Tag Archives: Blooming entrepreneurs

Is keeping the status quo keeping you back?

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Is keeping the status quo keeping you back?
Is there such a thing as being too content?

Take these three scenarios:

  1. low income, high school degree, 2years of college, working at hardware store, getting married in spring, looking forward in starting a family right away
  2. medium-high income, college and master, software industry, interested in expensive side hobby or second business
  3. multimillionaire on the level of Donald trump and Oprah Winfrey

Of these three, who do you feel should be working to keep everything exactly as it is?

Who should keep their income, their job level, the size of their home, their circle of friends, their opinions and beliefs–exactly the same? Of these three, who should consider a lateral change over a promotion with addition training, growth and income opportunities?

Would it be the multimillionaire that already has everything anyone could ever imagine?  Or would it be the medium or low income group, because they don’t have any spare funds to explore and experiment with (you have to have money to make money…)?

It’s difficult to answer because it is not the individual situation that dictates our response but our emotional and belief system.  People that believe they can do, have and be anything they can imagine are often both very appreciative of what they currently have —- and are excitedly anticipating more and greater things.  They are always exploring and expanding.

It’s rarely the size of their pocket but the wealth of their confidence-in-self that dictates the life they have designed for themselves.

Let me know what you think about these ideas.

And if you would like some individual help on designing your perfect life, contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.com

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!

Office Etiquette Tips

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As a success and business coach, I find that transparency is the first defense against discomfort. At your next one-on-one meeting, openly discuss the following with your manager:
  1. Expected work hours (including your individual schedule regarding picking up children, volunteer schedule, etc).
  2. Communicate any deviation from the above plan when appropriate
  3. Handling business travel and expenses:  Ask your manager what is the normal expense procedures. If you are meeting a client, the you normally pick up the check for the client. Verify your assumptions with your manager.
  4. Personal calls can be taken at the desk if you have your own office. In shared offices or cubes, calls can be distracting for your office mates. It is not only interrupting your work time but your office mates day as well. On the other hand, some personal calls can not be avoided (and often will energize you toward higher performance at work).  Like office breaks, a personal call can keep us inspired and creative.  Just keep them short or schedule them for a conference room.
  5. Sending company-wide/department-wide emails only with your manager’s permission. Some managers would like to review these types of emails. Talk to your manager upfront, on how to handle these things.
  6. Sending/accepting a boss’ friend request on Facebook. My recommendation is to keep your personal facebook account separate from your work. If you feel uncomfortable inviting your boss into your home/life everyday (and weekend) — don’t mix the two. You may want to create a separate Facebook group for office people (in which you can include your boss). This allows you to communicate through facebook, by allowing certain groups access to work-events-messages and separate/limit other messages and activities for other friends.
  7. Buying candy/cookies from your boss’ children. If you really, really want the candy/cookies/Christmas wrap etc (and would be purchasing it from someone else anyway), supporting your boss’ children is a nice gesture. However, if you do not want the product, my recommendation is to simply apologize for not being able to purchase the candy/cookies because you already donate your maximum to your other charities. Most companies have a policy against solicitation and it’s normally improper for the boss to impose this type of pressure on his/her employees. It can also become a slippery slope, because other co-workers see you purchase the items and may start bringing their children’s various fundraising efforts to you as well. This is why most companies have a policy against solicitations by employees as well as outsiders.

Best way to correct a supervisor’s/boss’ error… in front of others.  In my experience, it is best to avoid “correcting”. Instead, ask permission to add some additional information or data to the current analysis. Your objective data will either substantiate the decision or give a new dimension to the discussion — without judgement or a negative reference.

If you have other confusing situations, please send them to LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

Don’t miss a tip for career and time management:  <Subscribe to the Rose Coaching newsletter here>

Interested in an online coaching series?  <check out our GoTo Academy: Tools for the GoTo Guy and Gal>

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

Where does Instant Messaging and Chatting fit in the professional arena?

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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.

 

I agree that instant messaging is another good tool for communication. Chat and IM usage is also growing in the web-conference area. It’s a terrific tool to collect and answer questions during a presentation. I have been using the group chat functions in my many webinars and web conferences. I think it’s great for that.

 Once again, I agree with you that it’s a great tool in it’s separate uses. But I’m not 100% convinced that it’s a good alternative to email. Like any tool, IM can be misused.
In the regular office environment, Instant Messaging should be consider as “interrupting” someone for a moment for a quick FYI or interaction. It isn’t as effective for longer informative exchanges (not as effective as email, phone call or a face-to-face meeting).
Things to keep in mind when using IM:
  1. Since you can not see the person your are ‘pinging’, acknowledge that they may be in the middle of an important project, meeting, or interview. Ask them if they have time for a quick chat. Just because they are on their computer, don’t just assume they have the time to be interrupted like this. Their machine could just automatically bring up their chat window, even though they are not really available. Therefore, keep your IM short.
  2. Use a quick same-time chat to setup an official phone-call or meeting (or even to tell them that you have sent them a more detail email on the topic). Don’t try to actually conduct an impromptu one-on-one meeting using chat. Agree upon a time/date for the longer meeting, and allow them to return to what they were previously doing.
  3. Use a quick same-time IM to quickly verify information or status; but not a long explanation of said status. If your brief status update generates questions, pick up the phone (or schedule a proper meeting).
  4. 4) Instant Messaging isn’t as professional or effective a communication tool as a real phone call or face-to-face meeting — because people can not hear the refection of your voice, see your facial expression or your body language (similar to the limitations of email). Written text only covers 36% of the communicative message. The other 64% is conveyed through tone, expression and body language.
  5. IM has another drawback for medium or long-conversation uses. It is difficult to convey your entire thought without being interrupted by your co-chat-partner. People don’t realize when you are merely pausing. Therefore, they often jump-the-gun to respond to what they think you are saying (while you are pausing or gathering your thoughts). Since you were actually in mid-thought, IM introduces the opportunity for mis-direction and miscommunication.
  6. You also don’t know if the person has finished their thought or just has been momentarily distracted by something else that is currently happening in their location. This leads to disconnected and un-chronological ordered threads. Therefore, you are often responding and/or following different topics.
  7. Meetings are less effective if/when people are IM-ing others during the meeting. Your attention is no longer on purpose. (The exception is that if you actually pause the meeting to IM someone for a quick status or update that is aligned with the meeting purpose. Any off-purpose chatting is disrespectful.)
IM is a convenient professional tool to momentarily capture someone’s attention. But I’m not convinced it’s a good substitute for a phone call or person-to-person conversation. It’s also not as effective as email for longer-informational discussions. Just because it seems convenient, doesn’t mean it’s as effective as a real-person-to-person chat.
Video chats can certainly overcome many of the limitations of the IM texting. That tool is also becoming popular. Google, SKYPE, and ipads provide this capability and more computers (these days) have built-in webcams. The drawback is that you can not easily carry on the video chats in shared-office space.
I think they are all great tools. But great tools for different reasons and uses. They are great tools in their own right.  To learn more about the different tools and their most effective uses, please subscribe to the GoTo Academy: Tools for the GoTo Guy and Gal.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly 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

Replay with additional proactive techniques

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With some additional proactive (Quadrant 2 preparation — sign up for the online coaching sessions for more information on this technique), you can perform even better.

You get into the office early because you need to review the results of the overnight test run, and mail in the results before the 9:00am meeting.

“Darn, the overnight test failed at stage 6.  Why did that fail?  I need to figure out why it failed and start it back up.
Oh – the error message says that there are too many input files.  It also states that the unit tests were successfully run with 20 files, which suggested that perhaps more files could be run but it wasn’t guaranteed.   I’ll create a batch file that splits these in 20 file chunks that run them in the background.  In the meantime, I’ll manually run stage 6,7 and 8 on the first 20 files.  At least I will have sample report on the data. 
The time Carl took in making these error messages more user-friendly and understandable really paid off.  I’ll make a parking lot note to thank Carl (and copy his manager) for the error message AND suggest automating the 20 file-batch  routine.  I’ll also jot down all my notes and steps.  They will be helpful in his automation of the batch pre and post processing.”

You create a  routine that takes your 1,578 files and parses them into 20 file chunks through stage 6,7 and 8.  Once the first 20 gets through stage 6, they automatically move onto stage 7 and then into stage 8 (while the next 20 are being processed through stage 6, etc).  This way just in case you can’t get through all 1,578 files before the meeting – you’ll still be able to report some preliminary results at the 9:00 meeting.
While those files are running, you create a PowerPoint slide deck on the 20 files that have already completed.  This way, you will only have to update the data, analysis and recommendations at 8:00am.

Co-workers start trickling into the office.  Your tests are still running and your PowerPoint template is complete.  If worse comes to worse, you can present your status with these files.  You take your timer with you to the coffee station and chat with others.  While at the water cooler, you overhear that the email from the executives was just them expressing how appreciative they were of everyone working extra hours to get this product delivery completed.  You were right not to be distracted by those emails — even if they were sent at 2:00am by upper management.

At 8:00am your timer goes off.  You return to your desk to complete your report.  1,000 files fully completed the tests.  You use that data to update your deck.  You take the extra step to create an analysis and next step recommendations.  At 8:30am you see Carl walk down the hall.

               “CARL!”
Carl: “Hey!  How did those tests go?”
“Great!  Do you have a moment to take a look at the results?  I want to bounce off my analysis and recommendations off you….before the meeting.”
Carl:  “Sure!  “

While you and Carl are reviewing the recommendations, the last 578 files complete.  You and Carl contemplate updating the report.  But decide against it.  The results of the last 578 didn’t change your recommendations and would cause unnecessary panic in updating the slides.  You can safely report that all the tests were completed and are in compliance with these recommendations.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly 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