1. Create a Total Lack Of Clarity in What You Want

Just make statements such as “I want to be more successful”, “I want more customers” or even “I want more money”. Unsuccessful people tend to make generalized statements about what they want. One big problem is that they will never know whether they have reached it or not. Successful People tend to be very specific in what they want- “Success to me means that I want to get on track to exercising regularly 3 times a week on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night at 9pm” or “I want to see my customer base increase 8% this year”. They tend to print many copies of their resolutions and pint them up in areas most visible. This goes with the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind.”

2. Create Unrealistic Expectations With No Milestone Planning

One typical example is a weight lost expectation: I want to lose 13.2 pounds (or 6 kg) this quarter. Or another: I want to increase my income by 5 times. They do so without doing anything different from last year. If you want to increase your income by 5-fold, what you are currently doing has to change and starting creating new strategies for it. Creating milestones are also important in helping you keep track where you are in your goal. Whole year goals should be mixed with quarterly goals so that you know where you are going and can celebrate when you achieve them along the way. Celebration is an important aspect of getting results.

3. Do Not Come Up With A Plan To Achieve It

Dreams are great, and most of the time the first thing to achieve your dreams is to wake up! Unsuccessful people tend to just WANT things or results. They may not want to put in a plan to specify how they intend to achieve results. As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Successful people usually have a plan (may not be the perfect plan) that will ensure that they will draw closer to the desired results. They know that plans can change according to the situations and remain flexible.

4. They Do Not Share Their Intentions With Other People

From my experience, most people believe that we should just keep our resolutions quiet and ensure that others do not know about it. This is so that when one fails, no one will know. However, if you intend to achieve it, shout it out and ensure that your best friends, colleagues or even (gasp!) family members know about it. When you put yourself on the line, you tend to achieve it. This is because there are people around you reminding you of what you have said!

So… what are you waiting for? Can you share with me your plans?

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It is a very touching video and I hope it speaks love to you.

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Donald Trump, America’s biggest real estate tycoon shares in his book: Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life:

Do not view any failure as the end. Learn from your lessons quickly, then move on. Do not dwell on the failure. Start thinking big again. Fill your mind with thoughts that make you feel good, plans for the future, past successes, good things your friends said about you, anything that puts a positive spin on your inner dialogue.

Learn the art of forgetting. Move on and do not give a thought to the bad things that have happened to you. Do not be an idealist, wishing things were different, wishing bad things had never happened, and wishing you lived in a fairy tale world where everything turns out right. Do not wait for everything to be perfect before you start taking action again. Be a realist. It will never be perfect. Just resolve to do better, then move on, forgetting the past. View every failure as a step on the way to ultimate success. Remember, persistence plus learning from mistakes equals success.

Failing is part of the feedback loop in life. If we dwell on it, it does not serve us at all. Great people became great because they learnt to overcome it and not commit the same mistake again. Always fail forward!

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Efficient- Being able to perform a task quickly without consuming too much resource (Eg, time, money and etc).

Effective- Being able to do what is important.

In your everyday work, just look around and ask, “Am I concentrating on doing things Efficiently or Effectively?”

I dare say that most people are concerned with being efficient, but rarely ask the bigger question, whether what they do first of all, is what really matters. We are usually concerned with how to do things faster, or even creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)s to rinse and repeat the whole process. While this is good, it fails to answer what really manners at the end of the day?

In my training with managers and executives, I often ask them what are the top 3 important areas of their work they need to focus on and how much time of the week actually gets devoted to it. The answer is usually astonishing! They end up doing so many things that demand their attention that they fail to do what really matters in their job (Efficient, but not Effective). It is important to know what really matters and start from there, rather than rush in and do things fast.

It is only when we realise what being effective means to us and our boss (yes, bosses usually seem to have different standards of what effectiveness mean), then can we proceed to be efficient in what we are doing. The worst thing to do is to be efficient in what we do, only to find out that it does not really matter in the work environment.

Let me give you an example.

Lisa was hired as a personal assistant to Tom. What Tom wanted Lisa to do was to make him more effective by helping him with the admin work. Lisa was happy at first, but gradually she was slowly drawn into helping him do more than admin work. Daily tasks included, helping him to cold call, gather leads, following up with his clients, chasing payments and preparing his power point presentations and etc. She covered almost every aspect of his work. This made Lisa more tired, stressed and over-worked, because she was not working from her strengths. She hated sales and did not like making cold calls.

In the end, she quitted her job and was frustrated in doing everything. The interesting thing was that Tom was also unhappy with Lisa’s performance. He mentioned that “She could not perform.”

A better approach for Tom is to give her a specific Job Description (JD) in HALF A PAGE. Once she is clear, Tom can approach her to do other things that are not within the JD. Only if she can finish the main tasks listed out in the JD, she can proceed to do the other things. Tom mentions that at any point of time Lisa can refuse to do the additional things, simply because it affects her focus in fulfilling her JD. This creates a better WIN-WIN situation, because Lisa is not overwhelmed and able to work effectively, while Tom manages his expectations better. Being Effective sometimes also means refusing to do something if it diverts our attention.

Conclusion

What we do is always more important than How we do things.

Being Efficient does not make us effective. Efficiency is only useful if it is applied to the right things. Perhaps after all this, we can be Efficiently Effective?

You can also engage me to speak on this topic for your staff.

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4. Reduce Meeting Time And Set Clear Objectives For It

Long meetings with no clear objectives are often another potential time waster. It is always essential to have a clear agenda with a specific outcome you want to achieve. Eg, decide on our marketing direction by the end of this meeting or set out a timeline of programs for 2009. If you are clear on the objectives, you tend to stay focused on the topic and avoid wandering off to other issues. It is also wise to set an end time to the meeting. Instead of the usual 1 hr blocks for meeting, decide that its going to be no long than 45 minutes. Then slowly reduce future meetings to just 30min blocks. Reducing meeting durations also trains people to get straight to the point and not wander from topic to topic.

5. Kaizen Approach To The Way You Do Things

How many times do we fall into this trap of busyness and we do not spend enough time to plan and evaluate how to improve things? The Japanese have this “Kaizen” principle, which means Continuous Improvement. This slow, incremental improvement is always observed at all levels of work. If we are too busy, how can we set aside time to evaluate and improve our work processes? In my previous experience working with a manufacturing company, I’ve learnt that if you could improve an operation by just 2 seconds, you literally save thousands of dollars in man hours and machinery cost.

6. Do Not Multi-Task

I know this statement will offend probably many people; however I stand by this rule. Multi-tasking actually makes us feel very rushed and we tend to shorten our attention span on things. This makes us feel rather frustrated and unsettled. Intense multitasking can induce a stress response, an adrenaline rush that when prolonged, can damage cells that form new memory, according to a research study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology by Dr. David Meyer. He mentions that multitasking actually makes a person inefficient. There is time lost between switching among tasks increases with the complexity of the tasks.

The best way approach to doing things is just doing things one thing at a time.

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The answer was a resounding YES! It is so simple and you could do it too. Now is the time to do less and yet be more effective. Follow these lessons and you will immediately gain back your lost time!

1. Dispel the Myth of Time Management

There is NO such thing as time management, only self management. We cannot technically manage time, but we can manage ourselves in the way we do things. We have to decide the difference between being productive and being busy. There is no other way.

2. Check your emails only twice a day

Emails are considered to be the most disruptive thing to work in our everyday work. We tend to have this compulsive urge to check out emails almost 20 times a day. When there are no emails, we tend to create them. Some of us even fall into the habit of replying emails thru and fro when it all takes is a phone call to quickly resolve an issue. If there are more than 2 emails replies going out from you, try talking over the phone instead.

My suggestion is to check emails twice a day at 10am and 4pm. This gives you the early morning to plan what you need to do for the whole day. By only checking twice a day, you also tend to clear emails faster than usual.  Doing things in bulk give you momentum and you tend to be more selective in the way you read emails.

3. Avoid taking phone calls as much as possible

Taking phone calls can literally break your momentum when you do things. Have you ever got into the momentum of doing sometime and when the call comes, it just suddenly breaks your concentration? Even during meetings and discussions, phone calls can often disrupt the flow of thoughts and exchanges between colleagues.

Okay, I am going to stop here. Do watch out for the next post. If you like this article, please subscribe to our blog by getting the Free Report on “7 Deadly Secrets to creating a Dynamic and Cohesive Team”. If you have comments, I would love to hear them. Please post them below.

What do I mean by this?

In the current economic situation we are facing, listen to what people are saying. What are their minds thinking about most of the time? Is there brightness of the future or is it dominated by doom and gloom?

I recently had a tea session with a business friend of mine and he lamented that things were going to get worse from Oct 2008. He painted an extremely bleak picture and was rather despondent on what is to come, eg. further lay offs, his company diving into the red and looking at ways how to cut his business cost. His mind was the impending doom and he basically focused on how bad the situation was.

He asked me, “How about you? How are you doing now?”

I told him that I was fine; in a position that was much better than I was last year.

I totally agree with him that times are bad and some of my clients have already cut back their training budgets. This affected me. However, I told him that this economic crisis was interpreted differently from me.

I choose not to stumble to all the negativity and decided that I had personal responsibility in deciding how I should react to the bad news.

I chose to spend even more money in advertising this year and started to work with strategic partners in pushing out programs. We also started explaining to companies how we could help their employees be resourceful in their work. This lead to over 9 clients meeting up with me over a span of 1 month, indicating interest in spending on my programs.

I choose to focus on abundance even during this period, because companies need help in getting their employees to stay motivated and start generating profits, even if they are not sales people.

I choose to see the dark times as an opportunity to evaluate what are the inefficient things that have plagued my company that I want to eliminate them.

What we focus on in times like this is really important. This is not just positive thinking but actually focusing on what we have influence over and doing something about it. I cannot change the economy, but I can change the way I make my company grow. For employees, are you afraid of the lay-offs that are happening? Can I urge you to add more value to your organisation, till the extend that there is really no fear of being fired simply because you are too valuable.

So… what are you focusing on right now? Possibilities or Limitations?

Kenneth’s notes:  I actually hang the flipchart on my side of my office to remind myself to focus correctly. This keeps me focused in what I should be doing. Why don’t you try it?

For the first 7 days of the trip, it was basically a guided tour. At the end of it, we had to give tips to the bus driver and tour guide. However, as I reflected on the whole tipping process, I believe that there are 2 lessons we can draw and apply in our workplace. Here are the following powerful techniques on motivating your staff to work hard and get results!

Here are my thoughts:

1. Do we ‘tip’ our staff before they work?

At the end of each tour, tour guides are usually given tips. However, what do you think will happen if you were to give it to them right from the beginning of the tour? Do you think their attitude will change and you will get better service? I know that this is a rather unconventional, but I am sure that it will get results.

Even in our workplace, have you considered rewarding your staff this way? This means that we actually reward our staff even before they even start their work. We are actually telling them that this is what we need to do and if we achieve it, more reward will come. This powerful technique actually demonstrates your leadership in helping to bring the desired future into the present and excite your staff when they work towards getting results.

Bill Zander writes in his book together with Donald Trump “Think big and kick ass in business and in life” that he effectively rewarded his employees straight with big wads of cash (USD $10,000) even before they started the New Year. He tells them that “This is just a taste of the riches about to come your way.” Some of the staff called back home to tell their husbands and wives about their bonuses and their spouses told them to concentrate on the retreat while they took care of the kids back home. If you take care of your staff, your staff will take care of the company for you.

2. Do we ‘tip’ our staff well?

If a tour guide does his/her job fairly well, they are rewarded for their efforts. They already know what their rewards will be and are willing to work hard for it. Do our staff know what how they will be rewarded if they work hard? Many times, most managers do not know how to set specific rewards to motivate their staff towards organisational effectiveness. Simple rewards other than money can be given, here are some that I recommend: Staff recognition for adhering to deadlines, letting a staff go back early after a tedious project they completed, buying them movie tickets and saying that you want them to take a break and bring their kids out for a show. Even a simple acknowledgement in front of the rest of the staff is important in the motivation process. We should seek to reward and emphasize GOOD behaviour rather than keep disciplining bad behaviour.

So… how are you going to tip your staff from now onwards?

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At the end of the recce, I sat down with my companions to discuss our observations. Just before we left the hotel, I realised that my parking coupon was not validated yet. I approached the front desk staff and asked them to help me with it and this is how the conversation went:

“Excuse me, I was with your Sales Manager Azizah, just now (pointing to the front lobby) and after such a wonderful conversation, I forgot to ask her to validate my parking coupon. Is there any way you could do that for me?” I asked politely.

“I’m sorry Sir, but this is only for our hotel guests only.” The frontdesk lady replied… surprised by my request.

“I understand, but its only a small ticket and I’m sure that Azizah will it be able to handle it.” I retorted.

“I see, but still….. it is strictly reserved for our hotel guests.” The frontdesk lady stood unwavering.

“Ok, then can you please call Azizah and tell her its me. I request for her to do this… “. I was feeling a little frustrated because it was going no where and we just discussed a deal that is worth over hundreds of thousands of ringgit (Malayisan Dollars). A parking coupon was not a big deal at all, compared to what the negotiations we discussed earlier.

While I stood there waiting for Azizah to respond, I was wondering why the frontdesk personnel were so rigid in their policies. Imagine how things will be if they were just empowered to make decisions that will make their guests (or potential clients like me) happy? What if their managers told them that they could do anything to please a guest as long as it does not cost more than $50? I am very sure that decision making will be really quick and people like me will be impressed by how their management trust them to do things.

Isn’t great if staff are empowered to make decisions? Wouldn’t a lot of unneccessary distractions be reduced for their managers? However, when I look some managers or employers , particularly entrepreneurs, this is still not the case. There is still a lot micro-managing; which unfortunately demands time and attention.

The role of a good boss is to give their staff a good framework of the desired results, empower them to make decisions and tell them that he/she trusts them. Once this is achieved, people tend to take a more pro-active approach in their work because they now know that they are responsible for the decisions they make. They will also feel a sense of empowerment that their boss really trust them to do what it takes to make their clients happy.

Back to my situation, I finally got my ticket validated by Azizah… I smiled knowing that a small thing like this made a customer happy.

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1. Clarity of roles

Every single person in technical team knows what their job description is and they execute their task to perfection. The pit stop crew (which involves changing tires and refuelling) practices about 80 times every race weekend and about 1700 pitstops per season. That means that if your purpose in the team is to clean the visor of the driver, you will be doing that all the way. There is no glamour between different job scopes. There are no individuals, only team players.

2. Speed and Precision

Each pitstop takes approximately 5-9 seconds. Imagine, with 25 crew working at the same time, they have perfected the art of quick change and not getting in the way of each other. There are a total of 4 wheel men to remove each tire and it takes only 4 seconds to do it.

3. Everyone listens to each other

Most people will think that F1 Drivers are the stars of all teams. The person behind him, called the Race Strategist is equally important. He/she decides when to make a pitstop and what strategy to adopt when the race progresses. Even drivers will have to listen and follow the strategist’s plans. A good strategy will put their car right infront of rival cars when they exit the pit lane.

4. Trust among team members

The Front Jack Man has to stand infront of the incoming F1 car even when it is approaching the pit lane at 80km/hr. He has to trust the skills of the driver to stop right infront of him as he quickly jacks up the car for the rest of team members to do their jobs.

Here is a short clip of a pitstop I took from the recent F1 Night Race in Singapore

See more exciting photos and videos of the F1 Race at Kenneth’s Facebook.