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Apple iPad(16GB, Wifi)

Getting Results the Agile Way: A Personal Results System for Work and Life in printed version. The book is available completely for free online at www.GettingResults.com.

If you are still wondering what gift to buy for the holidays to your friend, wife, son,  colleague, or anyone who’s dear to your heart look no further.

It’s my secret weapon that helped me to get promoted twice, take names with customers, get networked with key people, avoid stress and burn out, hit my numbers and beyond, and almost never work more than 40 hours a week. And much more.

What Is In The Book?

The book does not show “Look Inside” feature on Amazon. But that should not prevent you going online at www.GettingResults.com and enjoy the entire contents of the book, here is the table of contents:

• Acknowledgements
• Contents at a Glance
• Foreword
• A Word from the Author
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 – Why Agile Results
• Chapter 2 – Agile Results Overview
• Chapter 3 – Values, Principles, and Practices
• Chapter 4 – Hot Spots
• Chapter 5 – Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, and Friday Reflection
• Chapter 6 – Design Your Day
• Chapter 7 – Design Your Week
• Chapter 8 – Design Your Month
• Chapter 9 – Design Your Year
• Chapter 10 – Results Frame, Personas, and Pitfalls
• Chapter 11 – 25 Keys to Results
• Chapter 12 – 25 Strategies for Results
• Chapter 13 – Motivation
• Chapter 14 – Mindsets and Metaphors

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Kindle Wireless 6″

It’s Not Just Another GTD

The biggest difference for me when I compare J.D.’s approach to others such as  Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity or The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich is that Getting Results focuses on core principles first versus on techniques on how to keep up with work overload. Another big thing is that the book is a reference – you do not have to read it all to start applying the practices outlined there in order to get instant results. Want to get motivated? – jump to Motivation chapter. Want to change your mindset and adopt relevant mindset? – no problem, jump to Mindsets and Metaphors. Want to outline your annual portfolio of results? – go ahead and jump to Design Your Year chapter.

I practice this and it gets me results instantly, the agile way. So anyone can. If you wish giving a great present on the holidays Getting Results is the one you should be looking at.

When you have several job offers on your table it’s important to pick the one that will help you grow. Growth means different things to different people.

How to decide?

I have created a simple job frame – a list of attributes that help characterizing a job.

Using the frame I was able to make more data driven decision vs. following an intuition or common sense. Or just perception.

1. Job Title

In most cases I cannot care less about job title. What’s important to me is actual work and impact. Nevertheless, it’s good to understand what the title brings on the table. Titles create perceptions and perceptions are stubborn thing. Titles can help opening doors and make them shut.

2. Learn From

It’s important to research who the thought leaders are with the team you are considering to join. You want people with great insights and execution capabilities. You want to learn to be insightful, you want to learn how to flawlessly execute.  It’s not taught in schools.

3. Daily To-Do

What are you supposed to do daily? Is it something that starts fire in your belly? If not you will be brining home your frustrations. Your family will be suffering together with you making things even worse.

4. Next Gig

What’s your next gig [read job]? Is this one helping to build yourself toward your next gig? Does it help to build the right skills? Does it help to build the right network?

5. Deliverables

What’s considered for result? Is it tangible? What impact it has? Can you measure it somehow? Is it of the priority with the whole company? Can the results be outsourced? Ask these questions and find out the answers. Otherwise you will be investing yourself in something insignificant that will hurt your morale, and you will quit very soon. Also it should give you a hint for how long your job is going to be funded before it is eliminated, or the budget repurposed.

6. Lifestyle

With this new role – can you manage the lifestyle you want? What’s your perfect lifestyle like? Is it nine to five or you are midnight owl? Do you like to follow your inspiration and invest your time during inspirational spikes or you need a rigid time regime?

“There are no dead-end jobs. There are only dead-end people. If you build a network, you will have a bridge to wherever you want to go” – Harvey Mackay, from the book Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty

image by jasonandrebecca09

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My Related Posts

• Do You Have The Dream Job?
• Gemba Kaizen – Three Step Approach For Kick 5 S’s Management
• Microsoft vs. Google – Competing For GTD

In their book First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman suggest asking this question to make sure you made progress advancing from the Base Camp to the next level of your career, Camp 1.

Camp 1 – “What do I give?” The authors of the book break this generic question into more specific questions that you can easily answer either Yes or No. Answering No should alert you. At work, do I have the opportunity to do my work best every day? In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise for good work? Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care of me as a person? Is there someone who encourages my development? Opportunity To Do My Best Am I given the opportunity? What’s your answer? No. Go back to your manager, customer, supervisor, yourself. Correct the course of action that way so that you are given the opportunity to do what you are best at. Ask more questions. What I am best at? Is it what I am doing daily? I am not? Why? How can change it? What stops me doing my best? Yes. Great! Move on. Recognition And Praise Is my work valued? What’s your answer? No. May be you are doing what are not best at. If so, go back to the previous paragraph. May be you think you are doing your best but in fact you are only doing but not achieving any results. Ask yourself: “What I have achieved? Can I touch it? Can I count it? Can I sense it? Does it add value?”. If the answer is Yes, ask this: “Who knows about it? How can I surface my achievement up the chain?”. The last step is just asking your manager/customer for direct feedback – “Can you give me your honest opinion on my latest achievement? What can I do better? What do I need to stop doing? What do I need start doing? What do I need to do differently?” Yes. Great! Move on. I Robot (No You Are Not!) Have you seen What Women Want movie? Remember that girl walking around the office unnoticed? Remember how it all ends?… Does your manager or your customer seem to care for you? No. May be you need to show you care for your manager/customer? May be you need to show some signs of humanity? Win the Heart the Mind Follows. It is that simple. Yes. Great! Move on. I Grow Do you want to move to the next level of your career? Do you want to move to Camp 2? No. Well… make sure to read this – Consulting – What’s The Deal? Yes. Happy to hear that! Stay tuned for the next post . Practice This – Get Results Do what you are best at – show tangible results. Surface your achievements – collect feedback, correct your course according to the feedback. Master what you are best at – create more room for your future growth. My Related Posts Consultant Arrives To Base Camp What’s The Powerful Skill Of All? Is It Asking The Right Questions? The Best Advice For Any Manager One, Two , Three – Is This Manager For Me?

]]> http://practicethis.com/consulting-school-is-over-time-for-consulting-education/feed/ 7 http://practicethis.com/what-accomplished-people-can-teach-you-about-work-life-balance/ http://practicethis.com/what-accomplished-people-can-teach-you-about-work-life-balance/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:45:17 +0000 alik levin http://practicethis.com/2009/03/13/what-accomplished-people-can-teach-you-about-work-life-balance/ Stumbled on the article at businessweek.com called Readers Voice Their Workplace Problems. It discusses workplace problems identifying work-life balance (WLB) as #1 issue. I am all for WLB and I am constantly looking for a ways to improve. Look what other accomplished people can teach you about practical approach for load at home and at work.
by cpt.spock
This is what they say:

Angelica Menefee, Founder and president of Trampoline, Inc. I think you have to have a lot of self-discipline Roger Howard, Head of shipping department, data processing company. I’ve always been a reader, but I read a lot more now. It’s relaxing. It gives you an avenue to direct yourself in. Michael Jones, Part-time consultant for Six Sigma, Gulf Shores. I decided to get into consulting because I’d been working too many hours. I have a lot more control over what I do, and I sleep better. Lisa Blanton, Founder and president of the Collings Group. Work-life balance has become less difficult since I became my own boss. That was the only way to really manage it. LaMonte Guillory, Internet business strategist I even talk about my personal life in business fashion—so we could bring some balance to our work-personal life Lou Hoffmann, Founder and president of the Hoffman Agency The key is having more control of your time and how you control your job Practice This – Get Results Get disciplined – get The Power Of Saying “No”  Read more – Learning Capability Is Your Core Competitive Advantage Consider consulting as a career path – Consulting – What’s The Deal? Make your life’s business plan. Start with your time budget – Time Is Not Money. Time Is Budget. What’re your secrets of healthy work-life balance?

]]> http://practicethis.com/what-accomplished-people-can-teach-you-about-work-life-balance/feed/ 13 http://practicethis.com/consultant-arrives-to-base-camp/ http://practicethis.com/consultant-arrives-to-base-camp/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:37:58 +0000 alik levin http://practicethis.com/2009/02/23/consultant-arrives-to-base-camp/

A new consultant was just born. He looks around – curious and frightened,  excited, and uncertain. “Will I be successful?…”

The journey has just begun. It’s not just a journey, it’s the start of epic adventure.

In their book, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Marcus Buckinghamand  and Curt Coffman break up the adventure into camps. First stop is the Base Camp.

First the consultant arrives at camp, where he gets trained. Most importantly he must be able to answer these two simple questions:

• Do I know what is expected of me at work?
• Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

What Does My Manager Expect From Me?

Setting mutual expectations with a manager is a good start for a consultant. Ask three simple questions when setting expectations with a manager:

• “What’s most important for you?” 
• “What can I do to help you with this?”
• “What’s my next best move to start helping you with your most important thing?”

The consultant emails his manager and asks to set a follow up meeting. The consultant owns his own progress.

What Do I Need To Do My Best?

Simple question. Simple answer. The consultant makes friends.

• IT department. The consultant makes friends with the IT department. Computers and peripherals are tools of trade – when they are broken, the consultant is paralyzed. The consultant learns what IT guys value the most. The consultant builds trust with them playing by the rules.
• Sales. The consultant makes friends with the sales folks. The consultant wants to work on hot stuff–the stuff that sells. Sales guys know what’s hot. The consultant builds trust with sales by bringing business leads.
• Support. the consultant makes friend with support personnel. The consultant wants to make an impact. Removing pain is the most significant impact the consultant can make. Support guys know about pain–they live and breathe pain. The consultant builds trust with support folks by…go figure.
• Consultants. The consultant makes friends with another consultant who can mentor him. The guy has been around so he knows how it all works–he knows who, what, where, when, and how.

The consultant builds a strong internal support network. Once the network is built the consultant can leave the base camp with confidence.

Next stop is Camp 1. The schooling is over. Time for real education.

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” – Mark Twain

Practice This – Get Results

• Ask your manager what bothers him most–be part of the solution.
• Build your internal network–it’ll never let you fall flat on your face.

My Related Posts

• Do You Have The Dream Job?
• Manage Your Manager For Fun And For Profit
• Mark Twain Quotes – Motivation Super Power (WARNING – Addicting)

Editor in chief – Jimmy May

To answer this question I started to read more books. I think I found the answer in Harvey Mackay’s Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive: Outsell, Outmanage, Outmotivate, and Outnegotiate Your Competition , he writes:

We heard from the top officers of Honda, Sony, Mitsubishi, and the head of the biggest enterprise of all, the eighty-eight-year-old president of Matsushita Electric:

Question: “Mr President, does your company have long range goals?”
Answer: “Yes”.
Question: “How long are your long range goals?”
Answer: “Two hundred fifty years”.
Question: “What do you need to carry then out?”
Answer: “Patience.”

This is interesting. I decided to check on this company and I found out that during last 30 years the strategy worked. Except 2000′s and today’s recession they look like growing, no?

My Long Range Goals

I was reading Jay’s post – Do You have a Full Tank & Nowhere to Go?. He talks about the endgame… At first I did not like the term. Then it got me thinking – really, what’s my end game? What do I want more in my life?

Do you want more fame, fortune, time, or love?

Well, fame and fortune will come naturally when I become an A-List blogger .

What I really want in life is more time and love.

Consulting Is Perfect For Me

Back to my VP this and VP that friends. I am truly (no sarcasm!) happy for them as this is what they wanted to achieve and they have achieved this. It is great to see how they set the goal and achieved it. Really inspiring. It inspires me to stick with my goals which is Time and Love.

As a consultant I am able to:

• …manage my time and I am not boxed into 9 to 5 thing.
• …time flexibility helps me allocate more time for what I love 

By the way, consultants get paid not bad too :

Consultant – $141,111.  -  100 Best Companies to Work For

Am I just convincing myself I am not a loser? Or I am living my dream? What’s your take?

Practice This – Get Results

• Decide what you want more in your life – focus on this, ignore the rest. 
• Build your career model – common wisdom is not a secret formula for your success.

My Related Posts

• Consulting – What’s The Deal?
• Fear No Recession – Surpass Your Career Potential
• 4 Dimensions Of Personal Power
• 3 Most Precious Things In The World Are Free

Recession is not an obstacle to reach your career potential. In fact, it is a catalyst to show off your skills, time to get even better results. Say what? recessions is a catalyst for my career growth? Huh?… In Career Counsel: Follow Your Own Path published on Harvard Business Review, Robert S. Kaplan offers three basic “rules of the road”. Kaplan writes:

1. Managing your career is 100% your responsibility, and you need to act accordingly.
2. Be wary of conventional wisdom.
3. Have faith that, although justice may not prevail at any given point in time, it should generally prevail over time.

Your Career – Your Responsibility

Kaplan writes:

Many promising professionals expect their superiors to mentor them, give them thoughtful coaching, provide them with challenging opportunities, and generally steer their development. Such a passive approach is likely to derail you at some point. While your superiors will play a role, your career is your own.

I adopted simple principle long ago “create yourself before someone else does“. Career models help a lot creating yourself, here are few that I like:

From Thinking About Career Paths:

Model#1

• Do you want more fame, fortune, time, or love?
• Do you want to be a thought leader or a people leader?

Model #2

• What are you doing that you currently enjoy?
• What do you want to do more of each day?
• What do you want to do less of each day?

Model #3

• What problems are you working on?
• Who are you working with?
• What impact are you making?

From Curphey and SourceClear Turn Blue!

What’s your model?

Conventional Wisdom Is Not For You

Kaplan writes:

It’s almost always wrong—for you. Hopping on the bandwagon may feel good initially but often leads to painful regrets years later. To reach your potential, you must filter out peer pressure and popular opinion; assess your own passions, skills, and convictions; and then be courageous enough to act on them.

Have you picked your career model? Does hopping on the bandwagon fit into it? If so, jump on it. Else, let it go, it is not for you.

Keep The Faith

Kaplan writes:

When you do suffer an injustice, you need to be willing to step back and objectively assess your own role in these events. That mind-set will help you learn from inevitable setbacks and eventually bounce back. It will also help you stay focused on issues you can control as well as bolster your determination to act like the ultimate decision maker.

I stopped accuse others in my failures. It’s not effective and it only drains my energy. When I step back and analyze my failures I try to understand my role in it and identify the pattern. That way I know how to not get in troubles next time.

“A little integrity is better than any career” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self Test

• Do you have a clear plan for your next job or role?
• Do you follow your friends passion or your own?
• Do you think you are stuck in your current role because of your boss or because of you?

My Related Posts

• Do Not Kiss Corporate Life Goodbye
• The Courage To Quit
• Do You Have The Dream Job?
• My Values And Their Salary
• Duck Or Eagle
• Motivated By Failure

If growth is what you’re after, you won’t learn much from complex measurements of customer satisfaction or retention. You simply need to know what your customers tell their friends about you.

Hey, I think it is the whole idea behind marketing based on social web sites – if someone bookmarks on www.delicious.com or www.stumbleupon.com, she actually recommends you to the community friends. In fact this is the whole idea of Google’s Page Rank. If someone links to your page she actually recommends you to her friends and your Page Rank grows, Google likes you more.

The question here is how do I make you recommend me to your friends? What do you think?

In Married to the Brand: Why Consumers Bond with Some Brands for Life William J. McEwen shares that…

“Brand promises that are Credible, present a Compelling offer, and manage to personally Connect will attract first dates. But far more than that, they will generate a special type of first date – one that set the stage for a continuing brand relationship” – William J. McEwen, the author.

Credibility

One of my personal principles is “integrity cannot be bought“.

• Lie to your kids and they will grow liars.
• Lie to your customer and she will never buy from you.
• Lie to your consultant and she will never work for you.
• Lie to your boss and forget about promotion.
• Lie to your reports and miss your business goals.

If you are credible your customers might recommend you to their friends.

Compelling

What distinguishes you from others? Are you the best in the world or you are focused on competition? Are you after something really big, something that matters? Are you trying to change the world? Or are you just another “me-too” thing?

If you are focused on the real thing and not on beating the other guy – you are compelling, your customers might recommend you their friends.

“Competition is a sin.” – John D. Rockefeller

…is it?

Connecting

Are you talking to your customers the language they understand? Are you listening to their needs? Do you feel their pain? Stop pushing yourself Win the Heart, the Mind Follows.
If you win your customers hearts they might recommend you to their friends.

In fact, in most of the industries that I studied, the percentage of customers who were enthusiastic enough to refer a friend or colleague—perhaps the strongest sign of customer loyalty—correlated directly with differences in growth rates among competitors. – Frederick F. Reichheld

Self Test

Ask questions, make an assignment, intrigue the reader.

• Would you recommend a liar to your friend? 
• Would you recommend a mediocre to your friend? 
• Would you recommend your friend something you do not understand  your self?

My Related Posts

• 3 Easy Steps To Become A Superhero
• 3 Simple Rules To Become The World’s Greatest Brand [Plus Self Check]
• 3 Most Precious Things In The World Are Free
• Basic Instincts And Marketing
• Grow Quality – Not Quantity

• Task oriented? Or…
• Result oriented? Or…
• Process oriented?

Why it is important? It is important since different orientations get you different results.

by ogimogi

As part of my quest to become more effective and efficient (read – competitive) I was reading a book by Masaaki Imai, Kaizen: The Key To Japan’s Competitive Success. Masaaki Imai shares in his book the difference between Process Orientation and Result Orientation:

"KAIZEN generates process-oriented thinking, since processes must be improved before we get improved results. Further, KAIZEN is people-oriented and is directed at people’s efforts. This contrasts sharply with the result-oriented thinking of most Western managers."

Process Orientation

Seems wrong to me comparing process orientation vs. task orientation vs. results orientation. The process consists of tasks that must be completed in order to achieve results. If there is no process chances there are tasks that might be redundant or unnecessary, if the process is overcomplicated then the results won’t be justified by the investment. If the process is wrong then no results will be achieved. The simplest way I found to achieve results is:

• Define how a good result looks like.
• Model the path to the result.
• Break the path into small tasks with its own results.
• Identify what needed to perform the tasks.
• Prioritize the tasks.
• Allocate the time for each task.
• Act. Now.
• Compare the time allocated to time invested.
• Adjust the allocated time.
• On track?

Got better idea?

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it. “ – Thomas A. Edison

Self Test

• Are you doing or achieving?
• Do you have a feeling of "if I only had a little more time…."?
• Do you practice Rituals For Results?

I have read a book Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management  by Masaaki Imai. I have no doubt it is highly relevant management book for our tough times. According to the author, Toyota Motors applies similar approach which only proves its effectiveness.

The author distills the approach into three keys: Housekeeping, Cutting Muda, and Standardization.

Key #1 – Housekeeping

According to Masaaki Imai Housekeeping is key to effective management and employee self-discipline. You can describe this process with the “Five Ss.”

1. Sort – Separate everything unnecessary and get rid of it. Put a red tag on unnecessary items (for example, unused machines), then remove them.
2. Straighten – Put key items in order so they can be found readily. Straighten logically, so items can be located with a minimum of wasted effort.
3. Scrub – Tools and workplaces should be clean. Dirt and foreign particles can cause machinery to malfunction.
4. Systematize – Make a schedule for cleaning and for checking that all is in order. This ensures that housekeeping is maintained constantly.
5. Standardize – Make the preceding steps part of a regular process.

Bullet #1 resonates a lot with Covey’s prioritization approach that I have adopted (more on it, here – Prioritize What You Do – Steven Covey Way [The Way That Works]). It really encourages spending your energy on most important things.

Bullet #2 is another view on David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) approach, using simple lists of action items that are easy to process one-by-one. Read more on it here – The Secret Behind GTD [Getting Things Done] Revealed.

Bullet #3 – more on it in the second key – Cutting Muda

Bullet #4 – I am a big fan of scheduling. In fact I treat time as budget. This helps me allocating it systematically to the most important activities that get me results – daily, weekly, monthly, and annually. More on it – Time Is Not Money. Time Is Budget.

Bullet #5 – creating a routing proves to be very effective. I applied it for my professional needs (Security Development Lifecycle, Performance Development Lifecycle) and life too – Personal Development Lifecycle.

Seems like I was practicing first key of Gemba Kaizen for some time. I can affirm it got me results I wanted.

Key #2 – Cutting Muda

Masaaki Imai suggest that the second key element Cutting Muda, or waste. Muda is anything that does not add value. Not cutting budgets, not cutting jobs – but eliminating waste. It resonates a lot with #3 in key#1 – Scrub. Everything should be clean – work desk, work plan, everything. Reduce noise, eliminate waste, focus on what’s important. Keep the objective before you.

Key #3 – Standardization

Masaaki Imai describes Standardization as the four-step, plan-do-check-act
cycle:

1. Plan – Set a goal for improvement and formulating a strategy.
2. Do – Put the plan in motion.
3. Check – Determine if the plan is working.
4. Act – Standardize the new procedures.

To me such simple procedure encourages incremental results over short periods of time. It reduces the risk of low ROI when heavy investments made with minimal if any results.

Adopted Gemba Kaizen for work, adopted Gemba Kaizen for life…

Yes, there is. The technique is called “Hiring Smart”.

by apesara

In his book 45 EFFECTIVE WAYS FOR HIRING SMART: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game Pierre Mornell outlines 45 techniques for hiring smart. My favorite is #45 – “Design Your Own System”.

For me the easiest way to design my own system is adopting working one and adapting it to my needs. So here it is, below is the template I adopted form the book. There are many techniques from the template I already use and they are effective for me. Some look way farfetched like #27. But I still leave it in the list – some day I might decide it is exactly what I needed. Use “TODO’s…” column to capture actual facts. Use “What I think” column to write down assumptions, conclusions, and questions. Enjoy.

Think it is too time consuming? Think twice and listen to those who are in the know:

“You cannot spend too much time or effort on “hiring smart”. The alternative is to manage tough, which is much more time consuming” – Gary Rogers, Chairman & CEO, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream

Happy hiring.

In their book “Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service” Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles mention a quote from Wayne W. Dyer  who wrote another book, “You’ll See It When You Believe It: The Way to Your Personal Transformation“:

“If you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you’ll rarely disappoint yourself… Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Do not be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd”

by Savannah Grandfather

During the speak Stephen Covey gave at Microsoft he mentioned “victimism” term. This is what JD captured on that one:

Six Metastasizing Cancers (Victimism)
Covey showed us a slide that listed what he called the Six Metastasizing Cancers:

• Criticizing
• Complaining
• Comparing
• Competing
• Contending
• Cynicism

The take away here is that these are ineffective behaviors and you end up acting like a victim.

Recent Shilpan’s 5 Ways to Identify Whiners and Winners adds few more angles to the topic talking about Failure, Opportunities, and Time.

My Takeaways – Do’s and Don’t's

• Criticizing – do not criticize others, do Get Criticized – The More The Better.
• Complaining – don’t complain unless you do have something useful to put on the table.
• Comparing – do not compare. Do what you love, go with the passion. Take a look at Mike King’s Passion Enhances Productivity.
• Competing – do not compete. Do offer unique value.
• Contending – do not contend. Do collaborate, do find common ground and multiply the end result.
• Cynicism – do not be cynic, it makes people get offended. Be supportive, it turns folks in Raving Fans.
• Failure – do not afraid to fail. Do fail fast. Do Not Let Failure Drain Your Energy But Empower, be motivated by failure – The Mindset Of Failure
• Opportunities - do create the opportunities your self, do not wait them to just show out of the blue.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Alva Edison

• Time – do not waste no time. I used to call special occasions “quality time”. Then my good friend opened my eyes telling me that “all time is quality time”. Do value time, it is one of the 3 Most Precious Things In The World Are Free

by desi.italy

Here are few unarguable facts

• David Allen: Getting Things Done – GTD godfather gives his talk to Googlers.
• Authors@Google: Marci Alboher & Tim Ferriss (self explanatory)
• Stephen Covey Speaks at Microsoft – softies are lucky to hear Stephen live in Redmond campus.
• Dr. Stephen Covey’s thought-provoking speech at Microsoft – another coverage of Stephen Covey’s talk at Microsoft.

Software giants seek the ways to perform better – more effectively, more productively, more efficiently. How? They adopt proven patterns & practices – GTD by David Allen, New Rich by Tim Ferris, and the wisdom of Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Personal Development Practice Is Your Competitive Advantage

What does it all mean to you and me? It means that you and I are on absolutely right path. You and I offer the most demanded quality – constant improvement of personal effectiveness and efficiency. If you are executive level guy – you can lead the company to long and short term wins and hopefully get acquired by either Microsoft or Google , or even beat them both! If you are midlevel manager – you can make your team perform with peak results without burning out and hopefully get promoted to executive level. If you are individual contributor – you can hit your goals, expect for promotion to midlevel management position while keeping healthy work-life balance.

Here is how Michio Kaku sees the future capitalists (from his keynote during last TechReady6 convention in Microsoft, Seattle):

Want to be the next capitalist? Consider adopting/adapting this awesome material – Better Than Free (it only proves Michio Kaku is right).

How do you add extra value to your product, how do you add extra value to what you can offer? You practice personal development principles and techniques. You practice, practice, practice this until it becomes daily habit so that your thoughtful part of brain is available for creative work – The Secret Behind GTD [Getting Things Done] Revealed.

What Is Next

I expect massive investment in building and running effectiveness workshops inside the large companies. In fact, our own team already ran few session on that one – that was awful, which is good – there is a room for improvement and growth. Most important is that it is a good sign. My wife who works for large company too came back home the other day and  told me her team is invited to time management workshops and other personal effectiveness training.

I expect significant growth of services offerings from personal coaches and GTD trainers – I already can spot few ads in local papers (and I live in a very small town). If you are in coaching biz – it is show time for you, teaching sells!

I bet Tony Robbins now smiles a huge smile asking himself 2 questions:

• Who is going to hire me first – Microsoft or Google? (already did that for IBM according to Charlie Rose)
• How much should I charge them?

by ninjapoodles

I recently stumbled on Book Review: The Goal. I’ve read this book long ago but the content is timeless. Really.

I liked how Mike King distilled the essence of the book:

“…the goal to be; to make money. Its not to cut costs, reduce wages, increase efficiency, or any of the other traditional measures that were in place. Its about balancing 3 critical areas of the plant’s operations in order to make more money, regardless of those other measures. These three components need to happen simultaneously in order to have any significance and these are:

• Reduce Inventory
• Reduce Operating Expense
• Increase throughput “

Reduce inventory

I strongly believe that in order to grow the business one needs to focus and Grow Quality – Not Quantity. Tim Ferriss Dedicates whole chapter for E [stands for Eliminating] in his “The 4-hour workweek” book. Focus on small set of great products or services. And deliver the best quality. The more products and services the more friction and operations costs.

Reduce Operating Expense

Overwhelmed with billing, forecasting, reporting, and other operations related stuff? Your team needs too much managerial attention? That is how investment beats the return on it. What is your goal? Writing complex reports, updating redundant systems? Or produce value? Can you estimate your investment and the value you make? The rest is pretty simple math…

Increase throughput

This is where personal and team’s productivity kicks in. Do more with less. Be productive and efficient. Apply Personal Performance Engineering Practices.

Hit your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, lifetime goal.

Got goal?

• Introduction
• Question about recent project candidate worked on
• Impossible Question
• C Function
• Are you satisfied?
• Design Question
• The Challenge
• Do you have any questions?

During the interview course I try to simulate different situations from my day-to-day practice with the customers and see how the candidate behaves and reacts. What I am looking is base knowledge of the subject, soft skills, and the ability to maneuver unexpected situations. I really appreciate when the candidate demonstrate depth and breadth knowledge but soft skills are very important. On other hand good behaviors cannot replace subject matter expert.

Above categories help me quickly identify both technical and soft skill of the candidate.

“You’re only as good as the people you hire.” – Ray Kroc