Juggling Elephants Blog

So, what is the big deal about defining your purpose, values and goals, mission statement or whatever you might call it? Well, we talk about that a lot in Juggling Elephants. Consider a few benefits:

• With so much opportunity and so many options it is important to have a filter that will help you pick and choose between something that is good and something that is best. Especially when limited resources are involved like time and money.
• When you reach a goal or when you are in line with your purpose you experience a sense of accomplishment. Some call it self-actualization or inner peace. Accomplishment gives you a reason to feel good.
• Having a worthy goal or purpose to work towards can be inspiring and push us beyond what we would normally achieve. It can help us get up in the morning.
• Purpose can help drive our focus and keep us pointed in the right direction. It can also expand our vision in what we can accomplish as we focus on a particular goal, activity or task.
• As the old country song says, "You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything." It defines our quest. What we are willing to die for and what are we willing to let go because it really doesn't matter?

When was the last time you sat back and reviewed your purpose? Your goals? Do you have some type of mission statement? Does it need to be updated-or even created? Do it! Do it today, tonight or this week. Then be sure to review your purpose and goals regularly. As least weekly. You will see a difference if you do.

Labels: purpose

If you're involved in sales or have people in your lineup who are, I strongly suggest you get the book, Silver Bullet Selling. It's an enjoyable read with multiple practical examples, and exercises to help you hone your new skills. See more at: http://www.amazon.com/Silver-Bullet-Selling-Critical-Relationships/dp/0470373008/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224645617&sr=8-1

Sam's Club has come up with a new milk jug that is stackable. I know, you want to yawn and say, "Big deal." Well, it actually is a significant improvement with a benefit to their bottom line.

The biggest challenge with conventional milk jugs is that they have to be transported in racks or crates on carts. These have to be washed after each shipment and take up space in the cargo area. Because the new jugs are stackable, you can get 400 additional jugs in a shipment. The milk is also filled in a way that reduces bacteria so it has a longer shelf life. The big win for Sam's Club... it eliminates 11,000 delivery trips to the stores.

What small change could you make today that could make a big difference over a period of a month or longer? It might just work for your bottom line too.

Labels: change

Today I was boarding a flight and someone was in my assigned seat. When I inquired about their seat assignment they replied, "Oh, I didn't want to sit in my seat up front so I just took a different one. You can sit somewhere else." Having been through this before, I politely told them I wanted to take my assigned seat so it didn't cause problems when other people boarded the plane. They gave me a disgusted look but moved to a seat close by.

By the time the plane was ready for takeoff, this person had caused 4 other people to have to move to a different seat. It was literally a chain reaction with several people "miffed" at having to sit somewhere else. All because someone wanted to change their place in the "lineup" without thinking about it's impact on others.

The next time you plan on making a change in your lineup, think about how the change will affect those around you. If it's for the better, perfect. If not, and you want to maintain a positive relationship with the other performers, you might want to think again... or come up with a solution that works for them too.

Labels: conflict resolution, teamwork

In the past two years I have met more than one person who believes that "employee engagement" is highly overrated. If you are one of those people, consider the human resource services company, Kenexa. Their primary focus is to help employers and managers learn how to more fully engage their employees.

Sixty percent of the Fortune 100 companies utilize Kenexa's services. Their revenue has tripled since its IPO in 2005. They now have offices in 18 countries. Some of their findings include research that shows that companies with higher employee satisfaction have a 700% higher shareholder return than other companies.

Rudy Karsan, the CEO, best sums up the impact of their work when he says, "When you're in a job you enjoy and you're good at, you're not just a better worker. You're a better spouse, a better parent and a better citizen." In other words, when you help an employee get their work ring in good order, their whole circus improves.

What manager, supervisor or CEO wouldn't want to make that happen for those who report to them?

Labels: employees, engagement

Today is National Boss Day. In Juggling Elephants terms, we would call a boss a "ringmaster." In celebration of this day, we thought it might be fun to highlight some interesting statistics about bosses from the October edition of Fast Company Magazine:

• According to a 2008 Yahoo survey, 43% of Americans don't like their bosses' management style.
• In that same survey, 55% agree that people don't leave companies, they leave managers.
• 32% of employees defy orders from their bosses although 86% of Americans give their superiors high marks.
• Companies with at least 3 women on their board averaged a 16.7% return, which is 45% better than the typical company.
• Last year, the highest paid CEO was Larry Ellison, who made 192.9 million dollars.
• The average US income in 2007 was $40,690. For CEOs it was $151,370, and for S&P 500 CEOs it was 8.8 million dollars.
• Of the Fortune 500 companies, only 12 have female CEOs.

Labels: humor, ringmaster

Yahoo Hot Jobs has a timely article on creating a better "work-life balance." The biggest statement came early in the article when it stated, "Finding balance is largely up to employees, rather than employers." With the focus on you, read the article by clicking here.

Labels: work/life balance

Studies have shown that the brain is not "wired" to handle complete focus on more than one task at a time. Multi-tasking is truly the brain bouncing back and forth rapidly between two tasks. It is recommended that the most effective multi-tasking is when you are doing mundane or routine tasks that don't require too much thought. (Actually, I must admit that walking and chewing gum at the same time for me is a challenge.)

That being said, I must mention a multi-tasking pet peeve I am seeing way too often. I don't know if this is happening in the Women's Restroom but it happens all the time in the Men's-especially in the airport. Men will go into the restroom while talking on their phones and will carry on a conversation while taking care of business. (I guess you could say that some are taking care of business while taking care of business). I wonder what Emily Post would think about the etiquette of that? Multi-tasking should have some boundaries.

As a side, when someone is talking on the phone in the public restroom and I am next to them, I personally like to see how many times I can flush so that the person on the other end of the phone is wondering what is going on.

Labels: humor, multi-tasking

I just heard on the radio of a study on email conducted by Dr. Thomas Jackson of Loughborough University, England. In the study, Dr. Jackson notes that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by email. So, people who check their email every five minutes waste 8 1/2 hours a week trying to get back on track.

Another study by Tom Stafford, a lecturer at the University of Sheffield, England believes that the same learning mechanisms that drive gambling addicts are also at work with email users. "Both slot machines and email follow something called a 'variable interval reinforcement schedule' which has been established as the way to train in the strongest habits," he says. 'This means that rather than reward an action every time it is performed, you reward it sometimes, but not in a predictable way. So with email, when I usually check it there is nothing interesting, but every so often there's something wonderful-and I get a reward." The reinforcement schedule of email is enough to keep us checking whenever we hear the "bell." Didn't Pavlov have a dog that reacted the same way? Scary!

I know I can fall victim to this "conditioning" but I am amazed at what I have been seeing lately. I have been in meetings and the person speaking will stop mid sentence, put the meeting on hold, and check their email because his/her phone beeped. Even regularly when carrying on a one on one conversation with someone, while I am talking with them, they will check their email on their Blackberry or phone. They will even reply to the email while saying to me, "Uh huh, uh huh." Don't people realize we know they are not paying attention to us or listening to what we are saying when they are checking/responding to email?

Again, take a moment and consider your email habits. I have! Turn off the bell and plan a time to check email. (It can at least wait until after our meeting!) One recommendation is to check email two times a day-the beginning of the day and an hour before the end of the day. I know that is a little extreme but limiting it to once an hour for some would be a big step. Then you'll be a winner when it comes to managing your time.

Labels: e-mail, interruptions

While in a corporate training program a few days ago, I was working through the section of the program that deals with "focusing on your most important acts in your lineup." One of the participants said, "You know, there really aren't many TRUE interruptions." I was curious about their response and asked them to explain.

They said that most individuals consider anything that stops them from completing their current task as an interruption. In reality, many of the things that we consider interruptions are actually part of our job responsibilities. A phone call may be viewed as an interruption, but it is actually within our job expectations to answer it and deal with the need on the other end of the line if it's about work. Someone stopping by our office to ask us something related to work may break our concentration on a high mental task, but it's not truly an interruption.

The person was right. It would be futile to try and eliminate all interruptions-most of us would have to quit our job. Our goal, instead, should be to figure out ways to MANAGE those interruptions that are work-related and MINIMIZE those interruptions that are not work-related. We'll look at ways to do that in our next few blogs.

Labels: interruptions