Now is probably a good time to future proof ourselves and investigate how we can work smarter and get our purpose and priority management in alignment. With the summer season upon us there might just be enough time to take our eye of fighting the alligators and take a little time to clear the swamp.  And it is becoming critical for many of us, whether we know it or not! Here’s why….

The latest UK Commission for Employment and Skills Report  suggests that 10 million people need to improve their skills if the UK is to achieve its ambition of being in the top eight countries in the world for skills, jobs and productivity by 2020.

If you are in UK, you are working in the 6th largest economy but only the 13th most competitive!

 The report states:

‘The UK remains the 6th largest economy in the world and the 4th largest in the OECD (behind the USA, Japan and Germany). It also remains regionally concentrated with London and the South East accounting for a third of GDP. The World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report ranks the UK as the 13th most competitive in the world (down one place from 2008/09, itself down three places from 2007/08).’

If you have not seen the excellent 6 minute video called ‘Shift Happens’ or ‘Now You Know’, I urge you to open yourself up to it. We are living in ‘Exponential Times’: The plates are shifting and change is no longer merely incremental. In this environment our own thinking can nop longer be just incremental.

Again, back to that report:

‘Despite our (UK Economy) progress in skills attainment, too few adults still possess the skills needed to succeed in tomorrow’s labour market or the motivation, confidence and opportunity to gain them.’

 You and I cannot directly impact the size and prosperity of the UK economy in these international league tables. We can, however, do something about our own place within our career and our own world.

So, here’s a few suggestions:

1. Take stock now. Don’t wait for someone to do it to you. Do your own skills / behaviour / belief audit with trusted friends and with trusted tools (ask me for some suggestions).
2. As London Transport is so fond of saying: ‘Mind the Gap!’ What gaps between your ideal future vision of yourself and your current reality do you need to work on? What are the priorities?
3. Our productivity is a key element when it comes to future proofing ourselves, answer these questions for yourself. How are you building your productive capacity? How robust are your current workload and priority management processes? How much productivity do you squeeze out of your  office and mobile tools compared to their productive capacity? Given that you probably can’t work harder what steps could you take to work smarter?  
4. How are you going to close the gap? There are many options open to you. This blog is in part subtitled  ‘Insights and hindsights on living purposefully. I carry the wounds of past wars into my work as much as I absorb, synthesise and implement new thinking and new technologies into the way I work with clients. I’m happy to share ideas if you get in touch. 
5. Take one good business book, a highlighter and a journal with you on holiday and develop a prioritised action plan to implement upon your return. Again, get in touch with an area you want to develop within and I will suggest a couple of the (far too many) books I read every year.

 I will leave the last word on the report to Chris Humphries CBE, Chief Executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, who said:

‘At the moment, our economy is still world-class – quite an achievement for such a small island.  But we’re living on past glories.  Economic success rests on three legs – skills, jobs and productivity – and we are well below average on the first of these. Unless swift and decisive action is taken, we can expect the UK’s economy to begin to slide down the international rankings.’

 Your own job, your career or your business success rests on 2 of those legs: Skills and Productivity. I can help you with both. It starts when you get in touch.

You can access the full report and a 2-page executive summary here: http://www.ukces.org.uk/

It doesn’t matter if you have got too much business to cope with at the moment or if you are working hard to bring more in; the ruthless reality for most people right now is that it takes an awful lot more work to achieve the results we were used to pre crunch. Most of us are under pressure.

Control is critical to success

Control requires clarity. Clarity of purpose. Clarity around expectations and delivery on deadlines. Clarity on priorities. Clarity under pressure. As one CEO client said to me the other week when he booked our support for his Board and his Senior management Team ‘I have a good business model and a good team, it’s just that they are all operating on a ‘Just In Time’ model – and when you work with people as opposed to a production line ……………

 ’Just in time is Just Too Late’.

It is my experience that most good people know what they need to achieve within a business, the difficulty lies in how they go about achieving it.

It is also my experience that many so called ‘Technological  Solutions’ to managing competing priorities only provide a partial, complex compromise on what you and I would know as working smarter not harder. Here I am thinking of all the high tech tools, either installed on our computers or accessed from the cloud that claim to be THE solution to individual and team productivity and effectiveness. Many, in my experience, only add another ‘To-Do List’ for us to interrogate.

So, technology itself is not the answer. The answer lies in welding time honoured principles and processes to the lightest use of technology so that people will use it well.

How many To-Do lists do you use?

It is not a trick question. It is serious. How many lists do you check physically or mentally in order to evaluate current priorities against incoming fire, whether in the guise of opportunities or threats?

Here’s a list. How many of these do you use?

1. Board Minutes
2. Management Team Action Points,
3. Business Plans, Project Tasks etc, usually written in other software programmes
4. Conference Call action points
5. Lists in other workflow management programmes and technologies you may use
6. Business Email Inbox and personal email account inbox(es)
7. Commitments from various internal and external meetings in a day-book.
8. Notes of promises and commitments from phone calls
9. Saved Voicemail messages that require action
10. Instant Messenger / Communicator / Social Media streams
11. Notes to self, written in a variety of places (even on the back of other available papers? – Surely not!)
12. MEMORY (Usually when you are trying to focus on some other work)
13. MEMORY (Usually on the way home).
14. MEMORY (Usually at 3 o’clock in the morning – accompanied by a cold sweat).

Here’s a second question:

How well do your To-Do lists integrate with each other?

How easy is it for you to see clearly the business impact of making one priority decision over another? To see, in front of your eyes – rather than in the back of your mind – the consequence of saying ‘Yes’ to one thing? To see how a delay in a scheduled activity will affect not only your delivery deadline but the time available for your colleague to do what they have to do before the work is finally delivered to the customer?

So, here’s 3 Productivity Pointers on To-Do Lists

1. Use fewer tools and integrate them better.
2. Think about your processes before you add another tool to your toolbox
3. As much as possible bring all your priorities into one place so you can evaluate and execute them with greater clarity and control.

This is why I think it is so much better to leverage the power of existing tools like Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes and the other programmes you are already invested in, rather than buy add-ons or new packages.

A final thought:

Working smarter is all about clarity of purpose and simplicity of process, lets not overcomplicate it with too many tools.

If you would like to know how we help people to improve their productivity and effectiveness, both personally and as a team, why not call me or complete this request form so I can get back to you with some ideas. As always, if you have any views on this or want to contribute to the debate I’d love to hear from you below….

Many people are annoyed with the fact that their Microsoft Outlook programme, running in Windows 7 will no longer allow a single click access to email attachments and the ‘Opening Mail Attachment’ dialog box has the option ‘Always ask before opening this type of file’ greyed out and unable to be disabled. An important element of Best Practice Time management is ‘Continuous Process Improvement’ which allows us to be more efficient and effective. So, here’s how to disable this element of Windows 7 User Access Control for once and for all.

1. To achieve this you must log on to Microsoft Outlook as an ‘Administrator’.
2. To do this in Windows 7 simply close Microsoft Outlook
3. Now go to the Outlook icon in your Start menu or in your Taskbar and hold down the ‘Shift’ button whilst right clicking on the icon.
4. This will reveal an options menu from which you select ‘Run as Administrator’
5. When Outlook opens up, simply sort the emails in your Inbox by ‘Attachment’ and Open each email up, click on the attached file to open it.
6. When the ‘Opening Mail Attachment dialog box appears uncheck the ‘Always ask before opening this type of file’ and click ‘Open’. Then close the attachment and the email and move to the next email.
7. Remember that if you are running Outlook 2007 and Office 2007 you will have attachments of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other files in both ‘Office 2007’ and ’97-2003 compatibility’ versions. That’s why it is useful to sort your emails by attachment so you can run through as many as possible.
8. Once you have done this for your major file attachment types simply close down Outlook in Administrator mode and reopen as normal.

No more annoying dialog boxes!

If you are looking to help your company, team or yourself to work smarter on your priorities with Outlook why not ask us how we can help you. Go on, go beyond tips and get into a truly productive way of working on your priorities within your demanding workload.

As we manage demanding workloads, juggle multiple projects and manage competing priorities, email is always near the top of the list of productivity challenges that most of us face every day. Whilst it can be a productivity enabler, it is more often cited as the biggest contributor to information overload and the insidious destroyer of our focus and energy. And the biggest challenge to our Time Management efforts. Even renowned and respected leaders of major corporations – including some of the biggest people in the IT world, as you will see - admit to its impact on their own focus and performance.

How Email and information overload impacts our productivity

This is why, when we help people to work smarter on their competing priorities, we always incorporate strategies for managing information overload and regaining control of their inbox. This is all part of the challenge of Continuous Partial Attention (CPA) that we all face in this connected age. You will find some of my notes on CPA here

To access our proven expertise and experience in managing competing priorities within demanding work and email loads just ask here

Some words of encouragement for you, if your race towards your goals in the first half of the year did not go as well as you had hoped.
You might know someone who could use this to re-energise themselves and redouble their efforts for the times ahead, if so feel free to pass it on.

”Quit, give up, you’re beaten” They shout at me and plead
“There’s just too much against you This time you can’t succeed”.
And as I start to hang my head in front of failure’s face,
my downward fall is broken by the memory of a race.
And hope refills my weakened will As I recall that scene
Or just the thought of that short race Rejuvenates my being

A children’s race, young boys, young men; how I remember well,
excitement sure, but also fear, it wasn’t hard to tell.
They all lined up so full of hope, each thought to win that race
or tie for first, or if not that, at least take second place.
And fathers watched from off the side, each cheering for their son.
and each boy hoped to show his dad that he would be the one.

The whistle blew and off they flew Young hearts and hopes afire
To win and be the hero there Was each young boys desire
One boy in particular, whose dad was in the crowd,
was running in the lead and thought “My dad will be so proud.”
But as he speeded down the field across a shallow dip,
the little boy who thought he’d win, lost his step and slipped.
Trying hard to catch himself, his hands flew out to brace,
and midst the laughter of the crowd he fell flat on his face.
As he fell, his hope fell too; he couldn’t win it now.
Humiliated, he just wished to disappear somehow.

But as he fell his dad stood up and showed his anxious face,
which to the boy so clearly said, “Get up and win that race!”
He quickly rose, no damage done, behind a bit that’s all,
and ran with all his mind and might to make up for his fall.
So anxious to restore himself, to catch up and to win,
his mind went faster than his legs.; he slipped and fell again.
He wished that he had quit before with only one disgrace.
“I’m hopeless as a runner now, I shouldn’t try to race.”

But in the laughing crowd he searched and found his father’s face
that steady look which said again, “Get up and win that race!”
So he jumped up to try again, ten yards behind the last.
“If I’m to gain those yards,” he thought, “I’ve got to run real fast!”
Exerting everything he had, he regained eight, then ten…
but trying hard to catch the lead, he slipped and fell again.

Defeat! He lay there silently. A tear dropped from his eye.
“There’s no sense running any more! Three strikes I’m out! Why try?
The will to rise had disappeared All hope had fled away
So far behind so error prone A loser all the way
I’ve lost, so what’s the use?” he thought. “I’ll live with my disgrace.”
But then he thought about his dad, who soon he’d have to face.

“Get up” the echo sounded low “Get up” and take your place
You were not meant for failure here “Get up”, and win the race
”With borrowed will “Get up” it said “You haven’t lost at all”
For winning is no more than this To rise each time you fall

So, up he rose to run once more, and with a new commit
he resolved that win or lose, at least he wouldn’t quit.
So far behind the others now, the most he’d ever been,
still he gave it all he had and ran as though to win.
Three times he’d fallen stumbling, three times he rose again.
Too far behind to hope to win, he still ran to the end.

They cheered the winning runner as he crossed the line first place,
head high and proud and happy no falling, no disgrace.
But, when the fallen youngster crossed the line, last place,
the crowd gave him a greater cheer for finishing the race.
And even though he came in last with head bowed low, unproud,
you would have thought he’d won the race, to listen to the crowd.
And to his dad he sadly said, “I didn’t do so well.”
“To me, you won,” his father said “You rose each time you fell.”

And now when things seem dark and hard and difficult to face,
the memory of that little boy helps me in my own race.
For all of life is like that race, with ups and downs and all.
And all you have to do to win is rise each time you fall.
And when depression and despair shout loudly in my face,
another voice within me says, “Get up and win that race!”

I came across this poem again through a friend, Andy (Thanks Andy!) It resonated deeply with me and have shared it with many people who have also found it useful. It is called ‘The Race’ and is writen by D. H. Groberg.  I find that simple words can stir the soul to action much more than management speak! One of my mother’s learned poems, which she used to recite to us kids, has lived with me forever – and now lives with my 2 sons. You can find it here.

 What words inspire, ignite, motivate and move you in good times and in bad? I’d be grateful if you would consider sharing them here, through leaving a comment below.

It is so difficult to be proactive when most of the default settings in Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes and other productivity tools reinforce and reward reactive behaviours. This is unfortunate because, as proactive people, we want to work smarter with Outlook, Notes or whatever tools we have in front of us. 

 This demands that we must move away from the Pavlovian stimuli   of alarms, alerts and flags as important elements in our decision making, no matter how appealing and ‘helpful’ they may appear on the surface.  This, then, means that we have to reinforce and reward our proactive behaviours of defining purpose, planning, focusing, discerning and doing what we decided to do – even when the inbox, the voicemail, the IM, the ‘social media’ channels are all pulling us in another direction.

It is almost as though, for many good, hard-working people, their own workload management skills are being assaulted and eroded by the Urgency Addiction amplified by technology. Not only that, but the time honoured principles and proven workload management processes, of which they are intellectually aware, appear to be an idealised Nirvana which slips further and further away from their reality as the next deadline approaches.

Add to this the fact that most hard working people are not clinically insane and do actually achieve results within this urgent, instant, reactive environment – and the fact that their behaviours (even though they know intellectually that they are not at best practice proactive level) have served them well when they were last under the cosh at work; it is little wonder that changing workload management habits can be difficult. 

This is why, in all our training and support programmes we incorporate as much best practice use of appropriate technology as possible – without the need to purchase or configure add-ins and bolt-ons; and why we ALWAYS provide post training support. 

In my experience this is the only way to get people to permanently change the habits of a working lifetime, habits that helped them in their last crisis, even though they were stress inducing!

“Before my training course with Richard, I thought it wouldn’t help me as much as it helped some of my colleagues. I was wrong. Following the course, I have started to make the small, easy changes to the way I work. I’m getting home earlier in the evenings and I can ’switch off’ at night and at the weekends, which is great. I feel that I’m on top of my workload and, for the first time since I started my career, there is just about enough time in the day.” Stuart McCaul June 10, 2010

 If you are looking for a proven approach to more productive workload and results management for your team, your company or yourself, just ask us here and we will deliver results worth talking about.

When helping people to work smarter on their conflicting priorities, I usually help them to work smarter with their office software and smartphones as well. After all, most of their communications and commitments flow through these tools. Here’s an Outlook Calendar productivity tip that has proved very popular recently. Its popularity came about as people mailed me in response to my World Cup Football Calendar tip  and people wanted to know how it worked in a separate World Cup Calendar subfolder. This tip only works with Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 though.The tip is to view your various Outlook Calendars in Overlay mode whenever you want to. Here’s how:

1. Go to your main Outlook Calendar folder
2. Select the calendars you wish to view, the default position is to see these calendars side-by-side.
3. To see the commitments in all calendars within one calendar you need to engage ‘View in Overlay mode’
4. Do this by clicking the small arrow on the left of the title in the secondary calendar.

You can reverse this clicking the arrow again. Simple!

How could you use this Microsoft Outlook Calendar functionality to support your productivity? Why not let me know? If you want to move beyond tips and get into sustainable, measurable productivity improvements and work smarter on your priorities and technology tools just ask us now and we will get back to you.

I attended one of Richard’s courses on time management using Outlook and our current trend to urgency addiction. The results from attending the course were for me immediate, I am more organised, more focused and more in control and I am very grateful to him for the wisdom he imparted. If you’re considering engaging with Richard take my word for it and don’t hesitate to go for it!
Robert May MD Ramsac Ltd

If you are involved in any way with people management and would welcome an early morning coffee in Guildford with like minded individuals on Wednesday 14^th July any time from 07:15 to 08:59, without booking costs, read on….

A number of us will be meeting in Starbucks at the Surrey Sports Park  http://www.surreysportspark.co.uk/ to share ideas and energy on any and all aspects of employing, developing and leading people within this inspiring environment.

There is no booking fee, no fixed agenda, no ‘Talking Head’ presentations and no selling.

There will be opportunities to develop new relationships and strengthen existing relationships with people involved in managing and developing people. Opportunities to ask questions, float ideas, give and get energy for the day ahead. 

The gathering is open to anyone involved with people in business; employers, HR + L& D professionals, Specialist Consultants, IT / IS providers – Anyone!

This event is loosely associated with the IoD People Forum in West Surrey BUT you do not have to be an IoD member to attend. The next IoD People Forum meeting will be on 9^th September after the holiday season.

If you wish to join us on the 14th July all I ask is that you let me know in one of 3 ways:

1. Just enter a comment below this posting
2. Twitter users can let me know by using the #IoDHR hashtag. My Twitter name is @richardmaybury
3. Send me an email. 

I look forward to meeting you there!

Good priority management is all about being cristal clear on our purpose, being committed to our goals, knowing what commitments are already in our trusted inventory of current commitments (much more than a to-do list), and having a process to manage this with ease on a day-to-day basis. In the same way that our Inbox, Calendar, Tasks and Contacts must be purposeful, so too must our desk and physical work environment be.

I have been working with some Location Independent Workers recently who have exchanged the corporate cubicle for a home office almost all of whom squirmed with some discomfort when I asked these 2 questions:

1. Is your desk top more akin to the purposeful flight deck of an aircraft carrier or a toxic waste dump?
2. How happy would you be if your home office desk was transported back to the office right now – exactly as it is in this moment - and you, your boss and a major client were sitting around it making an important business decision?

It seems that many home-based workers allow themselves a different standard to desk top purpose than they would back in the corporate office! Naturally we have some proven approaches to help people recreate that purposeful flight deck to operate from, meanwhile here’s a copy of a resource that many clients have found useful. What would you add to it?

Here’s some top tips from Katherine Gibson <http://www.katherinegibson.com/index.html> , a best selling author of – among other books – Unclutter your life. I originally published this article in 2004 and it has been an inspiration for many clients since.
Katherine writes….

 There was a time when my home office was chaos central. If I were in the midst of a major project, event plans and speeches littered the desk and tabletop and carpeted the floor. Reference books, half-a-dozen coffee cups, notepads, staplers, a radio, and stacks of compact disks lay jumbled among current and completed projects. New piles spawned with each new contract. I considered buying more shelf space, extra storage bins, and nifty organizers, but then I paused. I didn’t need more space. I needed less stuff.

 Studies show that people who work in disorganized spaces spend up to eight hours a week looking for things or being distracted by them.
Efficiency drops and stress levels rise. Earnings are often hidden among misplaced invoices, receipts gone astray, customer billings yet to be mailed, and lost telephone messages from clients who want to do business.

 The appearance of a workplace mirrors its priorities, affecting its professional image and levels of success. The ideal workplace should exude a positive, calm, and confident atmosphere that is congruent with who we are and what we want to achieve. While office clutter can affect the bottom line, it also affects our health. Working in a disorderly environment fractures our focus and creates stress, frustration, and anxiety. Headaches, stomach problems, and neck and shoulder strain seem more common to those who work in chaos. Subconsciously we resist working in a place that doesn’t feel comfortable.

 A clear, uncluttered working space helps sharpen our focus. It makes a clear statement about us and what we can accomplish. Without distractions pulling us off task, and with the tools at hand our productivity will rise as our anxiety levels decrease. Instead of confusion, we’ll find efficiency—and the notes from yesterday’s meeting.

Clutter Busters

1. Designate a time outside work hours to attack your office clutter. Follow up with shorter periods on a regular basis.
2. Eliminate duplicate documents, brochures, and sales catalogues.
3. Purge out-of-office-experiences such as postcards from faraway places, golf clubs, recipe books, and material for a dress you might sew one day. 
4. Reduce desk material. No one needs three staplers and dozens of pens.
5. Cancel all but essential memberships, subscriptions, and credit cards. 
6. Give each item a logical home in a drawer or on a shelf— not on the floor, under the desk, or stacked on chairs.
7. Attack files. Keep just those pertaining to recent and current projects. Others can be archived outside the office or shredded. I remove out-dated or duplicate papers each time I look at a file.
8. Postponing decisions creates clutter. Resolve to deal with all outstanding issues immediately. 
9. Stay clutter-free. Take ten minutes each day to tidy and toss.

 ©2004 Katherine Gibson. Excerpted from, Unclutter Your Life:
Transforming Your Physical, Mental, and Emotional Space, Beyond Words Pub. 2004, Now available at your bookstore and thoroughly recommended.

For proven, measurable, productivity training and support just ask here

So, part of your priority management strategy over the next month or so  is not to miss any critical World Cup matches. Here is a link to a great Microsoft Excel file that will place all the fixtures into your Microsoft Outlook calendar for you in one click.You can use it to plan your workload vs Football priorities either in your main Outlook calendar or a separate World Cup Calendar subfolder. Either way, you will see your matches alongside your other priority calendar commitments which you can sync with your Blackberry or phone.

This clever Microsoft Excel import to Outlook file was created for me by my Excel Guru friend Sean Blessitt over at http://www.astradyne.com
Simply click on the link to download and save the file to your desktop, open it up and follow the instructions. You will have all World Cup football fixtures in your Outlook calendar in a couple of clicks.  Let me know what you think! Enjoy!!

OutlookWorldCupFixturesRichardMaybury_TZ

Ask about how we can help you create a better work-life balance and how we can help you weld your tactical priorities to your overall purpose. Contact me here

So, you are interested in networking and socialising with interesting people? People with more to offer than merely a pitch or an ‘elevator’? Fancy something different? Fancy a discount on the usual price of the event? You might want to look at this opportunity: Surrey IoD 859 Breakfast club + Pimms on the Lawn for one reduced combined price: 
Morning networking at the invigorating IoD 859 Club from 07:30-08:59 at Guildford refectory. Then on to  an evening event not to be missed: 
Venue: Foxhills KT16 0EL    http://www.foxhills.co.uk/ 
Date: Friday 25th June 2010
Time: 19:00 until late
Dress Code: Smart
Cost: IoD Members and non members: £50 each (+VAT) for both events. A bargain!!!

As a committee member of the IoD West Surrey branch I am pleased to offer our members and guests the unique opportunity to enjoy a relaxed summer’s evening in the fabulous surroundings of Foxhills. You’ll be welcomed with a cool glass of Pimms and the chance to socialise on the formal lawns outside the Manor House.

You’ll then be treated to a wonderful barbeque which includes such delights as Scotch Sirloin Steak, Spinach and Blue Cheese Mushrooms, Cumberland Sausage, Grilled Salmon with Tomato and Basil sauce, Jerk Chicken, Homemade Beef Burgers and a wide selection of salads and accompaniments. And, YES, you can have as much or as little of everything – you will be the only one counting!

We’re pleased to present this fantastic evening for the enjoyment of our members and we encourage you to bring your partners along and make this a really special evening at one of Surrey’s finest private clubs.

We’ll have exclusive use of the Orangery for the whole evening which will provide the perfect setting to mingle with fellow IoD members and their Partners in this social event. And, if we’re treated to a balmy summer’s evening, the formal gardens will provide the perfect location for watching the sunset over Surrey.

Throughout the evening ‘Acoustic Jass’ will be playing some traditional jazz and blues tunes in the background to ensure the evening has the right buzz.

This is a new type of event for our members, and one that we hope you enjoy fully. Please book early to avoid disappointment – the numbers will be limited.

If you are interested just contact me

Everywhere I go, recently, people are telling me 2 things and I wonder if these are true for you?
 

1. Those who are thriving, in particular, tell me that they are having to be even more creative in how they approach their business; its almost like they are in a constant cycle of disruptive innovation and continuous reinvention as they anticipate and respond to a challenging market.
2. Everyone seems to sense that it takes more work, effort (and sometimes -pain) to achieve the same business results as we enjoyed pre-crunch.

In this environment it is more important than ever to be able to weld our overall purpose to our daily priorities. It is almost like the old days of separating our ’strategic thinking time’ from our ‘operational time’ is a luxury we can not afford. If we are to avoid chaos, however, we must have a robust, simple structure to our workload and priority management that allows us to think strategically whilst operating tactically.
 
This means, amongst other things, having a one-click view on what is important (professionally, personally, this quarter, next quarter and beyond) so that we can flex tactically with the explicit knowledge of the impact of that decision on our overall objectives.
 
Strategising will always be important – it is just that right now my sense is that conditionality, consensus, creativity and continuous anticipation and response-ability are more important than ever before. I’d really appreciate your thoughts here to help me firm up my own. You can shere your thoughts in the comments section below

As someone with a reputation in time and priority management you would expect me to have some idea of how many seconds there are in a day (86,400 since you asked). It is not a big stretch to have an idea of how long a million seconds is. A million seconds is actually 11.574 days or almost 11 days and 9 hours and 36 minutes. BUT…. How long is a Billion? 

I was blown away this morning when a Billion was put again into sharp perspective for me. A   billion seconds is 31.709792 YEARS, which is almost 31 years and 8 months and 12 days and 29 minutes. That’s a massive order of magnitude!  11.5 days against 31.7 years!! 

It is one thing to ‘know’ this intellectually; it is something else completely to ‘know’ this experientially.
11.5 days to repay £1million at a rate of £1 per second
31 years and 8 months and 12 days and 29 minutes to repay £1Billion at a rate of £1 per second
Tighten your belts, it’s going to be one hell of a ride!

If you want to make the most of every second you have, if you want a better way to weld your purpose to your priorities, you need to consider our support for yourself and your people now.

Till the next time…

Life can be a roller coaster at times. Sometimes we are just about managing to juggle our competing priorities before they become conflicting priorities. Sometimes we are squeezed right up tight against a critical deadline. Other times we feel lost, cast adrift and long for the cut and thrust of meaningful activity.  

Sometimes we can get caught up in the minutia of the moment and we can very easily loose our perspective whether we are too busy or not busy enough!  

Here’s an exercise that I call PACTS which, in less than 5 minutes, can help us reconnect with our higher purpose whenever we need to (and that’s best done on a very regular basis!). The great thing about this is that all the components seem to flow so naturally when we do it a few times. Let me know what you think. What do you do to connect with your purpose when priorities are bearing down on you? 

The great thing about this exercise is that it can be done any time any where – with the exception of when we are driving – obviously! 

P = Prepare for the simple exercise

This is the very important few moments we give ourselves prior to getting into the zone. Time to turn off or tune out of all noise and distractions wherever you are. For me this includes the simple preparation activity of turning the BlackBerry off. Sometimes I find it useful to gaze into the distance (especially skywards) in a frighteningly unfocused way.

A = Allow ourselves to access a state of Awe.

Awe is defined variously as an overwhelming emotion of reverential fear, admiration or wonder; wonder inspired or caused by something majestic, sublime, powerful, beautiful, mighty, sacred. The point here is to allow our quietened mind to take in the enormity of what is around us. We can wonder at the vastness of the universe as revealed through the Hubble Ultra Deep Field Or the tiny intricacy of the Rhinovirus  There is no preferred formula, just so long as we are able to put ourselves, our priorities, our current concerns into some perspective in a short period of time. 

C = Connect to our Core

Now, we allow our thoughts to flow back to ourselves, but back to the core of what we are, our core values, the things that really matter, the things we sometimes take for granted. This is not a thorough examination of all our core values, we just allow ourselves to focus for a few moments on the one or two values that bubble up in this moment. You might want to envision yourself living a particular core value at a high 10. What would you living a perfect expression of that value feel like?

T= Take time to be thankful

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”Marcus Tullius Cicero

Now it the time to be grateful for exactly where we are right now. It doesn’t matter who we  are thankful to, it could be your God or your guide if you have one, Mother Nature, the ‘Universe’, your parents, partner, siblings or friends  – or even the driver who waved you out of your turning and made your commute to work that little bit more human, more hopeful, more positive. 

S = Set our success strategy

Right, we are almost ready to reengage with the reality around us. Before we do so, though, a few moments to set / reset our strategy for the rest of the day in the light of the past few minutes in the PACTS process.  

It may be that the past 4 minutes has reenergised our commitment to the priority management plan we had already established for the day and we can crack on refreshed.
It may be that new priorities have been thrown up as a result and now need to be actioned or scheduled.
It may be that the past 4 minutes has provided us with further insights, inspiration or resource to enable us to create and control the goals that will help us manage our overall purpose.
It may be that we remember to call our parents or that old friend we have rather taken for granted recently, or just to look someone in the eye and say a meaningful ‘Thank you’ when a good service has been rendered to us.

There it is, a simple, seamless process that can help us reconnect to our purpose and our priorities. I’m curious to know what you think? What simple approaches to you find particularly useful? Feel free to share or link them here.

You can always contact me if you want to know more about how we help people manage their competing priorities, their mandated and optional goals and the critical results that want to achieve.

I will be re-launching the Institute of Directors (IoD) People Forum at the recently opened Bench Bar @ the wonderful University of Surrey Sports Park, Guildford Surrey, on Friday 14^th May between 07:25 and 08:45.

The meeting has 2.5 purposes:  1) Mapping out what we, as forum members, want from the Forum 2) Networking with great people, sharing ideas and energy … and 2.5 exploring the fantastic www.surreysportspark.co.uk

I know that next Friday might not be convenient for everyone but it would be good to see as many people there as possible.

 The cost is £10.00 (+VAT) for members and their guests and £20.00 (+VAT) for non-members. 

The IoD West Surrey People Forum is an interactive and focused discussion group for Directors who have direct employee responsibility, HR and Learning & Development Practitioners, Employment Lawyers and anyone else who is responsible for the ‘people side’ of the business. The bi-monthly meetings are intended to be informal and practical. All meetings are collaborative, knowledge sharing, and good fun, even though it is early in the morning!

I cannot process bookings from my office but you can book your place by going to the IoD website at www.iod.com/westsurrey/events. If you have any problems with your booking, please email Claire Fisher at eventbookings.south@iod.net or call her on 02380 266548.

In order to complete the necessary final arrangements I would like to request that all bookings are made by close of business on Tuesday 10th March, and would be grateful if payment could be received in advance of the event.

If you have any questions about the event please do not hesitate to contact me directly and I will be happy to help. I hope to see you on the 14th.

I have been around a lot of talk this week on ‘Leadership’ and ’Management’. I suppose it is to be expected, given that I have been running various training sessions and forums over the week, ranging from a ‘Strategy in Action’ workshop that I ran for one client through to a ‘Welding purpose to priorities’ forum I facilitated and, finally on Friday, into discussions on ’Sales Strategy’ with George Petri and others after the unmissable IoD 859 Club. But today I was blown away…

Sunday mornings tend to be a time of reflection and renewal for me and I was reflecting on Leading and Serving over my slow Sunday morning cappuccino at home with Aled Jones on Radio2 quietly in the background.

Then, as part of his sign-off, Aled read out this quote by John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the USA,

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

What got me was the word ‘ACTIONS’. Talk is cheap. Rhetoric, no matter how brilliantly constructed to engage emotionally or logically, is nothing without the sweat of struggle to see a dream through into reality.

Much to reflect upon, and then the pragmatist inside me focused into one of my favourite definitions of ‘Values’ from one of my favourite Business World Leaders, Jack Welch:

‘Values are just behaviours – specific, nitty-gritty and so descriptive they leave nothing to the imagination..’

The same could be said of Leadership! Here’s to a great week next week!

To discover how we can help you, your team and your business turn your vision, strategies and goals into real results within the constraints of the conflicting priorities of the day-job just contact Richard Maybury now

One of the most misused digital tools outside email (of which there are numerous references in this blog) is Microsoft PowerPoint. A little like alcohol, used sensitively, it can enhance any occasion; used recklessly it will wreck any occasion!

A client has just mailed me a link to this New York Times article entitled:  We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint Check out the PowerPoint slide there. I’m sure that much creativity, thought, care and time has been invested in the creation of this slide but was all that energy and time managed well? I’m not so sure! This link will take you to a full screen image of the slide.  

Time to chuckle at one of my favourite Dilbert strips on PowerPoint Onwards and upwards!

Another excellent kick-off to a Friday at Shipleys’Godalming office. Shipleys have developed a good community of business people who orbit the Godalming area. The business activities of those who attend often take them to far-flung places but I find the gravitational pull of their monthly meeting almost irresistible. It certainly sets me up for a good day!

Today we were discussing – among other things – ‘The magic number’ in social networking, otherwise known as ‘Dunbar’s Number’. As with many concepts that pass into popular usage, the ‘Magic Number’ is often misunderstood. Is it 150? What constitutes a community – or even digital ‘friend’ relationship? 

Robin Dunbar’s article on the RSA website is a good place to start. The best real-world and readable critique of it that I have come across is that written by my friend Benjamin Ellis, the man behind Redcatco, who’s Dunbar’s Number -Groups, language and social media  post is well worth reading.

You need regular access to a particular folder within your Windows XP computer or network library to do your work or file new emails. You don’t want to navigate your way through the folder system (especially on the network!) each time. Here’s how to achieve that with Outlook 2007 on a Windows XP machine. Note that This updates my earlier advice for Outlook 2003 one-click folder access  To add an item to the My Places bar in Office 2007 using windows XP, follow these steps:

1. Open any Office 2007 Word or Excel document
2. In the open document click the Microsoft Office Button on the top left of your screen and then click ‘Open’.
3. In the ‘Open’ dialog box, click the drive, the folder, or the Internet location for which you want to create a My Places bar shortcut in the left panel.
4. Right-click a blank space in the My Places bar below the existing shortcuts, and then click Add folder name. Note you must right-click at the bottom of the list for this to work. Your new shortcut appears at the bottom of the My Places bar.
5. You can then move it up or down the ‘My Places’ list by right-clicking on the name and selecting ‘move up / move down’
6. You can rename the shortcut by right clicking it in the ‘My Places’ panel and selecting ‘Rename’.

Go beyond tips and get into results management with our training support. Contact me now to see how we can help you and your team achieve ‘Results Worth Talking about’

Gabriella Climi has come a long way in a short time. Her single ‘Sweet about me’ has sold over 2 million copies world-wide, she’s won numerous music awards and sang the Australian National Anthem at the Melbourne Grand-Prix last weekend. She’s just 18. And she has a secret – a secret you should know about.
You know that I find inspiration in the extraordinary things ordinary people do well and I like sharing them with you. It’s also important to know I’m not writing this as a raving fan although I do like the sentiment and the pure pop production value of her latest single ‘On a Mission’. 

Here’s the scoop: It is not just talent, hard work and luck that has got her to where she is right now.

I have just found out that she has a massive Dream-Board at home. On this Dream-Board she has put all the people and the shows she would like to be involved with in her life. A pictorial representation of some of the things she finds important, motivating and empowering. As a big fan of the excellent and influential ‘Later with Jools Holland’ TV show, she has him on her dream-board.

No surprises then that she found herself singing an acoustic version of her song on the ‘Later’ show in December 2007!

So friends, what’s your vision, your purpose and your goals? What do they look, feel and sound like to you? How do you store, access and leverage their potency? Especially when everyone in your busy life is intent on pulling your focus and energy into their daily grind?

Naturally, if you want any support in this I’m only a call or a click away.

 You need regular access to a particular folder within your computer or network library to do your work or file new emails. You don’t want to navigate your way through the folder system (especially on the network!) each time. Here’s how to achieve that with Outlook 2007. This updates my earlier advice for Outlook 2003 one-click folder access  

To include an often used folder within your Office 2007 library:

• Click the Start button on the bottom left of your screen
• Now click on your user name in the pop up box.
• In the pane on the right of the dialogue box navigate to the folder you want to add to your short cuts
• Right-click on that folder name and select ‘Include in Library’ and then select where you want that folder displayed.
• To see your network folders, click on ‘Network’ in the left pane and navigate / right click as above to select.
• Click the X on top right of the dialogue box to close.
• To remove the folder from the library once you no longer need regular access to it simply right click on it within the library pane and select ‘Remove location from library’ Note that this does not delete the folder – only the short-cut to it in the library.

Go beyond tips and get into results management with our training support. Contact me now to see how we can help you and your team achieve ‘Results Worth Talking about’

A guy I met recently was told by his UK employer that he was too sick to hold down a senior job, even though he was a rising star and was the youngest employee to ever hold his then current role. That clearly did not sit with his view of his world and his purpose in it, so he did something else. Something much bigger.

His name is Andrew White, AKA ‘The Vicar of Baghdad’, and I was fortunate enough to share an evening with him, along with some friends, the other day.
 
His life is far too rich to be condensed meaningfully into a few short paragraphs so I will only highlight a couple of fascinating facts and share the reflections I wrote out for myself after our meeting.
 
Yes, he is a vicar but read these notes in the same way you would if I was writing about Lance Armstrong (Its not about the bike, its about purpose and momentum) or Randy Pausch(Nothing to do with academia – everything to do with dreams).
 

• The guy suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, which is evident from his speech pattern and his gait.
• He is the trusted intermediary between fighting factions in Iraq, at one time receiving fortnightly telephone calls from the president of the USA whilst having meetings with leaders who the West demonised.
• He is heavily involved in peace and hostage negotiations in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East (over 140 hostage negotiations alone), dealing with people who often hate and mistrust each other.
• Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay once summonsed him to a meeting in their notorious Baghdad Hunting Club with the explicit expectation that if he did not accept their ‘Invitation’ the messenger and all his family would be killed. He attended the meeting and, unlike many before him, he walked out alive.
• He had 11 of his Top Leadership Team exterminated but still kept the show on the road.
• He has survived serious attacks on himself, as well as detentions, he deals with really difficult people every day and spends long periods of time away from his family.

 All this on top of the ordinary stresses of the day job you and I are subject to!

All this by a man who was considered by his employers to be too sick to do a much easier job in the UK!

Here’s what I wrote to myself after that meeting:

• We should never let anyone’s opinion (especially well intentioned opinions) define us.
• The only things that truly limit us are the limitations we put on ourselves.
• Purpose and passion make the hardest work ‘doable’.
• Inspiration is everywhere, the world is full of people who have less and achieve more than most of the people we know. We need to learn from them.

There is obviously so much more to this experience and my learning from it. I must admit that I was not going to post it up here and it was only intended as a reflection in my March newsletter. The truth is that the response to my newsletter was so overwhelming that I decided to get my reflections up here for all. I am certainly inspired, humbled and motivated since that meeting.

“We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.” – John Dryden

Improved self-management involves changing our behaviours. Often this means breaking old habits that we ‘know’ do not serve us well. The ruthless reality, though, is that our habits (both good and bad), exert a vice-like grip over our current behaviours.

Replacing old habits and building new ones, therefore, is seldom easy. It can not be achieved through applying random tips and tricks to current behaviours. Tools and technology, no matter how cool or compelling they look, often only add complexity and always dilute personal responsibility. 

There’s a lot involved in helping people – individually and as a team – change the habits of a working lifetime. It is something I have developed a deep expertise in.  It is an expertise I build into all our support programmes. That’s why we are able to help people deliver sustained behaviour change. 

I don’t mean to belittle the challenge of changing the habits of a working lifetime but here’s my top 5 suggestions. The first one is worthy of a workshop in its own right!

1. Know why you are embarking on the habit change journey. No purpose – no follow through.
2. Launch your new habit as strongly as possible. Change your routine immediately. Seize the first opportunity to act on your resolution because when you delay implementation, it becomes more and more difficult to sustain the new habit. 
3. Go public. Announce the change to those who care about you. Give them permission to support you and hold you accountable for your journey.
4. Keep the right score. Sometimes we can be winning but feel like we are loosing unless we keep the right score. You might find this post useful here.
5. Work through the pain barrier, knowing it will pass. Never let an exception occur until the new behaviour is firmly embedded. All new behaviours feel uncomfortable at first. Remember your first time driving a car? 

If you are looking for a better way to work, for yourself or your team, why not get in touch to see how we can help.

When I run teamworking training events for clients who use MS Outlook one of the things I strongly suggest is that the team members adopt a core of common Outlook Categories. Renaming the default Categories is relatively straightforward.

The other day I was presenting  a talk based on my ‘Welding Purpose to Priorities’ philosophy and someone asked if it was possible to customise Outlook Categories automatically across a team at Administrator level.  My thanks goes to Rob May, the MD of Surrey based Award Winning IT support company Ramsac, who pointed us to the fact that, in Outlook 2007, it is possible to customise Categories options by using Group Policy. This would work well in those businesses where the Outlook Administrator can be influenced, coerced or bribed into using this approach to improve teamworking and team work flow management.

Rob pointed us to the Microsoft’s library for the technical solution: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179073.aspx  which I hope helps those of you who would like to enforce a handful of common Outlook Categories across their team. 

Whilst we are not ‘Techies’ we certainly know how to help people become more efficient and effective in how they manage their purpose and their priorities in their busy days. If this is something that you would like for yourself, your team or your company just get in touch and let’s see how we can help.

I can’t tell you how many times I am asked to ‘pronounce’ on the ‘Best Outlook Inbox Folder Structure’ when we run training programmes. It’s a question I answer this way….Yes, those who know me are right …..You already have the answer and there’s about 60 seconds of work and 2 questions here to help you towards that answer. So, grab a pen and read on. Let’s start with a quick question :

What are the KRAs (Key Result Areas), KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) of your role?

Scribble out a quick list of the key deliverables of your role. Answer this in the reality of your role – not just the ‘official’ version.

Go beyond the ‘Headline’ and get into the major silos of work that help you deliver that overall result. You are writing aren’t you?

So, for example, a senior sales person may have:
Headline: Generate £X million in sales in the next 12 months
Major silos supporting the key business results:

• Key Account Management for top 3 clients
• New business generation
• Mentoring or managing others
• Project team participation for new CRM purchase
• Forecasting, Reporting and other ‘administration’ responsibilities.

Got your list written out? If so move on to step 2

2 Expand your Outlook inbox folder structure.

The idea is to see your folder structure in all its glory. So if you file your mails in any other Outlook folder / archive / .pst structure, expand that instead.

3 Now open up your ‘My Documents’ folder …

or any other place that you use to store the data that you choose to save in connection with your role. Resize this window so that you can see it beside your Outlook storage folder structure.

OK, now for the incisive question:

To what extent do the structures you created in your Outlook inbox folders and your ‘My Documents’ folders reflect the structure of the Key Result Areas of your role?

Truth is that most of the thousands of people I have trained over the years have created their Outlook folders and their ‘My Documents’ folders with best intentions and almost always in response to a tactical question such as ‘Where will I put this email so I might find it again?’

The result can be stand-alone labyrinths of folders and subfolders in each system that bear little relationship to each other or the key drivers of our roles.

And so to my answer. It does not matter if you are an email ‘Piler’ (relying on advanced use of ‘Search’ functionality) or ‘Filer’ with a wonderful folder system. All that matters is that your structure is as simple and elegant as it can be, that it is common across all your critical data storage areas and that it serves you, rather than you serving it.

So, over to you. What approach do you adopt? Are you a piler or a filer? Do you use big silo folders or granular subfolders? Your approach could help other readers, jot it down in the comments area below. Also, could I ask you to spread the word through the media buttons directly below this post. I have just added them here. Finally, do get in touch if you think our training, coaching or speaking services could help you, your team or your company. Thanks.