Colin D. Ellis's Blog, page 19

Are you faking or forcing agile?

I’m currently working with an IT team in Australia to help them evolve their culture so that they have greater flexibility in the way they think and act. Kicking off the 2-day culture definition session, the CIO said: ‘Other organisations like to fake or force agile, we’re going to do neither of those things. We’re empowering you to create something that you can bring your best self to and then find smarter ways to deliver value more quickly to our customers.’

It was a refreshing thing to hear, but it immediately (well, once I’d finished the two days of delivery!) got me thinking about what that means in practice and how I could help others understand what doing agile well looks like.

So I thought I’d have a crack at that this week.

I talk about agile a lot at conferences because a) that’s what people want and b) that’s what people think they want. They want to deliver value quickly to the customer, they want to do more with less, they want high engagement scores and they want to be an employer of choice.

The fact is, while they may want these things and the benefits that come with them, simply stating that they’re going agile or copying someone else’s approach isn’t going to work.

Faking agile involves saying things that make staff, customers and shareholders think that the organisation is taking a new approach, without addressing the fundamental issues that held them back in the first place. These include:

Lots of people are saying 'we're going agile'

Members of the executive photographed in front of a Kanban board

New values (see forcing agile below) in large letters on the walls

Implementing an open plan office layout

One (or all) of ping pong table, bean bags, quirky meeting room names

Talking about customer value, yet persisting with endless bureaucracy

Talking about 'scaling' agile despite it not working anyway.

Forcing agile involves doing things that they think will demonstrate that the organisation is more agile. At least there’s action here, it’s just not always helpful. These include:

Rolling out Scrum training... in a waterfall way

Implementing new ways of working

Restructuring to ‘encourage collaboration’

Changing the names of teams

Consultant-led culture 'change' initiatives (that include telling staff what the vision and values are)

Forcing staff to sign new 'agile' contracts

Using agile coaches to train people on Slack/Jira/MS Teams etc.

McKinsey frequently cites copy-pasting agile as a major cultural flaw, saying in one report, ‘Emulating someone else's model without a clear vision and deep understanding of agile can cause significant harm.’ 

Funnily enough, the organisations that many seek to emulate (Spotify, Netflix, Atlassian etc.) would never say that they’re agile or try to fake or force it. Instead they take the time to define – with their staff – the culture required to be successful and to continually evolve to stay relevant and deliver value and a great experience to customers and stakeholders.

The staff (not the managers) then create the structures and teams necessary to deliver on the promises that they’ve made and build a reputation for getting things done.

McKinsey also points out: ‘Agile succeeds when people – including leaders – possess the right set of skills and mindsets.’ And changing someone’s mindset cannot be done overnight. 

However, by involving people in the definition of the new culture, getting them to agree targets with their teams, showing them how to communicate and collaborate in different ways and having senior leaders who can role model what agility looks like on a daily basis, it can happen. Then, and only then, will organisations be on their way to creating something that’s more agile. Unfortunately, however, most have already given up before they get to that stage.

So where does your organisation sit when it comes to agile, are they faking it or forcing it? Why not share this blog and see what others think?!

My next ‘agile’ talk can be heard at the Getting Sh!t Done events…

Great Expectations and How To Set Them

One of the most important responsibilities that anyone with a management or leadership position has is to ensure that work gets delivered to the right level of quality in a timely manner. Key to this is being able to set expectations.

Yet, setting expectations is another one of those business skills (see also running meetings, communicating to different personalities and managing upwards) that people aren’t taught how to do. Instead, assumptions are made and when expectations aren’t met, fingers are pointed.

Whenever I run my Project Leadership Academy program (more details on that here), it is the most requested module after communication as most people simply don’t know how to do it well.

Being able to set expectations well is important for the following reasons:

It ensures that the person setting the work and the person doing it agree on what is required and by when

It provides the person doing the work with the opportunity to ask questions and/or to challenge the requirements

It provides the person doing the work with the opportunity to clarify the priority of the work

It increases empathy between both parties

It strengthens relationships

It provides confidence to the manager that the responsible person knows exactly what to do, the level of quality that’s expected and the date for delivery

It increases the chance of on-time delivery

It reduces the need for micro-management

It provides the foundation for performance management.

Ultimately, it ensures that everyone in a team knows what they have to do and we all want that certainty in our working lives. To get to the end of something, knowing that we’ve met expectations and taking confidence (and in some instances praise) for having done so, is a great feeling.

Setting expectations is a four-step process, which I like to call ACDC (of course I do!):

Articulate – you can’t set expectation by thinking aloud. You have to take the time to be able to clearly articulate TO YOURSELF what you’re asking someone else to do. 

Communicate – once you have it straight in your own head, you have to be able to communicate it (face-to-face, never by email) to the other person, making sure that you change the style that suits the way the other person likes to receive information.

Discuss – once it’s out of your mouth and into their head, then it’s time to talk about it to remove any potential for confusion or uncertainty. What barriers exist to getting it done? Do they have the time and tools they need? Is there anything you’re not aware of that may get in the way?

Confirm – Once you’ve talked it through, then you reconfirm what’s been discussed (confirming further by email if necessary) in order that the other person can get on and do the work, allowing you to be able to check in on progress as required.

In order for someone to successfully meet expectations then they have to be set in the correct way first. What are you doing to set expectations today? 

Being able to set expectations is just one of the chapters that I cover in my new book, The Project Book, which is available now! Pre-order the book and receive a years’ access to my online program The EQ Room , for free – pre-orders close this Friday May 24th and books will be shipped soon after. 

Blind Optimism is Killing Projects… But Not As Much As Apathy

Whenever I travel, I like to read up on good and bad case studies of projects and culture from around the world to be able to weave them into my programs, speeches and blogs. Presenting the observations from one country alone creates a myopic view and isn’t always representative of the way the world does things. And yet...when it comes to research on projects, the news is nearly always bad.

Now, I get that the world loves bad news more than it does good. This is what sells newspapers and creates clickable content. Ask yourself, are you more likely to click on a headline that says ‘Major project fails catastrophically!’ or ‘Project succeeds, everyone happy!’? I personally would click on the latter first, because it’d be such a surprise to read!

Organisations have to get better at telling the good news stories, which will be made so much easier if they create the conditions for them in the first place.

I was working with a client in Los Angeles recently and – as part of my preparation – came across the California high speed rail link project, the state’s plan to connect LA with San Francisco with a journey time of 2 hours and 40 minutes. It was approved in 2008 and a budget of $33bn was initially requested to complete. It is now expected to cost $79.1bn, with some estimates suggesting that it may cost $100bn, almost three times as much as was originally requested. It is also likely to be delivered 13 years late.

California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom earlier this year admitted that the project was doomed, saying ‘Let’s be real, the project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long. Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A.’ And yet, still it continues.

Why? Because of the myth of sunk cost. The view that because billions of taxpayer dollars have already been spent adding more to finish it will make everything right. It won’t and the general public - only 52% of whom voted for it in the first place - will be left to pick up the bill.

But of course what killed this project (and so many before and after it) is blind optimism and poorly performing people. Anyone who's ever been involved in any project of this scale, knows that the final budget - and validation of whether it will deliver the expected value - is only possible once detailed planning has been completed. And then, only through establishing a team of skilled, committed and disciplined individuals who have set the conditions where they can hold each other to account, can it be done.  

The two questions that should be asked of every project are:

Is there continued justification for doing this?

Do we have the right calibre of people to ensure that we achieve what’s expected?

If the answer to either of those questions is ‘no’, then you stop the project, no questions. You don’t ‘pause’ or ‘put it on hold’, as they are just mechanisms for consultants to come in and tell management what they want to hear and create statements of work to keep them in business.

That organisations continue to devalue the profession that exists to help it achieve its goals is a never-ending source of frustration for those of us who want to see major projects succeed.

I’ve met with organisations this year who have a capital budget of over $50m dollars to deliver and yet can’t get $50k (0.1%) to provide their people with the skills to be successful, resorting instead to isolated certification programs, process redesign (often called ‘new ways of working’) and throwing external people at projects that have already missed their targets.

The same people are also told by risk averse HR departments and managers that they’re not able to manage poor performers out of the business because it’s ‘too hard’. Maybe if they invested in giving their people the leadership and team-building skills to be able to do so, it would make it easier?

Ask yourself, when it comes to providing skills across the organisation on how to sponsor and lead projects successfully, which route does your organisation take from the list below?

A blindly optimistic organisation with no track record of continuous successful project delivery will almost always take the approach on the left. Believing that even though they failed before, this time will be different.

Whilst successful organisations will almost always take the approach on the right. Never resting on their laurels and searching for better ways (and people) to get things delivered in line with expectations.

I wonder when enough will be enough with regards to project failure?

I met with a major media news group in advance of my book being published to try and get some airtime this year to raise awareness about the importance of getting projects right and what they should expect from people leading them.

I talked about the fact that there are too many highly paid people wasting millions of dollars of public and shareholder money and not being held account. That there are some great people out there looking for an investment in their futures from their employers to provide them with the skills (not certificates or consultants) to help them be successful. And that managers have to get tougher with people who weren’t performing.

The response of the person was short: ‘I just don’t think people care enough about projects to make it newsworthy.’ Not until it goes wrong of course. Then, for the briefest moment of time, everyone cares… but not enough to create any lasting change.

Blind optimism is killing projects, but not as much as apathy for the factors that could help them to be successful.

10 Things Not To Say On Stage

This year will be my fourth year of doing public speaking as a day job. I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone and also, that I’m doing it as my job!

Despite being the confident type, I never thought at all about doing lots of public speaking. I was asked to do one or two talks at conferences based on the seniority of the role that I’d held in organisations in the UK and New Zealand, but looking back I spoke mainly from the heart about some of the things that we just happened to be doing at the time.

My opportunity arose quite by chance. Having finished a contract in mid-2015, I went to a consulting company for an interview after a friend had introduced me to them. They had an opening for a breakfast speaker and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to throw my hat in the ring. I’ll be forever indebted to Dave Webley of Granite Consulting for providing me with an opportunity to share some things that I was passionate about.

The talk was recorded and can still be seen here.

Looking back, I was trying to mix elements of all of the good speakers that I’d seen in my 20 years of conference attending, whilst avoiding some of the bad stuff. Indeed the last conference I paid to attend as a permanent employee in Australia provided the impetus for my desire to speak, as the keynote speech incorporated at least three of the things in the list below.

I’m still a relative speaking novice (in terms of years), but I work bloody hard on it. Every speech that I do is tailored to the audience I’m standing in front of regardless of whether they’re in retail, real estate, finance or sports and are based in Brussels, Vegas, Melbourne or Singapore.

That includes thinking about and writing the jokes too! I could never understand why speakers weren’t more entertaining as the ones that make me laugh (and of course, this is just me!) are always the ones I remembered. There were four...

But I also learned from one of the best, by attending Matt Church’s excellent 3-day Speakership program. This gave me all the technical information I needed to go with the subject matter that I’m passionate about.

Often people want to know how to do it well and assume that because I’m an extrovert I find it easy. It’s true to say that I don’t get nervous, so my personality can take the credit for that but everything else requires a significant amount of preparation, thought and then energy to deliver it.

From the research on the subject matter and reading the room, to delivering it in a way that the audience will appreciate and giving them practical things they can do themselves, there’s a lot to be aware of. It’s also important to remember to not do things like:

Talking with my back to the room

Mumbling

Speaking too quickly - especially for international audiences

Reading through the detail that I have on a slide

Reading a script (or rehearsing one)

Shout; and my biggest challenge

Ad-libbing for more than 5 minutes!

These are uppermost in my mind when people ask for things that might help them to public speak more confidently, as are the following 10 things not to say.

There are lots of great resources and blogs out there that articulate the things to do when public speaking, but not so many on what not to say. So here are some simple things that I’ve learned in the last four years and if you have a speech to do this year, then they’re worth bearing in mind.

‘My kids/partner thinks I’m irrelevant/behind the times’ – a keynote speaker actually opened with this line once, leaving the audience thinking ‘well why should we listen to you?’

‘I’ve got the graveyard shift’ – makes people think of zombies or worse Pet Cemetery

‘Is this mic on?’ – frantically tapping the mic with the end of the finger is very annoying

‘I’m the only thing between you and lunch/drinks/home’ – makes people think of lunch/drinks/home

‘Bullet point number seven refers to…’ – three bullets maximum; after that people start to wonder whether you’re going to finish on an odd or even number and don’t care about the content

‘It’s hard to read, I know, but…’ – so write less, or make it bigger if it needs to be on the screen

‘It’s great to be here in [insert name of city]’ – as opposed to what?

Anything inappropriate – racist, sexist, disrespectful or simply not for that audience - frankly if you have to be told that then you shouldn’t have been invited to speak (or be President) in the first place

Anything that draws attention to the fact that you haven’t spoken much – because people will start to focus on that rather than the confidence with which you’re delivering your speech (although, a little vulnerability if you’re nervous or when things go wrong is a good thing to do)

Anything boring or repetitive – because, well, it’s boring and repetitive

Don’t expect to master it first time. Stick around to listen and support others and make notes of what other speakers do or don’t do. Like everything, public speaking is a skill anyone can learn, so work hard at it and make yourself memorable for the things that you said, not the things you shouldn’t have.

What would you add to this list?

If you’d like to find out more about my speaking, you can find it here , which also includes a link to download my speaker kit for 2019.

How Often Are You Passing On Praise?

On Friday as I was waiting for my flight back to Australia from New Zealand, an email popped into my inbox from our daughter’s 6th Grade teacher. The title simply had our daughter’s name in it.

If you don’t have children let me explain to you the thought process when you get an email like this:

Oh no, what’s happened…?

The teacher wouldn’t email if it wasn’t serious

I wonder if she’s done something to someone or someone has done something to her?

(If it’s the former) I hope she’s ok?

(If it’s the latter) What conversation are we going to have to have and how will we handle it so that she knows that she has our love and support, but also that (behaviorally) one or two things may need to change?

What’s the teacher going to think of us, as parents?

What are we doing wrong?

All of those thoughts run through your mind in about 20 seconds. And yes, most of them aren’t rational. And yes, our daughter’s welfare and health is always the most important thing. And yes, I should just have opened the email to find out. 

But still, I just couldn’t help but think the worst because in the eight years both of our children have been at school, we’ve never received an email or a phone call to share some good news. We’ve never had the joy of opening a message that tells us about how wonderfully behaved our kids are and how they’re a credit to us. Nothing. In eight years. We know that they’ve had good days because they’ve told us about them. Oh and we don’t dread parent teacher conferences or end of year reports, so that’s good too. But the emails. Well, they’re never good news.

They’ve all been ‘lost his/her temper’, ‘disrupted his/her class, ‘hasn’t completed their work’… and so on. Each email was like opening a Howler in Harry Potter. So I think it’s perfectly rational for me to expect bad news. 

But upon opening the email (with one eye closed and leaning back from my screen) it wasn’t bad news at all. It was the very antithesis of bad news in fact, it was good news and lots of it.

It was all ‘wonderful’ this, ‘thoughtful’ that, and ‘an inspiration’ the other. At which point I sat upright in my chair, swelled with pride and beamed from ear to ear. I thought it was fantastic that the teacher had taken the time at the end of her very busy day of educating more than 20 children, and the dramas that come with that, to send us a paragraph of praise.

I felt guilty for expecting the worst and then wondered whether I’d spent enough time passing on praise, giving positive feedback? I remember the tough conversations, because no-one wants to have those, but the praise? Not so much.

And of course, it doesn’t take much time or effort to do it. Praising a behaviour that you’ve seen demonstrated is easy to do. Praising the attitude or effort of a colleague can take mere moments.

It’s not a generational thing either. It’s a human thing. At our core, we all want to do the best that we can and to be acknowledged for that. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 17 and just starting out in work or 67 and working for yourself, we all want to know when we’ve behaved in a manner that sets the tone for others or that we met expectations in a way that was appreciated by the people around you. 

Taking the time to praise the effort or behaviour demonstrated (rather than, say,  intelligence) greatly enhances self confidence and encourages a growth mindset – I’m a great fan of  Dr Carol Dweck who has written extensively about it here. 

It feels good to pass on praise too! I bet the teacher really enjoyed writing the email knowing the feeling that it would give us.

In a world seemingly dominated by bad news, any kind of praise will be welcomed with surprise and delight. How often are you passing on praise?

You only get one chance to make a first-day impression

They got excited by the job advert, they filled in all the forms, you held the interviews, you negotiated the offer, you think you’ve found the person you need. You give them a start date!

And then…

You weren’t there to meet them on day one

They were given a temporary security pass

There’s no plan created for their first 30 days

They were told to read the intranet and sign company policy documents

They were given a copy of the acronym dictionary

They weren’t introduced to anyone

Their desk still has the previous incumbent’s gear in it

There’s was no equipment ready for them to use

They were invited to 20 meetings to familiarise themselves with the ‘way we do things’.

Every single one of these scenarios have happened to me (even as a senior manager) and they told me everything I needed to know about the culture of the organisation I was joining. For one of my roles, my new boss phoned me at the end (note: not the start) of the day, to apologise for having more important meetings to attend. My self-esteem was off the scale at that point.

The frustrating thing is it doesn’t take too much effort to avoid delivering this less than inspiring first impression. Great working cultures around the world recognise that treating people respectfully from their first day onwards is imperative if they’re to get the best work out of them and for collaboration to be something that everyone does, rather than just talk about.

At Twitter, you get to have breakfast with the CEO, a full tour of the office and all their equipment is waiting for you when you make it to your desk, which is situated next to the people you’ll be working with in your first 90 days.

At Pinterest, you’re given the opportunity to introduce yourself prior to actually starting as your email address and initial schedule are sent to you in advance.

At Atlassian, you start your employment with two days of Rocket Fuel to get you going, including meeting the people you’ll be working with and learning about the organisation’s values and how they underpin everything that they do.

At Lego, you’re asked to build something (with Lego, obvs) and also engage in games with other staff in order to meet people and to understand the importance of play within their culture.

With each of these organisations, you get a personalised welcome pack to supplement (not replace) the first day experience. This pack contains useful and fun things to help with your first 90 days.

Of course, standing in the way of all of these things are excuses. Here are some that your culture may use:

We’re really busy with [insert name of excuse here]

I have to be in a different location that day

We don’t have the money to do that

We don’t have the people to do that

It’s not my job to do that, it belongs to HR.

If any of these ring true, then ask yourselves why you spent the time and money in advertising and interviewing for the role in the first place?

Also, you don’t have to ask for permission to create this kind of experience in your department, program or project. It’s something you can organise and it will demonstrate to the rest of the business that you have an inclusive culture which values new employees from day one.

First day experiences should:

Be welcoming - your new team member should feel valued the second they walk through the door

Be personal - tailored to the individual (some examples here)

Be collaborative - where they’re introduced to the people they’ll be interacting with

Be enjoyable - it should never be an exercise in mundanity

Be informative - so they know where to go and how the organisation works

Be practical - so they have the tools and knowledge to get the job done

Provide a springboard - to the first 90 days at a minimum.

The hiring process is not an exercise in finding someone with a pulse to fill a gap. It's an opportunity to bring in an individual whose values, intention, mindset and ambition matches that of the organisation. If you don’t start as you mean to go on, don’t be surprised if they don’t either.

Senior Managers are (still) the biggest problem with projects

I did a speech in Brussels, Belgium, recently and as part of my preparation I researched the local market in order to talk confidently about what they’re seeing with regards to projects in Europe. I happened upon a paper from PwC in Belgium called the Project Success Survey, which you can read here.

It was the usual dispiriting exercise – less than half of the respondents feel comfortable about successful project delivery in their organisation and the suggestions to make projects a success are (drum roll please): tools and methods. Sigh.

But when reviewing the ‘Why Projects Fail to Deliver’, section (about halfway through), it struck me – once again – just how these kinds of reports avoid stating what everyone involved in projects knows to be true. That the reasons projects fail isn’t because of unclear scope, poor communication, lack of change management, poorly defined goals or change in strategy. It’s because senior managers don’t take their role seriously and make sure none of these things become problems in the first place.

I'm really not sure what it's going to take for this message to sink in because, when it comes to project sponsorship, most senior managers don't know how to do it well.

It's not always entirely the manager’s fault, of course.

When someone is promoted to a position where project sponsorship becomes part of their job they need to be coached on what it means to be a role model for change, how to ensure a good culture exists, how to make swift decisions, keep the project manager honest and to ensure that outcomes are achieved. And all of these things will inevitably require behaviour change and a new set of skills.

All too often a senior manager is sent a list of responsibilities and a copy (sometimes laminated!) of the project delivery framework. And then they throw accountability – as well as responsibility – to the project manager in the hope they’ll make it right.

Being a project sponsor is seen as an ‘add-on’ to a senior manager’s job; another meeting to attend; another person to manage; more jargon to learn.

When they don’t have time to do it properly, most senior managers simply avoid doing it at all. Personally, I don’t understand that approach.  After all, if you’re suddenly charged with bringing a $0.5m investment home that has a $2m payback (which could be the make or break for next year’s budget), then you’re going to want to know how to do this properly, aren’t you?

Instead, when projects fail, sponsors look to excuses such as scope creep and poor communication rather than acknowledging that they got their approach wrong. They didn’t seek out training and coaching programs that spoke frankly and honestly about the challenges of successful project sponsorship. They didn’t focus on the skills and behaviours that could have made a difference. Instead, they relied on methods, tools and traffic light reports to get the job done.

Every reason for project failure can be linked back to the competency and behaviours of senior managers. And until they take their role as sponsor and figurehead of a project seriously, projects will continue to fail and they'll look everywhere other than in the mirror for the reasons why.

We Need New Ways of Behaving, Not New Ways of Working

Is your organisation looking at implementing ‘New Ways of Working’? (NWOW)

Often words such as agility, flexibility and future-proofing are attached to these initiatives to make them sound more forward-thinking and yet, in reality, they’re anything but.

What would be forward-thinking is to address the current behaviours that either prohibit or discourage a lack of flexibility or agility in the first place. 

Great organisational cultures around the world encourage people to continually look at the way they do things and to find small incremental improvements that can keep pushing them forward. They don’t have people who cling on to the way they’ve always done things. 

Patty McCord, former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix, put it best in her book Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility when she said,  ‘Nostalgia inspires resistance to change and will fuel discontent and often undermines growth.’

By providing consistent feedback on behaviours, coaching those who find it hard to let go of nostalgic ways and then ridding themselves of the people holding them back, truly forward-thinking organisations regularly adopt the latest ways of working without the need for an army of people and a complex Gantt chart to help them do it.

In these workplaces, teams prototype what’s new, reject things that don’t work and develop case studies on more effective ways to get stuff done. They are able to distance themselves from their biases, let go of the things that make them comfortable in the pursuit of greater team harmony and a more productive workplace.

If organisations must persist in NWOW-type projects, then the first phase has to be to challenge behavioural norms and to agree on a new way of ‘being’ not ‘working’. That way, there’ll never be a need for another NWOW initiative in the future.

Action Speaks Louder Than Everything

Over Christmas, I read Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (which is pronounced me-high cheek-sent-me-high, I’m reliably informed). If you haven’t read it,  I recommend it because he talks about the relationship between consciousness, motivation, enjoyment and activity in relation to productivity. Or, getting sh!t done (my words, not Mihaly’s).

In my experience, many people are full of good intention, but lack the courage, know-how or discipline to consistently be the most productive version of themselves.

We become paralysed by the decision-making process, either because it involves risk, a difficult conversation or challenging an existing habit.

As Mihaly points out in his book, we do our best work at the intersection between anxiety and boredom, or as I like to say, ‘on the edge of uncomfortable’. Work is only ever truly meaningful if you feel stretched by what you do and if it takes you a step nearer towards achieving a goal you have set yourself.

If anxiety or boredom regularly creep into your day, it’s a sign you need might some help. Help to identify what’s most important. Help with a skill that you haven’t fully acquired yet or help with your motivation. Someone to ask if you’re ok. Someone to give you a gentle nudge to set you on your way.

Otherwise, procrastination will set in and, before you know it, you’re sat in a toilet cubicle checking your Instagram feed. Which is wrong on so many levels.

So much of what happens in offices these days is designed or used to kill productivity.

Open plan offices built for one personality type (MINE!), back-to-back meetings that provide little time for actual work, ill-disciplined device use. Not to mention the feeling that you have to always be ‘on’.

It doesn’t have to be this way – but in order to take control of whatever job you’re doing and give it everything you have, you need to do some things differently. 

Some of these things are habits that you’ve formed that might feel scary to change, but you’ll find that if you stick with them, then the personal gains will make it worthwhile.

Some will be cultural norms that you have either unconsciously conformed to or felt compelled to join in with. These must be rejected if you’re to buck the productivity trend.

Some ideas on how to do this include:

Changing the way you speak to yourself

Turning notifications off on your phone and keeping it out of reach

Having a conversation instead of sending an email

Refreshing your priorities every week and resisting new ones that come in on Wednesday

Saying ‘no’ more

Focusing on one task at a time and seeing it through to a conclusion

Setting aside a minimum of 90 minutes productive time a day

Elevating other people and helping them to achieve their goals

Making more time for planning

Becoming more flexible in your thinking and delivery

Talking in terms of opportunity not problems.

Taking action speaks louder than everything and if you’re not the most productive version of you on a daily basis – something needs to change.

Whenever I needed help getting sh!t done then I would invariably either turn to a colleague, research or look for a development opportunity. Often this would be in the form of a conference or networking event. And yet, I found that the quality of some of these was found wanting, to the point that the people that I was looking to connect with and learn from stopped going as it wasn’t a good use of their time or money.

To counter that – and to ensure that my own actions speak louder than my words – I have formed the Getting Sh!t Done Club. Half-day events designed to use your precious time productively and that hit you in the heart and head and not the pocket. An afternoon of high-quality professional speakers, who provide you with insights (and entertainment) on how to get sh!t done in your job or life.

The Club kicks off in Wellington in New Zealand in March (details can be found here) and if you’re interested in me bringing it to your city, then please sign up and let us know here.

Are you super professional or a massive let down?

Well that went quick didn’t it?! I said I’d be back on the 22nd January and here I am.

As Roger Federer said at the start of the Australian Open, ‘It's important to rest the body and mind, then to come back super professional.’ So having done that, here I am.

Of course, I could have just not written this newsletter and come back (semi-professional?) at a later date, but then I’d have broken my promise to you. And that wouldn’t have been very nice, would it?

Even if you don’t get to the end of this newsletter (although seriously, why wouldn’t you?), the fact that I bothered to do the thing that I said that I would do, will matter to most of you.

After all, how many of the people who you work with and even your friends DON’T keep their promises?

‘I’ll call you back’

‘I’ll pop by and see you later’

‘It’ll definitely be done by close of play Wednesday’

‘I’ll read your email when I get back to my desk’

Some people even add words like ‘definitely’ or ‘absolutely’ to add extra emphasis to their promise:

‘I’ll definitely be at the meeting’

‘I’ll absolutely read the paper and mark up my comments’

‘We’ll definitely have you round for dinner this weekend.’

Super professional people always keep their promises. They’ll never say they’ll do something that they won’t. They won’t allow themselves to be backed into a corner or commit to delivering something that they can’t achieve.

They’re always on top of their emails. They arrive on time to meetings. They read documents and provide qualitative feedback and they kill projects that are a pointless waste of time. If they are going to be late for any reason, you’ll get plenty of notice and they’ll offer up solutions or alternatives.

Massive let downs don’t do any of this.

They take on too much. They agree to things they know they can’t do. They ignore calls and emails. They’re late to meetings. They’re not in control of their inbox (despite sending a thousand emails a day...from meetings) and they never do the work that they say that they will, despite often having the best of intentions.

Resting your body and mind will give you the energy, focus and discipline you need to be super professional and keep your promises. Without that, you run the risk of being a massive let down. And nobody wants that.