The Power of Beliefs - Part 1

Focus: Personal Success, Mind Development

Audio Lesson - Duration: 4 mins. 25 sec.
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The Power of Beliefs - Part 1
Wc:560 - Read time: appx 2 mins.
Transcript - print now

Today’s’ bite-size audio lesson is about understanding the concept of beliefs and the impact and role they play in our lives! It’s very important to understand that beliefs are critical, essential, to having the life that you want.

Belief, as defined in Webster’s, goes as follows: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing. So let’s go back to the beginning of that definition, a state or habit of mind. You know, it’s funny; we use phrases that really define that definition. We might use the phrase ‘mindset’ or we might say something like this, “You know, I keep thinking.”

That phrase, I keep thinking, defines a habit of mind. What’s important is this, our habit of mind, what we think, our beliefs, actually impact our reactions, how we respond, how we create, what we do or don’t do, how we behave in our present that impacts our future.

It’s essential that we become conscious of the beliefs that are influencing our life. And whether those beliefs are serving us in the ways we want to, to get and have the life that we want. So I invite you to do this exercise. I’m going to set out four areas in which I would like for you to identify the beliefs you hold in these areas.

So, I’m recommending get out a sheet of paper if you’re able to and I’d like for you to write down this phrase, “What do I believe about?” and then, I’m going to give you four areas for your consideration.

Here goes, what do I believe about my performance at work? Number two, what do I believe about the quality of my relationship with my significant other? Number three, what do I believe about my ability to manage change? And finally, what do I believe about my financial future?

The bottom line is this, what you believe will dictate the action you will take. For example, if you see a job posting and you read the description of the job and you say you have a mindset or habit of thinking that goes, “Wow, you know, I think I can do that job.” If you believe and think that you can do that job, what’s the likelihood that you may apply for that job? I suggest, pretty high.

However, if you read that job posting and your belief is, “You know, I’m not sure I can really do that job.” If you believe that, if you hold that belief, what’s the likelihood you’ll actually apply for the job? Well, probably very slim. That’s just a simple example of how a belief impacts the behavior.

You know what the sad thing is? The sad thing is that just because you believe it, doesn’t mean it’s true. In fact, you can read that job posting, believe you can’t do the job when, in essence, you can do the job. But no matter, the belief seems true to you, whether it’s true or not. And that’s why it’s so important to have the beliefs that get us to the kind of life that we want.

In a follow-up, part 2 of Beliefs, I’m going to be talking about three other kinds of beliefs, sabotaging, empowering, and limiting. Let me invite you to listen to those as well. Part 2


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Are You Using Your Brain to Be More Productive?

The Power of Focus
Themes: Productivity, Performance Management

Audio: 4 mins. 14 secs. – Wc: 711
Transcript - Count On It  
by Gary Lockwood

"What we see depends mainly on what we look for."   John Lubbock

One of my clients (let's call him Mike) was telling me how important it is to him that he sell long-term maintenance contracts, not just  ad hoc projects.

Makes sense. The long-term contracts provide some stability and predictable cash flow. They assist in getting closer to his clients.  They also help him to borrow funds more easily.

So far, so good.

When I asked him how many of these long-term maintenance contracts he has already, he couldn't tell me. He didn't know! He said he's been too busy to track the number of such agreements.

Wait a minute! If this type of agreement is so important to Mike's growth strategy, how can he not know the status?

The fact is that most owners and CEOs know what's important to their enterprise, but can't (or don't) measure those things.

You've heard the old maxim: "You can't manage what you don't measure." You have also likely read the story of the "Hawthorne Effect".

In the late 1950s, the GE plant in Hawthorne, California brought in some consultants to measure the effect of brighter lighting on the productivity of their factory workers. The consultants first took productivity measurements to establish a baseline. Then they intensified the brightness of the lighting and measured again.

Productivity increased.

They increased the brightness even more and productivity went up again. After raising the brightness two more times, they saw two more increases in productivity. On a hunch, they lowered the lighting and measured one more time. Productivity went up!

They figured out that the productivity gains were not related to the brightness of the lights, but to the act of measuring. They were paying a lot of attention to the effectiveness of their workers. And guess what? The workers responded by working more effectively.

What do you pay a lot of attention to? What are you constantly measuring, asking your employees about, talking about and looking at?

When your team knows what's truly important to you, they'll likely pay more attention to those things, too.

Focusing on two or three key business metrics does something else for your behavior. It triggers your Reticular Activating System. Your brain is assaulted by thousands of messages each second. Everything you see, hear, smell, feel and touch is a message entering your brain. The Reticular Activating System filters through all these messages and decides which ones will get page one treatment - that is, arouse the brain.

One of the things we've learned from working with entrepreneurs is that you tend to pay attention to the things, which are important to you at the time. If your currently dominant thoughts are about creating a new brochure, you'll start seeing other brochures. You'll hear conversations about brochures. You'll pick up ideas relating to brochures and even notice colors that would be attractive for the new brochure.

In other words, the Reticular Activating System will pass through anything even remotely related to the important issue - the brochure.

From a practical point of view, this means that, if you want to solve a problem or achieve a goal, keep it at the top of your mind. Think about it, talk about it, write about it and imagine it completed. This is one of the reasons why affirmations work so well and why it is important to review your goals frequently.

If you focus on improving a specific key indicator of your business success, your Reticular Activating System will pass through sights, sounds, people and ideas even remotely related to that point of focus. In other words, if you measure it visibly, frequently and attentively, it will likely improve.

Here's my suggestion: Identify the two to five key measurements and key indicators that are important and essential for your business. Set up an active system to measure and track these indicators. Talk to your employees about it at every opportunity. Put charts and

graphs of these indicators on the wall of the lunch room. Make your interest in these metrics very active and visible.

Chances are, you'll get what you're looking for - improvements in these areas. Count on it!

A Tip to Boost Productivity

Focus: Personal Productivity, Performance Success

Audio: 2 mins. 5 sec. 
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A Tip to Boost Productivity

Wc: 366
Transcript - print now

Here’s a great tip and something to consider for boosting your productivity. And that is to take a technology break. Now, I know for some of us this is really a challenge. 

In fact, I very clearly remember about a month ago when the Blackberry satellite system went down and people were just absolutely going nuts. And that’s probably a testimony to how addicted and attached and anchored to technology we really are.

Well, there was a clinical trial done, in fact, there were 80 clinical trials done by a Dr. Glenn Wilson who’s a psychiatrist at King’s College, London University and he found that workers who are constantly distracted by phone calls, e-mails, and text messages actually suffered a greater loss of IQ. That’s very interesting. 

The IQ of those juggling messages and work fell by an average of 10 points which was actually equivalent to missing a whole night’s sleep. Amazing! 

Well, to keep sharp, here’s a suggestion, just resist the urge to continually check messages. For some of us, you know, I know all of our working situations are different but some of us have that message reminder or that message when an e-mail comes to let us know that it’s arrived and some of us could actually turn that off. So, where possible, schedule blocks of time throughout the day to retrieve and respond to them. 

You know, there really is something to be said for the power focus and to manage wherever we have control over the interruptions. Strategic use of time and managing exposure and the use of energy makes a difference to our ability to get more done. 

You know, recently, I saw that one of the major companies in the United States has something called ‘no e-mail Friday’. And what they discovered is that productivity of their employees has actually gone up with that new policy. Boy, for some of us, that would just be a nightmare. 

But I got to say, if someone has tried it and they’re a major, successful company, let’s find other creative ways to not be slaves to technology and thereby reduce our stress and improve our productivity.

S.M.A.R.T.I. Goal Setting

Focus: Personal Productivity, Performance Success

A tool for accelerated performance enhancement

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Despite the fact that goal setting is a powerful tool, it’s also true that many people have never been taught the most effective way to go about it. The SMARTI technique is a useful tool in helping you become skilled at goal setting to ultimately achieve more and more of your desired outcomes.

Why set goals:

1. provides an intended road map
2. provides focus
3. implies to the brain what I can and want to do
4. creates motivation energy – great tool for self management  

The S.M.A.R.T.I. Approach to Goal Setting
SPECIFIC:

Tip: You can use numbers or if in the case of behavior development, it’s got to be an actual behavior that can be developed.  We want to work in conjunction with how the mind works. To stop a behavior the mind doesn’t necessarily stop, but it works in creating new behaviors by mapping new neuropathways. So in essence, the way to change something is to create an overriding behavior in its place.

We’re usually using them regarding actions to complete. I also recommend behaviors you want to develop. This is an essential tool in coaching employees and creating effective performance management.

In some cases, you’ll be developing behaviors that don’t currently exist but are necessary to desired performance.

Example of behavior goal:

Overriding Goal – to become a better listener

More specific – I will listen 80-90% of the time in my conversations 

MEASURABLE:

A key consideration under this section is to begin with the end in mind; get a “picture” of what it’s going to look like when the goal is achieved. (In fact a great additional exercise is to write out in as much detail what that picture looks like). When the picture is created, it creates a crisp focus which supplies additional motivation and prepares the mind for targeted action.  

ACHIEVABLE:    

This criterion embodies several requirements. You need to ensure that the crafted goal statement is a combination of realistic and practical and marked by sufficient stretch. Remember, one key purpose of a goal is to create motivational energy. In order to do that, it must be realistically achievable, neither too easy to hit nor impossible to hit and within your own control and sphere of influence.

The stretch nature of goals has received a good deal of attention in recent years. Jack Welch, for one, was a tireless supporter of aggressive stretch goals. And, then, there’s a rather influential book by two Stanford Business-school faculty, Built to Last — Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (by Collins and Porras, HarperBusiness, 1994). This book also extols the benefits of stretch goals, which it terms BHAGs — Big Hairy Audacious Goals! Fun… and some very compelling research behind it, too.

RESULTS-ORIENTED:

While pretty self-evident, it’s still important to stress that you’re going to want to establish goals that will lead to end results that matter, are meaningful, and will have a substantive impact — ideally, both for yourself and for your organization. Again, it goes without saying, but if a goal is truly results-oriented, then it must also be action-oriented; real stuff’s got to happen. “Just Do It” captures this sentiment well.

TIME-BASED:    

To be complete, the goal statement must be framed by a time-based expectation. It could be a time-frame, a deadline, or a series of time governed steps. This self-imposed pressure further augments the motivational energy that flows from the goal statement. The time-based benchmarks must also satisfy the achievable criteria — realistic, practical, and stretch.

INTEGRATED:    

Most all goal-crafting techniques overlook this sixth and final criterion. To be optimally tuned, you must do whatever possible to ensure that a given goal statement harmonizes with the larger business strategy — of your team, your business unit, and/or your corporation. It fuels motivation when the goal-setter is keenly aware that the outcome really matters – has meaningful impact in the bigger picture. When done successfully, harmonizing the personal goals with the business need/strategy delivers more bang for the buck and only heightens the potential impact and, thus, also the benefits/rewards.

This document was produced to compliment other lessons in the series Developing a Productivity Mindset

Other topics:

Efficient Execution

Going Beyond Execution

How to Conduct a Goal Setting Meeting 

Effective Execution vs. the Illusion of Being Busy

Focus: Personal Productivity, Time Management, Performance Success

Audio duration: 3 mins. 26 secs. 
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Effective Execution vs. the Illusion of Being Busy

Wc: 398 
Transcript - print now

Are you in the “habit” of getting things done….getting the right things done at the right time? One of the marks of an effective professional is the ability to get things done.

At the end of last year, USA Today surveyed several freshman senators and house members to find out what piece of advice they would give incoming colleagues. Interestingly, over half of those whose advice was recorded in the article addressed the issue of time management, scheduling, etc.

Many of you know that Management-in-Minutes™ is in essence a new start-up and for me I’ve had to create new behaviors in order for this new business to get off the ground. I’ve had a complete shift in time usage, going from extensive travel and being in a conducting workshop mode to being in one location, sitting, and doing a lot of planning, thinking, and writing.

This shift has made me acutely aware that I absolutely have to have targeted OUTCOMES...EXECUTION is critical. There are some days when I have felt really busy, and yet at the end of the day thought, “gee, what did I actually get done today?” I’m sure many of you can relate!

So here are some considerations:

1. You can be efficient and not necessarily be effective.
2. Effective is getting the right things done at the right time. For example, you can get a lot done in a week and still have critical activity fall through the cracks.
3. Being effective means one has to take the time to PLAN and determine what’s most important what’s critical or ABSOLUTE.

SO, what’s critical…well it’s the activities that MATTER THE MOST to the business strategy or your role or the goals of your team.

ACTION TIP: One thing that has helped tremendously is to develop something called DAILY ABSOLUTE OUTCOMES. This concept has helped maintain focus and motivation. 

It’s absolute because it is a critical outcome to the success of the business. So the focus is on what’s absolutely necessary - what REALLY MATTERS. 

HOW TO: HAVE in front of you a time sheet that maps out all the working hours in your day divided into half hours – “DAY AT A GLANCE”. Determine your absolutes for the day and literally plug them into your schedule, making appointments with them; committing a certain amount of time to them. 

What you’ll notice…how much time YOU DON’T HAVE!...that will fuel your motivation and create your laser focus.. (By the way…in many cases, it’ll help you say NO…more often as well!)

MY ADVICE – BE KNOWN as someone who gets things done and the right things done at the right time.

The Heart of Time & Priority Management

Focus: Time Management, Personal Productivity

Audio Lesson  - Duration: 4 mins. 1 sec.

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The Heart of Time and Priority Management
Transcript - print now

Wc: 458

Read time: 2 mins.

The art and activity of managing your time, organizing your stuff and space and determining your priorities begins on the inside. It’s so important to recognize this.

Whenever you attempt to plan what you’re going to do, when you’re going to do it with what ever planning tools you’re using, you go through an “internal dialogue.” That dialogue begins with a way of thinking that generates certain kinds of emotions that then influence what you will decide. That decision then determines how you will behave or another way of putting it, what action you will take – when.

In much time management seminars this is not discussed AND YET, this is the most essential part, because this impacts everything else. It’s a chain reaction.

Thinking = impacts feelings = how you plan = what you do

Here’s an example:

Let’s say that you have the kind of personality that makes it hard to say no…yep I know that there are some of you out there. Let’s also say that you get a request from a co-worker to help them with a project. You don’t know for sure if you have the time, but you say yes to the request because you want to be helpful and genuinely want to be seen as a team player.

In fact, you will either consciously or subconsciously go through that thought process in your head….”well I don’t know if I have time, but I’m a team player…so….” All those thoughts are generating a variety of feelings. Depending on your personality, the relationship with that team member and other factors, you may experience these kinds of feelings: desire/motivation, stress, guilt, fear, joy to name a few. Those feelings determine WHY you said yes. This is crucial to be aware of. 

WHY?...because managing your internal dialogue - the process given above is the foundation to managing time and priorities effectively. 

Let’s continue the example. Let’s say that although you said yes, the reality is you are swamped and really don’t have time to help. Saying yes, creates a commitment and an expectation for yourself and the other person and now your integrity in on the line.

In many cases you will push and stress yourself to help and that will impact other items on your plate. Ironically, some of those items may actually be more important and your taking on additional activity may affect the quality of those items or they may even fall through the cracks.

You may subsequently feel stress, and then even angry at the person for even asking in the first place or at yourself for saying yes. No matter what, this is an example of ineffective time management and it all began with your internal dialogue.

Bite-size Tip: Become acutely aware of your internal dialogue as you work and also as you begin implementing the principles being offered in this series.

Remember, time and priority management begins on the inside.

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Are You a Pack Rat?

Focus: Personal Productivity, Getting Organized, Performance Success

Audio lesson: 2 mins. 15 secs. 

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Are You a Pack – Rat?

Transcript - print now

Wc: 276

Read time: appx. 1 min.  
Well, I have a question for you today, are you a pack rat? In fact, there is a website devoted specifically to pack rats, www.packratsanonymous.com. 

I went to that website quite a while ago because I teach classes on how to get more organized. And always in the quest to being more organized myself, I ran across this website with some really great tips I’d like to share with you. 

First, let me start off with the definition of how they define a pack rat. A pack rat is a person who has the irresistible urge to buy and store more than they need or can expect to use. 

One can be a little eccentric or full-blown obsessive compulsive. If you keep old newspapers until they are a fire hazard because you want an article, this is dysfunctional. The best therapy is to confront your demons with the help of a friend or professional. 

Ever notice how easy it is to save everything but money? Well, here are three rules to follow that might help you be just a bit more organized:

• Number one, never acquire anything that you can’t find a home for and that place should not be the floor. I bet you have some colleagues who violate that regularly. 
  
  
• Number two, if you do acquire something, something that takes up an equal or greater amount of space must discarded.
  
  
• And finally, number three, if you haven’t used or touched an object in one year, its neessity is questionable.  
In summary: These are some cool considers from a great website. You may want to pass the url on to a "friend."

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The Lift-Off Effect

Focus: Personal Productivity, Performance Success

Audio lesson: 2 mins. 10 secs.
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The Lift-Off Effect 
Transcript - print now

Wc: 274

Today, our bite-size audio lesson is the concept of the lift-off effect. 

           

You know, I think it’s helpful that when you’re embarking on any new endeavor to be prepared ahead of time, to know and inform yourself of what to expect. Well, one of the concepts that you’ll want to know about is the lift-off effect. 

           

I recently read that when a rocket is launched into space, it expends more energy in the first few minutes of lift-off than it uses over the next several days to travel a half million miles. That’s amazing! It uses most of its energy right in the beginning. 

           

And isn’t that kind of how you feel? You know, when you go to the health club and trying to start a new habit of exercising and you just feel like, “Ugh, this is just so much effort” or you just like, “Oh, this is just, I’ve got to put out so much energy right in the beginning.” Well, that’s called the lift-off effect. 

           

And you know, once you know that, it does make it actually easier, because then, you won’t be discouraged, you’ll be able to push through, and gain the momentum that you need to move from point A to point B.

           

Remember, your old habits and behaviors are trying to pull you back, you know, like gravity, like inertia is what is challenging you. But once you know that there is any new initiative, a lift-off effect that will help you to really achieve the outcome that you want. So don’t forget, the lift-off effect.

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Self-Imposed Stress

Focus: Personal Productivity, Managing Stress, Personal Success   

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Self-imposed Stress

Wc: 510

Read time: 1-2 mins.

Transcript - print now 

Our bite-size audio lesson is introducing the concept of “ self-imposed stress.” As I’ve been speaking with people about this topic, it’s become very clear to me that the majority of our stress is self-imposed.

           

Well, what do I mean by that? More specifically, much of our stress comes from what goes on in our mind. In fact, how we interpret an event and the meaning that we attach to the event can actually cause us negative stress by the way, whether that interpretation or that meaning is true.

           

Here’s an example. I have a friend who’s recently divorced and decided to throw herself out there into the dating scene. She’d come back from a date one night and we were having a conversation around the fact that the person that she’d gone out with did not ask her for her number. Now, she didn’t ask him for his either but that’s not the point here. 

           

So as we were having the conversation about it, I asked her, “So, what do you think it was?” And she went down a list of the following, “Well, maybe I didn’t have the right hair color. Or, you know, I do need to lose a few pounds.” By the way, she looks awesome, but in her mind, she needed to lose a few pounds.

           

“I don’t know, maybe I have kind of an aggressive personality cause I’m in business.” And I’m thinking to myself, the bottom line is, she has no idea of why he didn’t ask for her number. In fact, it could have been nothing about her. 

           

He could have been having a bad night.  He could have been sick. He could have decided that he wasn’t ready to move forward with dating at all. There could have been a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with her.

           

But, she did choose to add some negativity, to interpret that event negatively. What did that cause? Her to feel bad, it caused some self-imposed stress. So, number one, she did that and, number two, she attached meaning to it.

           

Here’s what the meaning was, “I don’t know, maybe I’m not dateable. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe I’m not going to be able to find someone. You know, maybe I’m getting too old to date.” She began to apply meaning to the one act of someone not asking her for her phone number.

           

Boy, that can have significant consequences because that could cause her not to initiate going out and finding the great guy or having a great time on another date. And, she could continually be running that self-talk and continually causing more and more pain days and weeks and months after the event. That’s self-inflicted pain.

           

I would encourage you to be aware of how you interpret events, how you attach meaning to circumstances. Remember, just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s true. You know, if we’re going to acquire more levels of happiness, this is something we need to be aware of and master.

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A Useful Career Success Strategy - Are You Adding Value?

Focus: Professional Success, Career Management

Audio lesson: 2 mins. 44 sec.    

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A USEFUL CAREER STRATEGY - HOW ARE YOU ADDING VALUE?

Transcript word count: 346

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In reality when you read a job description, I’m gonna guess that in some cases it was conceived a while back in different circumstances.  This may not be true for everyone. But I wonder if you now are doing things beyond what is contains. 

Whether you are or not, I want to encourage you to step back for a moment, put aside the formal job description in your mind and do the following:

1. First ask yourself this question:

What are the overall needs of my company, team, and department right now or for the first quarter of 2009? 

2. Make a list without any judgment or editing. 

3. Now look at the list and see how you can incorporate any of those needs within reason into your daily work experience. 

Remember one important component of managing a career is really managing the perception of how you’re doing.  You are in charge of that and the value that you give.   

Make sure you keep track. What you’re doing may not be immediately obvious, so you’ll want to use for discussion during a review. 

To me, this attitude is essential in perhaps reducing the possibility of lay off should they occur in your organization. 

As your self appointed coach, I’d love to hear someone say about you, “Hey, we’ve got to find a way to keep her.”  Rather than, “Yeah…won’t be a loss if we have to let her go.”

Bonus Tip: Coaching your team to value – developing potential

As a manager, one way of adding value is doing so through the collective group.  How do you do that?  Take the exercise suggested above.  Ask each of your team members to do the same.  Meet one on one and see what they come up with.  Boy this could be valuable exercise in lots of ways. 

How can you as a manager add even MORE value?  Do the same exercise as a collective team…asking the question, “How can we as a group add value in this quarter?

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