Choice 3: Schedule the Big Rocks, Don’t Sort Gravel

Today I am writing part 3 of a 5-week blog series providing an overview to the principles covered in The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity.  Did you miss the first 2 posts?  If so, follow these links to read Choice1 and Choice2.

One of the most common concepts taught by FranklinCovey over the last 25 years is the concept of Big Rocks.  The concept is simple.  In life, we have activities that require planning and others are more reactionary.  We also have some that are more important than others.  Once you have determined what tasks you need to accomplish, you need to schedule those into your calendar.  When urgent 9non-important) things come at you, stay focused on your most important goals.  When you do this over time, you will feel like you are accomplishing more in life and will become more fulfilled.

In order to achieve this, you will need to take 3 steps:

1.       Create a Master Task List

2.       Do Weekly Q2 Planning

3.       Do Daily Q2 Planning

Your master Task List captures all of your goals in one place.  It clears your mind of gravel.  It is used as a reference during Q2 planning.  It also helps categorize incoming tasks in natural chunks.

Your Weekly Planning should connect with your roles and goals.  You should take approximately 30 minutes to schedule your big rocks into your calendar and then organize the rest.

In order to achieve Extraordinary Productivity, we must live in Q2, as much as possible.  Here we find our most proactive work.  We create high-impact goals, do our creative thinking, we build our relationships and take time out for learning & renewal.

When working on your daily planning, build in some recurring Q2 time zones if possible.  Maybe you have a permanent block of time each day for planning, working out, reading, etc.

As a good rule of thumb, you will need to plan out 30 minutes a week and 5-10 minutes per day for planning.  Taking these 60-90 minutes per week to plan will allow you to live in Q2 and react less to unimportant activities.  Some things will simply not get done, but at least that isn’t what is most important!

Next week we’ll dive into Choice 4: Rule Your Technology, Don’t Let it Rule You!

Until next week,

John Vakidis

Choice 2: Go for Extraordinary, Don’t Settle for Ordinary

Last week we kicked off a 5 week blog series to give you an overview to FranklinCovey’s Newest Solutions, The 5 Choices of Extraordinary Productivity.  This week, we will focus on Choice 2: Go for Extraordinary, Don’t Settle for Ordinary.  CLICKHERE to read CHOICE 1.

Last week Mark Murphy took us through Choice 1 where we learned the power of acting on the important.  He took us through the time matrix and explained the importance of living in a Q2 culture. 

Once you understand what Q2 really means, it’s time to identify your Q2 Roles.  This is where we define who we are, but we take the time to define what it means to be extraordinary in each of those roles.  Do you want to be like an average ant carrying crumbs, or do you want to be the one who earns the fruit (like the strawberry shown above) of living an extraordinary life?

Your Q2 roles should…

·         Represent your key responsibilities

·         Should be limited to approximately 5 or so

·        Should express your deepest values and aspirations

·         Create a balanced perspective of your life

·         Change over time

I attended this program back before we released it to the public.  I have also been through FOCUS, 7 Habits and a number of other programs at FranklinCovey.  It wasn’t until I defined my extraordinary roles that I started to achieve extraordinary results.

Once you define your extraordinary roles, you have to craft your Q2 roles statements.  This process has a formula that you repeat for each role:

As ______________ I will ________________________ through ___________________

          (Role /Title)                    (Extraordinary Outcomes)                             (Activities)

The final step is to actually draft goals for each of these roles.  You want to give yourself a deadline and define the contribution you will make through achieving this goal.  Otherwise, without setting the deadline, your goal becomes a dream, something aspirational.  All goals should follow this formula:

From X to Y by When

Below are a few examples…

·         I will go from 200lbs. to 180lbs. by Dec 31,2012

·         I will go from reading 1 book a month to 2 books a month by 3 months from today (insert date here)

·         I will post 1 blog per week for 12 weeks straight by August 31, 2012

Lastly, once you have defined your roles, you’ve written your role statements and set your goals, it’s time to share them someone that you respect and will help hold you accountable.  Declaring your intent is a big deal.  It’s where the rubber meets the road and it’s where you build trust with others and yourself.  If you accomplish these goals with excellence, you’ll not only feel good about yourself, but you’ll increase your credibility.

Next week we’ll dive into Choice 3: Schedule the Big Rocks: Don’t Sort Gravel. 

Until next week,

John Vakidis

Choice 1: Act on the Important, Don’t React to the Urgent

The five weeks during the month of June will be dedicated to content from FranklinCovey’s newest program, The 5 Choices of Extraordinary Productivity.  Please enjoy today’s post, written by my friend and colleague, Mark Murphy.
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Choice 1: Act on the Important, Don’t React to the Urgent

How many of you get e-mails in the middle of the night?

How many of you sleep with your phone?

How many of you feel buried by a mountain of gravel and keep thinking if you just work harder or faster you can get it all done?

The Paradox:  It’s both easier and harder than ever to achieve extraordinary productivity.  In most organizations, there are fewer people doing more things with fewer resources in exactly the same amount of time.  And technology, with all its benefits, creates an expectation of immediacy to most everything.

An ongoing survey of more than 350,000 people since 2005 shows that people, by their own admission,  spend about 70 percent of their time on whatever is urgent and only about 30 percent on relevant and important priorities.  Think about that!  What if your cell phone only worked three of every eight hours?  What if your car only worked a couple of random days a week?  Also think of the possibilities if you could do no more than just reverse those numbers?

Productivity is not just about “getting it all done”.  It’s about getting the right things done.  It’s the product of our decisions, where we focus our attention, and our energy levels. 

The Promise:  There are 5 Choices that, when consistently made, ensure that you will achieve extraordinary productivity in your work and life.

Choice 1:  Act on the Important, Don’t React to the Urgent

Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, MD of the Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health says that “the key symptoms of ADD;  distractibility, impulsivity, restlessness, disorganization, trouble planning, procrastination, have come to be key attributes of most people working and living in today’s world”.  “The symptoms of overloaded circuits are very similar to the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder”. 

The prefrontal cortex part of the brain is the action center of the brain.  It’s where we do higher-level tasks like planning and making careful choices.  And it’s overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, the reactive, primitive/emotional part of the brain has more and more stimuli to react to, given the constant flood of interruptions we live with. 

It’s interesting to consider that we are physiologically programmed to respond to urgencies.  That response mechanism has been passed down to us from our ancestors whose response to urgency was often truly a life-or-death decision.  When faced with a threat, our ancestors got a shot of adrenaline that raised the heart rate, widened the blood vessels, and sped up breathing.  It made them quick, strong reactors. 

But what was once a rare occurrence now happens all the time.  We confront urgent demands all day long.  And that same circuitry that can make us reactive can also make us addicted. 

An excellent model to illustrate this is the Time Matrix.

We often spend our time in the urgencies of Quadrants 1 and 3 all day long.  We become so exhausted that our natural tendency at the end of the day is to go straight to Quadrant 4.  And the next day we start the whole process over again.  We, in essence, create a Bermuda Triangle for ourselves that literally sucks us in.  And the only Quadrant being neglected ends up being Quadrant 2 which is where real productivity most often occurs. 

There are very good reasons for this.  In many organizations Quadrants 1 and 3 are high visibility and are often the most recognized and rewarded activities.  Quadrant 2 activities are often “under the radar” and less noticed at the time.

Also, if urgent things are neglected there is a very quick negative impact to not doing them.  So we often focus on them to the exclusion of Quadrant 2 (important) items, which if neglected, often have a deferred, but much larger negative impact.  In short, we become addicted to the urgent. 

It becomes critical to create a Quadrant 2 culture, which may not be as hard as we might expect.  It often begins with the courage to start some conversations around topics like:

1. Identifying the top two or three Q2 activities that could make a significant impact on the team or organizational goals.
2. Determining the value of those Q2 activities (impact on the bottom line, customer loyalty, problem prevention, key relationships, etc.)
3. Identifying two or three Q3 activities that hinder these Q2 activities and discuss how to eliminate them.

Based on the Time Matrix we can create a culture that is focused on the important and not just the urgent.  It allows us the ability to have conversations within our circle of influence that are focused on Q2 and reduce the time spent in Q3.  “The very best leaders are focused on the language of importance instead of the language of urgency”.  We can ask questions like, why should this be done now?  Or how does this help us achieve our goals?  If everyone understands the Time Matrix we can create a shorthand language with questions like, is that really a Q2? Or, are you sure that’s a Q1 because it feels an awful lot like a Q3?   In short…so we can create a Q2 culture that allows us to spend time on what is most important and will generate the best results. 

Without a shared language of importance it is really easy to get distracted from the things that really impact the results.

- Mark Murphy, FranklinCovey Consultant

Copyright © 2012 - Mark Murphy

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Join us next week as we continue to dive into The 5 Choices content, with Choice 2: Go for Extraordinary, Don’t Settle for Ordinary.

Enabling Greatness, One Organization at Time,

John Vakidis

Choices and Relationships

A wise man once told me, “Life is really about 2 things: Choices and Relationships.”  As simple as it sounds it is quite profound.  When participants attend our 7 Habits Programs, they learn about this underlying message when going through “The Private Victory” which includes Habits 1-3.  Let’s take a moment to explore this concept and profound statement.

Habit 1 - Be Proactive

Without a proactive approach, people tend to react to their surroundings instead of take control of their lives.  Excuses become roadblocks for achieving goals.  They have poor relationships at work and in home. 

By taking a proactive approach, they live within their “Circle of Influence,” not their “Circle of Concern.”  They have a can do attitude which affects those Choices and Relationship they interact with daily.

Habit 2 - Begin with the End in Mind

Participants understand that there is always a vision before you act.  They understand the importance of writing a mission statement and determining their core values.  This process is instrumental to achieving your goals, but it is the guiding force for the Choices that you make each and every day.  The choice behind beginning with the end in mind will determine outcomes that have lasting effects on one’s life and relationships.

Habit 3 - Put First Things First

Once you now the importance of being proactive and you have determined what is important, only then can effectively schedule your activities that help you enable your mission.  One of the concepts that we teach participants is the concepts of Roles.  Our lives are made up as roles.  For example, I am a Servant Leader in my church. I am a husband and father.  I am a friend and family member.  I am an employee.

There are only 24 hours in the day, 7 days a week.  At the beginning of the week when I am working on weekly planning, I ask myself this question, “ What are the 1-2 most important things I can do this week to impact a project or relationship (in each of my roles).

Recap

By following Habits 1-3, I make good Choices that impact the Relationships I have in each of my roles.  Some weeks, some relationships get more attention than the others, but over time, I focus on building enduring relationships that flourish over time.  Following this process is key to having a happy life.

For those that haven’t read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, click here to download a complementary executive book summary.  Or download it if you have read it and pass it on to a friend or a coworker.  Who knows, it might help you improve that relationship.

As a reminder, next Monday is Memorial Day.  Take time to thank a soldier who has served this great country.  Or thank a family member who lost a loved one who has served.  It’s a simple Choice that will have a lasting effect on your Relationship.

For those that have served and are reading this post, thank you for serving our country so people like me can have a better life and write whatever we want.  Thanks for protecting our rights and fighting for our freedom.  Today, I honor YOU!

Enabling greatness, one person at a time,

John Vakidis

Is tax season really over?

April 15^th is known across the U.S. as the day that taxes are due from the previous year.  Accounting professionals work their tail off to find as many deductions as the can to prevent you from paying taxes.  The word tax has a negative association with it.  The words Trust Tax carry even more, yet organizations pay trust taxes year after year and most leaders do nothing to prevent the bleeding. 

“Widespread distrust in a society… imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity, a tax that high-trust societies do not have to pay.” - Francis Fukuyama

As the quote above implies for societies, the same can be said for organizations and teams.  In Stephen M.R. Covey’s best-selling leadership book, The Speed of Trust, the author explains in very simple terms that Trust levels in your teams and organization play out like a dividend or a tax.  His formulas are simple.

“Trust always affects two measurable outcomes – speed and cost.  When trust goes down, speed goes down and cost goes up.  This creates a Trust Tax™.  When trust goes up, speed goes up and cost goes down.  This creates a Trust Dividend™.  It’s that simple, that predictable.”

Trust Tax:

Trust Dividend:

Take a moment to watch this video titled, High Cost of Low Trust.  Are you dealing with any of these trust taxes at your organization: Employee Fraud, Time Theft, Employee Disengagement, Office Politics, Unproductive Meetings, Employee Turnover, Excessive Customer Churn, Excessive Approval Processes, Corporate Scandals, Lawsuits, Stealing, etc.? 

So let me ask you, “What is low trust costing your organization?”

I invite you to learn more about some of the ways our clients are using The Speed of Trust Process to reduce major trust taxes.  We are offering three webinars next week narrated by Gary Judd, FranklinCovey's Global Trust Practice Leader:

Employee Engagement and Culture

Thursday, May 24th | Noon Central

Trust: The Silver Bullet for Mergers & Acquisitions

Tuesday, May 22nd | Noon Central

Spectacular Results Through the Speed of Trust Process

Wednesday, May 23rd | Noon Central

Consider joining us for one of these sessions or contact me to set up a 15-20 minute call with your local Client Partner.   For leaders that want to attend our signature program, Leading at the Speed of Trust, in an executive retreat setting, consider joining us in Sundance, Utah on June 11-12 or August 13-14.

Creating Trust Dividends for Organizations Everywhere,

John Vakidis

214-387-9960

Culture Matters!

Since Texas has one of the best job markets in the country, I thought today’s post might be relevant to those looking for employment or looking to make a move.  Last week, I was networking on LinkedIn and I came across an article that I thought was quite interesting. 

HBR posted a blog titled, When Choosing a Job, Culture Matters by Bill Barnett.  The author goes on to write about a man that won the job for a newly created position as CAO.  After he was told he got the job, he decided to interview various people about their culture.  Bill goes on to write that this person decided to turn down the job, because the culture was not one that he wanted to be a part of.

Albert Camus once said, “Culture is the cry of men in face of their destiny.”  As noted in a previous blog, I think one of my colleagues said it best, "Your organization's culture is nothing more or less than the collection of habits of the majority of people most of the time."

So, if you are researching a prospective company to work for, invest in or do business with, asking some key questions to existing staff or connecting with someone on LinkedIn that used to work there, can shed light on whether or not you should pursue them.  Let’s explore a few topics related to a successful culture.

Leadership

As my pastor likes to say, “It all falls on Leadership.”  The leaders in the organization are like the captains on the ship.  They are charting the course for the crew into open waters.  They cannot predict if they are going to run into a giant squid (new legislation, competitive threat, advances in technology, etc.) or not.  What they can do is instill a culture that requires people to bring out their best in way that they not only want to do it, but are compelled to do it.  It’s more than just having a good strategy.  It’s about “finding your voice” as a leader and “helping others find theirs” (reference from The 8^th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness by Stephen R. Covey).

Now I’ve worked for FranklinCovey (a company with great culture) for nearly 5.5 years.  From what I’ve seen here as an employee and what I’ve seen working with clients, I believe that the two biggest points of leverage for leaders is Trust and Execution.  If you can build a culture of high trust and instill an operating methodology to execute, you’ll build a winning culture.  Let’s explore these two concepts a bit further.

Trust

When introducing our Speed of Trust Process to organizations, we show leaders that trust is learnable, teachable and measurable.  When trust is high, business gets done faster and for less cost.  Conversely, when trust is low, it takes longer to do business and it costs more to achieve those results.  With all of this said, trust dramatically impacts the bottom line!

In Stephen M.R. Covey’s best-selling book, The Speed of Trust, he explains that High Trust Organizations out produce Low Trust Organizations nearly 3:1.  Did you catch that?  3 to 1!  If that isn’t a business case for a low trust culture to improve, I don’t know what is!

Execution

If we were to look at a computer as an organization, Trust would be the processor and Execution is the operating system.  If you are trying to get new results (running new programs, etc.) and you are doing it on an outdated or ineffective operating system, it is highly likely that you will never achieve your goal (or at least achieve it with excellence).

FranklinCovey’s Global Execution Practice Leader,  just released a book, The 4 Disciplines of Execution, our next best-seller!  It doesn’t surprise us that this book is flying off the shelves!  There is not an outbreak of execution in the marketplace.  The great companies, that remain great, have this down to a science!

Without diving in too deep into these subjects: Leadership, Trust and Execution, there are of course other factors that affect culture, but these 3 are pretty big! 

So, if you are reading this article as a leader, ask yourself how your team or organization is doing related to these areas.  If you are lacking in one or more, I know that is impacting your bottom line.  Who am I kidding… so do you!  Are ready to make a change?  If so, let’s connect!

If you are an individual looking for employment, make sure that before you begin working for a new organization, make sure you create some time to interview random people in that organization to ask them these 3 questions:

1.       What do you think of the leadership in this organization?

2.       On a scale of 1 to 10, what is the level of trust inside the organization?

3.       Over the last 3 years, how well did the organization execute its top strategic goals?

If you get great answers to all 3, I bet this is a company that is leading their industry and is growing rapidly.  It’s probably going to be worth pursing!

If you feel like you need more help in these 3 areas, contact me, to learn more about some of our new online training offerings.  We have several cost-effective options that will allow you to invest in yourself.  Remember this… Learning is vital to earning!

Helping individuals and organizations one at a time,

John Vakidis

PS - Follow me on Twitter for FranklinCovey Updates, Leadership Quotes and more!

Can we get along too well?

Today is the first Friday in May.  You know what that means, right?  Another great blog from my friend and colleague, Mark Murphy.  Mark is a senior consultant with FranklinCovey and has worked with organizations across the globe to help them with everything productivity, leadership and team performance.  If you have ever worked in an organization where teams were “stuck” from achieving their potential, then this month’s post might bring back a few memories. 

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Within the last month I’ve had the opportunity of working with two very different organizations struggling with one very similar issue.  One organization was a small privately held resort company in Colorado and the other was the UK office of an Italian-based multinational organization.  The issue was trust…or more specifically…the lack of trust. 

I was fascinated by how different and yet how similar the teams in both organizations were.  Even though one team was struggling to grow beyond the vision of a single entrepreneur and the other was working to integrate new team members from various cultural backgrounds; they were both essentially stuck in what Bruce Tuckman calls the “storming” stage of team development.

 According to Tuckman, all teams go through a natural process of development that consists of 4 phases:  1) Forming 2) Storming 3) Norming and 4) Performing.  (Bruce Tuckman reference).  Looking at the behavior of small groups in a variety of environments, he recognized the distinct phases teams go through and suggested they need to experience all four stages before they achieve maximum effectiveness.  This process can be subconscious, although an understanding of the stages can help a group reach effectiveness more quickly and less painfully. 

The “Storming” stage is when, as the name suggests, members can become hostile and combative.  As goals and objectives are clarified, team members become aware of any gaps between reality and their initial expectations. They may experience dissatisfaction with the team’s objectives and may begin to question the ability of their leadership.  If these issues are not addressed quickly and openly with what Steven R. Covey in his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,  calls a “combination of courage and consideration”, the team may never get to the next stage which is Norming.  Norming is where members begin to resolve conflicts through increased cooperation and trust.  They settle in to norms on how to work together.  They rally around each other with common spirit and goals and get down to work. 

Norming is an essential step to the final goal of an effective team, which is Performing.  Performing is when team members work together productively and produce high-quality results. They prevent problems or work through them constructively.  They provide their own direction and encouragement and feel satisfaction in working with the team.  These high-performing teams are able to function as a unit as they find ways to get the job done smoothly and effectively without inappropriate conflict or the need for external supervision.

I think the key work here is inappropriate conflict.  Not all conflict is bad.   In seeking the balance of courage and consideration required to get beyond the storming stage teams must be able to, not only experience conflict, but actually embrace it.  I’ve worked with teams and organizations that are overly courageous and frank in their opinions without consideration for the feelings of others. These highly courageous yet inconsiderate teams rarely get beyond the storming stage.   I’ve also worked with teams that are overly considerate and afraid to confront issues with any degree of honesty or courage.  I’ve found that these teams are just as likely to get stuck in the storming stage.   As Steven Covey states, maturity in an individual as well as a team requires balancing both courage and consideration.

 In his book “The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team”, Patrick Lencioni states that ultimately teams fail to get results or Perform because of an Absence of Trust which leads to a Fear of Conflict. 

Notice (below) that the solution to a lack of trust lies, not in removing all conflict, but rather through embracing appropriate conflict with open, honest, thoughtful dialogue.  Steven Covey says the ultimate form of a Win-Win is to find agreement where both parties mutually benefit or to have both parties agree to disagree agreeably. 

So…back to the original question.  Can we all get along too well?  I believe we can.  If we want to create a high performing team that gets consistently superb results we have to create a high trust environment where people feel they can openly disagree.  An environment where differing views are not just tolerated, but actually celebrated.  An environment that understands how Storming can ultimately lead to Performing.  This is as true in the mountains of Colorado as it is in the UK.



- Mark Murphy, FranklinCovey Consultant             

Copyright © 2012 - Mark Murphy

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So it’s time for a little assessment.  Where is your team on the scale below?

1) Forming     2) Storming     3) Norming     4) Performing

If your answer was not 4, then we should chat.  Even if your team is Norming, what would it be worth to your organization if we could help you get to Performing?  For most organizations we visit with the financial ROI is huge.  If you are just Forming or Storming, them the ROI is even greater.

Be courageous enough to admit where you are at and contact me to set up a call with Mark and your FranklinCovey Client Partner.  I am confident to say that the time you give us will be well spent  to learn how we can help.

Helping increase performance one team at a time,

John Vakidis