It’s All Pipes!!!

I’m doing some electrical work in my home and have made the discovery that the bedrooms seem to all be tied to the same breaker. It reminded me of this classic scene from Seinfeld.

It also got me thinking about interconnectedness and how each one of these outlets, light fixtures and wires depend on each other to function.

Just like that wiring, our lives are connected in a daisy chain kind of way. In order to be effective, we need to look “behind the wall” and see how our lives, our projects and our priorities are linked to others so that we can maximize our effectiveness in the workplace and in the marketplace.

We all know there is strength in numbers and that projects get done faster and easier when a good team and a great leader are unleashed on a problem.

More than that, we are truly helpful to those we serve when we identify how seemingly disparate issues fit together – and how one man’s problem might be shared (or easily solved) by another. That’s when we make deep and impactful connections that transcend what’s simply in front of us, to take us to a higher plane of effectiveness.

Tags: Connections, Interconnected, Strategy

What Do You Want to Do Today?

Happy Friday ShareDay from Alaska!

So on my flight up here, I must have ripped through a dozen podcasts that I hadn’t had the chance to listen to yet. For those of you who don’t know me well, there’s no podcast I won’t at least try out. And it’s my favorite form of learning – probably because I am mentally lazy and never quite developed the attention span that books require.

On the Dave Ramsey Entreleadership podcast (find it on iTunes) writer Jim Collins is asked to list his most important traits he looks for when hiring people to join his team. In the course of the brilliant discussion, he comes out with this beauty:

“Ask yourself ‘What Do You Want to Do Today?’”

The power of this statement, to me, is hard to put into words. In mere syllables, it conveys what I believe strongly: that we are each 100% in charge of our own destiny. We have the power to make our world exactly what we want it to be and have no one to blame for our failures but us.

We may have obligations, but how many of those are self-imposed because of our own choices? (Example: I can’t quit the job I hate because my car payments are so high. Answer: Sell the car!)

Think that’s impossible? It’s the same mentality any great entrepreneur has ever had: I will do what I want to do and dictate terms to the world. They can, and so can we. Every day we wake up we have a chance to do something amazing. By contrast, we can just sit back and coast and accept what life decides for us.

I’m printing this statement out and hanging it in my office, in my car and everywhere else I spend time. I might even make buttons. Want one?

Happy Weekend!

Tags: Dave Ramsey, Destiny, Entreleadership, Friday ShareDay

Headed North

So I’m headed to Alaska on business this week, and getting physically and mentally prepared for the trip.

Business trips are funny animals. I enjoy travelling but can’t get home to my family fast enough. I see parts of the world I might not want to on my own dime, but only at arm’s length, because I am working. Still, it’s a good way to assemble a bucket list of places to return to someday.

Business trips are also opportunities to do great work in very close proximity to your client. So they’re unique chances to shine brightly and build rapor.

But success on the road can be undone by a failure to adequately prepare. And since planning is a favorite topic of mine to flog, here’s some thoughts on prepping for the business trip:

1. Gather the team well before the plane leaves. A couple weeks out, you need to be plotting the granular details. The work done at the event site should be more about execution than invention, and so holding multiple meetings or conference calls to divvy ip the responsibilities well beforehand is essential. Dole out the work based on people’s strengths, whether determined by physical proximity to an issue or just a keen understanding of how something needs to get done.

2. Make lists and keep electronic copies. In PR, if we don’t know who in the newsroom to reach to to get our thing covered, we’re worthless. And there’s nothing like the defeat of having a paper copy of something you need in electronic form, but your office is closed and your comapny’s email server is down. I carry documents on a thumb drive just to be sure. And I load the final version of tipsheets and news releases into my email, so I can just forward to anyone I talk to at the event site or in the newsroom.

3. Pack the night before. I once called my wife after getting off a plane in Los Angeles to let her know I arrived safely, and she asked “Did you mean to bring these shoes in the bedroom with you?” I had packed in the pre-dawn darkness and forgot to put them into my suitcase, and the only shoes I had were the sneakers on my feet. Moral of the story: don’t do anything your business depends on in the dark, at the last minute.

4. Build your calendar and list your priorities. Understand what needs to happen and in what order, especially when you’re working with others. Get everyone on the same page with frequent check-ins. Keep in mind that they have people to answer to a well, and getting their buy-in may take time, so take that into account when you’re requesting their assistance.

5. Empower people. Every great team needs a leader, but great leaders delegate. If you’re the leader, delegate wisely and give people real jobs that allow them to shine.

6. Know what success is. Clearly define your and your team’s goals, in all their forms, and make sure to communicate clearly when you hit those goals or when you’re not quite getting there. And afterward, send a thank you note to the people you worked with and to their bosses, calling out their great work.

Happy travels!

Tags: Alaska, Business Travel, Planning, PR, Strategy

Everybody’s Pinning on Friday ShareDay

This is amazing.

When I first came across Pinterest (thank you Katie Ruckel) I wasn’t that blown away. It looked like a jumble of randomly thrown together images with no way for me to understand who was associated with the posts.

After playing with it for a couple weeks, and seeing what it did to drive traffic to last week’s Friday ShareDay post, I have been converted into a Pinterest believer.

So for this Friday ShareDay, here’s a post I found valuable on how you can build influence on Pinterest.

And while I am not terribly fond of his style, here’s a video from Gary Vaynerchuk on what Pinterest does so well.

Happy Weekend!

Tags: Friday ShareDay, Pinterest, Social Media

Standing Still

For the last five-plus years on my way to and from work, I have walked past a man on the street that we might broadly refer to as “homeless.”

With a scraggly beard, torn and tattered coat and grungy sneakers, he quietly, almost timidly, asks passersby, “Got any change?”

On more than one occasion, I have thought about where he sleeps, where he eats and what he does on weekends. On more than one occasion, I have wondered about whether he wants to be doing what he’s doing.

What sticks in my head is that he’s always there. Every morning and every afternoon. For more than five years. And from my vantage point, he’s not changed one bit.

Forget for a moment that he may be ill and in need of medical help. Dismiss whatever predispositions you have about people who panhandle. And assume that he’s not an eccentric billionaire. Just accept, for this moment, that this man has spent five years standing in the same place and that this is not his first choice of what he wants his life to be like.

What would be different if he had taken just one day a week to do something to change his life? Would he still be standing there?

How long have you been standing in the same place?

Tags: Change Your Life, Homeless, Standing Still

Good News Friday ShareDay

So there’s word this morning that – gasp! – people are finding jobs in the middle of this horrible recession, with the private sector mostly responsible for putting the gas in the economic engine of our country. Not to make light of the people who are still struggling, but we clearly are on the right track and don’t need Washington to solve our problems.

As I am greeted with this news, I’m listening to my daily installment of the Dave Ramsey Show podcast. If you’ve not heard it, Dave is a talk-radio guy whose show is about getting out of debt through a deliberate budgeting and planning strategy. It’s quite simple, and it’s helped me and some of my friends a great deal. You may want to check it out; the podcasts are free on iTunes.

And his philosophy about “life and money” is easily translated into what we need to do as PR people to be successful:

1. Take stock of your assets – know what you’ve got to work with and what you need to acquire to do a better job of the task at hand;
2. Plan your path – sit down and write out a roadmap for accomplishing your goals. Present it to all parties involved and get them to agree on it. Then don’t deviate from that plan unless absolutely necessary and all parties agree in advance;
3. Execute, execute, execute – needs no explanation.

So for this Friday ShareDay, here’s a little taste of Dave Ramsey. Be warned, his logic is addictive!

Happy Weekend!

Tags: Dave Ramsey, Planning, PR, Strategy, Unemployment

Slow Down!

Yep, I blew it. 

In the sprint to get too many things done at once, I made a boneheaded mistake this week. What’s worst is that, had I just taken my foot off the gas, it likely wouldn’t have happened.

It all worked out in the end, but the anxiety of the error made for some unnecessary stress.

And it doesn’t mean the mistake shouldn’t have happened in the first place. So what do I take away from it all?

Our world screams at us to move fast: we fly cross-country for a noon meeting and rush to get home for dinner; we measure deadlines in minutes and seconds rather than hours and days; and we have whole conversations on email and twitter. When we don’t get responses in seconds, we think we are being ignored. In short, we can all move too rapidly, and the cost can be our accuracy and – sometimes – our personal equilibrium.

There are times we have to move swiftly, even fast. But it’s a bad idea to sacrifice accuracy and our sanity to do it.

Tags: Mistakes, Strategy

Friday ShareDay Thanks

This Friday ShareDay is a little different…

Rather than sharing content, I’d simply like to share.. my thanks to you.

Thanks for reading, liking, commenting, rating and sharing what you read here. Your input is really what keeps me posting. Even though I’m dispensing my thoughts, ideas and advice (for whatever they’re worth), the true joy for me comes in reading what you have to say in response.

So this Friday ShareDay is for you, loyal reader! Thank you!

Happy Weekend!

Tags: Friday ShareDay, Thank You

There’s No Such Thing As Multitasking

A PBS documentary called “Digital Nation” is, albeit a couple years old, a brilliant look at how technology – including social media – has impacted our daily lives.

The movie – with the running time of a feature film – specifically delves into how technology is affecting young people who have grown up never knowing a time without cell phones, texting, gaming and social media.

One thread in the narrative was the debate over whether this younger generation (the documentary went to South Korea’s gaming parlors as well as around colleges in the United States) can effectively multitask and how important or unnecessary that will be to their futures and their careers.

The science behind the show is eye-opening. There’s one amazing moment when they show a brain scan of a teenager reading a book side-by-side with a scan of that same teenager searching for something on Google.

It’s all worth the watch, especially of you are a parent of someone under the age of 16.

But it also brings up something I have always believed in passionately: there is no such thing as multitasking.

I can’t read a book and think about planning my vacation this summer any more than I can write and send a tweet and an email simultaneously. One must come before or after the other; they can’t exist in the same space in time. To argue otherwise seems – to borrow a phrase from Star Trek’s Dr. Spock – “not logical.”

This is the same logic we use when we caution so strongly against texting and driving – you can’t pay attention to the road and your phone at the same time and do each task with 100% of your faculties.

The reason I feel so strongly about debunking the myth of multitasking is because I believe it makes us less effective as individuals. It muddles our work product and clutters the creative centers of our brains. We volunteer to accept too much information at once, and our brains – no matter how Magna Cum Laude we graduated – can’t process it all. And in world that is moving faster due to technology, we somehow have to find a way to push back against it to maintain the quality of what we do and how we live our lives.

Attempting to multitask – by keeping multiple windows open on your computer, for example – only bifurcates your attention span, splitting it into smaller, less effective parts. In the end, my experience is that multitasking makes my projects take longer, increases my chances that I will make, or not catch, a mistake, and decrease the overall quality of my work.

By multitasking, we basically sign up to be less than we could be, and pretend we’re actually doing more.

Do you multitask?

Tags: Digital Nation, Dr. Spock, Email, Multitasking, PBS, PR, Star Trek, Texting and Driving, Twitter

Dreaming and Doing

I have a policy that I don’t use the word “should.”

In fact, every time I feel the “s-word” creep up in my throat, I replace it with the word “will.” Using that word is a statement of commitment.

“Will” forces me to evaluate whether I can actually accomplish what I am proposing. If putting the word “will” in front of an idea makes it sound absolutely bat-shit-crazy-unachievable, I throw it out.

But with our days as crowded as they are, we can’t afford to put too much energy into ideas we can’t execute now. And so there’s no sense in proposing something you can’t accomplish. That’s not to say you can’t dream big or strive to achieve something on a grander scale. We can always come back to the bigger ideas, and chop them into smaller jobs that we can execute to get us where we need to go.

So for me, “should” is a four-letter word.

What words have you thrown out of your vocabulary?

Tags: Doing, Dreaming, Strategy, Vocabulary