Articles of interest, weekend reading, tips, and more
Here is a collection of tips, articles of interest, and things to ponder or watch during halftime, or while you are waiting for your bread to rise
Happy Saturday! Grab a coffee, tee, or whatever and enjoy!
Have an exhausting week? Get ready for some helpful hints. But why are you exhausted Think about this past week, and ask yourself if you were building fires or putting them out? Were you proactive or reactive?
Proactive
Did you spend any time this week:
Talking or strategizing over a new opportunity?
Coaching anyone in your sales team?
Discussing the future roadmap with your customers?
In any professional development for yourself?
Planning for tomorrow?
Prospecting for new business?
Learning something new?
Reactive
Or did you spend your week:
Working on administrative duties
Filing expense reports
Handling customer complaints
In company committees planning the picnic
Helping the logistics department by personally delivering an order
Next week, make sure you focus on the things that give you energy, not bleed you dry. If you can delegate it do so, if you have to do it, than batch those duties into one block of time. Block time for yourself, developing your team, live by your calendar. What is ONE thing that you want to be, do, or have by the end of the week? FOCUS on that.
Spend more time developing. If you don’t have anyone to delegate these duties to - train someone - and you will have more energy next Saturday to spend with the family, go snowmobiling, socialize, or whatever it is that brings you closer to your goal!
This week’s Leadership Example ??
I was trying to find a non partisan tweet for this, and it was very, very hard …. This week’s leadership example - Absolutely Nobody in the Media
Sometimes the best example is doing the opposite of what you see.
Be consistent in your critique. If it is not okay when this employee does it, it will not be okay when your favorite employee does it. To be a true leader, you cannot be a hypocrite.
Shortcuts, New Blog Suggestions, Articles of Interest
Breathe a sigh of relief with 3 decluttering apps
Be it our homes, our inboxes, or our entire lives – I consistently find that removing clutter and simmering things down to just what’s essential reaps valuable and far-reaching rewards.
So for today’s issue, I thought I’d share three apps I’ve found to be helpful in achieving this goal (while also saving time). Enjoy!
Read the entire article - LINK HERE
Great Article found in Gallup - What Leaders Should Focus on in 2022
A couple of years ago, we all thought we'd be back to normal by now. Trauma and disruption would be behind us, and 2022 would be business as usual. Few of us expected that upheaval would be normal now.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Communicate often and clearly
Develop managers to lead and retain their teams
Workplace wellbeing is a differentiator; make it a priority
Read the complete article here at this - LINK
We continuously preach about improving communication.
When we do this it ends up creating more meetings. Here is a good article on improving your meetings, it is written with a CFO in mind, but anyone can use these tips.
30-minute Challenge
A Harvard research study revealed that, during pre-COVID times, a company's vice president would spend 44 hours a week going to meetings. His IT manager, 35 hours, of which he sent emails during 85% of those meetings. Most of the leaders surveyed had the same problem. CEO's typically spent around 72% of the time in meetings, most of them last an hour or more.
In the new normal, the C-suite is holding even more meetings to keep the human connection.
The question then becomes; if we are spending 40+ hours go to or attending meetings, when do we get the tasks complete?
Read the complete article at this LINK
Suggestion for a new Blog to follow
Each week I feature a good Blog to follow. These are mostly free, as with most things on the web these days. But it doesn’t reduce the value!
Harvard Business Review
The Harvard Business Review isn’t a blog, per se—but the well-respected magazine’s digital real estate is full of incredible leadership articles from a variety of thought leaders. With topics ranging from innovation to managing people, decision making to productivity (and just about everything in between!), you can find the answer to pretty much any leadership question with a quick search of HBR’s archives.
Must-read post: Burnout Is About Your Workplace, Not Your People
Twitter: @HarvardBiz
Feel free to comment and start a conversation on any of the above topics! You are part of the Kole Hard Facts Community, feel free to provide any suggestions of your own to the other readers!
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