‘that’s not so special, I could have done that…’.

The truth is your probably right. However, the difference is that THEY actually DID something about it.

So now that you have set some GOALS; what have you put in place to make sure you’re working to achieve those goals?

Remember, Anyone CAN do it, but everyone DOESN’T or WON’T invest the effort needed to be successful.

I manage my goals in a similar way as I Manage My Time .

It’s really quite simple, ANYONE CAN DO IT! Here’s what works for me…

I believe it has to be simple for it to actually work. If it’s too much trouble, at least for me, I won’t do it. ACTION is the Key!

1. Keep your Goals ‘IN YOUR FACE’. If you don’t, you can easily get off focus and find yourself doing activities that are NOT aligned to your Goals.
2. Keep them clearly defined and achievable. If your not accomplishing smaller goals, you won’t be motivated to keep going. You need to have those small, quick wins to keep you on track.
3. Be disciplined and hold yourself accountable. If your not strong enough in this area, find someone to partner with to help keep you accountable and motivated. If your GOALS were established correctly, they should reflect your desires of your HEART. In that case, your Goal related activity should not be a burden, but easy to follow since they are your Passion. If this is not the case, then go back and adjust your Goals, they probably aren’t what YOU want but what SOMEONE ELSE wants for You.

I have created an entry in my Calendar (I use Outlook) for 10:00pm each Day and made it a recurring event for 29 Days. Each day, or every couple of days, I review my goals and Journal in my event how I’m progressing. On DAY 30 I take that Goal with it’s Journal Entries from the past month, reflect on my progress, then CREATE a NEW GOAL ENTRY for the Next 30 Days. This keeps my Goals current and achievable. I try to make sure they are activity based, achievable in 30 – 60 Days and pointing toward my Ultimate Goals.

Don’t worry if you don’t have an ULTIMATE Goal. In most cases I don’t. But this activity will lead you further ahead and OPEN new opportunities for you that you may not have even considered as an ultimate destination.

Ask any successful person, they never in their Wildest Dreams ever imagined it would grow this BIG or be this SUCCESSFUL!!!

Remember, ‘Nothing happens until something Moves…’ (Albert Einstein)

Good Luck! YOU CAN DO IT!!!

One of the reasons that Skunk Works is so successful is the great leadership structure that is setup. Smart people are allowed to get work done, and are involved in the project all the way through. Unfortunately, the government isn’t setup the same way.

From Skunk Works -

One that particularly sticks in my craw occurred when President Johnson first announced in 1964 the existence of the RS-71, the Air Force two-seater Blackbird. That’s right, RS-71 was its official designation, but Johnson accidentally turned it around and called it the “SR-71.” Instead of putting out a brief correction, the Air Force decided not to call attention to a very minor mistake by the commander in chief and ordered us to change about twenty-nine thousand blueprints and drawings at a cost of thousands of dollars so that they would read “SR-71″ and not “RS-71.”

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating again and again – Do your employees come to you with mistakes as they happen with possible solutions already laid out, or do they work to keep you insulated from the mistakes because of a culture of fear?

YOU will stand out as an Effective Leader if your meetings are different. It is easier than you may think.

1. Have a Clear Purpose. Never meet without an Agenda or a planned outcome.
2. Ensure all the Right People are there and not just the decision makers. Get input from all the best resources, remember to look outside of the obvious ones. Take advantage of all available diversity and listen closely to the people in the trenches; they know more than you give them credit for.
3. Don’t waste people’s time, their time is as valuable to them as yours is to you. Plan enough Time and Start and End on time or sooner. I never schedule a meeting for LESS THAN 1 Hour. It is always better to be done in 30 minutes for a 1 hour scheduled meeting than to be finished in 45 min for a 30 minute scheduled meeting. People will be glad if you “GIVE BACK” some very valuable time to them, and they will be “FRUSTRATED” if you make them late for their next meeting by running your meeting late.

   In some cases, the meeting could be cut short if key people have to leave, making the meeting a total waste.

   Don’t worry if people react when you schedule a 3 hour meeting. If you are well prepared, and the meeting is effective, you can achieve the outcome and save everyone from several more meetings. They will definitely appreciate that and respect you for it.

   This doesn’t mean to rush things, make sure everyone gets a chance to provide input. Remember, that not all participants will be comfortable talking or sharing their thoughts and ideas. You may have to lead and encourage them to share.

4. Communicate results and follow up Action Items quickly. Don’t you hate it when you get meeting minutes weeks after the meeting (usually the day before the follow up meeting). Meeting Notes are supposed to help clarify the outcome of the meeting and help remind participants what follow up Action Items they are responsible for.

You may be saying, I have heard this all before, but knowing what to do and actually applying it are two different things. Here are some more tips for Effective Meetings that will save you LOTS of TIME and impress your Peers and Leadership.

TIPS IF YOU’RE THE MEETING LEADER

1. Write your Meeting Minutes BEFORE the Meeting. If it is important enough to meet, then it’s important enough to document and follow up. I like to use this simple format:
   

   • Date, Time and Place of the Meeting (Replace the Place with a Phone Number if it’s a Conference Call)
   • Attendees: and Excused: (List the names in Alphabetical Order, people will not try to read into the special order you placed the names in. Never use “Absent” it makes them seem like they didn’t think it was important to attend etc…) Refer back to, Are You a Servant Leader?, a previous post on ensuring that you always want to make others look good.
   • Project or Meeting Scope
   • Meeting Notes: (These are very generic) I try to use the next section more if possible.
   • Action Items: I Like a Table format here:
     

     ITEM # (for easy Reference)	WHO (Person Responsible)	WHAT (Specific Item to be Addressed)	WHEN (Deadline Task should be completed)	STATUS (Here you can add Comments or “COMPLETE” when the task is finished)
     1	Robert	Post Meeting Minutes on wiki for Team Follow up	Close of Business mm/dd/yyyy	COMPLETE
     2	Susan	Ensure Action Items are Communicate to Team Members not at this meeting	Close of Business mm/dd/yyyy
     3	TEAM MEMBERS	Update the status of your own Action Items in the wiki (PATH Included)	Close of Business mm/dd/yyyy	Ongoing

   • Next Meeting: (Identify the Next Meeting Date. This usually is discussed at the meeting or you’ve looked in advance to see if people’s schedules are available)

2. Now that you HAVE YOUR MINUTES practically done, you should be able to Create your Agenda from the High Level points. Send the Agenda out with the Meeting Invite. It can just be simple bullets in an email.
3. During the Meeting Update the Minutes you already Drafted. Make sure you have accurate records of who attended and update any new action items and or dates etc…
4. As soon as the meeting is over, you should be able to distribute the minutes usually within a few minutes. The sooner you get them out the better the impression you will leave. Over time you will get better and better at anticipating the issues and action items prior to the meeting.
5. Follow Up on the Action Items. I usually CUT and PASTE the Action Items into my Calendar on the date when I should send an email or call someone to ensure that the items are on track to meet the deadlines as discussed at the meeting. Keep people’s manager’s in the loop if needed to help support the outcome
6. Avoid “Pre-Meetings” with just managers. You may think you need a strategy session first, but these just waste people’s time and isolate other team members from being able to participate.
   

   Tell me & I’ll Forget
   Show Me & I’ll Remember
   Involve Me & I’ll Understand

   Remember collaboration and ‘Buy In’ are critical to the success of any project!

TIPS IF YOU’RE A PARTICIPANT

If you attend a meeting and it is POORLY RUN, you’re not alone. It happens all the time and to all of us. But Don’t Waste your Time by just daydreaming the time away, or doing other work and being rude. Try some of these:

1. Try to help save the meeting by contributing in a way to Make it Productive. Be careful not to make the Leader look Bad in the process (even if that is what you want to do).
2. Always be watching and reading what is going on. You will learn much from others that may help serve you later on.
3. Take some notes on how the Leader can improve future meetings and if you have a good enough relationship with the Leader, share your observations to help them. Be very careful and sensitive on how you approach this. Remember, you doing this to help the Leader LOOK GOOD, at least at the Next Meeting.

I hope some of these ideas may help you. What other tips work for you?

QUESTION: Why do all these TOOLS seem ineffective?

ANSWER: You have to be able to apply it, consistently. Can you?

My tip to you for the NEW YEAR is simple and it really works; at least for me it has.

• Step 1: PRIORITIZE EVERYTHING both your Personal and Professional goals. Make sure your professional goals align to what your BOSS and ORGANIZATION needs. Not what you want to do. Refer back to some previous articles if needed:
  1. How you should look at your Job
  2. How to ALWAYS get a YES from your Boss

  First decide if it is Urgent or Important. There are only 4 choices for each item: A, B, C, or D. Quickly place each item, task or project into one of these ‘Buckets’ (Don’t spend time now Prioritizing within the buckets we will do that later).

  	URGENT	not Urgent
  IMPORTANT	A	B
  not Important	C	D

  Items in bucket A are URGENT and IMPORTANT.

  PROBLEM: You should NEVER have tasks in this bucket. If you do have tasks here it is because you already procrastinated doing the task and it finally ended up here in order to meet the deadline, or it is here because others are poor planners…You may be tricked into spending the majority of your time working on these, but these are the REAL PRODUCTIVITY KILLERS. Everyone knows that rushing through things does not produce the BEST RESULTS.

  SOLUTION: Try to work into ‘Your Plan’ and Move these items to Bucket B.

  Items in bucket B are not Urgent and IMPORTANT

  PROBLEM: No problems here, this is where you want to spend as much time as possible.

  SOLUTION: Items that fall in this Bucket, have been well thought out and you are working on the most important items in the best and most productive way. Work hard to keep as many tasks as possible in this Bucket. Good Job!

  Items in bucket C are URGENT and not Important

  PROBLEM: Items in this Bucket are typically ‘political’ and have no real value.

  SOLUTION: Attempt to educate and eliminate these activities since they are NOT IMPORTANT.

  Items in bucket D are not Urgent and not Important.

  These items should not be done at all… If you have to ‘Drop some balls’ these are the ones to drop.

  TIP: Re-prioritize OFTEN since many things or events will change your priorities.

• Step 2: CREATE MANAGEABLE TASKS Break big projects into many manageable tasks…
• Step 3: This is the Simple part. Actually plug those tasks directly into your daily calendar, like appointments with yourself.
  

  Here are some codes I use in my Calendar:

  • Mtg: (if it is a Meeting or Conference Call)
  • Todo: (if I’m dedicating time to work on a task, preferably only items in Bucket B)
  • Travel: (block travel time to give yourself enough time to safely make it to and from an appointment)
  • Event: (I sometimes use these for Church or other personal activities)
  • Info: (you may want to keep track of an on-line purchase, tracking the confirmation etc…)

  Here is a sample day:
  

  You’ll notice your days will fill up quickly, but hopefully with the right activities and prioritized in the right order.

  Make sure you leave some OPEN gaps in your schedule for others to make meetings with you (especially your Team).

  Plan for interuptions, THEY WILL COME. If you have to move something to make room for a new and higher priority, look at your deadlines and move a Todo item not a meeting (since that will effect others).

  If you think a task will take 3 one hour sessions plan for 4-5 one hour sessions to ensure you don’t miss the deadline. The more you understand your environment and patterns of others the better your planning will be.

  You’ll know your planning well by the decreasing amounts of changes you need to do to your calendar.

I hope these ideas work for you as well as they have for me. If you have questions or comments please let me know so I can respond.

GOOD LUCK!

Usually, the results are enough to keep your team motivated, and encouraged. All of the members don’t need to see personal results, sometimes team results or positive results of another team member can be enough to keep growing themselves or challenging each other.

But what do you do when the results aren’t there? or you, as the Leader, start to feel demotivated? Check out some previous tips to ensure that you, THE LEADER, are ALWAYS on your Game:

• How to Get Started?
• How you should look at your Job.
• Are You a Servant Leader?
• How to ALWAYS get a YES from your Boss.
• Should I STAY or Should I GO?
• Are You a Scary Manager?
• Do You Make Work Harder by not Managing Your Boss?
• Leadership 101 – Seek First to UNDERSTAND…
• What’s a Leader to do when THEY have the BLAHs?
• 5 Reasons Why You Should Treat Your Employees Like Dogs
• Ever Feel like things will NEVER change?

So this year was a good year, but the REAL question is, “How do we, as a team, continue to improve year over year”? Before I answer this, let me tell you a funny story about helping your Boss put things into perspective.

It all started with a simple lock, just like this one.

As I remember the story, I heard my General Manager (I was a Director of Housekeeping at a hotel at the time), call me on the two way radio… “You need to come meet me at the Store Room in the East Tower” (it was not really a store room but what I called the ‘Museum’). You see it was 5 Star hotel and when we stored things in the storeroom, we weren’t talking about old mop buckets and busted up computers etc… but hundreds of items from $30,000 pieces of artwork to antique chairs, or original statues etc… you get the picture. “Come up here right away, I need to see you” was the call… It sounded SO urgent so I dropped everything to respond. When I got there, I was frustrated to find that he only wanted to SHOW OFF his new IMPERVIOUS PADLOCK. As I was burning inside, frustrated that my idiot Boss just called me away from SERIOUS work; I began to ponder all the FACTS he was throwing at me:

• This lock cost me…(can’t remember exactly but it was definately WAY TOO MUCH)
• It’s Bullet Proof, at any distance (blah blah blah)
• Same lock they used at Fort Knox…(oh sure)
• I think it weighed like 8 lbs or something (it WAS Big, I’ll give him that)

All I remember is that he went ON and ON… like this was his FIRSTBORN. Telling me how this will be the perfect solution to protecting all our valuables in “The Museum”. I was thinking frantically how I could get out of this scenario and what I could do to bring my Boss ‘Back to Reality’, when just then my Chief Engineer walked up to see what all the ‘hub bub’ was on the radio. Then it came to me, Find The Weakest Link…

I asked my Chief for his tin snips from his tool belt and with two quick snips I cut the ‘$2.00 hasp’ holding the expensive lock and all 8 lbs came crashing to the floor (I was lucky it did not break the marble floor, that was not the impact I was trying to make) saying, “that is what I think of your Lock”, as I walked away…

You may think I purposefully tried to embarrass my boss (and maybe I did) but I did ask my Chief to see if he could remedy that for me and he said yes as he tried to keep from laughing out loud at the scene.

In order to continually grow a strong team, you need to continually find the ‘weakest link’ and improve it or replace it. Help your team find and correct the weakest links themselves, then your ready to move on to other opportunities. With these newly developed skills and perspective, they will be UNSTOPABLE.

When you’re NO LONGER NEEDED, consider it a JOB WELL DONE and leave with Pride.

Now Go Out There and find another opportunity to add value to.

Good Luck, and may this year be another good one for you as well. Thank you to Darren Rowse for the topic + group writing project.