Wednesday, March 28, 2012
10 Steps to Getting More Done in Your Day
Every day, your to-do list seems to grow. And in this business climate of information overload and constant interruptions, it has become increasingly difficult for small business owners to get anything accomplished. Not to mention, instead of technology increasing your productivity, it often seems to weigh you down. How are you supposed be proud of what was accomplished today and not just be frustrated?
Here are 10 steps to getting more done in a single day. (After you get your cup of coffee, of course.)
1. Do not start the day by checking e-mail, voice messsages or social media feeds. This will suck you in a direction you do not want to go, and is the surest way to get your day off to a bad start.
2. Start by completing two things on your list that must get done today. Do the hard or unpleasant stuff first. Make sure whatever the tasks are, they will have a significant impact on your business and are part of the critical path to other business goals and objectives.
3. Make decisions and take action. Procrastination never pays off, so make the tough decisions first. Say "no" more often than you say "yes", and don’t even think about saying “maybe.”
4. Deal with every e-mail once. Read an e-mail and take action on it now. Don't save it for later or leave it in your inbox. File it in the appropriate subfolder if it is needed for later reference.
5. Focus on doing one thing at a time. Believe it or not, multitasking can cause brain damage. The brain actually doesn’t do multiple things at one time, but instead just switches very quickly. This does not improve your overall productivity.
6. Control distractions. Turn off the e-mail and social media notifications, beeps, ringtones and visits to your office. If you need to use a software tool that turns off your access to the Internet, install it. Limit or rotate the information you read.
7. Stay off the Internet, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter unless you have a plan. This is the fastest way to kill your productivity since you can drift on these sites forever. Know why you are using these tools and how it will help your business, and always set a time limit for this activity.
8. Do not enter a meeting without a written agenda and a stop time. And in some meetings, have everyone remain standing. Document action items and assignments, and end early if you can.
9. Delegate to others. Improving your productivity means utilizing the other people in your organization to take full responsibility for their own tasks. Unless you set up an assigned hierarchy, you will always be stuck with all the tasks.
10. Recharge. If technology would have its way, most small business owners would work 24/7. Set a time limit on work and ensure there are place in your life which are an oasis so you can recharge daily.
The Key To Managing Gen Y
What's the real key to managing Gen Y? Knowing more about them than they know about themselves.
After all, you know Gen Y loves the attention of being managed closely. You know Gen Y wants great mentoring. But the way to stand out in a crowd of employers is to understand Gen Y in a way they don’t yet understand themselves. Then you can add the kind of value that makes these young employees stay.
Here are things you need to know in order to do that:
1. They’re fundamentally conservative
Gen Y follows rules. You won't find Gen Y protesting in the streets because they make themselves heard within the confines of institutionalized permission.
Gen Y can’t stand conflict. When Gen Y doesn’t like something, you probably won’t hear about it. They just won’t show up.
Gen Y is inherently conservative. You might think Gen Y is asking for revolutionary stuff at work—like flextime, fair-wage salaries and good mentoring. But really, Gen Y is simply demanding what their parents told them they should expect from the world: Work that matters and that complements a life that matters. Those revolutionary expectations come from the parents—baby boomers. Gen Y is just doing what they are told.
2. They are slow moving
The helicopter parent has been a guidepost of Gen Y development. Gen Y is slow and methodical when it comes to making decisions. The idea of the helicopter parent emerged as Gen Y was receiving the most attentive self-esteem-focused parenting in history. Which means Gen Y is used to having their parents make their decisions, or at least steer them. So when they are left, on their own, to make a decision that no one can really help them with, Gen Y often gets stuck.
3. They are not entrepreneurs
Most Gen Y-ers say they want to own their own business. But what they really mean is they want to have a career that is not as tumultuous as their parents’ careers. Baby boomers relied on corporate America and they were let down. Gen Y is hoping to avoid that by relying on themselves. So to Gen Y, entrepreneurship is a safety net.
The problem, though, is that Gen Y loves being part of a team, and Gen Y loves having a manager paying close attention to them. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are lonely, crazy, anxious people. So Gen Y tries entrepreneurship, loses resolve, and goes back to the safety of working for someone else.
4. Appearences matter more to them than what’s real.
Dan Schawbel is a world-renowned personal branding expert and it is no coincidence that he’s also from Gen Y—Gen Y manages themselves like they’re celebrities. Which makes sense since online, everyone is searchable, knowable, trackable and vulnerable to faulty first-impressions. Dan Schawbel, and his army of personal branding experts have shown the world that what you look like online is actually what is real.
The result of this trend, though, is that Gen Y is more concerned with how they appear online than what’s actually going on in their lives. The best illustration of this trend is that they don’t make enough money for a huge, lavish wedding, but they still want their wedding pictures to be gorgeous, fun and exotic. So they elope, with a photographer, and post all the photos of a great wedding on Facebook.
5. They are followers
Gen Y is very team-oriented; they did book reports in teams, they went to prom in teams and they were the first generation to learn the playground rule: “you can’t say you can’t play.” The result of this way of seeing the world is that Gen Y is very, very non-competitive. Gen Y-ers are avid users of collaborative software that inadvertently flattens office hierarchy, and they have little interest in leading in the classic, hierarchical way. So beware: Gen Y’s leadership will look like non-leadership to everyone else.
6. They need to feel special
Most Gen Y-ers you know will say this does not apply to them. They don’t like to feel typical. Gen Y was raised to feel special. Treat them like they are special even if you know they are typical of their millions of peers.
Anyway, all generations have strengths and weaknesses. And just because Gen Y’s weakness is that they complain about being grouped as Gen Y, the bottom line is that they want personal attention from management so they can have more personal insight about themselves. This is a fair thing to want from work, and from life. In fact, if there is anything we can learn from Gen Y it is that everyone, no matter how old, should want this from their work life.
The Care and Feeding of Gen-Y Entrepreneurs
Where is Generation Y working during these tough times? And what do their employment trends mean for small employers?
A study examining where people aged 18 to 29 are working analyzed 4 million Gen-Y Facebook profiles. Here’s what the report found.
Gen-Y workforce trends
Bye-bye, Fortune 500: Most "millennials" don’t choose Fortune 500 companies as employers. According to the study, only 10 percent of Gen-Y workers have ever worked at a Fortune 500 company, and just 7 percent currently do.
"Fortune 500 companies are having a tough time hiring and retaining Gen-Y workers right now," Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, tells CIO magazine. The new study was conducted by Millennial Branding, with Identified.com.
"Gen-Y looks for more flexibility, like [the possibility of] working from home, and they want to have access to social networks. Fortune 500 companies don't usually allow this flexibility.”
Hello, small firms: So where are Gen-Y employees working? Shwabel says they’re more likely to work at startups and small companies.
They work where they can play a bigger role and have more of an impact on the company. The hiring process is also faster and more informal at smaller firms, and there’s usually more flexibility—all factors that appeal to millennials.
On their own: Those who are not working at startups are going a step further and starting their own companies.
The study shows that “owner” is the fifth most-popular job title for Gen-Y on Facebook. Titles like "server,” “intern” and “sales associate” came first. This pattern possibly reflects the poor job market that is pushing young people to start their own businesses instead of getting stuck in low-level jobs.
Moving fast: I know many people think millennials feel entitled. They believe the young people should pay their dues in entry-level jobs before moving up in the corporate world or starting their own businesses.
But Gen-Y doesn’t agree with this view and, have no problem quitting their jobs if they don’t feel rewarded or sense that they’re contributing to the company. The report found that Gen-Y employees are very likely to job-hop, spending an average of just two years working at their first jobs.
Recruiting and retaining Gen-Y employees
How can your small business recruit Gen-Y workers? And how can you get them to stick around? As a small employer, you have a natural edge over big corporations, but don’t rely on that.
The report urges employers of all sizes to encourage Gen-Y’s entrepreneurial attitude.
What does that mean? I’ve worked with young employees for years and I've come to my own conclusions. This generation craves freedom and independence, kind of like teenagers preparing to leave the nest. But they also want your feedback and guidance.
The solution is to let them be “intrapreneurs” within your company. Put them in charge of their time by offering flextime and remote work schedules. Give them a challenge and let them figure out how to handle it. Then, give them both positive and negative feedback on how they did.
Gen-Y will likely account for 75 percent of the workforce by 2025. The report cautions that, to stay competitive, large corporations must aggressively recruit these workers. Big companies will catch on, so get a head start by making Gen-Y feel welcome and valued at your small business.
4 Ways to Better Manage Gen-Y
By now the lower ranks of the proverbial corporate ladder have been completely taken over by Generation-Y, a group of people roughly between the ages of 18 and 29 years. Much has been made about the unique characteristics that define this generation, from their constant need to be connected, to their rather conservative perspective on the market. Just like the generations before them, there is also well-documented tension between Gen-Y and their older counterparts. Gen-Y is often perceived by some as being lazy, having a sense of entitlement and lacking in social skills. Regardless of your position, the simple fact is that soon this generation will assume the responsibility of middle-upper management, and their performance will largely determine the success of our economy in the next few decades.
According to Business and Professional Women’s Foundation, Gen-Y will make up approximately 75% of the global workforce by 2025! So there is incentive to better understand and prepare young professionals for the next steps in their career (As well as incentive to maximize their productivity in the workplace today!). With that said, here are four ways that you can be a better manager to your Generation-Y employees.
1. Make them feel like they have an impact on your business
Gen-Y wants to be a part of something, and they don’t want to wait 10 years until they are able to do it. Now certainly, this doesn’t mean that every entry-level employee should be given control of the budget or allowed to make strategic decisions for the company. However, there are small things that you can do as a manager that will go a long way in both developing them as leaders and maximizing their productivity. Give them the autonomy to make basic decisions on non-critical components of a project. Create an environment where they are comfortable with and encouraged to share their thoughts and opinions. Even if those opinions aren’t acted on, the sense that their contribution is valued will make them more productive for your company.
2. Build loyalty in smaller doses
Let’s face it, corporate loyalty is almost something that can be taught in a high school history class. Gone are the days of pension programs and employees beginning and ending a career at the same company. Gen-Y workers simply aren’t motivated by traditional means such as higher salary (Of course they are motivated by money, but there are other factors that are considered by them, such as growth opportunity, freedom of social media access and job security). Many companies have unrealistic expectations about corporate loyalty, where the employee is expected to associate with the brand name first and their co-workers second. Gen-Y employees are far more loyal to their immediate co-workers and superiors than to the brand they serve. As a manager even of a small group, create a culture of teamwork, recognition and growth, and you will find your employees far more satisfied, and much less likely to jump ship.
3. Set a clear success path for employees to grow within the company
This one goes hand in hand with building loyalty. Gen-Y employees do not feel loyal to corporations, because they don’t believe that corporations are loyal to them. They came of age during one of the worst economic time periods in our nation’s history, and they have seen their parents and other adult role models let go from companies that they had been ‘loyal’ to for a number of years. In their minds, that loyalty isn’t reciprocated, and their experience in a down economy has taught them to look out for themselves. To this end, members of Gen-Y change their first jobs after just over 2 years! Still, despite Gen-Y’s pessimism, many would prefer to stay with their organizations and grow. They leave because they feel like they have no other choice. So when onboarding Gen-Y new-hires, work with them to determine their career goals, and develop a pathway for them to reach those goals. Designate specific milestones and metrics that will help them to move their way up the ladder and not feel as though they have to leave in order to advance their careers.
4. Embrace their way of doing things
Gen-Y is inherently different from Gen-X and the Baby Boomers. They are a results-driven group, and don’t enjoy the confines of a 9-5 work day. That may draw criticism, but they are ready and willing to work nights and weekends to get their work done. They may be connected to the Internet and social media almost too much, which may lead to distraction at the work place, but it also has given them an unmatched network of information, and they are able to conduct research at light speed when compared to prior generations. Clearly, there is a balance, but by harnessing the characteristics of Gen-Y, you will give them a sense of purpose and value while at the same time improving your business’ success.
Dan Schawbel is the Founder of Millennial Branding, a Gen-Y research and management consulting firm. He is the author of Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Good Bosses Are The Same Today As They Were In 1992
BY Expert Blogger Robert I. Sutton, PhD |
In a world of near-constant innovation and disruption, the definition of a great boss (or leader or manager) may be the one thing that doesn't require reinvention.
A lot of people write business books: about eleven thousand are published each year. There are armies of consultants, gurus, and wannabe thought leaders, and thousands of management magazines, radio and TV shows, websites, and blogs.
These purveyors of management knowledge have incentives for claiming their ideas are “new and improved” rather than the same old thing. One twist, which I’ve seen a lot lately, is the claim that management or leadership needs to be reinvented. Many reasons given for this need seem sensible: Gen X and Gen Y require different management techniques; outsourcing, globalization, and information technology means working with people we rarely if ever meet in person; the pressure to think and move ever faster is unprecedented; so many employees are disengaged that they need to be managed so they feel appreciated.
Yet, no matter how hard I look at studies by academics and consulting firms, or at contrasts between successful and unsuccessful leaders, I can’t find persuasive evidence of substantial change in the kinds of bosses people want to become or work for, or that enable human groups and organizations to thrive. Changes such as the computer revolution, globalization, and distributed teams mean that if you are a boss, staying in tune with followers is more challenging than ever. And, certainly, bosses need to be more culturally aware because many workplaces are composed of more diverse people.
But every new generation of bosses faces hurdles that seem to make the job tougher than it ever was. The introduction of the telephone and air travel created many of the same challenges as the computer revolution--as did the introduction of the telegraph and trains. Just as every new generation of teenagers believes they have discovered sex and their parents can’t possibly understand what it feels like to be them, believing that that no prior generation of bosses ever faced anything like this and these crazy times require entirely new ways of thinking and acting are likely soothing to modern managers. These beliefs also help socalled experts like me sell our wares. Yet there is little evidence to support the claim that organizations—let alone the humans in them—have changed so drastically that we need to invent a whole new kind of boss.
This isn’t a new idea, either. In 1992, two Harvard Business School professors, Robert Eccles and Nitin Nohria (now the dean of HBS), wrote Beyond the Hype. This book showed that while management thinkers (notably the much worshipped Peter Drucker) have repeatedly claimed it is a whole new world out there for managers and employees--that everything needs to be reinvented because the old ways are obsolete--the fundamentals of what it takes to lead, organize, and inspire followers were pretty much “the same as it ever was.”
Eccles and Norhia’s argument applies as well in 2012 as in 1992--at least when it comes to bosses. Just like the leaders people wanted before the industrial revolution, we humans still yearn to follow others who are competent enough to bring in resources, teach us new skills, and generate attention and prestige from key outsiders--who drive performance. We also want fair leaders who protect us, and who make us feel cared for and respected--who inject humanity. Although the ways bosses accomplish these things is and has always been constrained by technologies, culture, different kinds of work, and on and on, the fundamentals remain unchanged. Yet the hype keeps flying about how we need to reinvent management. In particular, we often hear calls for the end of hierarchy, the virtues of empowerment, and how knowledge workers need to be treated in new and different ways.
The notion that people who do creative or complex work need more autonomy than others is quite old. Thomas Edison’s lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey, was decentralized; workers there were encouraged to develop their own ideas, and there were fewer and less obvious status differences between people at different hierarchical levels compared to traditional organizations of the time.
Yet, at Edison’s lab--as at today’s Apple, Google, Facebook, and Pixar and every other creative organization I know—there was a clear pecking order. Indeed, a careful review of research by my Stanford colleagues Debra Gruenfeld and Larissa Tiedens shows that we humans prefer hierarchical relationships, are happier when we work in clear hierarchies than where power differences are absent or unclear, and we experience less distress and work more effectively.
Gruenfeld and Tiedens suggest that we prefer hierarchies because they are effective for sorting people based on different skills and reduce ambiguity. The upshot is that although good bosses--especially in creative places--do encourage input and delegate decisions, little evidence suggests that the need or desire for bosses--and bosses of bosses--will disappear anytime soon.
So the challenge is not to reinvent management. Rather it is to find ways to dampen the known drawbacks of pecking orders and amplify the positive elements. That is what great bosses do and have always done.
The Google experience is instructive. In 2009, Lazlo Block, vice president of People Operations, launched a study called Project Oxygen to figure out the differences between the best and the worst bosses at Google. Since Google was first founded about fifteen years ago, its leaders believed that technical expertise was the most crucial quality of a great boss and that since such smart people worked there, a boss’s job was pretty much to leave people alone unless they asked for technical help. Project Oxygen revealed insights that surprised Google’s leaders, but it fit with thousands of studies--including many that shaped Good Boss, Bad Boss.
Technical expertise ranked dead last among the predictors of a boss’s effectiveness. Instead, as The New York Times reported, “What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.”Google is an evidence-based place. So they boiled down their list of what good bosses do into just a few key factors, and they now work intensely with underperforming bosses to change their behavior. If you are a boss, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by considering Google’s journey.
Don’t believe the hype about reinventing management. As over fifty years of research shows, treating employees with respect, encouraging them to participate and to make suggestions, and listening to them are as important as ever. The same is true about setting a clear direction, making decisions, and taking charge.
T
his is the fourth in a series excerpted from a new chapter in the paperback version of Good Boss, Bad Boss, a New York Times best-seller by Robert Sutton. Read the three other installments here.
Why do employers value emotional intelligence over IQ?
August 18, 2011 www.techjournalsouth.com
With smaller staffs, higher stress levels and uncertainties around the economy, are employers changing what they look for in prospective employees?
Thirty-four percent of hiring managers said they are placing greater emphasis on emotional intelligence when hiring and promoting employees post-recession, according to a new CareerBuilder survey.
Seventy-one percent said they value emotional intelligence in an employee more than IQ.
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a general assessment of a person’s abilities to control emotions, to sense, understand and react to others’ emotions, and manage relationships. The national survey –conducted May 19 to June 8, 2011, with more than 2600 hiring managers and human resource professionals – reveals that EI is a critical characteristic for landing a job and advancing one’s career.
Fifty-nine percent of employers would not hire someone who has a high IQ but low EI. For workers being considered for a promotion, the high EI candidate will beat out the high IQ candidate in most cases – 75 percent said they’re more likely to promote the high EI worker.
“The competitive job market allows employers to look more closely at the intangible qualities that pay dividends down the road – like skilled communicators and perceptive team players,” said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. “Technical competency and intelligence are important assets for every worker, but when it’s down to you and another candidate for a promotion or new job, dynamic interpersonal skills will set you apart. In a recovering economy, employers want people who can effectively make decisions in stressful situations and can empathize with the needs of their colleagues and clients to deliver the best results.”
When asked why emotional intelligence is more important than high IQ, employers said (in order of importance):
- Employees [with high EI] are more likely to stay calm under pressure
- Employees know how to resolve conflict effectively
- Employees are empathetic to their team members and react accordingly
- Employees lead by example
- Employees tend to make more thoughtful business decisions
- They admit and learn from their mistakes
- They can keep emotions in check and have thoughtful discussions on tough issues
- They listen as much or more than they talk
- They take criticism well
- They show grace under pressure
The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time
by: Steve Tobak blogs.hbr.org March14, 2012
Why is it that between 25 and 50 per cent of people report feeling overwhelmed or burned out at work?
It's not just the number of hours we're working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time.
What we've lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It's like an itch we can't resist scratching, even though scratching invariably makes it worse.
Tell the truth: Do you answer email during conference calls (and sometimes even during calls with one other person)? Do you bring your laptop to meetings and then pretend you're taking notes while you surf the net? Do you eat lunch at your desk? Do you make calls while you're driving, and even send the occasional text, even though you know you shouldn't?
The biggest cost — assuming you don't crash — is to your productivity. In part, that's a simple consequence of splitting your attention, so that you're partially engaged in multiple activities but rarely fully engaged in any one. In part, it's because when you switch away from a primary task to do something else, you're increasing the time it takes to finish that task by an average of 25 per cent.
But most insidiously, it's because if you're always doing something, you're relentlessly burning down your available reservoir of energy over the course of every day, so you have less available with every passing hour.
I know this from my own experience. I get two to three times as much writing accomplished when I focus without interruption for a designated period of time and then take a real break, away from my desk. The best way for an organization to fuel higher productivity and more innovative thinking is to strongly encourage finite periods of absorbed focus, as well as shorter periods of real renewal.
If you're a manager, here are three policies worth promoting:
1. Maintain meeting discipline. Schedule meetings for 45 minutes, rather than an hour or longer, so participants can stay focused, take time afterward to reflect on what's been discussed, and recover before the next obligation. Start all meetings at a precise time, end at a precise time, and insist that all digital devices be turned off throughout the meeting.
2. Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day. It forces your people into reactive mode, fractures their attention, and makes it difficult for them to sustain attention on their priorities. Let them turn off their email at certain times. If it's urgent, you can call them — but that won't happen very often.
3. Encourage renewal. Create at least one time during the day when you encourage your people to stop working and take a break. Offer a midafternoon class in yoga, or meditation, organize a group walk or workout, or consider creating a renewal room where people can relax, or take a nap.
It's also up to individuals to set their own boundaries. Consider these three behaviors for yourself:
1. Do the most important thing first in the morning, preferably without interruption, for 60 to 90 minutes, with a clear start and stop time. If possible, work in a private space during this period, or with sound-reducing earphones. Finally, resist every impulse to distraction, knowing that you have a designated stopping point. The more absorbed you can get, the more productive you'll be. When you're done, take at least a few minutes to renew.
2. Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically. If you don't, you'll constantly succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. Also, find a different environment in which to do this activity — preferably one that's relaxed and conducive to open-ended thinking.
3. Take real and regular vacations. Real means that when you're off, you're truly disconnecting from work. Regular means several times a year if possible, even if some are only two or three days added to a weekend. The research strongly suggests that you'll be far healthier if you take all of your vacation time, and more productive overall.
A single principle lies at the heart of all these suggestions. When you're engaged at work, fully engage, for defined periods of time. When you're renewing, truly renew. Make waves. Stop living your life in the gray zone.
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