A summary of things you should know about Procrastinate on Purpose according to Rory Vaden: Introduction In this episode New York Times bestselling author Rory Vaden reveals all his insightsRead More
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]]>In this episode New York Times bestselling author Rory Vaden reveals all his insights on his book, Procrastinate on Purpose, where he provides a guide for mastering time-management and productivity.
In his book Vaden shows you how the greatest leaders in the world have figured out how to literally multiply their time giving you tools and techniques that will empower you to master your productivity. The goal of the book is to teach you how to manufacture more time into your day, become more effective at work with less stress, and how utilize procrastination to your advantage.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs that are managing multiple projects or businesses at once and need an effective time management strategy that adds more time to their day.
The opening sentence of the book says that everything you know about time management is wrong. And as we have been working with our coaching clients we’ve noticed that most of the clichés that you hear about time management and productivity frameworks that people use were developed in the 80’s and 90’s. It’s been 15 years and think of how the world has changed since then. There are two core things that make this book different from every productivity book. The first one is that everything that you read about time management is all about logic, its tips and tricks, tools and technology, calendars and check lists. What we noticed is that today time management isn’t just logical, it’s emotional. We really tackle the human element of productivity and it’s a fascinating journey and discussion about how feelings of guilt, fear, anxiety, and worry drive our decisions about how we spend time. The second difference is that this book introduces an entirely new era of thinking.
This one is designed to be read from front to back.
The whole book is all built around this one sentence and the sentence is you multiply your time by giving yourself the emotional permission to spend time on things today that give you more time tomorrow.
This book shows you how to literally create more time. The way you multiply time is by giving yourself permission to spend time on things today that create more time tomorrow.
The first part of the book gets you to understanding how to multiply your time. The second part of the book is how to do it and we introduce a diagram called The Focus Funnel. This funnel has five strategies each of which that multiply time and we created a vision framework for that. And each of the five strategies has a corresponding permission.
Strategy number one is Eliminate because by saying no to something today it creates more time tomorrow because it means tomorrow you are not doing something that you would have otherwise been doing. But the emotional element comes in because most of us struggle with saying no and so we end up saying yes to things that we really should say no to. Anytime you end up saying yes to one thing you are simultaneously saying no to an infinite number of others. Now when you have that insight you have a foundation to give yourself the emotional permission to ignore which is the first of the five permissions. And from that standpoint you can now start saying no to things.
The second step of the focus funnel strategy is Automate which is the permission to invest. The third strategy is Delegate and that is the permission of the imperfect. And if a task cannot be eliminated, automated or delegated than the task shoots out the bottom of the funnel. At that point you know that you have a task that must be done and it must be done by you.
So there is only one remaining question but it’s one that most of us don’t ask because we have a fear of coming across as lazy. The remaining question is simple should I do this task now or can it wait until later? If the task must be done now than it’s not a eliminate, automate or delegate task it’s what we call concentrate which is the permission to protect. You are giving yourself permission to protect because that moment you have run task through the methodology and you have absolute conviction that it is the thing that must be done, it must be done by you, and it has the greatest impact of the longest period of time. But if the answer to that question is yes than I am encouraging you and challenging you to not just eliminate, automate or concentrate but to procrastinate on purpose. And that is where the title of the book comes from.
So Procrastinate on Purpose is really just one of the five strategies for multiplying your time. So what you do is pop that activity back to the top of the funnel and that activity is going to enter into a holding pattern where it is cycling through the funnel until at one point one of the other four strategies will come in to play.
The book isn’t so much about what you need to do with your life it’s about how to think and creating the next level of results in your business requires the next level of thinking.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 10:04
“Automation is to your time exactly what compounding interest is to your money.” – Rory Vaden
I am the Co-Founder of Southwestern Consulting and a New York Times bestselling author of Take the Stairs.
In Take the Stairs we talked about three different times of procrastination and we talk about classic procrastination. Classic procrastination is about consciously delaying the things we know we should be doing. There is another type of procrastination called Creative Avoidance which is a little bit different than classic procrastination because it’s unconscious. Also, in the book Take the Stairs we mentioned this new type of procrastination that we started noticing not in the lazy people but in the movers and shakers and we call it Priority Dilution. This new procrastination affects the entrepreneurs, the go-getters and yet it’s the same result. At the end of the day our most significant priorities are left unchecked, not because we are lazy but because as our star rises we unconsciously or consciously allow our attention to shift to less important but perhaps more urgent tasks. We decided that topic was such a hot button that we needed to dedicate a few years’ worth of research to solving the priority delusion problem.
Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
Buy Procrastinate on Purpose and Take the Stairs by Rory Vaden on Amazon today
Visit ProcrastinateOnPurpose.com to learn more about the book and watch the special webinar
Follow Rory Vaden on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland
The Now Habit by Neil Fiore
Relevant advice and tips:
7 Productivity Tools For Entrepreneurs To Make Life Easier
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about The Now Habit according to Neil Fiore: Introduction In this episode Neil Fiore takes a deep dive into his book, The NowRead More
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]]>In this episode Neil Fiore takes a deep dive into his book, The Now Habit, where he reveals all his insights on one of the most effective programs to combat procrastination.
In his book Fiore offers a comprehensive plan and actionable strategies to help you lower your stress and increase your time to enjoy guilt-free play. The goal of the book is to help any busy person start tasks sooner and accomplish them more quickly, without the anxiety brought on by the negative habits of procrastination and perfectionism.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are struggling to get things done in a timely manner and are looking for an effective strategy to become more efficient when it comes to large projects.
The other books come from what I call a puritanical view where you have to work harder and longer. My book works more strategically and psychologically in shifting around motivation and how to talk to yourself in a voice that is a voice of an affective but compassionate manager.
You can jump in where needed.
Focus your mind specifically on a time to start for about 5 to 15 minutes. This will replace the usual getting things done idea or I have to finish idea.
One of the reasons we procrastinate is that we have created a since of a burden that our life is just a long list of to-do’s. The typical way of trying to solve our problems in this society that we live in is to create greater pressure which only creates more rebellion. So one of the big psychological concepts here is that choice is a third place, it’s neither have to or want to. When you look at chapter one, Why We Procrastinate, you are probably going to identify yourself about having a long list of have-to-do’s and being unrealistic about your time.
In chapter two we talk about how we procrastinate. I have a schedule there which is you taking a few days or a week and writing down how you spend your time and where it goes. You will hopefully find some productive time but you will also get a sense of what your default habits are that take you away from focusing on the top priority issues.
In chapter three we go over a major concept of how you talk to yourself. If you are saying you have to, want to or need to, you are not telling your mind and body when to start or what to do.
From there I’ll skip to chapter six which is titled The Unscheduled. This chapter is called the unscheduled because it has two parts. In part one I give you a blank schedule that is 168 hours and you start off by not filling in work but play, meeting time, commute time, and sleep time so that you get down to a possible maybe 60 hours to work on your projects. From there you schedule in more play time so that it’s on your schedule and therefore it’s legitimate. In part two you use your schedule like a time clock and you begin to punch in and out every time you need at least 15 to 30 minutes of quality focused uninterrupted work.
The last chapter in this book is dealing with the procrastinator in your life and it has some very specific recommendations on gaining someone’s commitment rather than forcing them to comply.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 10:40
“Procrastination is not your problem; procrastination is your attempted solution. It’s your attempted solution for dealing with the stress and anxiety of starting or completing a task that is overwhelming or boring” – Neil Fiore
I was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey and that’s relevant because coming from a working class family without a lot of money I started working fairly young. By the time I was in high school I was working 15 hours a week at a local supermarket and in college up to 20 hours. I had to learn how to be a lot more efficient than my fellow students and I learned to start writing right when I was assigned an assignment and flesh it out on the bus going to work and finish on the bus coming home. So without realizing it I started to develop those skills very early.
The Now Habit was written while I was on a new job at the University of California. I was working 40 to 45 hours a week, enjoying California, and putting in 15 to 20 hours a week to work on my dissertation so I was extremely focused while busy. I was attempting to work with doctorial students and graduate students and noticed that they were procrastinating. So I realized that I had something valuable that I had taken for granted and wanted to help other people by sharing it in this book.
Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Buy The Now Habit by Neil Fiore on Amazon today
Visit NeilFiore.com to learn more about Neil and all his books
Follow Neil Fiore on Twitter and YouTube
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Habit Stacking by Steve Scott
SCRUM: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland
Relevant advice and tips:
7 Productivity Tools For Entrepreneurs To Make Life Easier
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about The Culture Engine according to Chris Edmonds: Introduction In this episode Chris Edmonds shares his book, The Culture Engine, where he revealsRead More
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]]>In this episode Chris Edmonds shares his book, The Culture Engine, where he reveals a system for driving results, inspiring your employees, and transforming your workplace.
In his book Edmonds teaches you practical step-by-step lessons on how to define your company culture, delineate the behaviors that promote high performance, and create an employee policy that guides behavior towards an inspiring workplace. The goal of the book is to help you create the best workplace possible while molding your employees into productive rockstars.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who run an organization with 2 or more employees and are on a mission to help them become high performing leaders.
The reality is that organizations are still not very nice places to operate in or fun places to work in. I am trying to craft a step by step practical framework that anybody can do. Now it takes a while but the biggest differentiator is I tell you how.
My recommendation is to read all the way through to the end.
The piece that’s very fun about this is that by getting people clearer about values and having them hold values up as important as performance is the absolute switch. If I can get that switch in leader’s heads, heart and hands they will be able to make the move and inspire others.
The title of chapter one is What Is An Organizational Constitution and Why Do You Need One? An organizational constitution allows you to craft and formalize your team’s reason for being its purpose. It’s not about making money, although that is important, but it’s about who you are serving and why they should be attracted to the product services that your team provides. The second piece of organizational constitution is about values and the values piece is the biggest shift and more important foundation. This chapter is about making values and how we should agree to treat others within our organization as well as customers and potential customers. The third piece is about strategies. From a standpoint on what the market is looking for and what your customers need your strategies need to be crystal clear and very well understood. The last element of an organization constitution is goals.
Chapter two in the book allows the reader to do some reflecting. This chapter gives you as the reader a chance to formalize your personal purpose, formalize your values and behaviors, and formalize your philosophy of leadership.
Chapter three begins with the first of the four elements of an organizational constitution and it outlines how you clarify your organizations purpose. Part of the idea here is not just crafting a compelling inspiring purpose statement but also I go through a bit of a marketing instruction because you are going to need to do a marketing campaign with some of these ideas.
Chapter four is the meat of the organizational constitution and it’s about values and defining values in behavioral terms.
Chapter five we combine the strategies and goals. In this chapter I give you worksheets to help you formalize these strategies and goals.
Chapter six is titled Your Organizational Constitution Must Be Lived. This is the piece where you want to engage everyone in the implementation. You also want to describe the way, model the way, and then align the way as you start to look at how people embrace your valued behaviors.
In chapter seven there is a discussion about how to gather feedback around valued behaviors.
As we get in to chapter eight and nine we start to look at vitally important pieces. Chapter is titled Dealing with Resistance. As you begin to engage people in a culture change like this you will be messing with power structures that won’t be happy with you. This chapter explains how a leader should address resistance and be steady consistent with this change.
Chapter nine is about hiring. You put your culture at risk every time you hire a new leader or a new team player so I outline how to recruit, interview and assess players to make sure there is a culture fit.
Chapter ten is about implementing the organizational constitution. There are five questions in each of the 10 chapters and in this chapter you will score your culture effectiveness assessment which will show you where you are now and what you need to do to move your organization forward.
“I used to see my job as managing processes and results and now I see my job as managing people’s energy.” –Unknown
I am a speaker, blogger, podcaster and writer. I am also what I call an executive consultant. So I do executive coaching usually to help leaders align their corporate cultures so that they can lead better. I have also been affiliated with the Ken Blanchard Companies now for almost 20 years as a Senior Consultant.
It’s the core driver of my passions and my work with clients over the past 20 years. I’ve done a lot of work around facilitating skill building and consulting to leadership teams and the core opportunities are often that the culture that the business operates in doesn’t support these new skills. When I started 15 years ago very proactively in doing consulting around creating a more intentional culture I found that it was way more gratifying. So my primary inspiration was behind putting these proven practices and steps in to book form.
Leading At A Higher Level by Ken Blanchard
Buy The Culture Engine by Chris Edmonds on Amazon today
Visit TheCultureEngine.com to learn more about Chris’s book and get a free chapter
Visit DrivingResultsThroughCulture.com to learn more about Chris’s podcast and blog
Follow Chris Edmonds on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: The Discomfort Zone by Marcia Reynolds | Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice The Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland | The Best Place To Work by Ron Friedman
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Steps to Promote Innovation in the Workplace
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about The Best Place To Work according to Ron Friedman: Introduction In this episode Ron Friedman shares his book, The Best Place toRead More
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]]>In this episode Ron Friedman shares his book, The Best Place to Work, where he offers game-changing advice for working smarter and turning any organization into an extraordinary workplace.
In his book, Friedman explains how to effectively diffuse a workplace argument, elevate your thinking, and reach smarter decisions. The goal of the book is to provide you with scientifically-proven techniques to help you promote smarter thinking, greater innovation, and stronger performance.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs or business executives who are looking to turn an average, low performing work atmosphere into an effective and extraordinary environment.
I recognize what it’s like to be an entrepreneur because I’m an entrepreneur myself and I wanted to write a user’s guide for someone who is busy. I realize entrepreneurs need action items and this book is really stocked with action items both for managers and for employees.
Every chapter in the book is focused on a different aspect of the workplace. It’s a variety of different topics and not one that you have to read in a linear fashion.
One of the takeaways is that psychological needs are at the heart of employee engagement. If you are looking to create an engaged workforce you need to provide people with psychologically fulfilling experiences.
The second takeaway is that organizations are a lot more successful when they address rather than ignore the limits of both the mind and the body.
The third key takeaway is that rather than encouraging employees to find work life balance, organizations can be a lot more successful by allowing employees to integrate the two aspects of their life in an active way.
This book is a journey of different topics of the psychology of the workplace and summarizing all of this in a short amount of time can be a little bit of a challenge. I am going to explain the top three gaps that I saw in the workplace.
The first gap was how organizations hire. If you are looking to grow a business you are going to be during some hiring and regardless of how well you structure your workplace if you don’t get the right people in your organization it won’t be affective. One of the critical pieces of hiring is the in person interview. As it turns out there is plenty of research showing that these interviewers are not a very effective tool for predicting how good someone is going to be in a particular position. The reason is because we have all of these cognitive biases that prevent us from actually measuring someone’s effectiveness for the role we are looking to fill. I talk in the book about research showing that we tend to favor good looking people because we assume that they are also competent. Another biased is tall people because tall people tend to be viewed as having greater leadership potential. Deep voice candidates are viewed as more trustworthy. All of these impressions affect not just the way that we view that candidate but also the questions that we ask as a result. I talk about all the biases and then I talk about ways that entrepreneurs can correct those biases.
The second gap is how managers motivate. In the book I present a completely different frame for thinking about engagement in a section on what videogames teach us about creating an extraordinary workplace. If you think about your own experience playing videogames you get sucked in doing a whole host of behaviors that you would normally avoid. What’s fascinating about videogames is we spend so much of our personal time doing these activities that we aren’t getting paid for. I think the reason we find these games as enjoyable as we do is because they deliver the very experiences that we seek in our workplace. For examples we have a clear set of goals and we get recognized and rewarded for our work. The key takeaway here is that engagement is not about the actual job; it’s about the conditions that we build around it.
The third gap that I wanted to highlight is the gap in workplace design. Within the book I survey all the research on office design and the psychology of how our minds react differently to different environments and what I argue is that there is a connection between space and innovation. What I mean by that is where we are affects the way we think. There is research that I cover in the book looking at how the ceiling height of a room affects our ability to think abstractly. The rooms’ layout communicates the type of interaction that is expected. I discuss all the ways that companies can leverage a lot of these insights to deliver a better working environment.
“When your attempt rate is high each individual failure becomes a lot less significant.” – Ron Friedman
I am a social psychologist and I specialize in human motivation. I have taught at the University of Rochester, Nazareth College, Hobart and William Smith, and I write for the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Forbes. I’ve also founded a company called ignite80 that helps smart leaders build extraordinary work places and the way we do that is via speaking, workshops and occasionally consulting. If you are wondering about the name of that company it’s because 80% of employees worldwide have been found to be disengaged at work so we look to correct that.
One of the things I talk about in the book is that the book really happened by accident. I spent years in academics studying human motivation and teaching human psychology courses and my goal was to become a full-time professor. Eventually I achieved that goal and I got a full-time teaching job and when I got there I found myself itching for a new challenge. If you got in to academics for the reasons I did, it was to learn new things and as a professor you are covering the same material again and again.
I wanted that new challenge so I decided to go off into the corporate world where I was hired to work as a pollster. When I got to the corporate world I noticed a lot of the things that I took for granted as a professor. But when I got to the corporate world I witnessed a real disconnect from everything from the way that companies hire and the ways that managers motivate to the design and layout of the modern office. I got to meet a lot of these business owners and a lot of entrepreneurs who are really interested in building great workplaces but just don’t have the tools for doing that.
Getting Things Done by David Allen
The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry
Buy The Best Place to Work by Ron Friedman on Amazon today
Visit Ignite80.com to learn more about Ron’s research and sign up for his mailing list
Follow Ron Friedman on Twitter and LinkedIn
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Leaders Open Doors by Bill Treasurer | Scrum – The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland | The Front-Line Leader by Chris Van Gorder
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Steps to Promote Innovation in the Workplace
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about People Tools for Business according to Alan Fox Introduction In this episode Alan Fox gives a deep dive of his book, PeopleRead More
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]]>A summary of things you should know about People Tools for Business according to Alan Fox
In this episode Alan Fox gives a deep dive of his book, People Tools for Business, where he shares 50 strategies for building success, creating wealth, and finding happiness.
In his book, Fox provides easy and practical tools, organized into 50 chapters, that each address a specific issue and gives a strategy you can use to overcome it. The goal of the book is to help you gain success in areas such as developing self-confidence, improving management skills, and how to respond to being fired.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who need a handy book of business shortcuts that are time-tested and help solve everyday business related problems.
I’m not so serious about it and I have short chapters. You do not have to start at chapter one and read all the way through.
You can read it from front to back or you can jump around from chapter to chapter.
The one chapter that is really the most important I call Stick it Out. In harsh economic times you need to stick it out. If your marriage isn’t working stick it out. You have got to stick it out and ultimately you will succeed by sticking it out.
I start with the importance of leaving your grumpy attitude at home and putting a smile on your face every day.
One of my favorite chapters in People Tools for Business is called The Magic Piano. I think if you look at the world as a magic piano you will have more fun and get deeper in to life. In terms of business I have a different take than almost anybody.
In my book I go over the dreaded annual review and how I believe it shouldn’t be something that we do at the end of the year but rather every single day or at least once a week. If we change our annual review to something we do daily or weekly perhaps it won’t be something that is dreaded and more useful for you and your employees.
I also go over hiring and firing in my book. I think that if you look at firing as an opportunity to get a position which is more suited to you and your talents I believe that you will do better. A number of people that I have personally fired are now doing much better in the new positions that they are now in.
I have a chapter about advertising your mistakes. When I make a mistake I advertise it to people and people seem to like me better because I admit I am human and secondly they own up to their own mistakes.
In another chapter I talk about the importance of delegating some of your work. Delegate all that you can and trust them to do a good job because when you show your trust they are more likely to do a better job.
These are some of the many ideas and business tools that I give in my book People Tools for Business.
“There will be days when the universe seems to conspire against you and when it does take a deep breath, give silent thanks that your misfortune wasn’t worse, and enjoy a good laugh.” – Alan Fox
I am 74 years old and I’ve had a long and very successful business career. At first I was a CPA with a national CPA firm, then an attorney with my own law practice for a number of years and finally I formed a commercial real estate company at ACF Property Management Inc.
I think that you can do what you want to do and have fun while doing it. People Tools For Business is about doing things a little differently in business and enjoying yourself at the same time.
The Book by Alan Watts
Buy People Tools for Business by Alan Fox on Amazon today
Visit PeopleToolsBook.com to check out Alan’s blog
For questions contact Alan by email here
Follow Alan Fox on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland | Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel | Smartcuts by Shane Snow
Relevant advice and tips: 7 Productivity Tools For Entrepreneurs To Make Life Easier
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>7 Productivity Tools For Entrepreneurs To Make Life Easier What is the one thing that every entrepreneur wishes for? Well, you may get different sets of wishes, but one thingRead More
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]]>7 Productivity Tools For Entrepreneurs To Make Life Easier
What is the one thing that every entrepreneur wishes for? Well, you may get different sets of wishes, but one thing that is for sure is entrepreneurs need more time. When you start a new business, you have to handle numerous and tedious responsibilities on a daily basis.
Every entrepreneur needs more time in the day so that it becomes easier to manage everything and stay on top. But is it possible? It is when you add automation and handy apps to your bag of entrepreneurial tricks.
Here’s a basic list of productivity tools for entrepreneurs that will make it possible to maximize your workday:
Yast: When your focus is on saving time, you need to have a tool like this for tracking time first. Be it tracking how many hours you spend on a particular task or how much work has been put into a project, this tool makes it easy and simple.
It’s free for personal use; and available at a reasonable cost for business use.
Evernote: You never know when a “lightbulb” moment comes. This tool makes it easy to store and track spontaneous thoughts, ideas, perceptions, etc. It also helps you create a proper environment to get things done on time.
Good news – it is available for free for Android, iOS, and Web versions.
Trello: Project management often becomes a nightmare for startups. This is where this tool comes to help. With it, you can create project boards, almost same as Pinterest, and add and manage individuals and resources on them, similar to Basecamp HQ.
Whatever the size of your team, you can use this tool for free.
Dropbox: Storing and sharing documents was never this easy! The beauty of this tool lies in its simplicity. And you can access it from anywhere, anytime, and from any device. You need not worry about damaging or deleting your files too, as it keeps them secure.
You can get loads of benefits from the free version; you can upgrade to Pro or Business too.
LastPass: Cyber criminals are becoming more of a threat to our businesses and to prevent ourselves from becoming prey we need strong, secure passwords for the ungodly amount of online accounts we have. The problem is having to remember them all. LastPass saves you from having to reset your stupid password everytime and stores them with one secure login.
You can get the benefits for free; but you need to upgrade for mobile integration (which I suggest).
Bitrix24: A central program that offers a host of CRM tools for easy management of data, this one also comes with a social intranet system. Whether you are tracking contacts, messaging, managing the sales funnel, planning activities, this tool can be of immense help.
You can use it for free for teams of up to 12 people; and upgrade if your team’s larger.
HipChat: When it comes to internal communications, this is perhaps the best tool to manage it. Create chat rooms, invite specific users, message and share files – you can do it all from this. It saves both time and money and helps organize things. It is far more reliable than the other IM apps out there.
The fee for using this chat tool is quite reasonable; so, it fits the expense budget rather well.
Getting more done in 24 hours may be a challenge for a new entrepreneur, but it does not need to be if you know how to do it right. All you need to do is find the right tools for extra help, and you’ll get more work done, and even have time to spare (yeah right!).
Work Smarter by Nick Loper | Listen to Nick give a deep dive here
How To Succeed in 12 Months by Serena Star-Leonard | Listen to Serena give a deep dive here
Smartcuts by Shane Snow | Listen to Shane give a deep dive here
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland | Listen to Jeff give a deep dive here
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]]>A summary of things you should know about The Discomfort Zone according to Marcia Reynolds Introduction In this episode Marcia Reynolds gives a deep dive into her book, The DiscomfortRead More
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]]>A summary of things you should know about The Discomfort Zone according to Marcia Reynolds
In this episode Marcia Reynolds gives a deep dive into her book, The Discomfort Zone, where she shows leaders how to think through problems, see situations more strategically, and transcend their limits.
In her book, Reynolds give you exercises and case studies to help you use discomfort in your conversations to create lasting changes and a better workforce. The goal of the book show you how to short-circuit your mind’s defense and habitual thought patterns.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are having trouble coaching others to stretch their limits and meet their personal goals while not making them suffer consequences.
There are two things that make it different. The discomfort zone is how leaders turn difficult conversations in to breakthroughs. There are a lot of conversation books out there but they really just focus on what the leader should say instead of what the leader should listen for. It’s really about helping the person achieve their goals instead of the leader achieve his or her goals. Another thing is it is a leadership coaching book but most coaching books are linear in problem solving and this goes to a much deeper level of what coaching really is and how to use it as a leader.
Each chapter has very specific things that they can do so if you were to jump to any chapter you would get value. But reading it all together allows it to be cohesive.
This sounds difficult but the big thing is they have to turn off their thinking brain. We rely on our thinking brain and we think that we need that in order to think through problems and resolve situations but it’s that thinking self-monitoring brain that often gets in the way.
The introduction of the book describes what exactly the discomfort zone is and why it’s so important that everyone truly understands what is necessary to create behavioral change. First I go in to what needs to occur in the brain to make the breakthrough.
In chapter one I describe the difference between most conversations and coaching techniques and why it’s important. It also looks at some of the common excuses that leaders give for not engaging in these types of conversations. I explain how it is still important for them as leaders to engage in these conversations and why if they want to achieve their results.
In chapter two I move in to the guidelines. First we explore how to establish trust and the intention for the conversation in order to make it successful. As a leader you need to consider what emotional tone you want to set. You need to have the intention that they are going to achieve their goals and you are there to help them succeed.
In chapter three we look at the model and I give a very specific model for having these conversations.
In chapter four we go in to deeper listening and how to listen with your entire nervous system which we label as intuition. This chapter describes very clearly how you can actually access the major processing centers in your nervous system which includes your gut, heart and head, to make decisions as well as listen to people.
Chapter five and six are filled with case studies where I show you how to implement these skills. Chapter five looks at how to break through people’s defense routines and chapter six explains how to help people move forward through whatever is holding them back.
In chapter seven I give you a plan on how to actually maintain your practice over time. I show you how to implement this in to your own organization and how to create your own personal development plan to make sure that your own changes sticks.
“They want you to be present more than they need you to be perfect.” – Marcia Reynolds
I have been teaching leadership for over 30 years. It’s always fascinating because the more we learn about human behavior the more there is to consider in being a leader. My family was always a family of entrepreneurs so I went out to start my own business about 17 years ago.
I think the most misunderstood area of leadership is the whole topic of listening. Leaders know that they have to listen but they confuse it with just being patient while someone is talking until it’s their turn to talk. I really feel that there is a stronger purpose for listening than most leaders realize. In order to change people’s minds they have to listen for specific things. It’s not just how to listen but the purpose and I really wanted to put this down on paper to help all leaders understand what it takes to change people’s behavior.
I and Thou by Martin Buber
Buy The Discomfort Zone on Amazon today
Visit OutsmartYourBrain.com to get more exclusive content and assess your own discomfort
Follow Marcia Reynolds on Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland | Leaders Open Doors by Bill Treasurer | Managing Whole People by Mark Herbert
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Scrum according to Jeff Sutherland Introduction In this episode Jeff Sutherland shares his book, Scrum, where he brings you a thought-provoking bookRead More
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Scrum according to Jeff Sutherland
In this episode Jeff Sutherland shares his book, Scrum, where he brings you a thought-provoking book about the management process that is changing the way we live.
In his book, Sutherland lays out his widely used project management system called Scrum which is a simple framework for solving the most intricate work problems effectively. The goal of the book is to simplify your work life, increase productivity, and get more done in less time than before.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are struggling with managing small teams, increasing performance, and making forward progress with large projects.
If you go to Amazon you will see that this book has moved up to the top of the list on time management. Scrum is about getting things done with teams and teams are much more powerful than the individual.
It’s specifically not designed as a reference book but designed to tell the stories about why Scrum works. Any way you read you will find a very interesting story focused on a critical issue for teams getting work done.
The key issue is that within every person and team is a spirit of greatness that lays untapped and to tap that trying to use a traditional management style will not work. You must become a different type of leader and scrum gives you an organizational structure to bring out from the team that greatness that is within.
The first chapter of the book is titled The Way the World Works is Broken. Research shows that most people hate work. The only thing that is worse than going to work is being sick in bed. The reason I believe is the fundamental driver of this problem is that people can’t get stuff done. The whole idea of teams self-organizing to get great results is key to Scrum. So this chapter explains why things are broken and how Scrum fixes them.
That leads us into the second chapter which explains the origins of Scrum.
In the third chapter we get more focused on the teams. A lot of managers don’t understand that the difference in the best performers and the worst performers as individuals is 1 to 10. But if you look at the difference between the best teams and the worst teams it’s 1 to 2,000. So the team effect is two orders of magnitude bigger than the individual effect. So as a manager if you take a team and try to increase productivity person by person it will take you a long time and maybe forever. If you implement Scrum with a cross functional team and you focus the team on the goal they can double their production in a few weeks. This chapter focuses on how you can get teams to do twice the work in half the time.
The fourth chapter is all about time. You need to measure production instead of hours and in this chapter we show you how to plan.
Chapter five explains what happens when you are focused on measuring hours. If you measure hours you get a lot of waist. People think they have to hang around at their desk and punch their clock by doing nothing. We show systematically in this chapter how to build a cross functional team that gets on a self-improvement cycle that is continually removing waist from the system and accelerating faster and faster.
From there we move in to planning and Scrum uses reality base planning. This chapter gives the entrepreneur the nuts and bolts on how to get this implemented in the company with a lot of stories and examples the planning and implementation.
In the seventh chapter we describe how to get employees so motivated and happy that they never leave your company, they get twice the work done in half the time, they have fun while doing it and they are making sure the company objectives are being met. The bottom line is that happiness drives revenue and we show lots of stories on why that works.
Scrum in the art of getting twice the work done in half the amount of time.
“The entire armed forces need to get agile.” – Unknown
I am a CEO of a company called Scrum Inc. I had a career as a fighter pilot which is part of what led to the book we are going to talk about. I spent 11 years in the air force and what I learned flying over North Vietnam is imbedded in my book. When I got back I completed an advance degree in medical school and was a professor of radiology, biometrics and preventative medicine. I was then hired away from the medical school in to a large banking company and when I looked at what they were doing in software I implemented what I learned from medical school and the military and that resulted in the creation of Scrum.
Several years ago I wrote a book called Software in 30 days and in there we focused mainly on IT and software development. There is still a debate on what works and doesn’t work and I wanted to amplify on that. I also wanted to talk about how Scrum is moving outside of software development and tell all the great stories that I couldn’t get into my software book.
The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
Buy Scrum by Jeff Sutherland on Amazon today
Visit ScrumInc.com to learn more about Jeff, his company, and Scrum
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: How To Succeed in 12 Months by Serena Star-Leonard | Getting Things Done by David Allen | Smartcuts by Shane Snow
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Scrum – The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time with Jeff Sutherland appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
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