Julie, a 39-year-old executive in a large corporation, told me she desperately wanted to improve her work/life balance and her results at work. She had two children at home, and her husband worked an equally time-consuming job. She was constantly working or taking care of her family. However, her business results were not improving, her career was stalling, and she wanted to see her children more.
Act Now! Activate a FREE three days trial to ManagerCrossing.com, because you know how important it is to know about all the jobs.
I said, "Julie, you need to do some things just for yourself to recharge your batteries. If you don't, you may very well burn out, and that won't help your company, your career, or your family."
She looked at me and said, "And exactly when am I going to have time to do that?"
Does any of this sound familiar?
Seven Actions to Improve Your Most Important Business Outcomes, Accelerate Your Career, and Have a Life
See the business upside of down time.
People oftentimes say they get their best ideas while in the shower. That's because they stop doing activities for a moment and give their brains a chance to relax. By going on vacations, getting home early, and watching your kids play soccer, you can actually gain ideas on how to improve your business results. Seems paradoxical, but when you buy into this concept you will stop doing so many activities and achieve even better business results.
Schedule thinking time.
Since ideas come to you when you get away from work activities, schedule one hour a week just to think. Find a space away from your home, office, employees, and customers. Go there for one hour a week. Take out a blank sheet of paper, write down the most important desired business outcome for your organization, and turn that outcome into an open-ended question. If the goal is to increase sales by 10%, the question might be, "How can we increase sales to our current clients by 10%?" Then answer that question with as many ideas as you can think of for 45 minutes. Finally, select your best idea and spend the last 15 minutes building your action plan. That one hour can make the rest of your working hours far more productive. It can allow you to work a lot less while achieving a lot more.
Say "No."
One of my all-time favorite ads is a BMW ad that simply said, "No" in large letters. In the small print it basically said BMW says no to a lot of good ideas so it can say yes to a few great ideas. That is tremendous advice!
How many good ideas are you acting on? Notice I didn't say, "How many good ideas are you considering?" It's healthy to consider a lot of ideas. It's like sifting through sand to find gold. You do have to go through a lot of sand to find the gold, but you don't run to the marketplace with sand in your hand and get all excited. You keep sifting until you find the gold. Keep generating ideas and keep sifting through them until you find the one to three great ideas you will act on.
Don't try to do more than three great ideas because before you know it you've turned gold into sand. Trying to do too many ideas at once is a sure-fire way to generate mediocre results.
Stop doing the wrong things.
The key to Toyota's greatness can be summarized in a single word, "Stop." On the manufacturing floor any Toyota employee can simply see something that is wrong with an automobile and say, "Stop." Then the assembly process comes to a halt until the problem is fixed. That is in essence the key to making the highest-quality automobiles in the world.
Look at your projects. Is there anything that's going wrong? If so, stop the process and fix the problem right away. One of the biggest time wasters is redoing work you've already done.
Beat yesterday.
Here's one more secret to Toyota's success. It's not that they are just saying stop. With each step in everything they do, they sincerely try to get better. They call this "kaizen," which basically means, "How can we make today better than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today?"
Look around your business. When do you need to say "no" and "stop"? Instead of doing a lot of good ideas, focus on doing a few great ideas. But it's not enough just to do fewer things. Do those few things with such focus and attention and with such a desire to improve that you do them better than you've ever done them before.
Use the 1-3-6 Rule.
Here's the rule:
One - Write down the single most important business outcome you want to improve in your organization.
Three - Then write down the three things you can do that would have the greatest positive impact on improving this business outcome.
Six - Then, and here's the hardest step, write down the six things you are going to stop doing so you will have the time and the energy to do the three things that matter the most.
People invariably say everything they're doing is important, and they can't stop anything. While it may be true that everything they're doing is important, not everything they're doing is as important as everything else they're doing. Some important things will have a greater impact on improving their desired outcome than other important things.
If you keep doing everything you're currently doing, how are you ever going to have the time and the energy to do really well the three things that matter the most? As you let go of activities and focus your energy, your most important results will improve. Remember, you're not paid to do activities; you're paid to improve results.
Here's one of my favorite quotes from Apple's Jonathan Ive, the leader of the design team for the iPod (Fortune magazine September 2006):
"We don't make very much stuff. That's a very important part of our approach to what we do, which is to not do a lot of unnecessary stuff but just to focus and really try very sincerely to care so much about the few things that we do."
Sacrifice to accelerate.
In summary, look around you and decide what you can let go. What meetings, projects, customer visits, and processes can you stop doing? Find the fewest activities that will have the greatest positive impact on improving your most important business outcome. Then do those two or three activities to the very best of your ability within a reasonable time frame. And then go home.
About Dan Coughlin
As a keynote speaker, Dan Coughlin provides practical advice to accelerate key business outcomes. As an executive coach, he has spent more than 3,000 hours on-site working with executives in over 20 industries. His clients include Toyota, McDonald's, Marriott, Coca-Cola, St. Louis Cardinals, GSD&M, Boeing, and AT&T. His new book, Accelerate: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum, arrives in bookstores May 2007. For more information, please contact: dan@thecoughlincompany.com, or visit www.businessacceleration.com.
Carolyn , Harrisburg, PA
I would definitely like to join EmploymentCrossing again if I need to switch my job in future. It was a lot more helpful compared to other websites.
Meg , Oak Park, IL
The email alerts sent by ManagerCrossing are cool. I got a job through this feature of the website. Thanks!
Derek , Arlington, TX
I got a job through ManagerCrossing. It was very helpful as I could focus towards the particular listings I wanted.
Deborah , Lighthouse Point, FL
I found it really helpful as I got a couple of job leads through ManagerCrossing, and got my new job.
Leigh , Denver, CO
I liked the 'My hotlist' feature on ManagerCrossing. It was the best of the abundant of features on the site.
To compare ManagerCrossing with other job sites
Bring Order and Structure to Your Management Job Search
You have perseverance and can accomplish anything you put your mind to and finding the ideal management job is no exception. We have a tradition of helping our members accomplish anything they set their mind to. With complete information about every management job in the market at your fingertips you are going to go far.
You have very high standards for the sort of employer you are working for and also for yourself. You are not afraid to work hard to fulfill your duties because you value security and peaceful living. We give you the tools to pursue your dreams for you and your family.
Become part of a tradition of research excellence that has elevated the careers of countless management professionals just like you.
Complete the sign up process today and become part of our site today.
Tell us where to send your access instructions:
Total Jobs on ManagerCrossing
349,437
New Manager Jobs This Week
94,498
Jobs on EmploymentCrossing Network Available to Our Members
Assistant Director of Admissions #11039 United States-CA-Berkeley
Responsibilities
Review and evaluate complex admission cases; prepare strategy and design for recruitment programs; Represent the Berkeley MBA prog...
Manager careers are found in almost all kinds of businesses. The different industries need people to manage their business according to the employers' standards. There are entry level jobs for manager careers but most companies prefer years of experience. Educational attainment is essential in getting qualified for the job. Other requirements var...
The best thing about EmploymentCrossing was the job alert feature. The newsletters are also very good.
Laurie , Dallas, TX
ManagerCrossing provides an excellent service. I have recommended the website to many people.
Maggie , New York, NY
I found a position instantly using this web site. The ability to customize your search makes this a great tool. I told all my friends about EmploymentCrossing, and they were impressed.
See Every Manager Job We Can Find on the Internet!
Unlike other sites, ManagerCrossing works for you and does not charge employers to post jobs and actually goes out and researches jobs for you. The jobs you see are the jobs we find for you and not the ones employers are paying us to post.
Bring Order and Structure to Your Management Job Search
Start doing things the way they should be done.
Make objective career decisions with unbiased research, facts and information about management jobs. Your perseverance, follow through and dependability will all pay off when you have access to:
Management jobs from every company employer career webpage we can find.
Management jobs from every management job source we can find.
Management jobs from every job board we can find.
Management jobs from every newspaper classified ad we can find.
Management jobs from every specialized management publication we can find.
Management jobs from every federal, state and local government career page we can find.
Management jobs from every public interest, nonprofit and other career page we can find.
Tell us where to send your access instructions:
Today at ManagerCrossing
21,567 - Jobs found in last 24 Hours94,498 - Jobs found in last 7 Days349,437 - Total Jobs Found
Your privacy is guaranteed. We will never give out, lease, or sell your personal information.
ManagerCrossing - #1 Job Aggregation and Private Job-Opening Research Service — The Most Quality Jobs Anywhere
ManagerCrossing is the first job consolidation service in the employment industry to seek to include every job that exists and not charge employers to post jobs on its site.
ManagerCrossing uses sophisticated technology and manual work to comb employer websites and other job boards for jobs and bring them all to its site.
