You really can do it all and still have a real life
By Ralph A. Dise, Jr.
Just because you’ve set big objectives doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your home life.
On the contrary, the bigger the objectives, the more you need balance in your life. And you can’t do it alone.
Great leaders recognize the importance of working through others, whether they are employees, associates, vendors or customers.
Still it’s crucial to have a plan, and to work diligently at executing it. This applies to anyone seeking career success that must juggle multiple responsibilities of work and family.
How do you maintain balance in your life?
We’re all pulled in many different directions at the same time, children, employees, clients, school, community, church obligations…our kids’ activities (ask me about Irish Dancing some day). It’s nonstop.
The demands of running a professional service firm sometimes feel overwhelming. I have to be a leader, a manager, and a contributor. I have to sell, produce, and manage others. I have to give total, absolute concentration to my client’s needs. There are times when I feel I’m being hit from all sides. There are a lot of expectations from everyone—clients, colleagues, community and family. I want everyone to be happy and have what he or she needs (“good luck with that!” you’re thinking).
Communicate/keep it simple
The secret to running anything well is to prioritize your actions. You need to do the right things at the right time-those things that will help you win new customers, provide excellent service, and expand your sphere of influence.
All these actions must be executed in a timeframe that permits you to enjoy a normal life (this is a core value of Dise & Company. My colleagues and I respect one another and set aside time for our families, so that we lead balanced lives.)
Set an Annual Agenda
To ensure that I stay focused on the right things, I’ve developed an annual agenda that includes my top five priorities for the year. It’s simple, to the point and helps me decide what activities and tasks I should place on my calendar. It helps me be very clear about what to say “no” to.
My agenda for 2009-2010
- Build sales pipeline with qualified opportunities by setting a leading example for my colleagues
- Grow top line revenues through focused, disciplined business development management efforts
- Optimize profitability by disciplined management of expenses
- Grow my team’s professional capabilities by stretching them to learn new things
- Reserve nights and weekends for my personal life.
My agenda is the basis for all my decisions. If something doesn’t fit into my agenda, it doesn’t have a place in my day.
Try an Agenda for Yourself
To stay balanced, and continue to grow, you really you have to have an agenda to keep focused on your goals for the year, and then you have to have a plan to keep you focused on your daily goals.
The challenge is, particularly in our networked world, where a PDA is now a mini-computer, is to stay focused, avoid distraction, set big goals for the year, (underpinned by big goals every day), and take action every day.
The Daily To Do List
Every morning, before you do anything else, update your daily to do list:
- What are the two or three big things that will help contribute to your agenda?
- Recommit to your annual goals
- Ask yourself “ If I complete these things will it make it a good day?”
- Ask yourself “Am I being realistic?”
- Work towards completing the most difficult before you do anything else (especially before you check your email).
When you stop for lunch, look back at the morning, and ask: “How am I doing on my daily to-do list?” In the evening before you leave, take a moment to review your performance for the day. Assess your ability to stay focused and on-track. Did you open up your email too early? Did you spend the day being reactive and putting out fires?
Be Patient – but Selective
You are not going to get everything that you need to be done in one day. The average executive has 37 hours of work waiting for his or her immediate attention at any given moment. How you spend your time is a strategic decision.
Being selective about what you spend your time on is the key to taking back your power, getting control of your situation, and being in charge your life.
You can have it all. You can pursue big goals and still have a life. It just requires an eye on the big picture, a to-do list that is in sync with the big goals, and the ability to say “no” to things that don’t contribute to your agenda.
Ralph A. Dise, Jr. is the President of Dise & Company, the Director Emeritus of Lincolnshire International, and has worked in the field of Human Resources his entire career. You can contact Ralph directly at the Pro People Page on Diseco.com.
So what are you doing to turn the crisis into an opportunity?
By Ralph A. Dise, Jr.
The bad news just keeps coming.
While there is still a lot of uncertainty about the near future, and the economy is shedding jobs at a rate of half a million per month, it’s hard to remember that recessions are survivable.
For those of us not eligible for a federal bail out, it’s survival of the fittest. Companies and the people running them have to make very tough decisions. Those who survive will do so by being disciplined about managing cash and creative in their business development efforts.
What will the competitive landscape look like when there is a rebound? Your guess is as good as mine. Every time there’s a recession though, someone brings up the story about the two men hiking in the woods. So please forgive me if you’ve heard this one before, but it’s worth repeating…
The two men hiking in the woods
There are two men hiking in the woods who see a bear not too far ahead running straight at them. One man turns to run away while the other man quickly puts down his pack, pulls out a pair of sneakers, sits on the ground, removes his hiking boots, and starts putting the sneakers on his feet.
The first man cannot believe his eyes and says, “Those sneakers aren’t going to help you outrun a bear.” The second man replies, “I don’t have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you.”
The bear is the economy. You are the guy with the sneakers. The other guy is your competition. All we need to do is make sure that we help you outrun the other guy.
What are you doing to manage the downturn?
Every two months, our firm hosts the Senior HR Thought Leaders Forum at the Union Club in down town Cleveland, Ohio. At the January forum, we asked the question: “What are you doing to manage the downturn?” What ensued was a lively discussion with many ideas for you to consider. Here are several of those ideas.
Managing cash flows and conserving cash
Conserving cash does not mean spending as little as possible. What it does mean is that every single penny is spent as effectively as possible, with the smallest level of risk to return. Managing cash flow requires minimizing debt and doing everything possible to keep the cash flow positive.
It seems most companies have stopped their 401k matching programs, frozen salaries, laid off workers, and cut salaries. They’re doing everything they can to conserve cash. Others are investing in their future leaders by nurturing the talent they have. While merit increases may be frozen, they are offering their “keepers” new responsibilities and interesting assignments, and giving them challenging opportunities earlier than they might otherwise have done.
Reorganization and restructuring
Public companies have to answer to shareholders, so when there’s a recession like this, leaders must realign their cost structure to weather the downturn and do it with certainty. It’s not personal. It’s just business. One of our Forum participants told how his CEO could see the downturn coming, and wanted to take radical steps to restructure and re-organize. The Human Resource leader recommended that a significantly large number of employees be laid off, and that others be offered early retirement. The Chief HR Officer’s objective was to restructure one time and only one time. In this way he hoped to mitigate the long, morale destroying death march he had observed at other companies in the past.
Executive leadership and visibility
Strong executive leadership is needed now more than ever. Leaders should be highly visible and actively communicating about the business environment. They should regularly articulate the plans the company has for managing the downturn. Leaders should constantly remind employees that it is everyone’s job to figure out where to reduce expenses— on everything from copy paper to corporate travel and lodging to raw materials. Especially even factory workers should be asked what could be done to drive down costs. They know where the savings are. They’re just waiting to be asked.
Turning a crisis into an opportunity
The main thing is that you can’t take this downturn lying down. How are you going to turn this crisis into an opportunity?
Hard times means there are lot of talented people out there. And right now their skills are going to waste. It’s a great time to look for smart people who can get things done. Are you spending time looking for the star performers that will help you through? You’d better be doing something about this or your competitor might.
As Wendy Edgar, Area Human Resources Director, America’s People Team at Ernst & Young said at the conclusion of our meeting, which summed everything up and brought our time together to a close: “a financial crisis is a horrible opportunity to waste.”
Remember the story of the two men hiking in the woods? What are you doing to “outrun” your competition? What are you doing to turn the crisis into an opportunity?
Ralph A. Dise, Jr. is the President of Dise & Company, the Presiding Director of Lincolnshire International, and has worked in the field of Human Resources his entire career. You can contact Ralph directly at the Pro People Page on Diseco.com.