One by One

As another term starts, here's something to think about.

Multi-tasking really isn’t the most productive way to accomplish things.  That’s not just my observation (though it is—and through direct experience).  It’s also the observation from researchers.

But how can you break that compulsion?  Short of a 12-step program, blogger Tony Schwartz offers these tips in The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time (an apt title if I’ve ever seen one).  

Here’s excerpts of his tips

For managers:

“Maintain meeting discipline. Schedule meetings for 45 minutes, rather than an hour or longer…Start all meetings at a precise time, end at a precise time, and insist that all digital devices be turned off throughout the meeting.
"Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day. If it's urgent, you can call them — but that won't happen very often.
"Encourage renewal. Create at least one time during the day when you encourage your people to stop working and take a break. Offer a midafternoon class in yoga, or meditation, organize a group walk or workout, or consider creating a renewal room where people can relax, or take a nap.” 

For individuals, establish boundaries by:

1. “Do the most important thing first in the morning, preferably without interruption, for 60 to 90 minutes, with a clear start and stop time. If possible, work in a private space during this period, or with sound-reducing earphones. Finally, resist every impulse to distraction, knowing that you have a designated stopping point. The more absorbed you can get, the more productive you'll be. When you're done, take at least a few minutes to renew…
2. “Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically. If you don't, you'll constantly succumb to the tyranny of the urgent...
3. "Take real and regular vacations. “

To read the entire blog entry, visit http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2012/03/the-magic-of-doing-one-thing-a.html. 

Learning Leadership from Failure

Looking for insights into your leadership capabilities? Then prepare your failure resume.

According to Frank Kalman, a failure resume:

[lists] what colleges or schools [people] attended, their major and the grade point average they received, he insists that they list all of the schools to which they applied but didn’t get in. The same is done for employment or other professional work experiences; it’s not what you accomplished successfully in these roles, but what you didn’t accomplish — what you failed at.

Failure resumes provide people with a different frame of reference on their accomplishments, face the issues that challenge them, and to feel more comfortable moving beyond their comfort zones so that they can further their development as a leader. 

To learn more about failure resumes, visit http://clomedia.com/articles/view/how-failure-resumes-can-boost-leadership-development/?interstitial=sp021012.

Networking for Introverts

For all of you introverts out there, check out Lisa Petrilli’s “Introvert’s Guide to Networking,” published on the HBR Blog Network at http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/01/the_introverts_guide_to_networ.html.

Petrilli offers lots of great, practical advice for those who feel challenged in a room full of strangers or others who make them feel something shy of comfortable.  

For My Current Students

Interested in preparing for an extra-ordinary career?  

Consider the suggestions in 5 Resolutions for Aspiring Leaders,  by John Coleman and Bill George and published on the HBR Blog Network  http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/12/five_resolutions_for_aspiring.html#disqus_thread. 

Rather than focusing on economic riches, these suggestions focus on ways to developing rich relationships and experiences.  

Have You Worked for One of These People?

Although the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is a classic in the business literature, perhaps the Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives ought to also be a classic,

Forbes' contributor Eric Jackson reminds us of these traits (http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/01/02/the-seven-habits-of-spectacularly-unsuccessful-executives/), and provides examples and warning signs to heed.

Most of the signs seem to come down to an ego-mania that gives the executives rose- colored glasses to see the world and ear plugs to use when the world demands listening to. 

Rethinking Casual Work

As predicted in the 1990s, employment today is increasingly casual.  Casual doesn't mean that it lacks seriousness; it just lacks a long-term commitment.  

In professional employment, that means that organizations increasingly rely on contractors and short-term workers when they staff up projects--and drop them when the projects end.  

In service employment, that means that organizations hire workers on a part-time basis, scheduling them only a week or two in advance, requiring them to be on-call at other times, and often providing fewer than 30 hours per week of work. 

The goal behind such approaches is to minimize labor costs.  And for younger workers, the belief is that such approaches are preferred.

But perhaps the logic underlying that strategy is flawed.  Consider the belief that Millenials seek flexibility in their employment.  According to his interpretation of the Allstate/National Journal Heartland poll (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/what-the-great-recession-wrought-the-state-of-the-us-in-3-years-of-polls/251010/), reporter Ronald Brownstein found that Millenials, "fabled for preferring variety to stability, also echoed that sentiment" were nearly as likely to seek job stability (that is, a long-term job with a single employer) as those in other age brackets.

Consider the labor practices in retail that favour part-time employment with low wages, flexible schedules, and limited training.  According to researcher  Zeynep Ton (Harvard Business Review, http://hbr.org/2012/01/why-good-jobs-are-good-for-retailers/ar/1), full-time jobs with predictable schedules and decent benefits favour retailers in the long-run.  Secure, well-trained, properly compensated employees may cost more, but Ton's research suggests that the sales they generate far exceed their costs.  

Last, consider permanent employees.  Perhaps one of the reasons employers have difficulty with them is that they require work.  Most of Forbes' contributor Eric Jackson's Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent (http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2011/12/14/top-ten-reasons-why-large-companies-fail-to-keep-their-best-talent/) boil down to a failure to manage the relationship.  

Among his list are failures to give meaningful performance plans and career development, insensitivity to workers' interests in job assignments, telling people how to do jobs, and constantly changing priorities.  

In other words, if people are the organization's most cherished assets, it probably behooves those organizations to actually treat their workers accordingly.  

How to Keep Your Workers

In the Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent (http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2011/12/14/top-ten-reasons-why-large-companies-fail-to-keep-their-best-talent/), Forbes contributor identifies a number of  specific ways that managers fail in managing their relationships with workers--failures that cause workers to believe that their employers really don't care about them or their long-term prospects.  

These failures include 

• Failure to give meaningful performance plans.
• Failure to give meaningful career development plans.
• Bad assignments.
• Telling people how to do jobs.  
• Shifting priorities--that often renders the work people do useless.

On a personal level, I felt affirmed reading this.  Both my professional and academic courses for training and technical communication managers emphasize the importance and value of performance planning, career development, and strategic planning.  Jackson's words affirm their place in effective management.