We’re almost at the close of 2011, and it’s been quite a year. If you’re like me, then a good rest over the holidays is badly needed. But what next? 2012 can be a GREAT year for us, when we focus on productivity.

I’ve just read a post on the Harvard Business Review blog, Five Things You Should Stop Doing in 2012, and it shares some great tips on how to sharpen up our productivity.

My two favorites are stop doing work that’s not worth it and stop making things more complicated than they should be.

For most people, their annual performance appraisal is due over the coming weeks (is yours?) This is an ideal time to bring up issues connected to the above points.

Over time, some tasks we’re doing lose their effectiveness, because the world moves on, and technology speeds things up (or makes tasks redundant). Often, though, these tasks aren’t reviewed to ensure that they’re a good use of our time. These things might be stock-checks, or regular meetings… you’ll know what you do that isn’t effective.

Use your performance appraisal as a point to ask “should I REALLY be doing this any longer?”

This is a powerful question.

And ally this to the second point. Tasks we regularly perform can become unnecessarily complicated, because the process is inflexible. Such as filling out paperwork that nobody reads, or sending out letters that clog up the mail-room. When a task is ‘new’, our competence in it is low, so check-sums and balances are used to help identify problems. But when we’re adept at a task, we no longer need those checks and balances.

I’m not suggesting that we take additional unnecessary risk; some things HAVE to be done to comply with regulations or policy.

What I am suggesting is you review the effectiveness of every sub-task (like filling out a section on a form) and review whether it really adds to the quality of your product/service, increases profit, or reduced risk.

And it’s OK to challenge policy too, if that policy is ineffective.

This is a powerful challenge.

So use your coming performance appraisal as a way of introducing these questions and challenges. Done objectively, it can be a powerful means of stimulating change, and innovation.

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

If you run meetings, then you need an agenda. It’s not a surprise, though, how many meetings go ahead without an agenda! (No wonder they don’t really work…!) Here are some tips that will help you put together an A* agenda for your next meeting.

A meeting agenda is YOUR powerful tool to ensure that your meeting achieves its aim. But wait a minute – do you know what the aim of your meeting is? Modern business is plagued by a fixation on meetings. And what I’ve discovered is that meetings are held, week-in, week-out, without a clear purpose. Without a clear agenda. Agendas help steer a meeting effectively towards the goal, but first we gotta know what that goal is. So onto…

Step One: Be Clear About the Purpose of the Meeting

If this isn’t clear, then cancel the meeting straight away! Our meetings must have a desired outcome. E.g. agree an action, make a decision, communicate change. The purpose should be easy to articulate and specific enough so that all attendees know what it’s about. For example:

‘Bad’ purpose: listen to what people have to say about product X.

‘Good’ purpose: gather feedback about product X, and then agree a list of prioritized actions to be performed by the team.

‘Bad’ purpose: to share information about team activity.

‘Good’ purpose: to monitor team activities and agree any management interventions required.

One way to look at it is to take your current meeting ‘purpose’ and then consider: does this meeting actually result in something that can then be carried out?

Step Two: Then Create the Agenda

Once you’re crystal clear about what your meeting is for, you can then begin to put the agenda together. Your agenda should have to following components:

• Date/time/location
• Attendees & other participants – and state who should be present at which agenda item, if not all
• Absentees/apologies – it’s always helpful to state who you know WON’T be there, as this may cause the meeting to be postponed
• Agenda items, to include:
• Agenda item (title and description)
• ‘Inputs’ – any documentation to be used in the agenda item
• Desired outcome (decision, action, or shared information)
• Agenda item duration
• Agenda item owner(s)
• Chairperson
• Minute taker (see Minute-Taking, Made Easy) – to be agreed upfront

Distributing Your Agenda

I recommend that you distribute your agenda as soon as you can. Why? Because:

• It gives people enough chance to prepare agenda items, inputs and any supporting material
• It gives people chance to challenge the agenda, its purpose and participants
• It allows people to consider the appropriateness of the meeting without absent attendees
• It allows enough time to get the meeting into attendee’s diaries

I also suggest you don’t just send the agenda to participants only, but also to anyone else who needs to be informed, such as department heads, supporting staff and people who have made their apologies upfront.

A Note On ‘Quick’/'Heads-Up’ Meetings

Not all meetings require a formal agenda, but nevertheless, a quick meeting still needs a purpose. These meetings work well when everything above holds true, even if it’s communicated quickly in a few statements. For meetings to be effective, participants need time to prepare and get into the ‘zone’ of the meeting, ie. putting aside current tasks so they can focus on your meeting.

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Some tasks seem to take much longer than they should, don’t they?

But it’s no surprise, when you think about it…

1. Tasks take too long because there are too many people involved. Too much subjectivity (opinions, tastes, preferences and the like). Too many diaries to get in sync. Too many egos. Too many jobs to justify the existence of.
2. Tasks take too long because they are too big, and unwieldy. Big tasks scare people. Tasks are not manageable in bitesize chunks.
3. Tasks take too long because of process. Process (i.e. bureaucracy) can stop tasks starting, continuing, and even stopping when they should. Too much process stops people actually executing (getting on with the work). Too much process means that tasks can be too expensive, or time consuming, so they don’t get done.
4. Tasks take too long because people don’t see the benefit of doing them. When workers can’t see the benefit of completing a task, it can be stalled or dropped in an unfinished state. If you don’t know what a task results in, why do it?
5. Tasks take too long because they are the  wrong task. Some tasks shouldn’t even be done in the first place, because they’re inefficient, unethical, or plain stupid. Workers know this, so they stall or delay in completing these tasks.
6. Tasks take too long because they are being performed alongside other tasks. Other tasks compete for time. Unplanned work gets in the way. Too many concurrent tasks creates complexity and uncertainty.
7. Tasks take too long because they are difficult. Difficult tasks (not to say impossible tasks) are delayed in favor of easier tasks. Difficult tasks require energy that people just don’t want to give, or have.
8. Tasks take too long because people don’t want to do them. Some tasks are just not pleasant, or interesting. Some tasks aren’t cool. Some tasks are below our pay-grades. Some tasks make us look stupid. Some tasks are embarrassing. Sometimes, we just can’t be bothered.
9. Tasks take too long because they are too badly defined. Too little information to know how to start, process or end. Too little data as input. Too much confusion about what a good result looks like. Too much ambiguity in the task’s definition. Some school examination papers are like this.
10. Tasks take too long because the people doing them are ill-equipped. Too little time, too little knowledge, not enough tools, money or resources. Incompetence.

Now when any number of factors are combined, the likelihood of the task NOT being done on time is exponentially greater.

Just imagine: a badly defined, difficult task performed by a large number of busy people who don’t have the tools to do it…… think it will be late?

Bet you’ve had a few of these in your time.

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

More pay, anyone? Who will say NO to that? There is a way to get more pay. Find out how, right here…
Whatever we do for work, we’re probably not being paid as much as you’d like, right? Well the thing is, there is a way to get paid more. But it isn’t a scheme, or a trick, so don’t read on thinking I’m going to tell you where there is a magic-wand up for grabs.

So what do we have to do to get a fatter wallet?

Especially in this economic climate, we all have to prove our worth. Employers expect a pound of flesh for every dollar paid, and there’s no getting away from it. So the essential thing is to work hard, and work smart. I’d be surprised if I was the first to tell you that. I won’t be the last. But I may have an important reminder for you…

Every minute of every day has to create value for your employer.

We are all in a value-chain (see my e-book The 10 Habits of Highly Effective Professionals) and creating value results in profit, happy customers, and ecstatic stakeholders.

When we’re not creating value, we’re creating nothing but CO2. Working hard is about doing the highest-value activities for your employer. Not chit-chatting. Not checking the results of last-nights America’s Got Talent.

And guess what? When we create value for our employer, we create value for yourselves (pay and promotion, that is).

OK (I hear ya) – it’s easy for me to say it. If it was that easy, we’d all be doing it, right? Well, it might not be that easy, but I know it’s that simple.

We all have a choice when we’re sat in our cube whether to do activity A, or activity B. Sometimes, we choose to do activity B (that’s the value-less activity) if it’s easier, takes less time, or it’s less painful. This is called procrastination. We even justify it to ourselves that ‘oh yeah I really must do activity B so I can give my full attention to activity A’… but we find so many ‘activity Bs’ to do, and then it’s time to go home. Without any activity A done.

My point is, working hard and working smart is about putting in the graft on the things that matter. Real hard graft gets noticed. Real value speaks for itself. Employers, in turn, sit up and notice. This is when we hit pay-dirt.

What about the Work-Life Balance I go on about?

Sure – I talk about not working yourself to the bone. And I am not suggesting that we do. But putting the hours in on high-value work is a choice, and it’s yours to make. A few extra hours can make all the difference.

“The top 10 percent of money-earners in America work 50 hours or more per week. The highest-paid 1 percent of Americans work an average of 56 hours per week. And more importantly, they work all the time they work. They do not waste time. They arrive at work early and they immediately start on their most important tasks. They work steadily throughout the day. They are friendly, but they do not spend the day making small talk or engaging in idle chitchat with their co-workers.” – Brian Tracy.

Do This Today

Look at what’s on your to-do list, rank in importance (value) and get the big-ticket items done. No chat. No coffee. Just do it (JFDI). And before you go home, write tomorrow’s list in the same fashion.

And there are more tips like this in this book: Get Paid More and Promoted Faster: 21 Great Ways to Get Ahead in Your Career, by Brian Tracy (quoted above). He knows his stuff. He is is one of America’s leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness.

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

A List of Bitesized Quips…

Here’s a list of 99 things to do to become a high performer. If you regularly do all 99, then I’m sure you’ll be on the road to super-stardom…

1. Tell people what you are doing
2. Ask people what they are doing, and offer help
3. Enter recent achievements into your ‘external profile’ on LinkedIn and other social networking sites
4. Practice articulating your achievements
5. Communicate progress across your sphere of influence
6. Discuss failures, and what you did to recover
7. Describe what you have learned, frequently
8. Coach other people (with their permission)
9. Find a personal development coach
10. Always ensure that your goals and objectives are S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound)
11. Regularly review your projects and extract learning
12. Send polished updates
13. Join company activities and teams
14. Always respond to employee surveys
15. Focus on your performance objectives
16. Attend company parties and events
17. Praise fellow workers – it will be reciprocated
18. Instead of reporting problems, highlight solutions
19. Align to the truth, always
20. Offer to be a spokesperson for your organization in the press
21. If you compete in sports, offer your back to your organization – sponsorship
22. Get involved in focus groups in your organization
23. Prepare for one-to-one meetings in advance
24. Learn basic project management skills, and use them, if you don’t have that experience
25. If asked, tell people about the good things in your life, rather than what’s dragging you down
26. Have fun – and share the fun
27. Be upfront about the things that are acceptable to you, and the things that are not
28. Set standards, as well as conform to them
29. Take risks, and manage them
30. Be nice to support staff, e.g. Personal Assistants
31. Network, network, network
32. Press flesh, as well as the keyboard
33. Conduct working lunches
34. Keep meetings short, and stick to the agenda
35. Show how you make decisions
36. Make yourself accessible
37. Don’t be afraid to approach Execs
38. Be creative and go forward with your ideas
39. If your ideas are rebuffed, try again
40. Avoid email unless it’s necessary
41. Always follow-up
42. Give feedback, often
43. Ask for feedback, often
44. Assume authority, until told otherwise
45. Empower yourself – don’t wait for others to do it for you
46. Focus on your strengths
47. Don’t spend too much time worrying about your weaknesses
48. Smile
49. Roll your sleeves up
50. Don’t let your status confuse your usefulness
51. Use your role as a springboard, not a fence
52. If the need arises, bypass procedure
53. Stand up for what is right
54. Find sponsorship from someone senior
55. If you can, sponsor someone else’s development
56. Keep yourself fit and healthy
57. Dress accordingly – but not necessary with conformity
58. Avoid ‘groupthink’
59. Institute a ’10% stretch’ – each month set yourself a 10% higher target in something
60. Find role-models
61. Become a role-model yourself
62. Make many friends
63. Help people
64. Invite colleagues to social events
65. However you do it, remember people’s name
66. If conflict is necessary, don’t avoid it
67. Don’t wait to be asked to do something if it needs doing
68. Don’t work late, work smart
69. Never use excuses
70. Never accept excuses
71. Before you hit Send, read it again
72. Sell, don’t tell (if you don’t have to)
73. Share the joy and fruits of success
74. Share your knowledge, don’t withhold it
75. Be different
76. Support a worthy cause, or create one
77. Know how you spend your time
78. Know that your time is precious
79. Appreciate that other people’s time is precious
80. If in doubt, ask
81. Learn how to forget status, eventually
82. Lead from the back, as well as the front
83. If you really must blame, then blame yourself
84. Hold other people to account
85. Read about something outside of your core interests
86. Always be a jobhunter, even within your current employer
87. Change jobs frequently, even within your current employer
88. Organize your workspace at least once a week
89. Create an opportunity for a colleague; expect nothing in return
90. Never take No as a bad answer – it’s Maybe you shouldn’t accept
91. Make sure your body is running on a full tank – don’t work hungry or thirsty
92. We have two ears and one mouth -  listen more than you speak
93. Don’t put anything off to tomorrow that can be done as well today
94. Remember that delegation is not abdication – true as delegate or delegator
95. Make sure the boundary conditions are clear, in whatever you’re doing (i.e. uncompromisable conditions or standards)
96. Don’t start working until you know what you have to achieve
97. Plan, but don’t over-plan – a plan should be S.M.A.R.T. too
98. Take frequent breaks – as often as you need to (and can do)
99. Remember, you’re not a super-hero – so don’t beat yourself up if you don’t behave like one

Do you have a hundredth…?

Then tell us your high performance tip by leaving a comment below!

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

All organizations have culture. Culture is intangible, and a description of the default behaviors, tendencies and styles of its workforce. Your freelance organization is no different, but what is your ‘culture’?

Many organizations have ‘strong’ cultures that set them apart from others. We can look to Dr. Fathi El-Nadi (who writes his article ‘Examples Of Strong Corporate Cultures’ ) for some examples:

• Wal-Mart. Founder Sam Walton’s concern and respect for staff from the foundation of the company creates an environment of trust that persists to this day. Walton met staff, calling them by their first name and encouraged change to maintain the competitive edge. To this day, staff think about “how Sam would have done it”.
• Southwest Airlines. Its relaxed culture can be traced back to unconventional CEO Herb Kelleher, who encourages informality and wants staff to have fun at their jobs. Employees are valued, with Kelleher acknowledging births, marriages and deaths by notes and cards. Staff are encouraged to pitch in and help out, especially at check-in, giving Southwest turnaround times less than half the industry average.
• Hewlett Packard. Problems several years ago encouraged HP to change its culture; staff are required to formulate three personal and three professional goals each year, and are encouraged to cheer those that meet them, such as getting away early to be with family. Two years into the program, HP reports no loss in productivity despite staff working shorter hours and there is an increased staff retention rate. The program has been marked by the extent to which managers bought in, and modeled it in their personal lives.

The first two are examples where the founders have a heavy influence on the culture. Their organizations are created in their image, if you like. The organizations’ cultures reflect the principles, behaviours and style of their leaders. This is true for your ‘organization’ too – your freelance business.

Let’s face it – it’s unlikely that you’re going to create a business that isn’t akin to how you like to behave, and work. Why would you intentionally create a workplace that doesn’t fit you? If you did, you’d be crazy! But have you considered that this is a truism? Does your organization reflect your personality as you see it? More importantly, what do your customers think about your business… and what (in turn) does this say about you?

Laura Spencer (who I think is a great writer at the excellent blog FreelanceFolder.com ) tells us that in her long experience as a freelancer, she has seen 10 different freelancer types that have a strong effect on how business is done.

Laura says:

It can be fun and helpful to examine these freelancing personality types. Often times your freelancing personality type can show what makes you act the way you do as a freelancer.

Laura takes a light-hearted view – this analysis gives us a general view of the effect of personality rather than being a rule – although consider the point I made above: what do your customers see, and then infer about you as a person?

Well I hope to help you answer that question soon so you can understand how your customers view you and your business with the principle benefits being:

• Increased Customer Satisfaction and Engagement
• Increased Profits
• Lower Operating Costs
• Lower Business Risk
• Your Satisfaction and Increased Confidence
• Services Tuned and Optimized for Your Market
• Less Work, More Play

As a freelancer, it’s YOUR personality and behaviors that define, to what extent, how you achieve the above. They’re in YOUR hands! If you don’t know how your customers or associates perceive you, then how will you be effective in realizing them? Only by understanding how the world sees you will you know, and have choices how to respond. In this case, ignorance is NOT bliss…

As I said, it’s in your hands. However, sometimes we don’t know where to start! In recognition of this dilimma, I will soon be launching a course designed for freelancers that gives you the method and tools for obtaining and responding to customer feedback:

Become A Smart and Effective Freelancer

All I can say right now is that this course gives you all you need to realize the benefits above by engaging your customers smarter. It will launch in August 2009 to a limited number of freelancers – only 50 places will be available at launch.

Pre-registration will be available soon, so subscribe to my RSS feed and find out when!

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

InformationWeek just announced the ‘Top Ten CIO Issues for 2009 ‘ and I was wondering why ‘Staying Employed’ didn’t feature on the list!

If you believed everything you read in the newspapers or watched on TV, then we’ll all be out of work in 3 months. The economy will grind to a halt, so we’ll all have to grow potatoes at home and produce our own energy. So why isn’t the media suggesting that the biggest concern for IT leaders is keeping their job?

What they don’t want you to know, because it doesn’t sell stories, is that people are tougher than that, and that tough people and determination will pull us through the recession. CIOs aren’t afraid of losing their jobs – and like all IT workers, they realize that technology is the answer to economic challenges, not the cause.

All my experience and insight tells me that IT will be the fulcrum of change in 2009 that pulls us through the recession. IT isn’t the cost-center that needs reigning in, it’s the business investment that will pay dividends.

The ‘recession’ has triggered the corporate survival instinct. Business issues aren’t just those concerning customers’ needs and the marketplace; they’re also about the basic hygiene of running an organization – capital, fixed costs, a focus on core activity, and automation.

Just look at the InformationWeek article . The Top Ten issues for CIOs in 2009 are:

1. Customer-Facing Innovation
2. Attacking the 80/20 Ratio
3. The Challenging Economy
4. The Strategic CIO
5. Cloud Computing
6. The SaaS Effect
7. Virtualization
8. Outsourcing
9. Green Computing
10. Radical Desktops

What do you see? Six out of the ten listed are about cost avoidance:

• ‘Attacking the 80/20 Ratio’ challenges the spend on fixed costs and infrastructure, and aims to free up more budget for innovation.
• ‘Cloud Computing’ is a long-term investment to reduce the amount of capital needed by IT and to put the management of technology into hands of experts at lower costs.
• ‘The SaaS Effect’ will continue as CIOs look for higher-value alternatives in software provision, reducing overall cost of ownership.
• ‘Virtualization’ will bring infrastructure costs down, assisting in ‘Attacking the 80/20 Ratio’ too. It enables CIOs to sweat hardware assets and to lower the costs of backup and DR services.
• The goal of ‘Green Computing’ is to reduce energy consumption (and therefore reduce energy costs), as well as encourage recycling.

Looking at the list again, you could say that some of the greatest challenges for IT departments this year is maximizing the value of IT investment, by focusing on efficiency and just as importantly, effectiveness . The two mantras will be:

1. Doing things right (efficiency)
2. Doing the right things (effectiveness)

Haven’t CIOs and IT professionals always been asked to behave this way, though? Haven’t these technologies been around for a while now, but weren’t taken seriously or de-prioritized below more ‘sexy’ innovation?

Good questions (I tell myself), but taking the cynicism away, the point now is that the economic situation we find ourselves in means we have to take the things IT has been talking about FOR YEARS very seriously now. The world has conspired against itself to put these issues, (no) these solutions , at the forefront of the agenda. No longer are there solutions waiting for a problem!

This New Age of realization that we have to take technology innovations seriously, is upon us. The challenge is to make sure it’s a sustainable investment , which is why (quite rightly) a big issue remains on how the CIO becomes (or maintains) the position of a ‘Strategic CIO ‘. Interventions to bring about Efficiency and Effectiveness shouldn’t just be tactical. A long-term plan of continuous innovation in the above areas is needed.

I like what Eric Brown says on his blog, who also comments about InformationWeek’s article. To quote Eric:

If CIO’s focus on the three main areas of Leadership, Strategy and Technology,then the “Top 10 Issues for 2009? or “Top 10 Issues for 2020? will be easy to solve.  Why?  Because the CIO and IT Leadership should have been leading the IT group to a proper technology strategy that aligns with the business strategy.

The twist I’d add is that the recession has brought some forgotten truth’s into business:

We must run efficient and effectives organizations and exploit technologies that enable us to do that AHEAD OF THE ECONOMIC CYCLE.

So a key element of ‘Business Strategy’ should be to always ensure that operations are efficient and effective whilst also pioneering in their market, in whatever the organization does. Doing so means survival and stability in tough times, and the truth is, that’s what customers want – not bells and whistles!

‘Staying Employed’ must the last concern of CIOs right now – there is a lot of work ahead!

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

I am making a bold claim: this book will inspire and surprise you. Originally published in 1966, the book remains essentially the same amazing content, although many examples shared by Drucker are updated.

Peter Ferdinand Drucker (1909-2005) was a prolific writer and management consultant who today is considered to be the father of ‘modern management’. He wrote 39 books in total, but many more articles for popular and academic journals. His subjects were wide-ranging but in general covered the behavior of human organization in society, across private, governmental and non-profit sectors, including the military. It was Drucker who coined the term ‘knowledge worker’ and who predicted the ‘knowledge economy’ we can now observe in most Western countries.

In this book, Drucker takes on defining ‘effectiveness’ in management, with gusto. ‘The Effective Executive’ might be a misleading title – it doesn’t just address the very senior layer of an organization, but in fact it addresses anyone in an organization that has the responsibility of shaping the work of others, from junior managers upwards.

In about 150 pages, Drucker takes readers on a journey through the practice of an Executive. In bringing the work together, he has boiled down all the elements of the duties and profession of management to establish the skills we must acquire in order to be classed as ‘effective’. From time management, decision-making and innovation, this book has it all. Fundamental to the text is Drucker’s insistence that effectiveness can be learned, and it is learned through practice, and it is acquired by learning. Equally fundamental is the assertion that a knowledge worker’s primary objective is to provide contribution to his employer; not to achieve rank, status or job title.

Some powerful considerations arose from this book:

• How much time do I spend using knowledge, against that time I spend turning the cranks of an organization?
• Do I target the results of my work enough towards helping my manager to be successful?
• Do I concentrate on building on the strengths of myself, of my colleagues and the combined strength of my organization? Or do I focus on weaknesses too often?
• Do I set the right priorities?
• When making decisions, do I spend enough time listening to the people who might object to my preferred option?

I feel very strongly about this book. It inspired me to take a deeper look at problems I couldn’t crack. Clearing away the weeds; seeing the wood beyond the trees; cutting to the chase – whatever your cliche, I have been enlightened: as an ‘Executive’ I now see the underlying issues that cause the many business problems I am facing, and I can deal with them. Before this book, I was only dealing with the symptoms.

If you are in a management or executive position at any level, then this book can’t fail to open your eyes to what management is all about. Buy this book today , you won’t regret it! I urge you to pick this book up, and for the price of a take-out lunch, you have very little to lose.

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.