My daughter recently graduated from university and started her first career position. So this morning, I pulled out a book to give her that I found very beneficial to me over the years when I started at a new company or in a new position. That’s when I came across the note on the inside cover, shown below, from a leader (my former boss), mentor, and friend, Vito Ciciretto.
I was reminded how as leaders, we can have such a positive and long-lasting impact on people with the simplest gestures. It doesn’t matter if they report to you or if you even work with them. We all need a little encouragement and to know someone believes in us!
When I received this book with the inscribed note in the mail, it meant so much to me and still does today. The book’s content also helped me succeed in several new positions. Over the years, I followed Vito’s lead and adopted this approach, having sent several books and notes to colleagues in my network. I hope it helped them as much as Vito’s note helped me.
This morning, I turned the book’s page and wrote a note to my daughter as I gave her a couple of books I hope will help her as she starts her new career.
Don’t underestimate the positive impact you can have with little leadership gestures.
Leave a comment below with what you do to help and support your network or what others have done to support you.
Prioritized Leader Actions or Leader Standardized Work
This post is a revision from a previously popular post.
I’ve never understood why so few leaders use Leader Standardized Work (LSW). Talking with many leaders over the years, the explanation I hear most is that they don’t have standard repeatable work or tasks. Baloney! All leaders have regular actions that they must or want to take on an ongoing basis. Examples include budget reviews, team member 1:1s, Gemba (go to the workplace), submitting your monthly business expenses, and many others. So if the “standardized work” wording is a barrier to using LSW, in HPL’s new fall ‘Lunch and Lead’ program called “4-steps to Time Shifting – making time for the things that really matter“, I’ve rephrased it to “Prioritized Leader Actions” or PLA. Ultimately, I think it more accurately reflects the intent relating to leadership responsibilities. Leaders are too often ‘fighting fires,’ and I believe a significant cause of this is that they are not proactive enough! Yes, it’s only a name change, but unfortunately, I think the name LSW casts a negative perception on many to the point that they don’t even consider it. So, let’s talk about Prioritized Leader Actions (PLA)!
I’ve found PLA to be a great tool to help me be a more consistent and effective leader. I’ve used PLA for years. For me, it’s my little voice reminding me of the most important things I need to do or that I want to do to be successful when leading. These are my priorities. Regardless of your responsibility, there is an inevitable component of it that is repeatable; therefore, Prioritized Leader Actions are for, well, everyone! It’s not just a manufacturing thing!!!
Here are some key points I found helpful when it comes to PLA:
1. Set up PLA with a designated section for daily, weekly, monthly and Mid-long term (quarterly, semi-annual) based on the frequency of completion of the task or action.
2. Place tasks in the PLA that are important to YOU that you must get done and those that you want to complete, check, or confirm because they are essential to you or your business.
3. Set your PLA up on a monthly basis, refreshing it at the beginning of each month.
4. Have a method within the PLA to indicate which days you are on vacation and identify when you are out of the office on business. Doing so will help you plan more effectively when you complete tasks, or it will provide you with the opportunity to delegate if necessary.
5. PLA should be dynamic, not static. It’s OK to add and remove items from your PLA. However, as priorities change, new systems develop, metrics improve or degrade, you may find that you need to adjust what you’re doing or what you’re checking and confirming.
6. PLA is for you, not anyone else. It’s OK to show people your PLA, but I don’t advocate posting it. It’s more effective if you carry it with you at all times to help you execute it versus showing others. As a leader, you should also check your team’s PLA periodically.
7. If you’re not getting to something on your PLA, don’t beat yourself up; instead, find the root cause for not getting it done and determine what you need to do differently to achieve it. After all, the items on your PLA were put there by you because you either need to get them done as a core responsibility of your job or they are most important to you. Then, use it to improve your self-discipline, motivate you, or remind you to just do it!
8. PLA must be integral to your planning system and routine. It must integrate with your schedule, follow-up system, and to-do lists.
9. Print out your PLA for the month, update it daily as you complete tasks daily, and “pencil” in additional PLA tasks as you’re thinking of them throughout the month.
10. When you get busy, that’s when you need your PLA the most. Please don’t abandon it, then. Instead, use it to help you get the most important things done. Then, when you can’t do everything, use it to make an informed decision as to what will and will not get done.
I use an Excel spreadsheet for my PLA. To make things easier, I’ve added some conditional formatting for the visibility of weekends, business travel, or when out on vacation. I prepare the PLA for the month, print it out, and then use it daily by marking tasks using a pen. PLA is integral to my daily, weekly, and monthly planning system.
Check out our ‘Tools‘ page to download a template of my PLA to use for yourself. Then, modify it as necessary to make it work for you.
I hope you found this helpful. Are there any key points I’ve missed or, in your experience, you feel are most important?
If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com
One of the best time saving, and perhaps even life saving things I did was implement 50 minute and 20 minute meetings. The emphasis was on 20 minute meetings as the rule and 50 minutes an exception.
The old saying “the fish grows to the size of the fish bowl” applies to meetings. Most people schedule 60 minute meetings. Why? It’s the default setting in most scheduling apps. What happens? Meetings extend to the length of time that the meeting is scheduled! Funny how that is, eh!
The obvious benefit of 50/20 minute meetings is more effective meetings and staying on topic, however, the real reward is that you get 10 minutes between each meeting, for, well, whatever you need. That maybe a coffee, a washroom break, checking and responding to emails, making quick calls, conversations, preparing for your next meeting.
Try it! It’s simple but GREAT!
Leave a comment with your best time saving or personal planning tip.
If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com
Many are starting to return to their company facilities these days, finally! However, many organizations are bringing their teams back gradually over a period of time. Some have team members that won’t be returning to company facilities at all and will continue to be working remotely indefinitely.
What’s your 100% remote plan involve? Leave a comment below.
I recently picked up some great advice from Darrell Keezer, Founder of Candy Box Marketing that I think was very insightful and may prove helpful to many. Darrell said:
“it’s not about working from home versus working from the office…
…it’s about working from anywhere”.
Talking with many leaders and clients recently, it does seem to be a common situation where it may be rare to have entire teams physically together at the same time. Sometimes, this is because some of the team work independently servicing the client base. Perhaps they always did, even pre-COVID. Or it could be because some people will rotate in office days between team members. In other cases, some team members will have new options of working remotely. The point is, that post COVID, the definition of where the work is done has changed. As leaders, we need to be prepared to lead our teams and provide the necessary tools and processes to create and maintain effective teams when they could be working from anywhere.
In addition, Darrell said that even if only 10% of your team is working remotely, you need to plan as though 100% were working remotely. When team members work from anywhere, it is very easy to feel forgotten, be overlooked, disconnected, or even disadvantaged. So we need to develop engaging ways utilizing both technology and human interaction initiatives to keep people engaged and connected.
“10% remote/virtual = 100% remote plan”
Working with a client recently, we had a core group in the board room and several others that had called in on TEAMS. Facilitating within the room, we were mapping out a current state value stream map. We were hand writing on different coloured sticky notes and laying out the process on the wall. We even set-up additional cameras directed at the wall so that those on the line could see what we were doing in the room and be engaged. Guess what… They spent most of the meeting looking at my back as I placed and moved the sticky notes around. It was impossible for them to see what was written on the stickies any way. They were very disadvantaged and quickly withdrew from most of the discussions.
The next day, we made a change. Essentially we assumed we were all remote. We conducted the value stream mapping using a very effective on-line collaboration tool. For those in the room, we projected the on-line view on the board room big screen and they followed along from there. Those in the room did not have their laptops open so that we had full engagement within the room. For those on-line they could see exactly what everyone in the room saw as we “shared” the view virtually. We had another big screen projecting the TEAMS gallery view so those in the room also saw the faces and body language of those that were remote. Those that were remote had a gallery view of the room so they could also see everyone in the board room. This small change leveled the playing field between those physically in the room and those that were remote. Engagement and active participation went up dramatically!
What’s your 100% remote plan involve? Leave a comment below.
If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com
Whether for personal or business purposes, with every New Year, there is an opportunity for all of us to make a fresh start! Are you prepared to take it in 2022?
Personally, I’ve never really been a fan of New Year’s Resolutions. There are many statistics out there with some studies indicating that up to 80% of resolutions fail. Why? My view is they are usually just statements made without any real plan to achieve, lack support mechanisms, or don’t have new habit formation actions, to mention just a few.
I’ve set annual goals and objectives both personally and within my businesses for many years now. I’ve learned a lot over the years and have developed what I have found to be a pretty good process. Often due to our busyness or just plain procrastination, the hardest part is to get started, so I thought I’d try and assist you by providing some of my previous posts on topics that I think can be very helpful at this time of year.
Getting yourself organized – Time management & weekly personal planning
6 Must have’s for any planning routine – If you are in need of getting yourself better organized so you stay in control and get the right things done, these 6 key points to incorporate in your planning process will be helpful.
An effective leaders to-do list – We all have “things” we need or want to get done on a regular basis, but often we lose track of them and they fall off our radar. This article gives an over view of a very powerful leader tool, that is sadly too often overlooked, not understood, or assumed to be only for manufacturing. Not giving it away here so as not to discourage you from checking it out first!
Free personal organizer/planner download– Free down load of the template I use for my personal organizer and weekly planner. If you don’t have one, this should give you a good starting point that is ready to use, or you can easily revise to fit your personal needs.
28-Day Habit Tool – Forming a new habit is always challenging. We’ve worked with many people over the years to help them form new habits using the 28 Day Habit Tool. Set a new habit and track your progress. Reflect daily as to the barriers and challenges you faced completing the new habit and keep at it. If you miss any day… don’t despair, but rather reflect, come up with mitigation, and move forward with the habit, BUT… reset the 28 days and start again. Continue until you achieve 28 consecutive days of the new habit.
Leadership Hacks – Getting your stuff together – a 2.5 hour live virtual seminar with over 50+ proven tips and techniques to get yourself organized and stay in control without having to spend a career figuring it all out.
Setting goals and objectives – Personal or for business
Reflections vs Resolutions – A critical step before setting annual goals and objectives is to first reflect on the previous year. In my opinion, reflection is far more important than any resolution. In this post we discuss why resolutions typically fail and the steps to conducting a good reflection.
Setting Personal and Professional Goals and Objectives – Mission Statements – Whether it’s for personal use or professionally, having a defined mission is very important. This article walks through what a mission statement is comprised of and provides a couple of personal examples to help demonstrate.
If you’d be interested in a complimentary Lunch & Lead Series topic on Setting Personal and Professional Goals and Objectives, leave us a comment or contact us to let us know your interest.
HPL also facilitates the annual business planning process for our clients. If you’re interested and want to learn more, please contact us to discuss your needs.
If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com
Glenn Sommerville 