Category Archives: Time Management

Give Reasonable Directions

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Follow up instructions with reason.

Professional development series

This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into office etiquette on various real-world IT topics in detail.
If you are interested in more training in these areas, please sign-up for the continuing online coaching series.

I experienced two very different situations that highlighted the need for explaining the reason for your instructions.

1)     A friend received instructions from her doctor to take the next few days off and away from work.  My friend agreed to take several days off – then proceeded to continue to read work emails and call into conference calls.

2)     A family member wanted to increase their protein intake and purchased some Whey powder to mix in with their coffee.  Since the canister’s instructions mentioned that 9 scoops will cover their daily protein requirements, she returned the product because she would not be using 9 scoops in her coffee.

As you can see from the above (very different) examples, different people interpret instructions differently.

But what if the instructions came with the following explanation or reasons?

What if the doctor said: “The reason I recommend taking several days off and away from work is to allow both your mind and body a break from work-related issues”?.  I want you to unplug completely for several days to recharge and get well.  This means no emails, no meetings, no nothing.  Hand off any immediate tasks to your manager and then completely unplug.”

What if my family member understood that the protein supplement is just that, a tool or supplement to add more protein to your current dietary program?  You wouldn’t necessarily need to use 9 scoops, if your current meal plan already included protein.  It is only meant as a tool to assist you in absorbing the right amount of daily required protein in a balanced plan.

If my friend and family member had understood the purpose behind the instructions, their response would have been more in lined with the intent of the instructions.  But by providing just the instructions, we have allowed room for error.

So – how can we, as team leaders and employers, avoid these pitfalls?  The first step is to avoid one-way instructions or directions.  Although email may be a convenient “instruction” media, it does not assure that the directions were interpreted correctly (or the way you had intended).

Here are some steps to assure that you will get what you want.

Understand the intent or goal of your instructions:

If you cannot articulate the reason for your request, it’s impossible for your employee or teammate to ‘hit it out of the park’ for you.

Verify that every step of your instructions support and are aligned with your goal.

Everything changes.  What worked last month may not be relevant today.  Verify that your current process is still aligned with your intentions.

For example: Requiring your salaried employees to submit time cards to verify that they are working the proper number of hours.

 This procedure may not be accomplishing your true goal.  Your goal is probably to make sure your salaried employees are performing and accomplishing the work they are committed to accomplish.  You may want to consider weekly one-on-one meetings to verify status on projects and tasks (versus keeping track of the hours they are logging).

Convey both the directions/instructions and reason to your staff/team.

To properly convey the instructions and reason, you need to also include active and empathic LISTENING skills.  Merely stating the instructions and reasons, only, do not assure that the message was received properly.  You need to also ask Open-ended questions to verify the message was received correctly.  This means sending an email-instruction is not sufficient.  You need an interactive face-to-face or phone meeting.  Some things to validate on that interactive meeting:

  1. Convey your instructions and reason
  2. Ask audience members to paraphrase your instructions and reason
  3. Ask audience members to share what these instructions mean to their current roles and responsibilities
  4. Ask audience members how these instructions will change the way they do their jobs (both positive and negatively)
  5. If any negative changes results, discuss/brainstorm on alternatives to accomplish your goal without negative impact to the team.

Conclusions:

Although these above steps take a little more time upfront (versus merely providing an email directive), it will avoid misinterpretations and some email-churn of Q&A after the project has started.     Being impatient or too concise with your direction may cost you in the long run (because your instructions can be misinterpreted and your project derailed). Allowing your team to play a co-creative role in this solution will lead to a more collaborative working relationship.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly professional tips newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1)      Time management
2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

Design your next performance review workshop

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Greetings from Laura

I just completed a great lesson plan on “Designing your next performance review.” for my online coaching series.  I’m really excited about the materials, techniques and alternative references that I have been including in this subscription based lessons-learned series.
But this particular episode holds a particular soft-spot in my heart.   Most of my professional friends are disappointed at one time or another about a recent performance appraisals.   This particular lesson outlines several easy steps to assure an exceptional review.

If you would like this on-line class material (at no cost and one-time limited offer), please fill in this order form.  No credit or payment information is required.

My hope is that you will find the material very valuable and decide to subscribe to this continuous on-line coaching series.

Even if you decide not to enroll in the series, please use this particular lesson to your best advantage.

Warmly,
Laura Lee Rose

5 Phrases to Avoid Saying to Your Employees

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What you say — and don’t say — to employees can have a significant impact on your relationship with them. This is important for small-business owners to keep in mind, because keeping employees happy can boost their productivity.

Laura Lee Rose, a time-management and efficiency coach, says that fostering a positive, healthy relationship with your workers is similar to maintaining other personal or business relationships. “It takes compassion without compromising your individual or business goals, mission, or vision,” she notes.

 

Check out the rest of Rachel Hartman’s article and interview at:

5 Phrases to Avoid Saying to Your Employees

by Rachel Hartman on August 30, 2012

Design your own performance review

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In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skills Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, we cover real-life professional dilemmas such as the below.
If you are interested in more training in these areas, please signup for the continuing online coaching series.

Do these feelings sound familiar?
  • Made it through my yearly eval with only one ‘below expectations’ – the overall eval was ‘average’.
  • I was prepared for the absolute worst.
  • Someone who had their eval earlier that day handed in their resignation immediately after getting their eval
Is this the way you really want to approach your performance review?  Take the time NOW to visualize what you really want your performance review to report.  Then set upon a plan of action to achieve those SMART goals.  You will be much more successful if you use the work-year to actually create your perfect performance review, versus just letting it happen without your design input.
Other things to incorporate:
  • YOU initiate quarterly reviews of your performance (if going well — more frequent if you are not on target)
  • YOU articulate your performance goals to your manager
  • YOU keep track of your achievements throughout the year that illustrate your accomplishments of these goals
  • YOU ask your manager on what projects and opportunities he/she  commends for you to accomplish your performance review goals.
Most people act as if  their career goals and accomplishments are their manager’s responsibility.  This is actually a false premise.  If you are interested in more tips on how to take more control of your professional development and career, please check out my on-line coaching academy series.We talk more about how to incorporate this philosophy into the real-world professional environment in my on-line coaching academy series.  <check out our GoTo Academy: Soft Skills Tools for the GoTo Professional>

Stop working 7 Days a Week to get your job done.

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This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into office etiquette on various real-world IT topics in detail.
If you are interested in more training in these areas, please signup for the continuing online coaching series.

In the previous newsletter article on Professional Development, we covered some office conflicts (don’t miss another professional newsletter tip—signup for the free newsletter here). A follow-up client question (regarding the previous newsletter article) was “If your workplace is getting too hard, but you like the job – do you leave the job or stay there? What’s your recommendation, please.”

I am not a fan of the idea of working 7 days a week. As a time and project manager, I am more in-lined with realistically scheduling for 5 quality work days (or equivalent). The company is paying you for 5 days of quality (i.e. the very best of you). You can’t give the best of you,  if you are not the best of you (which mean the well-rounded healthy, happy, stress-free you). I recommend realistically planning and working 5 quality work days. This way you have the energy and stamina to handle anything that comes your way. You will have the adrenalin required for the infrequent emergency.

“But the works continues to come and my boss expects me to do it.  If I don’t do it, I get a poor performance review or worst: fired!”

Imagine the company as a restaurant with a glutton of menu items.  But you don’t have the funds (time and energy) to purchase everything on the menu.  Therefore, you deliberately pick and choose the items that best fit your budget and preferences.  Now, imagine your manager as a blind waiter.  The blind waiter will continue to pour your coffee until you say “when”.  In both situations (the menu and the coffee), it is your responsibility to speak up.  The company and waiter will continue to bring you food and drinks until you say “stop”.  Their job is to push their product.   And even if you take the meals home to complete later, they end up spoiled and stacked at the back of your refrigerator.

Your manager wants the work ‘done with quality’ — not laying at the bottom of your in-basket (i.e. back of your refrigerator).  He doesn’t much care if you get it done or someone else gets it done.  Allowing him enough lead time to manage and hand-off to someone else is the responsible thing to do.

“I’m worried about my performance review.”

At the end of the day, your manager expects good work from you.  They contracted for 5 days of quality work, allowing you to create a balanced life that sustains your energy, passions, and expertise.  The weekends and vacations are designed to energize, feed your creativity and hone your skills.  Taking this needed time away from work allows you to be more productive and effective during the paid 5 days at the office.  Being fully transparent on the items that you can realistically accomplish with quality and those that need to be re-assigned or postponed, allow your team to properly manage the business.  Taking full advantage of the team attitude propels you to a different level.  Quality and honest service begets larger rewards.

On the other hand, working long hours 6 or 7 days a week will product mediocre product and services. Not taking the vacations, weekends, breaks and training drains your batteries.  Although effective for short periods in ‘high-crunch’ emergencies, the execution as a long-term strategy will be exhausting. You will be producing 7 days of mediocre work.  Not producing your best 5 days a week is stealing from your company.  The company will not be impressed with the mediocre work (even though you feel you are working hard and putting in extra hours) and you will get a poor performance review. Now you are resenting the extra hours and the lack of appreciation.

Conclusion:

As in the restaurant, the company will always have things for you to do.  The projects and ideas will continue to flow and evolve.  Every accomplishment will yield new ideas for the next project or service.  It is a never-ending spiral of growth and expansion.  Therefore, the list will never be completed.  If the list will never be completed, then working 7 days a week won’t be enough, either.  In the restaurant, you have no problem picking and choosing from the menu.  You have no problem saying “when”.  We need to feel that comfortable in the professional office as well.

On the other hand, I believe you can have it all.   To learn how to have it all, please subscribe to the GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly professional tips newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1)      Time management
2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

 

How to build a healthy employee relationship

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Whether you are a small business owner or head of a corporate department, building healthy employee relationships is much like building any relationship.  Read on for some quick building blocks for a strong employer/employee foundation.
Some significant tools are:
1) Good and open communications
2) Avoiding blame or defensiveness (don’t take anything personally)
3) Don’t make assumptions (avoid judging others)
4) Incorporate aspects of coaching and mentoring (lead by outstanding example)
Key phrases to incorporate:
Someone’s performance level is dropping and they are constantly late and/or missing important meetings:
Review the previous agreement or understanding:
“John, I need help on something. Because this is a small company and we’re working hard to make it a success, I need all my staff to be working effectively and efficiently. When I first hired you, we agreed that the work-day would start promptly at 8:30am – 5:00pm (with 1 hour for lunch at 12:00). Does that match your memory?”
“yes”
Review the reason behind the rule or agreement:
“Great. The reason I need those time blocks is so that I can schedule the proper staff meetings, conference calls, project planning and schedules within those allotted blocks. With those agreements in place, I can depend upon my full staff available during those blocks. This allows the department to function seamlessly without the overhead of micromanaging and time-cards. Have I held up to my commitment to only schedule work-related activities during those hours?”
“yes”
State your observations in a non-judgmental tone:
“Great. In regards to this specific area, I have noticed that you have not be attending our staff meetings and have been arriving late and leaving earlier. This has been a recent occurrence, maybe 2 weeks. Is there something outside of the office that is affecting your ability be fully available during the regular work hours? Something that just recently happened?”
Listen with an open mind:
At this point you might discover that your employee is going through something temporary (either in or out of the office). For example: he/she may be going through a divorce and is struggling with child custody issues. It might simply be a matter figuring out the new child-drop-off patterns or resolving some additional child-care arrangements.
Come up with a plan that accomplishes both your and their needs:
In this example, it could simply be a matter of allowing the employee to work from home on the days they are responsible for their children. Or shifting the meetings that they are critical/responsible for — later in the day/morning. Or recording the staff meetings for people to review later.
Bottom line: A healthy employee relationship is not much different from any personal or business relationship. It takes compassion without compromising your individual or business goals, mission or vision. Majority of the time, there is a solution that uplifts both sides.

Work is getting too hard, but you enjoy the job….what do you do?

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This is Laura Lee Rose, business and success coach that specializes in time management, career management and work/life balance strategies.   Recently I received the questions: “Work is getting too hard, but I enjoy the job.  What should I do? Should I stick it out or leave?”

Although I don’t know enough about this particular situation to answer in detail — I do know that if you don’t do something different, things will get worse.

On the other hand, I believe you can have it all.   Here are some tips to experiment with:

  1.  Clearly articulate what you really like about your current position.
  2. Find ways to increase your focus on those aspects that you enjoy.
  3. Find ways to delegate and train others on the tasks that are not aligned with your individual career goals.
  4. Acknowledge that the MUST DO items will always get done (otherwise they are not really MUST DO items). Also acknowledge that you can’t do everything. You can only do your best.
  5. If some of those “MUST DO” items are not aligned with your individual career goals, be transparent with your manager.  Express that you want to always give your best.  And you are unable to do your quality best on this particular item.
  6.  Be transparent with co-workers and managers on what you are working on and what you are not currently working on. Be transparent on (and realistic about)  when you will get to things, and what you are prioritizing very low. If they feel that the things you are not working on are important — it will get assigned to someone else. If it doesn’t get assigned to someone else — then it’s not that important. (See Rule 4).

Read Don Ruiz’s The Four Agreements  (quick summary below):

  1. Be impeccable with your word (Say way you mean, and do what you say)
  2. Don’t take anything personally
  3. Don’t assume or judge
  4. Always do your best.

How to easily handle a co-worker who blame others

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Have you ever been a target of  undeserved blame?  Do you know someone that deflects his/her responsibility for the problem by putting the spotlight on someone else?
What’s the best way to handle these situations?  Do you fight fire with fire?  Or do you fight fire with water?
An effective and professional way to  handle co-workers who blame others is to simply ignore them. Stay focused on what is going to assist the team in the long run. Put the spotlight back on what will get your team moving forward.
Simply focus on two things:
1) Where you are right now.
2) Where you want to actually be.
Although you can do little to change how others act, the ‘blame game” is usually initiated as a defense strategy.  Eliminating the need to defend and judge will eliminate the need to blame others.
Avoiding the blame game is easy if you are fully focused on the solution (versus the problem).
If the co-worker is making you the center of attention, use that spotlight to focus on the solution. 
For example:.
“While I do not agree with how this issue occurred, Gary is right about one thing. I do want to take some responsibility for fixing it. Gang – we are where we are. What do we need to do right now to get us back on the right track”.

Want to be a good leader? Be a good teacher.

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– When the student is ready, the teach will appear
Buddist Proverb

In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skills Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, we cover real-life professional dilemmas such as the below.
If you are interested in more training in these areas, please signup for the continuing online coaching series.
Whether you are leading in the office, home or life, it’s much like teaching.
A good teacher provides only the answers that the student is asking.  If the teacher’s goals is to  cover all the information in their syllabus to accomplish the semester’s goal, then their class plan will be different than if their goal was to help the student understand the significant concepts of the material.  You can see how the different emphasis and goals might change the way the teacher approaches the task.

Same with the work force and life.
As a leader in the work force, community or life in general, you can decide what type of leader you want to be.
Do you want your focus to be “the execution of a series of pre-planned tasks and directives” or will your focus be on the high-level mission and vision (allowing for the natural deviation of specific tasks to accomplish the essence of the high-level vision)?  Both goals are very appropriate.  Both goals will have different approaches.

A good teacher modifies their pace to their student’s absorption rate or rate of understanding.  If the teach gets too far ahead of the student, the student will be lost and frustrated.  If the teach falls too far behind the student, the student will get bored and distracted with other things to fill in the empty space.

Same with leading.  A good leader sets his/her pace to the team’s movements.  In a funny way, the good leader is actually following the team.  If the leader leads too far ahead, the team will be pushed, pulled and jerked into compliance.  Although the tasks might be executed on time, they may be lacking of quality and eloquence.  If the leader leads to slowly, the team is apt to either complete the task on their own in a different direction (and away from the overall vision) or get distracted to complete something else (delaying the delivery of this project).

Becoming a good leader (like becoming a good teacher) takes time, practice and patience with oneself and others.  It’s not an over night skill.  Be gentle with yourself and with others, and everything will come together at the right time.

If you are interested in knowing how to take these leadership concepts into the professional environment, please sign up for my professional and career management (free) newsletter at
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Feel free to share this newsletter with your family, friends and colleagues. My business relies on satisfied clients as the primary source of new business, and your referrals are both welcome and most sincerely appreciated!

Enjoy!

Warmly,
Laura Lee Rose
We talk more about how to incorporate this philosophy into the real-world professional environment in my on-line coaching academy series.  <check out our GoTo Academy: Soft Skills Tools for the GoTo Professional>

Feel free to share this newsletter with your family, friends and colleagues. My business relies on satisfied clients as the primary source of new business, and your referrals are both welcome and most sincerely appreciated!

Got a Problem?

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Got Pain?

In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skills Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into the different tools, usage, and usage etiquette in detail.
If you are interested in more training in these areas, please signup for the continuing online coaching series.

I don’t often get headaches, but on Wednesday, I had a duzy.
I spent most of the morning and afternoon trying to figure out why I had this headache and what type it was:
  • Was I struggling with something with my business?
  • Was something out of alignment?
  • Was I just reacting to the high-low pressures of the upcoming summer storms?
  • Is my body just telling me to shut-down for awhile?
  • Should I focus and mediate this headache away?
  • Lay down for awhile?  (since I can’t seem to concentrate anyways)
  • Was this something people call a migraine?
  • Was it a sinus headache?
Finally it got so distracting that I could not move my head without pain. So — late afternoon, I decided to take a trip to the drug store and get some headache-powder. The Goody headache powder (not recommending it — just stating that it works for me) has always works for me. But by the time I  entered the drug store — I could not remember why I was there!
“This damn headache — it’s so distracting. Oh-yeah…. I’m here because of the headache.”
Within 5 minutes of taking the powder — I was feeling much better.  I can’t honestly tell you when it completely when away — because my attention was no longer on the headache.  But it is easy to see how we can get caught up and distracted in the “pain” that we don’t take the action to remove it.  I often use the term “we’re postponing the cure”. We’re slowing ourselves down.

I spent most of the day wondering “why I had a headache” (thinking about it) — instead of actually doing something about it. I already knew Goody would help — yet it wasn’t until late afternoon that I decided to go to the store and get it. I spent most of my day focused on the problem and not the solution ……

We talk more about how to incorporate this philosophy into the real-world professional environment in my on-line coaching academy series.  <check out our GoTo Academy: Soft Skills Tools for the GoTo Professional>
Feel free to share this newsletter with your family, friends and colleagues. My business relies on satisfied clients as the primary source of new business, and your referrals are both welcome and most sincerely appreciated!