean that they underestimate resistance to change, don't make creative leaps, and fail to make essential contingency plans.
Similarly, pessimists may be excessively defensive, and people used to a very logical approach to problem solving may fail to engage their creativity or listen to their intuition.If you look at a problem using the Six Thinking Hats technique, then you'll use all of these approaches to develop your best solution. Your decisions and plans will mix ambition, skill in execution, sensitivity, creativity and good contingency planning.
This tool was created by Edward de Bono in his book "6 Thinking Hats".
How to Use the Tool:
To use Six Thinking Hats to improve the quality of your decision-making, look at the decision "wearing" each of the thinking hats in turn.
Each "Thinking Hat" is a different style of thinking. These are explained below:
White Hat: With this thinking hat, you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them.This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.
Red Hat:Wearing the red hat, you look at the decision using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally, and try to understand the intuitive responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning. Black Hat :When
using black hat thinking, look at things pessimistically, cautiously and defensively. Try to see why ideas and approaches might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan or course of action. It allows you to eliminate them, alter your approach, or prepare contingency plans to counter problems that arise. Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans tougher and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance, leaving them under-prepared for difficulties. 
yellow hat :The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it, and spot the opportunities that arise from it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.
Green Hat :The Green Hat stands for creativity. This where is you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools can help you here. 
Blue Hat :The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, and so on.
You can use Six Thinking Hats in meetings or on your own. In meetings it has the benefit of defusing the disagreements that can happen when people with different thinking styles discuss the same problem.A similar approach is to look at problems from the point of view of different professionals (e.g. doctors, architects, sales directors) or different customers.
Example:
The directors of a property company are looking at whether they should construct a new office building. The economy is doing well, and the amount of vacant office space is reducing sharply. As part of their decision they decide to use the 6 Thinking Hats technique during a planning meeting.
Looking at the problem with the White Hat, they analyze the data they have. They examine the trend in vacant office space, which shows a sharp reduction. They anticipate that by the time the office block would be completed, that there will be a severe shortage of office space. Current government projections show steady economic growth for at least the construction period.
With Red Hat thinking, some of the directors think the proposed building looks quite ugly. While it would be highly cost-effective, they worry that people would not like to work in it.
When they think with the Black Hat, they worry that government projections may be wrong. The economy may be about to enter a 'cyclical downturn', in which case the office building may be empty for a long time.
If the building is not attractive, then companies will choose to work in another better-looking building at the same rent.
With the Yellow Hat, however, if the economy holds up and their projections are correct, the company stands to make a great deal of money.
If they are lucky, maybe they could sell the building before the next downturn, or rent to tenants on long-term leases that will last through any recession.
With Green Hat thinking they consider whether they should change the design to make the building more pleasant. Perhaps they could build prestige offices that people would want to rent in any economic climate. Alternatively, maybe they should invest the money in the short term to buy up property at a low cost when a recession comes.
The Blue Hat has been used by the meeting's Chair to move between the different thinking styles. He or she may have needed to keep other members of the team from switching styles, or from criticizing other peoples' points.
Key points:
Six Thinking Hats is a good technique for looking at the effects of a decision from a number of different points of view.
It allows necessary emotion and skepticism to be brought into what would otherwise be purely rational decisions. It opens up the opportunity for creativity within Decision Making. It also helps, for example, persistently pessimistic people to be positive and creative.
Plans developed using the '6 Thinking Hats' technique are sounder and more resilient than would otherwise be the case. This technique may also help you to avoid public relations mistakes, and spot good reasons not to follow a course of action, before you have committed to it.
Looking at the problem with the White Hat, they analyze the data they have. They examine the trend in vacant office space, which shows a sharp reduction. They anticipate that by the time the office block would be completed, that there will be a severe shortage of office space. Current government projections show steady economic growth for at least the construction period.
With Red Hat thinking, some of the directors think the proposed building looks quite ugly. While it would be highly cost-effective, they worry that people would not like to work in it.
When they think with the Black Hat, they worry that government projections may be wrong. The economy may be about to enter a 'cyclical downturn', in which case the office building may be empty for a long time.
If the building is not attractive, then companies will choose to work in another better-looking building at the same rent.
With the Yellow Hat, however, if the economy holds up and their projections are correct, the company stands to make a great deal of money.
If they are lucky, maybe they could sell the building before the next downturn, or rent to tenants on long-term leases that will last through any recession.
With Green Hat thinking they consider whether they should change the design to make the building more pleasant. Perhaps they could build prestige offices that people would want to rent in any economic climate. Alternatively, maybe they should invest the money in the short term to buy up property at a low cost when a recession comes.
The Blue Hat has been used by the meeting's Chair to move between the different thinking styles. He or she may have needed to keep other members of the team from switching styles, or from criticizing other peoples' points.
Key points:
Six Thinking Hats is a good technique for looking at the effects of a decision from a number of different points of view.
It allows necessary emotion and skepticism to be brought into what would otherwise be purely rational decisions. It opens up the opportunity for creativity within Decision Making. It also helps, for example, persistently pessimistic people to be positive and creative.
Plans developed using the '6 Thinking Hats' technique are sounder and more resilient than would otherwise be the case. This technique may also help you to avoid public relations mistakes, and spot good reasons not to follow a course of action, before you have committed to it.
Thursday, 15 May 2008
How to Overcome Procrastination ?
Does this sound familiar?Each and every day you go into your office prepared to take on the tasks you have been or will be assigned. As the day goes by you find yourself looking for every possible excuse to do something other than work on some of the tasks. You have made a considerable effort to remain focused during the day however you cannot seem to fight procrastination. Are you the only one with this problem? What can you do to break this bad habit?”You are certainly not alone in experiencing this; unfortunately for us all procrastination is something that everyone deals with. There is no way to completely eliminate it from our lives. If we build time into our schedules for procrastination we’ll be in a better position to handle it right off the bat.
Here are some tips to overcome procrastination:
1. Work on tasks promptlyComplete task as soon as practical, while you know you have enough time to do it correctly.
2. Change negative thoughtsDo not agonize over tasks. Instead, think of the enjoyment and the relief in getting the job done.
3. Break large tasks downMake tasks more manageable and work on “getting started”. Try just tackling five minutes of the project and you might find you’ve worked longer than planned.
4. Become EnthusiasticMuster up the motivation and enthusiasm about the job or task. Talk to the right people and get you reenergized.
Friday, 29 February 2008
Building Your House
An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house-building business to live a more leisurely life with his wife and enjoy his extended family. He would miss the paycheck each week, but he wanted to retire. They could get by.
The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go & asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but over time, it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end a dedicated career.
When the carpenter finished his work, his employer came to inspect the house. Then he handed the front-door key to the carpenter and said, "This is your house... my gift to you."
The carpenter was shocked!
What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently.
So it is with us. We build our lives, a day at a time, often putting less than our best into the building. Then, with a shock, we realize we have to live in the house we have built. If we could do it over, we would do it much differently.
But, you cannot go back. You are the carpenter, and every day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Someone once said, "Life is a do-it-yourself project." Your attitude and the choices you make today, help build the "house" you will live in tomorrow. Therefore, build wisely!
The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go & asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but over time, it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end a dedicated career.
When the carpenter finished his work, his employer came to inspect the house. Then he handed the front-door key to the carpenter and said, "This is your house... my gift to you."
The carpenter was shocked!
What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently.
So it is with us. We build our lives, a day at a time, often putting less than our best into the building. Then, with a shock, we realize we have to live in the house we have built. If we could do it over, we would do it much differently.
But, you cannot go back. You are the carpenter, and every day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Someone once said, "Life is a do-it-yourself project." Your attitude and the choices you make today, help build the "house" you will live in tomorrow. Therefore, build wisely!
Friday, 22 February 2008
Its just a paradigm shift
One evening a scholar was addressing the participants on the concept of work culture. One of the participants asked the following question:
"I am a senior manager of Materials Department and I joined an organization 25 years ago as an Engineer Trainee and over the last 25 years I have gone through every experience in the organization. During the initial part of my career, the job was very challenging and interesting. However, all those exciting days are gone since I do not find my joy any more interesting because there is nothing new in my job. I am now feeling bored because I am doing a routine job.
However, Sir, I am living in the same house for over forty years, I am the son for the same parents for over forty five years, I am the father for the same children for the past ten years and the husband for the same lady for the past twenty years !( the toughest job!) … In these personal roles I do not feel bored Please tell me why I am bored of the routine in the office and not in the house?"
The response from Scholar was very interesting and convincing. He asked the executive the question:
"Please tell me for whom does your Mother cook?"
The executive replied that obviously the mother cooks for others.
Then the Scholar said that the Mother "Serves" others and because of this service mindedness, she is not feeling tired or bored. But in an office, we "Work" and not "Serve". Anything we consider, as service will not make us feel bored. That is the difference between Serving and Working.
He asked the executive to consider his work as service and not merely a work!! This was a very interesting analysis!! Whenever you put a larger context around your work and see a broader meaning for your work, you will take interest in your work and it will make a very big difference in your internal energy.
Attitude Matters!!!
If you think you are working for the organization you will get frustrated. If you feel you are
doing a service and getting some service charges you will feel happy.
It is just a paradigm shift that is required.
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Is Your Enthusiasm For Work Flickering Out? Re-ignite the Flame!
Is Your Enthusiasm For Work Flickering Out? Re-ignite the Flame!
Take a class for funLearn something completely new.
RestI don't mean hide. Your body may need some extra time to heal. So take the time, just don't use it as an excuse to stay away from others. Many people have told me they thought they had chronic fatigue syndrome. They rested their body and refocused on what is really important in their lives and the symptoms disappeared.
History tells us that most American presidents took short naps each day as a preventative measure against burnout.
Are your workforce teams under so much pressure that they are erupting like volcanoes? Do you see the people around you turning into pessimists? Are they waiting for the overwhelming situations to just go away? If so, please read on.
Most things written about burnout are negative. Yes...the price for doing what you feel passionate about is burnout. Burnout is also a time for deep reflection to make major changes at home, work, so you can achieve personal satisfaction. People who pay attention to their burnout discover new ways to re-ignite their flame. They design a better quality of life. They harness burnout and refocus their energy toward more productive behavior.
This article covers the definition of burnout, its warning signs, hot tips to keep the flame of energy ablaze, and ideas for all professionals to use in order to rekindle their vitality
Definition of Burnout
Burnout occurs when its victims have been worn out physically and emotionally as a result of long term stress. They strive to reach unrealistic expectations many of which may be self imposed Burned out people are of little value to the organization. For this reason alone, it is important to discover the signs of burnout and to resolve the issues that cause them. Burnout is a general erosion of the spirit.
WARNING SIGNS: WATCH FOR SMOKE SIGNALS
Today's workplace environment is a perfect place for burnout to occur. We are all too familiar with downsizing, doing more with less, mergers, new teams, new bosses, new philosophies, new mission statements, distrustful relationships, unclear work roles, thwarted career progress, un-shared information, no existing feedback, unfair politics, and not being able to catch up with the workload, similar to being on a treadmill and not able to get off.
Many workshop participants have shared their experiences with me. They started out full of compassion, enthusiasm and energy. They actually looked forward to work. Then something happened along their journey...they lost their sense of control and interest, became bored, and started withdrawing. They became all too familiar with the expression "all work and no play". Remember the old adage, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Their positive attitudes started to diminish and they became more cynical.
I could go on but by now you may be thinking, "Joyce I am familiar with this...please tell me something that will help me get out of this feeling of powerlessness?" During our research, workshop participants ask us to give them some techniques that they can use immediately, and not to concentrate on our "woe-is-me state." We know that morale must be improved. We know that workers have lost their sense of control and feeling of joy at work, which carries over to their home lives. They beg us to show them how they can lighten up and learn from all of this.
Story of a farmer
Once upon a time there was a farmer. He lived during the time when the terrible warlords ruled the country side. He had a son and owned one horse. The farmer's neighbor always said to him, "You have such good luck." The farmer replied, "Good luck, bad luck...who knows?" One day the farmer's horse ran away. That very night the warlords came to the village and told the farmers to gather up all horses so they could confiscate them. The farmer's neighbors said, "Oh, you have such good luck, the warlords can't take your horse because it ran away." The farmer said, "Good Luck, bad luck...who knows?"
A few days later the farmer's horse wondered back to the farm. His son was so excited to see his horse, he jumped on the horse and went for a ride. The horse tripped on a rock and the son fell off and broke his leg. That very night the warlords came back to the village and ordered everyone to round up all the able bodied sons, who would be taken away to fight in the wars. The neighbor said to the farmer, "You have such good luck, your son has a broken leg and will not be able to go with the warlords."
The farmer said, "Good luck, bad luck...who knows?" We can all learn from this story. The farmer didn't label this circumstance as good or bad. He gave life a chance. At first it looked like bad luck when the horse ran away and the son broke his leg. His neighbors felt like victims and lost all sense of control or responsibility for their future. They quickly labeled life's challenges as good or bad. At times things seem bad, but after awhile we can actually see a positive outcome.
Many people have shared with me that the loss of a job was horrendous at first. However, when they found new employment, it turned out to be better than their previous job.
I tell this story at most workshops because we all know people who complain and sound like victims.
Some people blow one incident out of proportion and their self talk becomes such a detriment to their own, and their team's, mental health. Well, I challenge people to stop playing the victim and look at their lives to see what they need to do to rekindle their vitality. At times they give me a look of "You've got to be kidding, there is nothing I can do." At other times people tell me they feel more hopeful and are ready to focus on the cause of burnout and to do something about it. Sometimes the worst situations end up teaching us the most valuable lessons.
10 tips to keep the flame burning
You've probably heard the following suggestions before. Now may be the time that you are ready to actively change. These all require some kind of discipline since you may have let burnout become part of your life. We have to recondition how we think and what we choose to do. It took us a long time to form these negative habits it may take some time to make life changing choices. Are you ready? Now is the time for self care. Many workforce professionals take care of others now it's time to give to yourself.
Number 1
Find a hobbyTalk to people that have achieved balance in their lives and find out what activities they have added to enrich their lives. What activities have you wanted to experience? Now is the time to discover them not when you retire. Why wait? Act now! The change and excitement of photography, flying, art, etc., could be just what the doctor ordered.
Number 2
Take a class for funLearn something completely new.
Number 3
Volunteer for a cause that means something to youWhat goes around comes around. I hear many success stories of people receiving much more after they give their time and attention to others.
Number 4
Eat right, exercise, and try meditatingDo these for the right reasons. First add them to your life, but not just because they are good for you. Upbeat music adds energy to a workout session. Exercise automatically helps people deal with their problems. They become more relaxed and are able to tackle the challenge even after only a 30-minute workout. They feel fired up to re-ignite the energy in their life.
Number 5
RestI don't mean hide. Your body may need some extra time to heal. So take the time, just don't use it as an excuse to stay away from others. Many people have told me they thought they had chronic fatigue syndrome. They rested their body and refocused on what is really important in their lives and the symptoms disappeared.
History tells us that most American presidents took short naps each day as a preventative measure against burnout.
Number 6
Concentrate on what is in front of your noseIf you are taking a walk, notice what is in front of you. If you are at home, notice the person you are talking to. These are golden moments to cherish. When you are at work, forget about the problems at home and look at your task at hand. This one tip is so powerful and you can start using it now!
Number 7
Develop team meetings to discuss what front line, supervisors, managers, and administrators can do togetherTake everybody's complaints and constructive feedback seriously. Are teams working together or waiting for the stress to go away? Think in terms of we and not me. Are your teams practicing a feeling of esprit de corps? Are the actions of team members aligned with the team's mission? Do people do "whatever it takes" to get the job done? If not, this could be a huge deficit in achieving team balance.
These are all contributing factors to the burnout of individual members.
Number 8
Learn how to be authentic and share your thoughts with othersSome people are more open than others. For some it is difficult to be straight forward, especially if they are more private or guarded. I suggest taking classes to help you learn to be open and straight forward. This tip is a real burnout buster. People who are straight forward and not rude experience less stress. Just think about it. Instead of wasting hours during the night thinking of what you should have said to someone, just do it. Straight forward communication is a skill that is well worth learning. Look at the extra hours of sleep you will get if you don't have to worry about things. Sometimes we need to tell people what they need to hear, not necessarily what they want to hear. Straight talk works and people see immediate results after learning this technique. Ann, a workshop participant, told me how she used straight talk on her boss. The boss was very negative and this attitude was eroding the morale. Ann practiced her conversation and took the initiative and used straight talk. The boss thanked Ann because he didn't realize the impact of his negativity. Ann is respected now by her boss.
Number 9
Discover the necessity of positive humor at work and at homePositive humor lightens the stress of impossible tasks. Numerous worksites have added humor and joy bulletin boards where employees can place cartoons or inspirational stories. Humor is not a luxury in our lives anymore, it has become a necessity! We included a segment on humor in our workshops since we have seen the incredible results. Make a list of 15 things you enjoy doing for fun, such as, sailing, travel, going to the theater, hosting a dinner party, or reading a novel. Once you make your list, ask yourself when was the last time you did any of these activities? Decide which ones are important to you and make plans to do at least one new activity this week. Schedule it in your daily planner. Honor the little child inside of you.
Remember how children can be creative and resourceful. You deserve fun and pleasure in your life. British novelist George Eliot wrote, "It's never too late to be what you might have been."
Number 10
Discover what values are important to youThe qualities you consider most significant will have a tremendous impact on your life. Which ones need immediate attention? Could it be personal solitude, creativity, family, social welfare, freedom, or independence? It is a necessity, not a luxury to find the value deficit in your life. Balance is the key to re-igniting your energy.
I recently discovered that I needed more personal solitude in my life. I research and plan for my speeches and workshops. I practice and market my programs. But I was ignoring the personal time I desperately needed to take I was out of balance. "All work and no play" was making Joyce a dull person. This went on for years as I climbed the mountain of success. I was fortunate to have a son who saw the smoke signals before I noticed them and warned me about them. What area of your life is out of balance? Now is the time to take the steps that will re-ignite your energy!
Re-ignite Your Energy
!These 10 tips are but first steps to help you rekindle your enthusiasm. If these don't work, then you may need to seek professional help. People are hospitalized because of burnout and we need to find the major causes. People have gone to their boss and asked for different responsibilities those that fit more with their values or interests. Others have found new jobs because a former position created too much stress for them.
Abraham Lincoln said, "People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Remember the farmer? Well the "good news" is that we can gain control of our lives again. We can feel enthusiasm again. We can feel a sense of joy at work and home. Burnout is a time for us to look within ourselves and find what is missing in our lives. Burnout happens to people who live intensely. Also be aware of "rust out". You can see it on the faces of people who are just hanging on to a job or relationship. I would rather burn out several times as long as I know it is a signal to make some changes and rethink what I want out of life. Remember we need to recondition ourselves if burnout is lurking on our horizon. It did not come overnight. So with some discipline, introspection, and change, we can rekindle our vitality and move on to more exciting times. And one last thing make sure to enjoy the journey you deserve it!Monday, 10 September 2007
How to Manage Your Team in a Downturn (and Come Out on Top)
Layoffs have truncated staff; cost-cutting measures are threatening projects, and morale is in the toilet. From the manager’s perspective, getting the most out of employees in this kind of environment can seem like a Sisyphean task. In fact, it’s a perfect opportunity to rejigger processes and fix what’s broken — and managers are uniquely positioned to do just that. Here’s how being candid with your employees, rewarding them in creative ways, and enlisting them to help make hard decisions can not only keep your team motivated but pull your company out of its slump.
Things you will need:
· Any additional cash that can be set aside to reward the top-performing members on your team.
· Constant attention. It’s your sole task right now to improve the mood in the office so that everyone can get back to work.
· Informal Meetings: Give employees frequent opportunities to openly discuss — and ask questions about — the business situation the company is facing.
· Employee Buy-In: Now is the time to leverage the expertise of your team. Motivate and engage employees by including them in the problem-solving process.
· Transparency: The middle manager plays a crucial role in communicating messages from senior leadership. Maintain loyalty from direct reports by giving them what they deserve: honest explanations for what went wrong and how the company plans to move forward.
Set the Tone
Goal: Lower the anxiety level in the office by being candid about the challenges — and opportunities — ahead.
It’s easy to blame the economy for all the reasons a company is suffering: Customers are cutting back on their expenses, advertisers are trimming their budgets, and stock prices are sliding. These problems may, in fact, be attributable in part to the downturn, but going with the “It’s the economy, stupid” defense sends a subtle but potentially dangerous message to employees: It implies that the situation is totally out of the company's hands and left in large part to fate. This is exactly the kind of attitude that raises anxiety levels in the office and disrupts employees’ focus on the problem at hand: turning business around.
“Have the confidence to not completely blame the economy,” says Stanford business professor Bob Sutton. “If employees believe that leadership can break things, they’ll believe that leadership can fix things, too.”
Don’t just rely on the CEO’s message. An e-mail from the top explaining why the company is in the red can’t tell employees much, which means mid-level managers need to be the interpreters. Speak to employees in small groups and be as candid as possible about where the company stands. This is also a good time to suss out any rumors. “Organize quick events to ask what people have heard and to answer any questions they have,” says Dave Logan, a senior partner at Los Angeles-based consulting firm Culture Sync.
Open the books. Giving employees the numbers behind company performance clarifies where the business needs to change and how their jobs connect to the bigger picture. But be warned: “If you’re going to be transparent, take the necessary time to teach employees about how the business works,” says Rich Armstrong, general manager of the Great Game of Business, a coaching firm that teaches open-book management. He advises managers to start with what employees probably already understand, like operational numbers, and then connect the dots with how those numbers increase gross margin and generate cash flow. Above all, keep finance jargon to a minimum.
Focus on the future. There’s no need to sugarcoat it: Pulling the company through the downturn isn’t going to be easy, but emphasizing the challenge can have its benefits. “It’s a great time for [your employees] to realize that they can play a role in discovering opportunities for the company,” says Vince Thompson, a former manager at AOL and author of the book Ignited.
Hot Tip
The You in Team
If a company is going to stay resilient, the staff’s collective commitment and collaboration are essential. In this environment, simply making an effort to be more visible and available to employees can spark productivity and bring the team together.
For example, if you normally work within the confines of a walled office while your team toils away in the cube farm, grab your laptop and set up shop in a cubicle near them — even if it’s only a couple of times a week. Start showing up to the smaller meetings that you usually skip, or rearrange your travel schedule to cut down how much time you spend out of the office. In short, don’t wait for employees to take advantage of an open-door policy. Go to them first, and ask how their work is going. This isn’t about micromanaging — it’s about knowing firsthand what they need.
Enlist the Team to Fix What’s Broken
Goal: Motivate employees and find out how and where the business needs to change.
Traditionally, the top execs decide the strategy and let it trickle down. The problem with this tactic is that it rarely makes the emotional case needed to mobilize employees around a common goal, says Paul Bromfield, a principal at Katzenbach Partners, which has advised companies like Aetna, Credit Suisse, and Pfizer. “This is about problem-solving and discipline, and that’s where employees come in,” he says. “Companies should be harnessing employees in the effort to identify where to cut costs and how.”
Not only will utilizing workers’ expertise make them more invested in the company’s success, it also gives management a more honest look at what’s not working. Senior leadership tends to focus on just one area of cost-cutting, Bromfield says, like products, headcount, or moving operations off-shore. Employees, on the other hand, can use their collective wisdom to eliminate clumsy (and costly) procedures across divisions.
Here are four guidelines for involving staff in the process:
1. Identify key influencers. “If you’re really going to mobilize people, you can’t do it from the top,” Bromfield says. Find the key employees who hold sway in their departments and get them to embrace and spread the change effort. These are the people who know how things really work (not just the way they’re supposed to work) and have a way of bringing together the right people to get things done.
2. Let teams do the problem solving. Form groups around the influencers and motivate (rather than mandate) employees to identify what’s slowing down business. Often the best place to start is to look for processes and bureaucracies that annoy the team. Set a basic timeframe to achieve cost savings, but let each group work at its own pace.
3. Make it a conversation. Schedule brown-bag lunches or other informal venues to talk to employees about their findings and where they might be hitting roadblocks. In the early 1990s, Bromfield’s former client Texas Commerce Bank held focus groups with thousands of its employees to find out what procedures most frustrated bankers and customers. Using the feedback, the company nearly doubled its $50 million cost-savings goal.
4. Follow through. Many cost-savings programs fail because management implements the initiative only halfway or lets inefficiencies creep back after meeting short-term goals, which won’t sit well with employees. Adopt the changes wholesale or not at all.
Big Idea
Keep Top Performers Moving
In an ideal world, the upside of a downturn is that recruiting qualified employees becomes easier. With more candidates in the job market, now could be the time to find new talent if your company has the resources to continue hiring. But managers shouldn’t forget about the top performers already on staff, say Monster executives Steve Pogorzelski, Dr. Jesse Harriott, and Doug Hardy, authors of a recent paper on how companies should invest in employees when business slows down.
When the economy’s bad, it’s easy to think that employees are grateful to have jobs at all. But layoffs and budget cuts may cause good workers to look for better opportunities. Give them a reason to stay by making room for them to keep advancing their careers. “Keep critical talent moving — not necessarily up, but growing in experience, responsibility, money, or other tangible and intangible ways,” say the authors of the study. If promotions or raises aren’t possible, give good workers the chance to make a lateral move or to take on a struggling department.
Get Back to the Work That Matters
Goal: Make sure your team is tuned in to growth opportunities.
The problem with a downturn is that while cost cutting is absolutely necessary, it can make everyone gun-shy about pursuing new initiatives and opportunities for investment. However, if your department, and in turn the company, is going to emerge from the slump in a competitive position, there are a few key investments you can’t afford not to fight for now:
Customers
Learn about the customers of your weakest competitors, writes Michael Roberto, a blogger for Harvard Business Publishing and management professor at Bryant University. While competitors are busy shoring up their relationships with large, established clients, it could be the perfect time to swoop in and court their smaller customers.
Research and Development
Take a cue from Apple’s Steve Jobs. When asked by Fortune magazine recently about Apple’s strategy for the downturn, Jobs pointed to how the company survived the 2001 tech bust by upping its R&D budget. “It worked, and that’s exactly what we’ll do this time,” he told the magazine.
Separate the value-added activities from the wheel-spinning exercises, Thompson suggests in Ignited. Instead of giving up on new projects in a downturn, shift focus so that the team is investing time in identifying and prioritizing the projects that will generate the most benefit for the company. Even if the final product will have to wait until more resources are available, doing the legwork now means the product will go to market faster when the time is right — and employees will stay engaged in the meantime.
Vendors/Partners
“There are two ways to run a business,” says Fred Mossler, senior vice president of merchandising for online shoe retailer Zappos, “adversarily or as a partnership.” Considering that the company relies on about 1,500 partners to provide its customers with a diverse selection of shoes, Zappos has chosen the latter option. To that end, the company built an extranet, so that every partner can see how its brand is performing. “They get to see everything our buyers see,” Mossler says. “This way we have about 1,500 other sets of eyes looking at our business and helping to improve it.”
Case Study
How Zappos Survived the Tech Bust
The idea for Zappos was born in 1999, when the economy was booming. But the shoe retailer still was unprofitable and struggling to grow revenue two years later, when the recession hit. “It was impossible for us to get any additional funding,” Mossler says. To make matters worse, the company was learning that its original business plan, which made Zappos a middleman, wasn’t working as planned: Vendors didn’t always have every shoe in stock, and customers — who sometimes had to wait weeks for their orders to arrive — often ended up with the wrong orders.
Though the times might have called for belt-tightening, the company had to make a couple of very expensive decisions, both of which put long-term strategy before short-term cost cutting. First, management realized that it needed total control over the merchandise in order to give the best customer service — a decision that meant sacrificing 25 percent of company revenue. Second, to make sure customers knew exactly what they were getting, the company hired photographers to take pictures of every pair of shoes it stocked. The site now has photos of its more than 3 million items, mostly shoes, from up to eight different angles. “Most companies look at customer service as an expense, but we look at it as a long-term investment,” says Mossler. The moves paid off: Less than 10 years after its founding, Zappos is on track to bring in more than $1 billion in sales this year.
Acknowledge and Reward Deserving Employees
Goal: Recognize achievement, even if resources are scarce.
Employee bonuses and raises are among some of the first expenses that upper management cuts during a downturn. But even if extra compensation isn’t in the budget, that doesn’t excuse managers from rewarding employees. “Lack of recognition — both financially and verbally — is one of the things that does the most damage,” says David Sirota, founder of the management-consulting firm Sirota Survey Intelligence. “I worked with an investment bank some years back where bankers were earning bonuses from $100,000 to $1 million a year,” he says. “You know what they complained about? They didn’t know if the chairman thought they were actually doing a good job, because he never spoke to them about it.”
Danger! Danger! Danger!
Save Rewards for the Worthy
Keeping your employees engaged doesn’t mean rewarding them just for doing their jobs. The most effective rewards are significant but well deserved. Libby Sartain became head of Yahoo’s human resources department in 2001, just as the company received a hard knock from the dot-com bust. She decided that instead of quietly giving large bonuses to overachievers, which wasn’t providing much bang for the buck, Yahoo needed to regularly single out the top 15 to 20 stellar individuals and teams — not only to reward them, but to help the rest of the company understand what made these employees outstanding.
The following year, the company gave its first Superstar Awards. Candidates were nominated by their peers for significant achievements and awarded cash prizes ranging from $5,000 to $50,000. The Yahoo Superstar Awards program is now in its seventh year and has honored employees for contributions like creating the Panama advertising system, inventing a way to advertise on instant messages, and fixing a troublesome accounting problem. “This isn’t egalitarian, this is a meritocracy,” Sartain says, acknowledging that some managers resisted the idea at first. “When people saw the winners, they understood why they won, and it took hold and became part of the culture.”
Things you will need:
· Any additional cash that can be set aside to reward the top-performing members on your team.
· Constant attention. It’s your sole task right now to improve the mood in the office so that everyone can get back to work.
· Informal Meetings: Give employees frequent opportunities to openly discuss — and ask questions about — the business situation the company is facing.
· Employee Buy-In: Now is the time to leverage the expertise of your team. Motivate and engage employees by including them in the problem-solving process.
· Transparency: The middle manager plays a crucial role in communicating messages from senior leadership. Maintain loyalty from direct reports by giving them what they deserve: honest explanations for what went wrong and how the company plans to move forward.
Set the Tone
Goal: Lower the anxiety level in the office by being candid about the challenges — and opportunities — ahead.
It’s easy to blame the economy for all the reasons a company is suffering: Customers are cutting back on their expenses, advertisers are trimming their budgets, and stock prices are sliding. These problems may, in fact, be attributable in part to the downturn, but going with the “It’s the economy, stupid” defense sends a subtle but potentially dangerous message to employees: It implies that the situation is totally out of the company's hands and left in large part to fate. This is exactly the kind of attitude that raises anxiety levels in the office and disrupts employees’ focus on the problem at hand: turning business around.
“Have the confidence to not completely blame the economy,” says Stanford business professor Bob Sutton. “If employees believe that leadership can break things, they’ll believe that leadership can fix things, too.”
Don’t just rely on the CEO’s message. An e-mail from the top explaining why the company is in the red can’t tell employees much, which means mid-level managers need to be the interpreters. Speak to employees in small groups and be as candid as possible about where the company stands. This is also a good time to suss out any rumors. “Organize quick events to ask what people have heard and to answer any questions they have,” says Dave Logan, a senior partner at Los Angeles-based consulting firm Culture Sync.
Open the books. Giving employees the numbers behind company performance clarifies where the business needs to change and how their jobs connect to the bigger picture. But be warned: “If you’re going to be transparent, take the necessary time to teach employees about how the business works,” says Rich Armstrong, general manager of the Great Game of Business, a coaching firm that teaches open-book management. He advises managers to start with what employees probably already understand, like operational numbers, and then connect the dots with how those numbers increase gross margin and generate cash flow. Above all, keep finance jargon to a minimum.
Focus on the future. There’s no need to sugarcoat it: Pulling the company through the downturn isn’t going to be easy, but emphasizing the challenge can have its benefits. “It’s a great time for [your employees] to realize that they can play a role in discovering opportunities for the company,” says Vince Thompson, a former manager at AOL and author of the book Ignited.
Hot Tip
The You in Team
If a company is going to stay resilient, the staff’s collective commitment and collaboration are essential. In this environment, simply making an effort to be more visible and available to employees can spark productivity and bring the team together.
For example, if you normally work within the confines of a walled office while your team toils away in the cube farm, grab your laptop and set up shop in a cubicle near them — even if it’s only a couple of times a week. Start showing up to the smaller meetings that you usually skip, or rearrange your travel schedule to cut down how much time you spend out of the office. In short, don’t wait for employees to take advantage of an open-door policy. Go to them first, and ask how their work is going. This isn’t about micromanaging — it’s about knowing firsthand what they need.
Enlist the Team to Fix What’s Broken
Goal: Motivate employees and find out how and where the business needs to change.
Traditionally, the top execs decide the strategy and let it trickle down. The problem with this tactic is that it rarely makes the emotional case needed to mobilize employees around a common goal, says Paul Bromfield, a principal at Katzenbach Partners, which has advised companies like Aetna, Credit Suisse, and Pfizer. “This is about problem-solving and discipline, and that’s where employees come in,” he says. “Companies should be harnessing employees in the effort to identify where to cut costs and how.”
Not only will utilizing workers’ expertise make them more invested in the company’s success, it also gives management a more honest look at what’s not working. Senior leadership tends to focus on just one area of cost-cutting, Bromfield says, like products, headcount, or moving operations off-shore. Employees, on the other hand, can use their collective wisdom to eliminate clumsy (and costly) procedures across divisions.
Here are four guidelines for involving staff in the process:
1. Identify key influencers. “If you’re really going to mobilize people, you can’t do it from the top,” Bromfield says. Find the key employees who hold sway in their departments and get them to embrace and spread the change effort. These are the people who know how things really work (not just the way they’re supposed to work) and have a way of bringing together the right people to get things done.
2. Let teams do the problem solving. Form groups around the influencers and motivate (rather than mandate) employees to identify what’s slowing down business. Often the best place to start is to look for processes and bureaucracies that annoy the team. Set a basic timeframe to achieve cost savings, but let each group work at its own pace.
3. Make it a conversation. Schedule brown-bag lunches or other informal venues to talk to employees about their findings and where they might be hitting roadblocks. In the early 1990s, Bromfield’s former client Texas Commerce Bank held focus groups with thousands of its employees to find out what procedures most frustrated bankers and customers. Using the feedback, the company nearly doubled its $50 million cost-savings goal.
4. Follow through. Many cost-savings programs fail because management implements the initiative only halfway or lets inefficiencies creep back after meeting short-term goals, which won’t sit well with employees. Adopt the changes wholesale or not at all.
Big Idea
Keep Top Performers Moving
In an ideal world, the upside of a downturn is that recruiting qualified employees becomes easier. With more candidates in the job market, now could be the time to find new talent if your company has the resources to continue hiring. But managers shouldn’t forget about the top performers already on staff, say Monster executives Steve Pogorzelski, Dr. Jesse Harriott, and Doug Hardy, authors of a recent paper on how companies should invest in employees when business slows down.
When the economy’s bad, it’s easy to think that employees are grateful to have jobs at all. But layoffs and budget cuts may cause good workers to look for better opportunities. Give them a reason to stay by making room for them to keep advancing their careers. “Keep critical talent moving — not necessarily up, but growing in experience, responsibility, money, or other tangible and intangible ways,” say the authors of the study. If promotions or raises aren’t possible, give good workers the chance to make a lateral move or to take on a struggling department.
Get Back to the Work That Matters
Goal: Make sure your team is tuned in to growth opportunities.
The problem with a downturn is that while cost cutting is absolutely necessary, it can make everyone gun-shy about pursuing new initiatives and opportunities for investment. However, if your department, and in turn the company, is going to emerge from the slump in a competitive position, there are a few key investments you can’t afford not to fight for now:
Customers
Learn about the customers of your weakest competitors, writes Michael Roberto, a blogger for Harvard Business Publishing and management professor at Bryant University. While competitors are busy shoring up their relationships with large, established clients, it could be the perfect time to swoop in and court their smaller customers.
Research and Development
Take a cue from Apple’s Steve Jobs. When asked by Fortune magazine recently about Apple’s strategy for the downturn, Jobs pointed to how the company survived the 2001 tech bust by upping its R&D budget. “It worked, and that’s exactly what we’ll do this time,” he told the magazine.
Separate the value-added activities from the wheel-spinning exercises, Thompson suggests in Ignited. Instead of giving up on new projects in a downturn, shift focus so that the team is investing time in identifying and prioritizing the projects that will generate the most benefit for the company. Even if the final product will have to wait until more resources are available, doing the legwork now means the product will go to market faster when the time is right — and employees will stay engaged in the meantime.
Vendors/Partners
“There are two ways to run a business,” says Fred Mossler, senior vice president of merchandising for online shoe retailer Zappos, “adversarily or as a partnership.” Considering that the company relies on about 1,500 partners to provide its customers with a diverse selection of shoes, Zappos has chosen the latter option. To that end, the company built an extranet, so that every partner can see how its brand is performing. “They get to see everything our buyers see,” Mossler says. “This way we have about 1,500 other sets of eyes looking at our business and helping to improve it.”
Case Study
How Zappos Survived the Tech Bust
The idea for Zappos was born in 1999, when the economy was booming. But the shoe retailer still was unprofitable and struggling to grow revenue two years later, when the recession hit. “It was impossible for us to get any additional funding,” Mossler says. To make matters worse, the company was learning that its original business plan, which made Zappos a middleman, wasn’t working as planned: Vendors didn’t always have every shoe in stock, and customers — who sometimes had to wait weeks for their orders to arrive — often ended up with the wrong orders.
Though the times might have called for belt-tightening, the company had to make a couple of very expensive decisions, both of which put long-term strategy before short-term cost cutting. First, management realized that it needed total control over the merchandise in order to give the best customer service — a decision that meant sacrificing 25 percent of company revenue. Second, to make sure customers knew exactly what they were getting, the company hired photographers to take pictures of every pair of shoes it stocked. The site now has photos of its more than 3 million items, mostly shoes, from up to eight different angles. “Most companies look at customer service as an expense, but we look at it as a long-term investment,” says Mossler. The moves paid off: Less than 10 years after its founding, Zappos is on track to bring in more than $1 billion in sales this year.
Acknowledge and Reward Deserving Employees
Goal: Recognize achievement, even if resources are scarce.
Employee bonuses and raises are among some of the first expenses that upper management cuts during a downturn. But even if extra compensation isn’t in the budget, that doesn’t excuse managers from rewarding employees. “Lack of recognition — both financially and verbally — is one of the things that does the most damage,” says David Sirota, founder of the management-consulting firm Sirota Survey Intelligence. “I worked with an investment bank some years back where bankers were earning bonuses from $100,000 to $1 million a year,” he says. “You know what they complained about? They didn’t know if the chairman thought they were actually doing a good job, because he never spoke to them about it.”
Danger! Danger! Danger!
Save Rewards for the Worthy
Keeping your employees engaged doesn’t mean rewarding them just for doing their jobs. The most effective rewards are significant but well deserved. Libby Sartain became head of Yahoo’s human resources department in 2001, just as the company received a hard knock from the dot-com bust. She decided that instead of quietly giving large bonuses to overachievers, which wasn’t providing much bang for the buck, Yahoo needed to regularly single out the top 15 to 20 stellar individuals and teams — not only to reward them, but to help the rest of the company understand what made these employees outstanding.
The following year, the company gave its first Superstar Awards. Candidates were nominated by their peers for significant achievements and awarded cash prizes ranging from $5,000 to $50,000. The Yahoo Superstar Awards program is now in its seventh year and has honored employees for contributions like creating the Panama advertising system, inventing a way to advertise on instant messages, and fixing a troublesome accounting problem. “This isn’t egalitarian, this is a meritocracy,” Sartain says, acknowledging that some managers resisted the idea at first. “When people saw the winners, they understood why they won, and it took hold and became part of the culture.”
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