Juggling Elephants Blog

A USA Today Snapshot on June 23 was related to meetings and productivity. The question was, "How would employee productivity be affected if your company banned meetings one day a week?" The responses were:

• More productive (45%)
• No change (46%)
• Less productive (7%)
• Don't know (2%)

There are two intriguing findings from their poll. One is the obvious result that 7% of respondents need meetings to get direction, etc. The other is that almost half the respondents said there would be no change in productivity with less meetings... kind of makes you wonder what they are currently doing with their discretionary time.

Banning meetings are a frequent solution given during training programs to improving productivity. If banning meetings are not an option (any day of the week), consider these ideas:

• Involve only those who have to be a part of the meeting. At the end of the meeting make a list of those individuals who need information from the meeting and who will communicate it to them.
• Limit meetings to 30 minutes or less. If items take longer than expected, form a smaller group of people who can take action on the item and work toward solutions.
• Have "stand up meetings." Don't allow participants to sit.
• Send out agendas prior to meeting. Let people know that if they have information that could eliminate the item or reduce the need to discuss it, they should provide it to you by a deadline prior to the meeting.

Labels: meetings

While reading Time magazine's series on the future of work, I was intrigued to find an excerpt entitled, "Women Will Rule Business." The article gave several reasons why women's style of leadership is a more efficient model of getting things done. They included:

• Research group Catalyst studied 353 of the Fortune 500 companies and found that those organizations with the most women in senior management had a higher return on equities-by a third.
• Women in leadership tend to focus on the long term and less on the thrill of "risk."
• Women are consensus builders and use a transformational leadership style that is better suited for the coming, less hierarchical workplace.
• Women's natural sense of emotional intelligence is an increasing necessity in the workplace.

The article also had some rather unkind things to say about traditional "work-life balance models." Instead, it read, it might make more sense to look at the female model of "getting things done" in business.

The most powerful statement came late in the article when it indicated that a study of women's leadership style showed more emphasis on results-not time in the office.So, the next time you are struggling with how to get your most important things done, it might be a good idea to observe the habits of the women around you are "getting their most important things done."

While exhibiting at ASTD (American Society of Training and Development) a gentleman stopped by our Juggling Elephants booth and inquired about our training. As I explained that the concept of "trying to get it all done is like juggling elephants-impossible" he immediately disagreed. "You can juggle elephants," he said. "Oh really?" I replied. "Sure you can," he affirmed, "If given enough time and resources I could come up with a way to juggle elephants. I could create a machine capable of doing it or invent some mechanism that would make it possible. So your premise is wrong."

My response? Simply this-Yes, you are right that if given enough time and resources you might be able to find a way to do it. BUT, what would you lose in the process? What would NOT get done while you were spending all your energy trying to figure it out? And would it be worth losing those things to be successful with this one task. His technical reply was, " I don't know." Aha!

Certainly any of us could put all our energy and resources into accomplishing that mountainous "to do list" at work day after day or achieve those seemingly impossible expectations of ourselves in other areas of our life. However, what would we lose in the process-our health? A healthy relationship with our spouse or children? Our sense of purpose and a sense of peace? Is it worth it? If that's your purpose, I guess it would be. If not... maybe there's a better way.

We think we have one in our book. I gave the gentleman at the show a copy. Let's see what he thinks.

Labels: ASTD, motivation, work/life balance