Lessons from a Hurricane

Hurricane Sandy's devastation along the East  Coast this week is amazing. We lived in South Jersey for nearly 10 years, and still have friends and relatives who live in the state. Please assist the recovery effort in any way you can, whether it is by personal help because you live close by or by contributing to the various local and national organizations that are providing relief services to those in need.

Fortunately, Northern Virginia largely escaped with only minor damage from Hurricane Sandy. But the situation itself brought to mind again that the parallels between preparing for and experiencing a hurricane and preparing for and handling our typical workday are many.

Several years ago, I was teaching a half-day class in Richmond, VA the morning that Hurricane Isabel was to make landfall. One participant remarked during a break that he had made no preparations. In fact, he was planning on eating “a big lunch” in the cafeteria prior to their early release at 1pm. He had minimal food at home.

How often do you know about upcoming deadlines or events, and still do little preparation or planning? I hope this person ate “a huge lunch” prior to leaving work, since finding food after Isabel passed through the Richmond area would have been difficult at best.

You can learn lessons from Sandy or Isabel, in both your daily personal and work lives. Each day, you have to deal with “mini-hurricanes” (crises, phone interruptions, drop-ins from your boss / colleagues / staff). Are you prepared for them? You may be asking, “Prepare? How can I prepare?”

There are things you can do. While you can’t predict the Who, What, Where, When or How of the “mini-hurricanes”, you can plan your workload on the basis that reactive demands will happen every day. Prepare by having a realistic daily workload / task plan for the next few weeks. I call this “planning for the unplanned.”

Your plan may not be perfect, but when the crisis occurs, you only need to adjust your plan. You avoid high stress now by referring to your plan and responding confidently to the new tasks assignments. You avoid the high stress later that comes from tasks “piling up” as a result of your having previously made unrealistic commitments.

That person in Richmond years ago may have tried on the way home (at the last minute) to stop for food and batteries. But by 1pm, Isabel, the rude uninvited guest, had already arrived at his door.

Live Training is Sometimes Best

A few months ago, I was asked whether it would be a good idea to develop an online version of Personal Accountability and the QBQ! training. This is a course developed by John G. Miller based on his book, QBQ! The Question Behind the Question. I am a licensed distributor of the QBQ training and have been facilitating / re-licensing the QBQ training to clients for over 8 years.

My comments back to John were based on my experience facilitating live online training / teaching live online training for New York University (NYU) in 2000 - 2001. NYU's experience was that the percentage of students that complete self-paced online training is low. It takes a very motivated "student" to complete the training. They found that a blend of live instructor-led online sessions with self-paced sessions got the best results.

Clients who have taken various self-paced online training classes have told me that they battle numerous distractions / interruptions at work, especially in "cubicle" environments. Some people will just click through to complete the class, missing a lot of the good content that's offered.

As for QBQ! training, I believe the strength of the class is the combination of the DVD instruction with the live facilitator to manage / customize the discussion ("Pause & Process"). The live element allows for true customization before and during the class session. If you convert the content to an online, more generic format, you will lose the ability to customize the Pause & Process elements before as well as "on the fly" during the class. 

I've also found the class interaction helps drive home the key ideas John presents in the DVD, and the discussion can sometimes get lively based on the comments of some of the class participants. 

Call me old-fashioned, but this topic is too important to fall into the online training trap. I see as a major problem today that we stare at technology (smartphones, iPads, TV's, computer screens, etc.) for hours on end, and we don't talk to each other anymore. QBQ! training really encourages participants to share ideas and actually talk to each other!

If you haven't read any of John G. Miller's books (QBQ! The Question Behind the Question, Flipping the Switch: Unleash the Power of Personal Accountability Using the QBQ!, OUTSTANDING! 47 Ways to Make Your Organization Exceptional, etc.) you've missed some great stuff. His books are fun, quick reads that contain many great ideas. I highly recommend them.

Life Balance is Good!

My wife and I recently went on our first-ever cruise with some friends.  We had the usual "newbie" concerns about sea-sickness, what clothes to take, how many changes of clothes to take, what activities to sign up for in advance, etc.  Since there was a small casino on board, how much money to put at risk? With a business to run, I was also concerned about phone contact and Internet / email capability. There were so many things to consider.

Teaching people how to get organized comes in handy - this being one of those times. I laid out a plan for the things I needed to do. There were passports to get. I contacted the cruise travel agency that booked us with several questions. I went to the cruise line's web site and explored the information they had about the ship specifically and cruising in general. In the end, we had all of the information that we needed in advance.

Since we were part of a group of 80, the cruise agency had buses from Frederick, MD to and from Bayonne, NJ. Although we had some rainy weather while at sea and while docked in Bermuda, our experience was fantastic.  We're "hooked" and will definitely cruise again.

The cruise agency had a few of their staff along on the cruise, and they were super- organized. Getting to and onboard the ship went smoothly. The Bermuda events were well-organized and enjoyable. The ship's crew was outstanding and friendly. We kept as busy as we wanted to be, but had down time to relax and read, play some bridge with our friends, enjoy some good food, and see some great on-board entertainment. The disembarkation, clearing US Customs, and the return to Frederick MD were as smooth as the front end of the trip.

Seeing the Statue of Liberty upon departure and again on returning caused me to reflect a little on what my grandparents might have felt as their ship approached Ellis Island and the US, their new land of hope and opportunity, about 100 years ago.

As someone who prides himself in personal organization, I had to admire the organization of our cruise agency's staff and the ship's staff. They quickly established our confidence in their knowledge, skills, and abilities, and that left us to enjoy some much-needed Life Balance. Very little work got done during the week, but that was OK. It was one those times to say, "Thanks, I needed that!"  

Email (sigh),,, and again

Some people ask me why so many of our web site tips and my blogs are about email and related topics. It's because I hear more complaints about email than any other aspect of today's work environment -- even more than about "the boss"!

Last time I provided some ideas on things you could do as the "sender" to improve your email communications and reduce wasted time / effort. This time, I'd like to provide a few things that you can do as the "recipient":

1. Don't make any assumptions about the sender's emotional state. Sometimes we assume the sender is angry with us because we receive what  reads as a "rude" response. Many people are not great writers, and a missing word or two can change the tone of the entire message.

2. Don't escalate a conflict by sending an emotionally charged response. It's easy to hide behind your computer and send off an angry message -- making the problem worse. Pick up the phone and set up a fact-to-face meeting to resolve the conflict.

3. Ask the sender for clarification. While you can ask for more information by replying to a message, you might get clarification quicker over the phone or in person.

4. Use your email program's built-in tools to help organize messages. For example, MS Outlook allows you to set up Rules to filter incoming messages into folders and to use Automatic Formatting to have messages from certain people or with certain words/ phrases visually stand out in your Inbox.

5. You don't have to respond to every message right away. Manage the expectations of those who send you messages. Turn off the email pop-ups (Desktop Alerts in MS Outlook) that interrupt you and give you the feeling that the newly arrived message is the most important you have to do.

Email (sigh) ......again

Some people ask me why so many of our web site tips and my blogs are about email and related topics. It's because I hear more complaints about email than any other aspect of today's work environment -- even more than about "the boss"!

Email can be amazingly inefficient. After all, how many times have you messaged back and forth with a co-worker over the course of a day or two just to schedule a meeting? How many times have you wasted hours with co-workers sending "Reply to All" messages to achieve consensus about something? And, how many tasks did you interrupt today alone so you could respond to a message that just arrived in your Inbox?

When you really think about it, you begin to see how much this seemingly great technology tool can actually prevent you from getting important things done. So here are a few things you can do as the "sender":

1. Make sure that email is the right medium to address the issue. Would a phone call or a meeting be more appropriate / efficient to discuss it?

2. Get to the point right away - in the first few sentences of your message.

3. If you are asking a question, be sure to ask the question. don't just state it and hope people will respond. Phrase it as a question.

4. Specify who should respond. With a group message, it's easy for everyone to assume that someone else will respond.

5. Be crystal clear when you need a response. ASAP is not a deadline. It requires an assumption about "when" you really want it.

6. Provide background and context in your message. Don't assume the recipient will know what you're talking about.

7. Since you never know where your message may ultimately end up, don't forget the rules of grammar and punctuation.

8. One message, one topic.

9. Provide a summary when you forward an "FYI" email. Don't forward a whole conversation thread and assume that the recipient will take the time to read it. They're busy, too.

Things You Can Do To Make 2012 Great

Dan Stamp, the Chairman of Priority Management Systems, recently discussed some different things to make life at work and at home better and more enjoyable. Here are some of his do's and don'ts:

Recognize that "passion", "work / life balance", and "purpose" are just words. In reality they are not products, but rather by-products of planning your work life to support what you really want. You will only find these qualities by looking within yourself first and identifying what you want out of life.

Remember that you are not in prison. You can make choices about how you live your life and no one else can live it for you.

Develop your own personal compass. Don't evaluate yourself or your family against what others might have achieved. Do you feel good about yourself and, if not, what do you need to change?

Don't flatter yourself about how important and successful you are because you are so very busy. How much of your busy-ness is self-imposed? Are you using it to escape from something more important?

Listen to what people around you are saying - what they really want to communicate - and absorb the whole message before you start to respond. Remember that you will never have good relationships at work or at home if you are a "speed listener", reducing every message to a sound bite.

Commitments say a lot about your character. Don't make commitments (meeting, lunch, piece of work) and then not follow through or cancel at the last minute. You may feel busy, but so is everyone else! When you fail to honor your commitments, you are saying two things to the person who is relying on you: "My time is more important than yours." and "You are not important to me."

Finally, make 2012 special for you, your colleagues at work, and your important loved ones. Design a work / life worthy of your values, goals, and aspirations.

New Year's Resolutions for 2012 - Time for a Do-Over?

'Tis the season to make and give up on New Year's Resolutions! Yes, by now many people have already given up on one or more of their resolutions / priorities for 2012. Maybe the resolutions were unrealistic. Maybe they weren't specific. After some thought and a dose of realism, maybe we are just afraid of making changes to the way we've been doing things.

Well, it's not even mid-January, so there's still time to hit the re-set button. Here are a few suggestions to help you enhance your life and work satisfaction for the remainder of 2012.

Manage the Anxiety and Fear of Change. Fear is a chronic emotion that can paralyze you into never moving forward in your life. Recognize that it is a learned emotion and that you can re-educate yourself to deal with it.

Fear will never go away completely. As long as you are growing and changing, you will have to confront it. To reduce fear, you need to face it and do it (whatever needs doing)  anyway. "Just Doing It" improves self-esteem. Everyone experiences a feeling of fear when they are on unfamiliar ground. Finally, remember that psychologists say that more that 90% of what we fear never happens!

It's Not What You Are, It's What You Do. To achieve your goals in 2012, you have to recognize that successful people reach their goals mostly because of what they do.

Create a vision of what you really want to achieve and one that is really worth working for. Be very specific. Acknowledge that you need to act. Make your goal a change that you must achieve and one that will not let self-doubt or procrastination creep in. So "seize the day" and decide when you will take each action in advance. Planning will increase your chance of success.

Get Support. Share your  feelings and your goals with close friends and work colleagues. Choose wisely - friends who are supportive - those who are positive in their own lives and don't gossip. At work, choose those who share with you a passion for what they do and for achievement.

At the end of every day, find at least one positive thing to say about your day. Even if the best you can say is, "It's over!" There will be days like that, even for the super star performers. And don't forget, you get to try again tomorrow.