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Editor: Dr. Wolf J. Rinke Feel free to forward this eNewsletter to others. IN THIS ISSUE =================================================== =================================================== ================================================== Don't Oil the Squeaky Wheel and 19 Other Contrarian Ways to Improve
Your Leadership Effectiveness, "Tells you what you need to know to win in the game of leadership
in these turbulent times." Winning Management: 6 Fail-Safe Strategies for Building High-Performance Organizations, six audio-CD album. Over 5 hours of hard hitting advice to help you achieve dramatic improvements in performance, productivity, and profitability. Don't waste your commuting time! Instead put that time to good use and learn fail-safe management and leadership strategies that will get you promoted FASTER! Price: $69.95. Both book and 6-CD Album --$69.90 + s/h. SAVE $15.00! ------------------------- Offer expires 3/15/2008 ------------------------------ Log onto www.wolfrinke.com/SpecialSWWMCD.htm or call 800-828-9653. Mention this ad when ordering by phone! =================================================== Now let's continue… Work from a to-do list every day "If you want to eat an elephant, you have to take one bite at a time." I'm sure that your job is just like that proverbial elephant, and if you want to master it--instead of it mastering you--you have to have a to-do list that drives your daily actions. It provides you with a sense of direction and a focus. Many leaders tend to diminish their effectiveness because they simply come to work without a "roadmap" for the day. They don't ask themselves, "What three to five things can I accomplish today that will make a big difference?" So first thing in the morning, or last thing before you go home, write down three to five critical tasks that you want to get done that day. During the course of the day, especially after you have been interrupted, look back at your list to make sure that you have not lulled yourself away from the critical items that are on your list. That takes a lot of willpower because, as you well know, it is so much more comfortable to work on the irrelevant many. My strategy is to be tenacious about the top items on the list to the point that most of the time--to the chagrin of my wife--I won't call it a day until they are done. Which strategy you use to stretch your time rubber band is not important, provided it "forces" you to work on the Winning Result Areas (WRAs) and it disciplines you to finish one task before starting another. You see, how many projects you start doesn't count at all; the number you finish, even if it is only one important one, does! In fact, being busy or working long hours doesn't count either; results, especially the WRAs, do! So visualize your prioritized tasks, and work them tenaciously until they are done. Never worry about all the things you are not doing, or all the things you were unable to accomplish yesterday, because yesterday is gone and all the fretting in the world won't make it come back. Take advantage of the three-minute rule Once interrupted, do anything that can be completed in three minutes or less. Use these and all the other strategies we discussed in the previous two eNewsletters as a guideline and be sure to stay flexible. I said "guideline" because of a recent experience. One of my clients had just finished reading a time management book and was trying to abide by the rules the author had prescribed. Proud of his success, he was telling me how he had just told someone who had called that he would get the answer and call back, so that he could continue working on a major project. Because I was in the process of writing this eNewsletter, I asked him about the question and found out that the question could have been answered in a matter of minutes, while the other party remained on the line. When I asked my client why he had not taken care of it right away, he said that he wanted to "chunk" his time, so that he could concentrate on the project he was working on. In this case the operation was a success, but the patient died. By the time my client would finally be able to reconnect with the caller who had an easy-to-answer question my client would have used up far more time than he saved by chunking his time. In other words, the literal application of any approach seldom works unless you tailor it to yourself and to the situation, and then superimpose some common sense. Even though the "three-minute rule may violate one of the other rules you were taught, it will save you lots of time in the long run. So always look at the bottom line and ask, "all things considered, which is the most cost-effective strategy in the long run?" Happy stretching! SMART STEPS Starting today cut all meeting times by 25 percent. You will still get all the real important things done just as before. Have all meetings that are longer than 30 minutes driven by an agenda that is time, task and people specific. Start and stop every meeting on time. If it cannot be accomplished in the allocated time, ask for a small team to work on it and bring back recommendations for the team to consider at a future meeting. Starting tomorrow and continuing for three months, pick a day of the week when you commit to scrutinizing everything you do by asking: "What will happen to the bottom line if I no longer do this? If the answer is nothing, quit doing it!" For the next 90 days, pick one task per week and delegate it to someone on your team. Religiously record your time usage for the next three to five days,
then analyze it and figure out what practices you can: Scrutinize every crisis for the next 120 days, and figure out what can be done so that the crisis will not ever recur as a crisis. If you can't figure it out, get help! Figure out which time of the day you are the most productive. Block this time out on your calendar for at least the next 21 working days so that it becomes habit. Now do your most important and longest projects--the WRAs--during this time. If you have trouble with procrastination, take your top priority and, if it is a long project, break it down into self-contained chunks. Estimate how long it will take you to complete chunk #1. Block this time out on your calendar during one of your designated productive times. Clearly mark on the calendar what is to be accomplished during this time. When the time comes, start, and do nothing else, including going home, until the designated chunk is done. During the next six months reduce all policies and procedures by half. Repeat this process every six months until you are down to those that are required by a regulatory agency or are extensively used. (The way you can tell the latter: the pages are torn and worn. If not, get rid of them.) SOURCE: Based in part on Chapter 19 of my book "Don't Oil the Squeaky Wheel and 19 Other Contrarian Ways to Improve Your Leadership Effectiveness," McGraw-Hill. (Get this book at a significant discount. See the special offer in section #2.) http://www.WolfRinke.com =================================================== 11/9/08 Philadelphia, PA. "Achieve Peak Performance by Increasing Personal Effectiveness," full day Institute of Management Studies (IMS) seminar. Contact: Joe Paesani, Philadelphia@ims-online.com NOTE: I have other "in-house" presentations scheduled in the U.S.A., Canada and Europe. Please let me know if you are interested to preview me or bring me into your organization at reduced expenses when I'm scheduled to be in your area. That way we can let you know when I'm coming your way! =================================================== =================================================== =================================================== If this was forwarded to you and you would like to receive your own
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