Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: StephenPSmith.com
I have been reading the new book by David Allen, “Making It All Work“, and getting some really powerful insights. The main thrust of the book is that it expands your Getting Things Done practice by emphasizing a couple of points that I have been advocating here for the past year or so:
Get control of your system
Gain perspective on your responsibilities
Keeping things in context has become my own personal mantra, and one way to do that is with a comprehensive series of reviews. I personally recommend a series of 69 reviews over the course of the year:
Weekly
Monthly
Quarterly
Annually
This may seem like a lot, but with some practice and by discovering what is most important to you these reviews do not take a lot of time and the return on that investment of time is invaluable. I use the weekly reviews to keep myself on track with the day-to-day work for my clients and personal projects. The monthly reviews focus on the larger scale of how my business is going and what I need to drill down on in the future.
The quarterly reviews are mainly geared toward measuring my progress toward the big goals, aspirations, and long-term success. These are the times that I really think about where I am headed and what is being done to get there. Last year I kept some fairly detailed notes during these highly introspective reviews and they came very handy recently when I sat down to look at what worked and what didn’t. This made my annual review go smoothly and provided a template for this year’s goal-setting.
Improving Relationships
One of my primary goals for 2009 is to expand and grow my new consulting business. Working for myself is an enormous challenge, with a fantastic reward - I get to work one-on-one with some really cool people. And I learn something new from every one.
Part of my plan to maintain and expand these existing client relationships - and get the new sales year off to a good start - is to schedule an annual review focusing on each of them.
During this review, I will be looking over the past year’s work with the client using this template:
Thank them for their business, and tell them how important they are to me.
Invite them to share their thoughts about the business we did with them - both positive and negative.
Highlight the positive things we accomplished for them, and how we worked together to address their business issues.
Brainstorm with the client on new products or services that I can help them to develop and market.
I am looking forward to building sustained relationships based on mutual trust and professional respect, and being able to ask for referrals to create these same powerful relationships with new clients.
If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/b6duq2. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen
Meetings occur with the assumption that individuals have someting to contribute to an organization that is best executed as a group effort, or that people learn more cost-effectively in a group rather than one-on-one. In order to get the most out of a meeting, it is important to understand a little bit about group dynamics.
This is probably what most of you think of when someone asks you to come to a meeting:
Effects of group behavior
I can tell you from first-hand experience that there are a lot of meetings that I would have been better off not attending. Assembling a bunch of brain-power in a room is ot enough to ensure successful learning, negotiation, problem-solving, or decision-making. Attitudes, feelings, and intra-office politics can affect the reaction to the material being presented or discussed. These reactions influence all of the attendees in one way or another. This is because, in a group, humans prefer to avoid rejection and gain the approval of others in the group.
This can lead to interesting circumstances where a meeting produces no substantial result at all:
“Groupthink” can lead to acceptance of a pre-conceived solution, that may or may not be the best solution
Attendees with higher perceived status may indicate understanding when they have no true comprehension
Attendees with lower perceived status may refrain from offering a controversial idea for fear of rejection
Suggestibility of people in groups can lead to an undue influence from the minority opinion
Group participation can lead to reduced individual accountability
Establish trust and inter-dependence
There are a few things that you can do as the leader or facilitator of a meeting to increase its value and productivity:
Establish (and express) your own belief in the value of group work. If you don’t think that the meeting is a good idea, everyone there will catch on in a minute.
Set clear goals for the meeting right at the start. Setting a goal for the group lets the attendees know that they are accountable for the success of the meeting.
Create an avenue for back-and-forth communication. Meetings, even for presentations, should be more like a press conference than an address. If the attendees have no means or reason to interact, then you might as well just record a video and send it out.
Distribute the power and responsibility. As the leader of a meeting you can increase participation by assigning roles to discussion leaders, having multiple presenters, and being sure to ask open-ended (rather than yes-or-no) questions. At the end of the meeting, have a list of who is responsible for each Next Action & it’s due date.
Recognize all contributions
During the meeting itself, as well as in all follow-ups, it is important to encourage and acknowledge every attendees contribution to the process of the meeting. If participant involvement is ignored or discarded, you will be undermining the process and alienating the participants. By showing sincerity and trust, you can truly get more from the group than from the sum of its parts.
One last thing, remember to say “Thank you“. It is much more powerful and valuable than you might think!
If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5svr62. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen
Welcome to part six of the series on how to implement the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in a Getting Things Done-style system. Because this is a fairly intensive plan to implement, I am writing a series of posts that will guide you through the stages of implementation over several weeks. This will give you a chance to focus on each new habit in your life for one full week before beginning the next one.
Each weekly post on the habits is supplemented by a worksheet to help you start focusing on the new habit.
For those of you who may not have read Stephen Covey’s landmark book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, here is a brief synopsis of the fourth habit: (from Wikipedia)
Think Win/Win describes an attitude whereby mutually beneficial solutions are sought that satisfy the needs of oneself, or, in the case of a conflict, both parties involved.
Habit IV - Think Win/Win
Stephen Covey’s description of the Fourth Habit of Highly Effective People is based on two important concepts:
The first three Habits are “Private Victories”, the building blocks of personal growth and development. Being proactive in your environment, practicing the skill of visualizing results, and focusing on the things that are truly important are the core goals of self-mastery. The fourth Habit is the first of the “Public Victories”, an interpersonal skill that enhances your leadership skills.
Think Win/Win depends upon the “emotional bank account” that other people hold for you. The emotional bank account is an expression of your credibility, your communication level, and your ability to persuade/influence others.
The Emotional Bank Account
Every time you express your faith in someone else, through trusting them to do their job, or acting on their input, or even just listening when someone needs to talk, you are making a deposit in the emotional bank account that you have with that person. This bank account is a virtual and tenuous thing. It is that person’s measure of you as a person, and of your particular relationship. When you act with integrity, keep your commitments, and communicate clearly you become a depositor.
You can also make withdrawals from that account, and when you do it hurts that person in some way. Being late to a meeting, being disrespectful, acting with immaturity - all of these are examples of how to diminish your ability to influence people in a positive way.
Think about the petty office tyrant in your past (or present), the micro-manager that insists on practically doing your job herself, or that “friend” that you can count on when you are picking up the bar tab - but is never around when you need to clean out your garage. These are the people with low (or over-drawn!) emotional bank accounts. Do they get your trust? Do you put any credence in promises that they make? Can you count on this person in a pinch? I would hazard a guess that the answer is, “No”.
6 Ways to Make Deposits
Understand the individual - Like a snowflake, every person is different. Some, of course, are flakier than others. Develop an understanding of what makes people “tick”, play to their strengths and help them to compensate for their weaknesses.
Attend to the little things - Small acts of kindness and appreciation go a long way with people. I have seen a co-worker’s attitude turn 180 degrees when I noticed that they were having a tough day and I asked them, “How can I help?” Sometimes they just need someone to talk to, other times they need a little more.
Keep your commitments - Be on time to meetings. Complete assigned tasks. Do what you say you will do. This sounds silly, practically a cliche, but it is less common than you think. A corollary is to learn to ask for help. If you find that you are not going to be able to keep a commitment, ask someone to help you. This way those that are counting on you will know that you are not hanging them out to dry.
Clarify your expectations/understand theirs - Again, clear communication of the end results of an action as well as the steps to get there enable tasks and projects to be completed successfully. Poor communication or changing expectations creates stress and frustration, enormous withdrawals from the emotional bank account!
Show personal integrity - Develop trust and respect for the people you know, and the people that know you. Your personal reputation is the lynch-pin of all of your interpersonal relationships.
Apologize for withdrawals - You will make withdrawals from your emotional bank accounts from time to time. Tell them that you know it happened and that you are sorry. Show real sincerity. Ask them how you can learn from the experience so that it doesn’t happen again.
“We have committed the Golden Rule to memory;
let us now commit it to life.”
The emotional bank account is the foundation of the fourth Habit. It cultivates a state of mind, and a belief in your heart, that you can and should seek to discover the mutual benefit in all human relationships. Most, if not the vast majority, of your relationships depend on interpersonal transactions that are interdependent upon other relationships. You may have a friend that wants to borrow your truck to help another friend move. If you let your friend down, his friend gets caught in the withdrawal too.
On the other hand, you can make a deposit by not only offering to lend your truck, but offering to help. This can gain a new friend, create a new relationship, and strengthen your current friendship. The moving gets done faster, and everybody wins.
Getting to Win/Win
The Win/Win mind-set can be a difficult path to follow until you develop the skills and attributes that are needed. The first of these is Character - the measure of your personal integrity, maturity, and an abundance mentality.
Integrity - Can your friends and colleagues count on you? The first three Habits are the tools that you need to pro-actively execute your daily activities according to your deeply-held principles and values. Becoming results-focused aids you in keeping your commitments, and knowing which results are most important and actively working toward them creates a discipline of success.
Maturity - Having the courage to stand up for your principles while maintaining a sense of consideration for the principles of others is the hallmark of the Win/Win philosophy. Communication is at the core of maturity, in order that you listen and understand the situation completely.
Abundance Mentality - Believe that there is plenty of success to go around. In our hyper-competitive business culture, this may seem counter-intuitive or even wrong. The truth is, “success” is not a pie of limited size - just because I get a bigger slice doesn’t (necessarily) reduce the size of your slice. Become part of the culture that enables and cultivates this mentality, as opposed to the back-stabbing and sabotage that accompanies a mentality of scarcity.
Practical Applications
Those of you who have been reading since the beginning of this series should now see where the first three Habits have brought you. A brand-new paradigm is in front of you that has the power and potential to revolutionize your relationships. Using the trust that comes from your character will enable you to grow and enrich your relationships with enhanced credibility; open, two-way communications; confidence in risk-taking that can lead to incredible successes.
1. Incorporate Your Weekly Plan
Take some time to discern Win/Win activities during the Weekly Planning of your activities this week. (See the last post for a 7 Habits Worksheet and instructions.) Download this week’s worksheet and brainstorm some ideas for taking this interaction to the next level, making it a Win/Win proposition:
Clarify the desired results
Communicate guidelines and measurements
Allocate resources
Define the accountability for each party
Outline the consequences of failing to live up to the agreement
2. Make a Personal Commitment
Commit to the Abundance Mentality. Let go of the idea that others win at your expense, or that your success diminishes another. Pull more people into your circle, your team must get larger in order to have greater success!
3. Teach to Learn
One of the best ways to establish your own understanding of a new topic is to explain it to another person. Pick someone that you can teach the new habit to, it can be your accountability partner or someone else that you have recently added to your circle of influence.
If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5mouxp. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen
I thought these were supposed to come from Nigeria:
Dear Beloved,
My name is Mrs. Anika Sander from England, I am a dying woman who has
decided to donate what I have to charities through you. You may be
wondering why I chose you. But someone has to be chosen. I was diagnosed
for cancer about 2 years ago, after the death of my husband who had left me
everything he worked for.
I have been touched by the Lord to donate from what I have inherited from
my late husband to charity through you for the good work of humanity,
rather than allow my relatives to use my husband’s hard earned funds
inappropriately.I have asked the Lord to forgive me all my sins and I
believe he has, because He is merciful. I will be going in for an
operation in few weeks , and I pray that I survive the operation. I have
decided to Will/Donate the sum of 6,500,000.00 pounds (Six Million Five
hundred thousand pounds) to charities through you for the good work of the
Lord, and to help the motherless,less privileged and also for the
assistance of the widows.
Presently, I have informed my consultant about my decision in willing this
fund to charity through you. I wish you all the best and may the good Lord
bless you abundantly, and please use the funds well and always extend the
good work to others. If you are interested in carrying out this task, I
will inform my consultant of your contact, so that he can arrange the
release of the funds to you. I know I have never met you but my mind tells
me to do this, and I hope you act sincerely. I decided that 30% of this
money should be taken by you from the total sum upon the success release
of this fund, because I am now too weak and fragile to do things myself
because of my cancer. NB: You will be given the right to verify this
directly with the Bank where the fund was deposited.
I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until the
task is accomplished, as I don’t want anything that will jeopardize my
last wish, due to the fact that I do not want relatives or family members standing in the
way of my last wish.
Regards
Mrs. Anika Sander
PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR FULL NAME, ADDRESS, TELEPHONE/FAX NUMBER ON YOUR REPLY
FOR EASY AND IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION WITH MY CONSULTANT.
BTW, This font is created with the “tt” command, and I happen to be old enough to have actually used a TeleType machine. With a strip of paper that had a bunch of holes in it.
If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6mdesn. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen
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January 23rd, 2009 by Stephen
One of my primary goals for 2009 is to expand and grow my new consulting business. Working for myself is an enormous challenge, with a fantastic reward - I get to work one-on-one with some really cool people. And I learn something new from every one.
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Get involved with the 
Welcome to part six of the series on how to implement the 
, here is a brief synopsis of the fourth habit: (from Wikipedia)
Every time you express your faith in someone else, through trusting them to do their job, or acting on their input, or even just listening when someone needs to talk, you are making a deposit in the emotional bank account that you have with that person. This bank account is a virtual and tenuous thing. It is that person’s measure of you as a person, and of your particular relationship. When you act with integrity, keep your commitments, and communicate clearly you become a depositor.
The emotional bank account is the foundation of the fourth Habit. It cultivates a state of mind, and a belief in your heart, that you can and should seek to discover the mutual benefit in all human relationships. Most, if not the vast majority, of your relationships depend on interpersonal transactions that are interdependent upon other relationships. You may have a friend that wants to borrow your truck to help another friend move. If you let your friend down, his friend gets caught in the withdrawal too.
