Entrepreneurial Focus
One important thing I have learned that separates successful entrepreneurs from others is their ability to focus while ignoring distractions. If you read the archives in my Blog, you know that this concept is not really new to me.
Entrepreneurs have many traits that bring value to their lifestyle and work style, including the ability to thrive independently, discipline in managing personal freedom, and self-made competitiveness. They are savvy and driven. Yet, by nature, many have a hard time staying focused because they get many new ideas.
This is a never-ending struggle for many entrepreneurs—too many ideas, too little resources! What is a SuperBusy entrepreneur to do??
In an increasingly competitive environment, business growth comes from being great at just one thing at a time. Succeeding really well at one thing you know your customers need will help separate you from even the toughest competition.
Focus on your customer and potential customer and on what you choose to do better than anyone else. Use your business vision as a filter when evaluating and aligning with your core; this minimizes distractions and helps create better results. If an activity is not aligned with your big goals, even if it is a really good idea, table it and move on.
You can table your ideas by giving them a life of their own through:
1. a file or folder on your computer where the idea is stored and built.
2. an idea binder you can carry with you wherever you go and jot ideas as they occur.
3. a record on your BlackBerry.
4. a website or BLOG you create that allow others to comment on it.
5. social networking sites like Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, etc.
Exemplary Leading During Tough Times
In times of economic slowdown and crises, leadership skills are more important than ever!! According to Ronald Heifetz, director of the Leadership Education Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, “…the strongest leaders take the courage to face reality, the humility to admit when they don’t have all the answers, and the commitment to make changes. The new role is to help people face reality and to mobilize them to make changes.”
Many companies are already enduring a global economic downturn and an uncertain future. Markets are shifting their priorities causing some delay in purchasing decisions or cancelation of orders. Productivity is suffering mostly due to waning focus and motivation of the workforce. And, busines leaders are faced with similar emotions and anxieties that everyone else has.
Here are a few suggested strategies to help you navigate as a strong and successful leader during these troubled times:
1. Stay focused
Being alert and attentive is important. Leaders need to be a role model that helps employees align with the company’s vision, mission and values. Leaders need to help keep everyone be engaged and ease their tension and anxieties by providing direction, vision, stability and support.
2. Communicate often
Employees need to feel connected to their leaders. Honest, straight-forward, consistent and frequent communication is important and helps diminish the rumors that fly in the face of fear and uncertainty. Leaders must provide the workforce with progress reports and keep them informed.
3. Motivate your workforce
Although it may be difficult during extreme and intense times, leaders must keep the workforce motivated, energized and committed. Help your employees take personal responsibility and accountability for helping the company succeed.
4. Prepare for the future
Prepare for a healthy and prosperous future. Re-position customer service and commitment to quality. Serve your customers well. Help keep the company in a healthy position to survive troubled times. Continue investing in on-going learning that can be applied to making things better now and in the future. Provide coaching, training and mentoring to help develop your employees.
6. Benchmark against the best
It’s hard to say which companies will do best in the future. Many companies are faltering. Mergers and acquisitions are commonplace. Be aware of what your competitors are doing and how they are performing. Learn from their mistakes. Savor in the opportunities to learn from the best and capatalize on their experiences. Proactively look for areas that can be improved in your organization.
Don’t take a wait-and-see attitude but instead pursue long-term prosperity and growth and control what you can!
Is Sarah Palin ready to be the next VP?
Pretty much everywhere I go and in many of my phone conversations, women are talking about Sarah Palin’s nomination to the VP spot on the Republican ticket. Never before have I heard so many diverse people voice their opinions and concerns about an election. Her election has provoked many conversations and reactions not only in the US, but around the world!
I was interviewed on News Radio 740 KTRH located in Houston, TX in a show that aired this past Monday. They inquired about my opinion regarding working mothers. So, I wonder, is the controversy about her election into the VP candidate position really about her experience, her family responsibilities, her views on the issues, her ability to perform the job duties, or perhaps, something else or a combination of sorts?
The question I keep hearing is “What is a woman with five children, including an infant with Downs Syndrome, doing seeking the Vice Presidency of the United States?”
My initial reaction is that if this were a man (and many men have had families while holding high public office!) it would not be discussed as an issue. In an election year where Hillary Clinton nearly became the first Presidential candidate women have been more involved emotionally and mentally from the onset of this campaign.
I’ve heard this issue characterized as a gender bias issue and also sexist. I’ve heard people across the country question whether a mother of five would have a hard time fulfilling the duties of the second highest office in the country. I’ve also heard people question her commitment to her family and what’s in the best interest of her children.
The real issues should be about whether or not any candidate can fulfill the oath of their position. Do they have the experience, knowledge, resources to handle their job responsibilities? Will their be conflicting demands and priorities that might interfere with the duties of the position? If so, how will they be handled? What if she became pregnant again while in office?
Women have successfully worked for years in positions of varying responsibilites and visibility. Working mothers have led successful companies, states, towns, hospitals, and universities. Is the Vice Presidential position such a position that lends itself to the work-life balance needs of a working mother (and soon-to-be grandmother)?
Many career opportunities are available today for women who seek a career outside the home. With work-life balance being a top concern of employers and employees since the 60′s, much has been done to address the needs and provide a variety of approaches for helping people manage. Is the government ready to address ths at such a high level? If so, what will this do for working mothers across the Country?
One concern that’s come up for me is that although much of what I initially read and heard about Sarah Palin described her husband as a caretaker for their children and a stay-at-home dad, the more recent news describes him as an oil field production operator, a commercial fisherman, and professional snowmobile racer who spends extended periods away from the home. His work requires that he spend most of his time out at sea or traveling at high speeds over frozen tundra.
No mention has been made of extended family or a support network of friends who have helped in the past with child rearing (or other home-based responsibilities) or might be available in the future if Mrs. Palin becomes the Vice President of the United States of America. There is no dispute that young children do need the time and attention from their parent(s). In my opinion, how Sarah Palin cares for her children is really more of a personal decision but one which deserves attention from the point that, if elected, she would hold the highest office of any woman in the US. And, if the elected President, John McCain had any issues that prevented him from fulfilling his duties, Sarah Palin would become the first female President of the US. Is she ready? Is America ready? Is the world ready?
Is this discussion and the questions raised sexist or realist? What are your views??
The Glass Hammer exists
If you are a women executive in the financial services, law or business industry, you may be interested in a BLOG called “The Glass Hammer“. This site is an online community created specifically for women executives in financial services, law and business. It’s not only about work, but also about what to do after work, and it’s about having fun and being a fantastic human being.
The founder, Nicki Gilmour, publishes this BLOG to help you not only survive but to thrive at life and at work. The goal of The Glass Hammer site is to:
- Engage you with stories from the top and the trenches and share with you the good, bad and ugly of life in the business world.
- Answer your questions and address work/life issues via our on-call panel of industry experts.
- Become the ONE place you check for networking and employment opportunities.
- Give you the best training and support so both your career and your life can flourish.
Check it out and let us know what you think!
Fighting Fires isn’t Sexy
For those of you with more on your to-do list than you have time to do, it could be quite difficult to decide which projects get your time and attention. Getting focused is the top challenge most super busy managers struggle with. I have learned so much about this problem first-hand dealing with it as I balance my roles as mother, wife, friend, daughter, sister, and more with that of being an entrepreneur. I have now created and delivered a highly effective workshop “There’s Too Much on my Plate” to help others manage their work more effectively rather than constantly fighting fires by handling the crises that come there way on a regular basis.
Some highly recommended and very effective techniques I teach about include:
1. Choose the RIGHT priorities
Here I refer to the 80:20 rule and apply it to managing your workload. Don’t be so busy doing lots of the things that will detract you from doing the things that matter most. 80% is trivial but 20% is vital. Focus on your 20% with 80% of your time and energy. Work smarter! Focus the majority of your time and energy on activities that advance your overall goals and purpose. Anything else on your to-do list is likely a distraction!
2. Ask Yourself the RIGHT questions
Rather than asking about how you’ll be able to get everything done, ask what steps will help you achieve your goals, how the activity or project ties into the bigger picture, when critical hand-offs need to occur and other such questions that more closely align with your goals and objectives.
3. Be in Control
Manage your day rather than reacting to other’s needs and priorities and putting your own priorities on the back burner. Don’t be fooled to believe that you’ll be able to get to your stuff once you’ve gotten through everyone else’s because that rarely, if ever really happens. Learn to negotiate and ask better questions, to push back, and to set clear boundaries.
Fighting someone else’s fires places your time and energy with them. When someone needs your help and tries to make their priority your priority, remember that by reacting you are giving up your power. Instead, if reasonable, politely let them know that you will gladly help them out later once you’ve finished your own work. Focus on your priorities first!
Generational Differences at Work
I conducted a series of three presentations: Effective Time Management, Balancing Work and Personal Life & Communication Skills seminars for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. They were a great group of people! The audience was mixed, mostly women between 20′s-60′s. The issues were clearly different.
To help them better understand the uniquenesses of the generations, I had them break into groups and list the strengths and weaknesses they see in their generation. We brainstormed these lists, allowing other generations to add to the lists for the each group…Traditionalists (born between 1920-1945); Baby Boomers (born between 1946-1964); Generation X (born between 1965 – 1981); and, Generation Y (born between 1982-2000). Then, we added some strategies for communicating better with people from different generations in the workplace.
Understanding differences and discussing them brought a rich appreciation that will help interactions both at work and home. Don’t be too busy to appreciate the strengths others around you bring to the workplace. Appreciate the wisdom and experience the traditionalists normally bring and the tech savvy-ness of Generation Y. Together every generation can learn from each other and build stronger relationships.
What can you appreciate more about someone in your life from a different generation?
Increasing Productivity
I conducted a presentation at Realogy Corporation for CIGNA Behavioral Healthcare yesterday. I’ve presented there in the past numerous times. Their work environment is not unlike many corporate environments today. Employees are under lots of pressure to complete increasing workloads with decreasing staff. Many employees who would benefit the most from participating in these lunch-and-learn programs, never have the time to even get there. Often, those who would gain the most benefit from a lesson are too busy working to engage in the learing opportunity. Instead they stay glued to their desk. They rarely take time out to chat, eat, exercise, or even to go to the bathroom. Is this what drives productivity at the work place??
I’d say NO! In order for employees to best at their best, they really need to take care of themselves. Worker harder and harder is not the answer. Instead, find ways to work smarter. Working 24/7 does not lead to higher productivity instead it leads to poorer quality, resentment, frustration, and anger.
What ways can you work smarter rather than harder? What boundaries do you need to set in place to honor your own personal needs?
Pat commits from good to great!
Pat is a business coach and professional speaker. She shared that after years of buying books and products to help her market her business better and realizing that she’s now amassed so much information that she could probably write her own book, she will start implementing the tactics and strategies she’s learned about. That’s how Pat is going from good to great…how about you?
Janet goes from good to great!
Janet wrote to me requesting to add her friend to my free e-newsletter subscription list. She decided to share tips with her friends to help herself and them go from good to great.
What have you done today??
Women Leaders Getting Better at Juggling
I read an article yesterday that was published in the Miami Herald. It was in the Balancing Act section and was about how top women business leaders are good at juggling. Although I avoid endorsing juggling as a strategy and opt for rebalancing or integrating instead, the key point that I extracted from the article is about women talking more to each other and sharing solutions. Women today are finding more work/life solutions because we’re supporting each other better!
As women climb the career ladder or start their own business, the importance of having a diverse network of supporters both inside and outside of the workplace increases as does their responsibilities at work. Those who have been most successful at achieving an overall life satisfaction have learned to incorporate effective strategies for enhancing performance and productivity.
Even as women are building businesses and advancing on the career ladder, an ever-increasing number are also achieving work/life balance — A whopping 61 percent of women business leaders interviewed for this article claim they are satisfied with the balance between their career and personal life, up from 51 percent in 2006, according to the 2007 survey released by FIU’s Center for Leadership and The Commonwealth Institute.
Talking with other women and learning about potential strategies that work has helped women adapt effective strategies for better balancing their lives. The universal challenge of findingmore work/life balance is easing as more and more women talk honestly and openly about it and determine creative solutions. As women set more realistic expectations, we they are permitting ourselves to have time for our self and to ask for (and accept) help both inside and outside work, when needed.
Women need to stop hiding behind the facade of being perfect and be real instead. There’s so much more we can learn from each other when we’re open and honest!
From one working mom to many others….
Yours truly,
Coach Natalie Gahrmann
natalie@nrgcoaching.com
