Leading Edge – Volume 71 – Online Learning is Here

Time Mastery

Priorities and Focus are Keys to Great Time Management

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.”  H. Jackson Brown


By Teresa Lowry

How many times have we heard ourselves or others say there aren’t enough hours in the day? We all seem so busy. But being busy does not mean we are productive. We are often absorbed in low level tasks or worse yet nonproductive behavior falling victim to a self-engineered lack of time. However, when we have a plan, know what is important and focus on our priorities it is amazing how much we can accomplish.

IF IT IS NOT ON THE LIST IT WILL NOT GET DONE

Good leaders have a daily plan. Even if the plan is interrupted or we have one of those days where the unexpected takes over there is still significant value in the planning process. Everything needs to go on the daily plan. It all needs to be in one place. Eliminate using multiple systems, choosing instead a single system that is easy to use.

The plan must include tasks, projects, appointments, meetings, notes and other pertinent information for all facets of life. If an event, meeting, or task is not planned prepare for it not to occur. Tip: Perform least favorite task first to avoid procrastination.

BE SINGLE MINDED AND FOCUS

Good time management requires discipline, the creation of good habits and the elimination of bad habits. Patterns of thought and action develop over the course of a lifetime. They impact our quality of life and interactions. Once we become conscious of the patterns we have formed we can revisit them and make new choices. Just as we have power to create patterns of thought and action we have the power to change them.

Time mastery involves adding new habits and dropping nonproductive ones. Identify a few new habits to control and master that would give more time each day to engage in critical leadership activities like coaching, visioning and mentoring. Tip: When the task requires deep concentration alternate your focus in 30-minute increments, shifting to a lighter easier task for a mental break.

ELIMINATE TIME PARASITES

A time parasite is any event or activity that saps productive time. They can be personal, part of the everyday workday, or single events. They sap valuable and productive time. They cause interruptions requiring restarts of thought. They can become habitual and expected. Most are ones we control or are behaviors of others that we have accepted or reinforced or occur due to lack of established boundaries.

The key to managing a time parasite is to identify, diagnose and apply a strategy to it. For every time parasite there is a strategy for reduction or elimination. Some of the common time parasites are meetings, personal calls, correcting other people’ s mistakes, failing to delegate, email and web surfing.

MEA CULPA AND LESSONS LEARNED

I am going to focus on a couple of time parasites that challenged me as new leader. These fall under the adage of when I know better I do better.

Meetings. Personal confession: When I promoted into a leadership role I became responsible for convening and conducting meetings. I naively gave little thought to the art and skill of facilitating management meetings. Just set a time, place, invite people and then talk. Right? Wrong! My meetings were marathon feats of endurance that tested the attention span, patience and bladder of even the heartiest team member. Participants adjourned wondering what had been accomplished. Tips: Keep meetings to an hour. Always have an agenda and defined purpose. At the end recap and review critical items and next steps.

Personal Calls. This time parasite showed up for me under the guise of being a good parent and spouse. Calls from my child that he forgot his lunch, his math homework, his gym uniform. Calls to my spouse: what do you want for dinner, do you have a grocery list for me? A couple of these interruptions each day can add up to over an hour of lost productivity and impacted focus. In hindsight these calls were unnecessary. Leaders set the boundaries for friend and family calls at work. They control whether they respond. Added bonus. Not responding to every challenge your child has created increases the likelihood of their taking responsibility and problem solving. I remember growing up in a house where the rule was that we did not call mom or dad at work unless the house was on fire. There are positive outcomes possible if we stop taking every phone call or text from our children. In addition to increased productivity for the parent there is increased self-reliance for the child. We train our family by the behaviors we accept and the boundaries we set. Let them know that you will make uninterrupted time for them when you get home.

Productive leaders have a daily plan, focus and make good use of time at work. This in turn reduces stress and gives them more hours in the day to engage in high level leadership activities such as mentoring, team engagement, and visioning.

Teresa Lowry is a passionate advocate for learning, growth and generating real organizational change.

Leading Edge – Volume 70 – 3 Keys: Greater Happiness

Aegis Launches Online Programs

“I’m loving the online learning! I learned new skills and the program met my expectations for value and impact. My organization will benefit from the program.”

Online Test User 1-June, 2018

Impact, Value and Convenience

“I loved it! I think this could be very effective for skill development and skill refresher. Easily available in ones “spare” time or after hours for those that really want to learn…” ” 

Online Test User 2-June, 2018

The online learning experience from Aegis Learning is different.  It is better and packed with more useful content and value than any other provider.  Our key features include:

  • Prior Customers are Always Free! – Please Ask Us for Your Coupon Code or Check Your Email
  • Lifetime Access
  • Mobile Optimized-Learn on the Go with Your Phone or Tablet
  • Built and Designed by Learning Professionals and Subject Matter Experts – Over 25 Years of Experience in Each Program
  • Downloadable Program Guides and Books (Also Free)
  • Learning Self-Assessment and Evaluation
  • Online Learning Community and Discussion Groups – Share and Ask
  • Completion Certificate – Download or Print

“The video content is full of great information. The learning material is great.” 

Online Test User 3-June, 2018

Award Winning Follow-Up Tools (More Free Features)

  • Leading Edge Newsletter
  • iCoach App
  • Article Library and Research Reports
  • Inspirations Library
  • 24 Hour, 7 Days Per Week Customer Care and Support

And what about a great price?

$39.00!!

Compare to $99.00 or more from other online learning providers.

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Check Back Often-New Programs are Added Every Month.

Leading Edge – Volume 68 – 3 Keys: Public Speaking

Leading Edge – Volume 69 – 3 Keys: Better Email

Becoming a Deliberate Responder

By Matt Zobrist

A deliberate responder is someone who has listened and then intentionally decides what, how and when to respond, avoiding the pitfall of reacting without consideration or reflection. Successful leaders are able to control their emotions and measure their responses, earning respect and trust, and significantly decreasing misunderstandings and overreactions.

Here are 4 steps to help you become a deliberate responder:

1. Learn to pause or delay as needed.

Take a moment to yourself prior to responding. This can be a few seconds or a few minutes. This gives you time to: assess if you understood correctly and have all the information; breath and control your temper or emotions; plan a measured, non-sarcastic response. For highly emotional issues, waiting a few hours or a day, may be more appropriate. A good leader is able to recognize when his or her emotions are triggered and will delay responding until he or she has had a chance to calm down and logically consider all the information.

I once had a team member tell me in confidence that he had witnessed another team member do something dangerous, stupid and against policy. I immediately reacted by summoning this team member and asking him why he did such a bone-headed thing. I was upset that he would make such a mistake, and told him the consequences could have a long-term, career-damaging effect. I could sense his growing fear and confusion in his response. Fortunately, we had a sufficiently trusting relationship, that he overcame his fear and I was able to calm down while we spoke. It then became apparent that the first person did not have all the facts and had actually misinterpreted the situation entirely. Not only did I nearly create a permanent impairment in my team member’s career, but I felt like a real jerk for not calming down and finding out what really happened before reacting.

2. Avoid sarcasm or sarcastic remarks.

While jokes are fun with friends, as a general rule, once you become a supervisor, you should avoid making sarcastic comments to your team. The risk that your sarcasm could be misinterpreted outweighs any intent to be perceived as funny or intelligent. In fact, a sarcastic tone can easily be mistaken for a condescending one. I once received some feedback which indicated that I had a sarcasm problem. My immediate thought was “that’s stupid! Whoever said that doesn’t know what sarcasm is!” But, I put on my big-boy pants and proceeded to validate that feedback. Through asking trusted co-workers and my own self-reflection, I realized that I had the tendency to try and make a quick-witted comment or quip every time someone spoke to me, like I was an actor on a sit-com. These comments were so full of sarcasm that it created the feeling among some of my team that I was just trying to belittle them and show my superiority. I realized my sarcastic tone and impulsive responses were alienating my team and preventing serious dialogue from occurring. With a concerted effort to restrain myself, I was able to control myself and began taking a moment to consider my replies and how I delivered them. This increased the trust and dialogue within my team, improving our morale and productivity.

3. Plan your response and practice your tone.

Planning and rehearsing how you will respond to a specific inquiry or comment will help prevent over-reactions. You were once in your team members’ shoes and should be able to anticipate many of their concerns and questions, (both specific/personal and general/organizational). When one of these issues is brought up, pause and consider the appropriate pre-planned response, adapt it to the current inquiry, then deliver it. Remember this is not a memorized speech, it is simply anticipating what conversations may occur, and preparing how to handle them. As you do this, you increase your ability to not emotionally over-react and to provide a confident response with the appropriate tone.

4. Sincerity: Congruence between your verbals and non-verbals.

As with all communication, your tone and non-verbals need to match your verbal message. Having prepared and practiced responses will go along way to helping you keep your non-verbals in alignment with your words. When your verbals and non-verbals are in alignment, the risk of misinterpretations and misunderstandings decreases dramatically. This congruency also demonstrates sincerity in the communication. When your team knows you are sincere in your responses, trust and loyalty are strengthened.
Becoming a deliberate responder by learning to control your emotions, gather sufficient information and make a calm, confident and sincere response, it not easy. It takes daily effort and practice over time. But using these four principles consistently, any leader can improve his or her skills in this area.

I know it is possible because, as you saw in the examples, this was a weakness for me. Through concerted and focused effort, I became very adept at deliberately responding. Not perfect, but I keep practicing daily and get better all the time. If I can do it, I know anyone can.

Matt Zobrist from Aegis Learning

Matt Zobrist is an energetic and dynamic facilitator, coach, presenter and speaker with Aegis Learning, LLC.

Opening the Listening Channels

Listening Barriers

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

An overlooked facet of the leadership communication puzzle is the ability to listen effectively. Listening skills, when not properly engaged will result in significant communication and relational disconnects with peers and team members.

The easiest method of improving the listening side of communication is to manage the environment in which listening is performed. If the dialog is important, and not just to you, the environment must be conducive to listening. This means that interruptions and distractions must be significantly reduced or eliminated. If your phone will disrupt an important dialog, silence it. If your cellular phone vibrating will move your attention to who is calling, turn it off for an important conversation. If the traffic by your office distracts your eyes and your attention, move to a more private or less traveled location.

Two important elements to consider about distraction values and listening. First is the time investment of how long it would take you to reconnect with a conversation after distraction compared with managing the distraction in the beginning. Or worse still, how much time will it take to repair the error that you make because you missed important details in the conversation.

The final consideration related to listening distraction is the not-so-subtle message of disrespect. In a conversation, you look down to see who is calling. How does that make the other person in the conversation feel? Are they the most important or is that dependant upon who is calling you on your cell phone? This disrespectful lack of focus on listening will often cause greater dysfunction in a relationship and many times impact future approachability and trust.

Another barrier to effective listening is the concept of assumptive responding. Assumptive responding is providing a response, not based on what you just heard, but rather on what you believed was said. This can be based on the situation or with whom you are having a dialog. Imagine for a moment, a team member has spent the last several days complaining about Ed, their co-worker. The team member asks if you have a moment to talk about Ed. Regardless of what is actually said in that conversation, there is a pretty good chance that your recollection of the dialog will include the team member complaining about Ed.

Those of you that have done what you have done for a living for five or more years are more likely to be candidates of assumptive responding. Having “been there, done that” or “heard it all before” will greatly impact your ability to truly listen compared to assumptive responding. Unlike managing your listening environment, dealing with assumptive responding is a little tougher. The skill is cognitive and requires both an improved focus and a reduction in the time desired to move into response mode. The bottom line is don’t be so anxious to judge the situation and hear something coming out of your mouth.

One additional listening skill is the use of complimentary validation. This is an extraordinary skill that really improves the flow of information while validating the comments of a communication sender. Complimentary validation is providing a compliment when key information is heard or processed in the listening cycle. Many people do this almost naturally or automatically and we often comment about those people that they were great listeners or they were excellent communicators or relationship builders.

In a typical conversation, routine relational dialog occurs. When you ask what someone did this past weekend and the person in dialog responds and says “we sat around and watched the grass grow.” Right behind that comment you will need to add a complimentary statement such as “those relaxing weekends are the best, that is outstanding you were able to do that.” In another conversation, you ask where someone is from and they indicate “Pawtucket.” You fire back a comment about what a great part of the country or pretty city that is Pawtucket.

The purpose of complimentary validation is simple. You are providing the acknowledgement that you were listening and, more importantly, you are providing the communication feedback that you want to hear more and are legitimately interested in the dialog. Using this skill will allow you to obtain far more information from a person than by using more traditional validation methods.

Listening is an important element in leadership communication that must be managed as actively as the rest of the communication cycle. Failure to engage good listening skills can have an adverse reaction in relationship management and the ability to communicate effectively in the future.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Recommended Reading-A Book Review

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”   Marcus Tullius Cicero

The Gambler: How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became the Greatest Deal Maker in Capitalist History

Leading Edge from Aegis Learning

Leadership Requires Courage:

  • Courage to Make Decisions
  • Courage to Stretch and Push
  • Courage to Take Risks

“To win without risk is a triumph without glory.”   Pierre Corneille

By Teresa Lowry

I love books and I love to read. As a child weekly trips to the library were greeted with anticipation and delight. Such a place of abundance. All those books. Later, every house I lived in contained bookshelves with stacks of books, read and unread. Bought, borrowed or gifted, each shows up at the right time. There are books on my iPad although nothing can replace the touch and feel of a book in my hands. Cracking the spine, the fresh pages, the anticipation of what’s ahead. About those fresh pages. This won’t last long. Invariably there will be smudges of chocolate on the pages. I also love chocolate.

If I really enjoy a book I want to share it with you. Books educate, entertain, and take us away. My personal favorites are the biographies of great leaders, historical novels, and all things inspirational. I am excited to combine my two passions leadership training and reading, and share with you our Aegis Learning friends, what I’m reading this month.

THE GAMBLER: HOW PENNILESS DROPOUT KIRK KERKORIAN BECAME THE
GREATEST DEAL MAKER IN CAPALIST HISTORY

The Gambler by William C. Rempel is the biography of Kirk Kerkorian the business tycoon and humanitarian. This is the rags-to-riches story of the visionary self-made billionaire who transformed the leisure industry and Las Vegas. Kerkorian exemplified so many of the attributes we teach at Aegis Learning. He was a humble leader. Described time and again as low key and unpretentious he traveled without an entourage. He drove a Ford Taurus and always paid his own way even in his hotels and casinos. He relished his personal anonymity. A generous benefactor, you will not find his name on buildings or statutes. Requesting anonymity was often one of the requirements of accepting a donation or gift from him.

Another key leadership quality was his practice of delegating to his trusted executive team. He relied on the judgment of his key people. Rempel writes that Kerkorian had come to appreciate how much more he could accomplish by delegating management decisions. As delegator in chief Kirk trusted his team to manage the details. That meant no muddied chain of command, no interference from above.

KERKORIAN AS RISK TAKER AND COURAGEOUS LEADER

The key leadership principal that appears time and again when reading about Kerkorian is that he was a fearless risk taker. Three times in twenty-five years he would build the world’s largest resort hotel in Las Vegas. His first record breaker, the International Hotel opened on July 2, 1969. The naysayers and pundits expected a flop. Kerkorian persevered. On a personal note, the progress of the International Hotel was watched closely by my family. My dad, a carpenter, was fortunate to obtain work on the construction of the International. He would come home from the site and regale us with stories about the magnitude of the project and all the fancy amenities. At 30 stories tall we could see the hotel from our nearby neighborhood. Kerkorian went on to break records and build the largest, literally “Grandest” hotels in Las Vegas two more times.

Risk taking, and risk tolerance are important leadership characteristics and skills. Effective leaders must challenge paradigms, confront difficult situations and take risks on a daily basis. Calculated risks. With each action, the leader must determine the desired outcome, identify the potential negative consequences of the action and then choose if the risk justifies the reward.

KNOW WHEN TO HOLD EM, KNOW WHEN TO FOLD EM

Effective leaders understand that all applications for courage need to be considered in a broader and more global perspective. Simply put, there are times to fight and times to keep quiet and acquiesce. Giving ground tactically on a single issue or event is not a sign of weakness. Rather it is a sign that the leader has exercised the good judgment to maintain power and credibility to use courage another day.

As the story goes, Kerkorian waged a tremendous campaign to buy Chrysler Corporation. Rempel reports Kerkorian had one of the most audacious strategies ever floated over Detroit: a buyout that would take the nation’s number three automaker private. The company fought him. Ultimately, he did not get the takeover he had hoped for. One of Kirk’s most enduring and endearing qualities was his limited capacity for grudges. He didn’t collect them. “Its business” he would say and move on.

SO MUCH MORE

I highly recommend The Gambler. Yes, much of the story involves my home city of Las Vegas but there is so much more. Kerkorian’s humble beginnings, years as a World War II pilot and airline owner provide the backdrop for the development of a courageous leader and entrepreneur. His interactions with Howard Hughes, Ted Turner, Lee Iacocca and other visionaries make for a fascinating and educational read.

Teresa Lowry is a passionate advocate for learning, growth and generating real organizational change.

Leading Edge – Volume 67 – 3 Keys: Stress Management