The 5 Levels of Professional Performance: Where are you? – Part 3

As I mentioned in my previous post, we can classify today’s busy white collar workers into one of five distinct levels based on their performance management. Finally, let’s look  at Level Five. 

Level Five: Highly Effective Priority Managers. They’ve mastered Level Four (Organized Delegators) and are going well beyond it. They work surprisingly few hours (40 to 45 hours per week).  They believe in getting things right the first time and expect the same of their organization. Their priorities are clear and openly communicated. They have polished verbal and written skills, and a passion for details. They have come to realize the true responsiveness and versatility are not inhibited by, but rather a result of, excellent priority management skills.

They work from a clean desk. Always.

They have an effective, fully integrated process for managing the rapidly-increasing volume of email. Even during crisis situations, Level Fives never lose their composure. For them, decision-making is a process, not an emotional event. Delegation comes naturally and, because they are surrounded by Organized Delegators, their teams work extraordinarily well.

They also lead balanced lives. They have no trouble taking time off for holidays, family, sports, church, and community.

You may think that reaching such a level of performance is unrealistic in today's fast-paced work environment, but moving from one level up to another is not rocket science. It simply takes a commitment to mastering the right tools and techniques. The benefits will be increased productivity, improved customer service, less stress, greater balance, heightened morale, and of course – MORE TIME.

Make a commitment to get organized in 2012. In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The 5 Levels of Professional Performance: Where are you? – Part 2

As I mentioned in my previous blog, we can classify today’s white collar knowledge workers into one of five distinct levels based on their performance management. Let’s look at Levels Three and Four. 

Level Three: Techno Meisters. These individuals have much improved planning skills compared to The Note Takers (Level Two). Their filing systems are much more effective, usually alphabetical. They have written, long-term goals and they do review them. They do try to plan and set priorities, although it’s hard sticking to them. They spend a lot of time in meetings, a lot more than they would like. But that’s the nature of the beast, or so they feel.

Overall they’re working too hard and running too fast. But that doesn’t bother them as much as it does their families. Even though they’re good at managing their own time, they can’t seem to integrate their system with the rest of the organization. That’s why they’re less productive than they could be.

They're really into electronic technology, and must have the latest / greatest hi-tech tool. For them time management is old fashioned. There must be a hi-tech way to manage appointments, to-dos and communications. This can be good, until they start relying on gadgets instead of on performance techniques.

Level Four: The Organized Delegators. They not only plan their work, they encourage and initiate planning and business goal-setting as a team. The golden understanding they have is that in today’s lean organization with its flattened structure, delegation is no longer a top down activity; it’s just as likely to be sideways. They are not only a team player, they also work as a team builder. Anybody with the right self-management skills can make that happen.

They’re not afraid of technology, and they’re not dazzled by it. They are very systematic in their priority and time management and routinely use their electronic tools. They have a clearly defined mission and goals, personally and professionally, and review them frequently.

They work hard and, because they are so well organized, they cover a lot of ground in a day. They recognize that time management is not an add-on, but a mission critical skill. Above all, despite the pride they take in being on top of things, they are still open-minded enough to embrace new and better ways whenever they come up.

(To be continued)

The 5 Levels of Professional Performance: Where are you? – Part 1

Despite the rockin' and rollin' of an earthquake, the huffin' and puffin' of Hurricane Irene, and the "toasting" of my office computer, I'm finally posting this blog!

While most workers have better educational and job-related skills than ever, they are sadly lacking the most vital skill of all for the information age – performance management. It’s possible to classify office professionals into one of five distinct levels … Where are you?

Level One: Time-Challenged Worker. Their computer and their work space tell the whole story.  Their desk and / or their computer desktop are littered with half-finished projects and documents too “urgent” to file – reminders or action items they desperately don’t want to forget.

They may have a paper calendar around somewhere and when they think of it, may even jot down events like appointments and birthdays. Similarly, they may use their Outlook calendar when they think of it. But the truth is they keep most of their schedule in their head because “hey, who’s got time to write anything down or enter it into the computer?”

Nonetheless, the trusted memory isn’t doing much for their reputation. They miss deadlines, double-book meetings, arrive late for meetings or forget about them altogether, and spend 30 to 45 minutes a day just searching for items on their desk, computer desktop, or email Inbox.

Level Two: The Note Takers. For the most part, people at this level claim to rely on the lined paper / spiral notepad that they lug to every meeting like Linus’ blanket.

But when push comes to shove, anything goes – hieroglyphics on scraps of paper, on backs of envelopes, napkins, and, of course, on the veritable forest of sticky notes strewn east, west and sideways across their cubicle.

They do have more organizational experience compared to Level One colleagues. They’ve probably taken a time management course and are familiar with the principles of goal-setting, preparing to-do lists, and how to prioritize.

Unfortunately, they believe since they’ve taken the course, they can cross that off their list: “Been there, done that. I’ve graduated…time to get down to real work.”

(To be continued)

The Tyranny of Expectations – Part 2

As I mentioned in my previous posting, we work long hours, give away one or two days on the weekends, and still most of us have a pile of things undone. No, it’s not about time management anymore. It’s about life management. But, how do we do that?

            Getting people to pause and sit down to reflect on what’s going on in their life is extremely difficult. It’s not just a once-a-year thing. It’s not even a once-a-month thing. It’s a daily thing.

           

Perhaps one of the most powerful techniques I’ve found to try to manage a very busy life is to take 10 to 20 minutes each evening to wrap up today and fine tune tomorrow’s to-do list. It’s quiet time. It’s time to ask, “What can I learn from what happened today?” It’s time to search for something good to say about today (even if it’s, “It’s over – and I get a chance to try again tomorrow!). Finally, it’s time to focus on what’s truly important for me to work on / accomplish tomorrow.

            One secret is to be realistic about your work environment when deciding what you need to accomplish. You need to recognize that there are two invisible parts to your work day - invisible in the sense that they never make onto a “to-do” list. First, there’s the time consumed each day dealing with reactive demands (interruptions, crises, shifting priories, etc.), and, second, the time you’ll spend on your “routine” tasks (e.g. processing email, voice mail, and paper mail). You ignore these at your peril. They consume your time every day.

You’ll sleep much better if you have a realistic plan to work on / accomplish your top priorities. You’ll wake up in the morning with a purpose. In effect, you’ve created a “contract” with yourself for the upcoming day with your “measures of success”. Since you’re human, you’ll never be perfect all of the time, but you want to get better at this “planning for success” technique. This is one of those times when near-perfection is OK.

            In this way, you can take charge of your life, control the tyranny of expectations, and become a little less reactive to the circumstances around you.

The Tyranny of Expectations – Part 1

I was talking to Ed, a friend of mine, recently. He told me a story I want to share with you.

He said, “The other day I lost it. There was just one demand too many being made on my time. My glass was full, and my colleagues put one more ice cube in it. It overflowed. I was upset more at myself than at anyone else. For their expectation was a valid one, given my responsibilities. It was just one too many.”

            He continued, “Then I went home. Sometimes, it just seems to get worse. At home, we expect ourselves to be super-dads or super-moms: soccer matches, baseball games, concerts, our kid’s school plays, karate lessons, Boy and Girl Scouts, physical exercise, practicing our faith, staying centered and focused. And don’t forget, spending time with our significant other.”

            “Right,” we all say sarcastically. It’s not about time management anymore; it seems to be about life management.

            I keep hearing this same refrain from more and more people. There is no time anymore – or so it seems. So many of us put our family and work commitments before those of our own health and well-being. One friend called it the “plague of success.”

            I call it the “tyranny of expectations.” There are so many expectations of us. At work, we’re expected to respond instantly to the emails and phone calls we receive. We expect ourselves to honor all those commitments of things that were due yesterday. And while we’re responsible for business results, we also expect ourselves to be as effective in our work relationships. We work 50, 60, or even 70 hours a week, give away one or two days on the weekends, and still most of us have a pile of things undone. No, it’s not about time management anymore. It’s about life management.        (To be continued)

ASAP is Not a Deadline!

In my time management workshops, I usually ask, “How do your interpret ‘ASAP’ when someone asks you to do something?” This has become an all too common “deadline” in today’s workplace.

The most frequent responses I typically get are:

• It means NOW. Stop what you’re doing and do this new task.

• It depends on who says it.

• It means “Whenever” I can get to it.

Of course, the differences in interpretation arise because two key words in the phrase “As Soon As Possible” seem to conflict: Soon and Possible. “Soon” implies that the deadline is “Now-ish”, whereas “Possible” implies that the deadline is “Whenever-ish”. As for the response that it depends on “who” says it, now you’ve entered into the realm of mind-reading.

For tasks you delegate or requests you make of others, you can avoid any misinterpretation by just not using ASAP – give people a deadline day and time.

When others ask you to do something ASAP, ask them when they really need it. If they ask you “Why? What do you have that’s more important?”, you can tell them what else is on your plate to be done in the same time frame as their request.

That’s the hard part for most people – telling the boss what else they have to do that is more important than this new ASAP request. They don’t have a “targeted” workload / task plan. They just have a long “to-do” list, which doesn’t tell them when things are due or when they need to be worked on. (Don’t expect others to know what items are on your plate and the priority of each. You are the keeper of your workload and priorities!)

In the absence of the workload plan, the most common response to the new ASAP request is “OK” or “Sure” or “Yes”. Too late, you realize you’ve said “yes” to too many people for the same time frame. Either you’ll get super stressed out trying to keep everyone happy or you’ll disappoint someone, which affects your reputation.

The other important aspect of ASAP’s is that they lead to “shifting priorities”. This multi-tasking really wastes your time. Based on personal experience, I’ve always said  that it can take you 5 to 20 minutes of Mental Recovery Time to get your brain back to where it was (i.e. re-focus) after you complete the ASAP task.

In research conducted by David Meyer at the University of Michigan and reported in 2001 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, he found that people who shift between tasks lose valuable time in the transitions as the brain must re-focus each time. The more complicated the original task, the more time it takes to re-focus.

My advice is to create a targeted workload (task) plan in Outlook by setting a Start Date for each task. You’ll respond better and with more confidence to each new task request you get. But your response also depends on knowing whether the deadline for the new task conflicts with your other commitments and priorities, and ASAP is not a deadline!

Messages - 14 Years Later

I was cleaning out a resource file recently and came across an article from 1997 that was based on a workplace study by the Gallup Organization and the Institute for the Future. The study found that employees received an average of 190 messages a day, most requiring some form of response.

The general breakdown of those messages was: Paper-based 79; Telephone 52; E-mail 30; Voicemail 22; and Pager / cell phone 7. (Paper-based included InterOffice Mail, USPS Mail, fax, phone message slips, Post-it Notes, courier, and Express Mail.)

My reaction was, “Wow! Technology sure has changed the workplace. Has it only been 14 years? That 1997 workplace now seems eons ago.” Many clients today tell me that they typically get between 100 and 150 e-mail messages a day, and they feel stressed by that deluge. Granted, the total number of messages may not have increased too much because of a decrease in paper-based and phone-based messages, but that change from paper-based and oral to e-mail has a significant impact on your time.

E-mail’s Impact

E-mail suffers from the lack of oral and visual cues. Whereas oral communications (phone, face-to-face, etc.) are not “etched in stone”, e-mail is "in writing" and that means you need to carefully draft your response to minimize misinterpretation. Also, your message may be around for quite a while in somebody’s e-mail archive folder, and you have no control over who may ultimately read it after you click the “Send” button.

To summarize, e-mail responses require the same care given a formal memo despite the appearance of an informal communication. That means they usually take more time than the traditional oral (phone / face-to-face) communications!

Interruptions

A related worker comment from the 1997 study jumped out of the article – workers complained about the number of interruptions caused by the incoming messages. That has not changed in 14 years! When we discuss “What keeps you from being effective?” in our time management classes, interruptions (e-mail, drop-ins, and phone) are among the very first responses. Interruptions, no matter what the source, will each cost you 5 to 20 minutes of Mental Recovery Time – that’s the time to get your brain back to where it was before the interruption occurred.

For workers today that use Outlook as their e-mail program and get 100 to 150 e-mail messages a day, they suffer from having 100 to 150 avoidable interruptions a day from the messages arriving in their Inbox / Mail Folder! Outlook’s default settings for the arrival of new e-mail messages generate a sound and a New Mail Desktop Alert (pop-up that fades while you frantically try to read it).

If you live with those e-mail sounds and pop-ups, you’ll have a difficult time doing anything during your day except working with your e-mail. In that case, you can start your “real work” either after everyone leaves the office or after you get home in the evening.

Get Organized Now…or Agonize Later!

You CAN get control of when you check your Inbox. Do it when YOU want to, NOT every time a new message arrives. You’ll be amazed at how much your stress drops and how much time you’ll save by avoiding the steady flow of e-mail interruptions.

Our Working Sm@rt with Microsoft Outlook workshop shows how to apply “best practice” time management techniques using the basic and advanced functionality of MS Outlook. As part of re-configuring Outlook to make it more user-friendly, participants change the default settings to eliminate all of the audio and visual (pop-up) interruptions caused by arriving e-mail messages. You can turn them off, too. It’s pretty simple:

For Outlook 2003 and 2007

Click on Tools, and then click on Options. 

Click the E-mail Options button.

In the E-mail Options box, click on the Advanced E-mail Options button.

In the center of the Advanced E-mail Options box, uncheck all four of the small checkboxes.

Click OK, then OK, and then OK again to close the various Options boxes.

For Outlook 2010

Click on the File tab, and then click on Options on the list on the left side.

In the Outlook Options screen, click on Mail (near the top of the list on the left side).

Under the heading “Message arrival”, uncheck the four small checkboxes.

Click OK.

Once you get over the feeling of insecurity from not having all of the e-mail pop-ups and / or sounds, you’ll realize how much stress and unnecessary Mental Recovery Time they caused. Let me know how this technique works for you, or any other comments or questions you have about getting organized.