You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going because you might not get there.

–Yogi Berra

Happy New Year!

Or so we have been saying. But will it be happy for you? Will it even be all that new? Or is it just the same stuff on a different date? Is 2012 your future or just a rearranged version of your past?

Try this quick exercise. Pretend it is now January 1, 2013. How are you feeling about 2012? Was it a year of satisfaction or disappointment, growth or decay, health or decline, contribution or frustration? One year from today, what will you wish you had done sooner?

Like most of the people I ask, you have probably retired from the “New Read the rest of this entry »

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The most valuable time management skill is recognizing the important tasks and ignoring the rest. I first observed it early in my consulting career, at Arthur Andersen & Co in New York, after a meeting with my manager and our client, the Vice President of a large energy company. After the client left, my manager and I reviewed the meeting and planned our tasks. I mentioned one of the client’s requests from my notes and asked, “How are we going to do this?” I was shocked by his reply, “Don’t worry about that.”

“What do you mean?” I replied, “He specifically asked us to do that.”

“I know, but trust me, It’ll go away.” He was right. That task was never mentioned again and the client was entirely pleased with our work.

Not taking on everything you could do or want to do is the only way to reserve resources for the key activities.

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I apologize for the length of this letter/speech/memo/blog post.
If I had more time it would have been shorter.

That keen insight into effective writing has been attributed to many great communicators, from Virgil to Voltaire. Respect for the reader’s time requires the writer to carefully pare all but the most essential aspects of the message. Editing has the added benefit of helping the writer clarify and sharpen his or her own thinking. If you cannot express the essentials briefly and accurately your confusion and uncertainty will distract and annoy the reader. To write fewer words, think more.

Physicist Richard Feynman, for example, admitted to a colleague that he did not have an adequate understanding of Quantum ElectroDynamics, despite the fact that he had won the Nobel Prize for inventing it.

Feynman’s criterium for understanding was to express it in a lecture comprehensible by a college freshman.

Your business plan is the document that most deserves intense thought and editing to make it concise, persuasive, and motivating. Everyone in your business needs to Read the rest of this entry »

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I frequently encourage my top executive coaching clients to set specific measurable goals and to chart their progress visually. For example, my free trailing twelve month Excel template is very popular. Download it by clicking here.

Here is an even simpler and more visually striking graphic you can use. Enter your own title, goal amount and current status and get a one page, printable thermometer to display your progress for yourself or the entire team. This is similar to my earlier goal thermometer with the added feature of showing the time elapsed since the project was started.

Click here to download your free copy now. No registration required.

Feel free to share this with your friends and colleagues. Please do not remove my name or web address from the Excel spreadsheet.

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The number one problem with business books, self-improvement programs, and even executive coaching is the excess of insights and ideas that could help, that would help, but do not help because the ideas do not produce action.

Here are the two most important methods that I, as a top executive coach, use with clients to help them get results with new ideas.

First, we have a detailed, concrete conversation about their daily habits and history of abandoned “good ideas.” We explore together and define simple, specific changes to their routine that will help integrate the new practice into their lives. For example, a client with a well-established habit of using his home gym immediately after arising in the morning hung a sign on the TV over his treadmill to remind him to meditate first.

Second, and even more powerful, is Read the rest of this entry »

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I frequently encourage my CEO executive coaching clients to set specific measurable goals and to chart their progress visually. For example, my free trailing twelve month Excel template is very popular. Download it by clicking here.

Here is an even simpler and more visually striking graphic you can use. Enter your own title, goal amount and current status and get a one page, printable thermometer to display your progress for yourself or the entire team.

Click here to download your free copy now. No registration required.

Feel free to share this with your friends and colleagues. Please do not remove my name or web address from the Excel spreadsheet.

You may also download an improved version with schedule information, too, e.g., for a monthly goal the thermometer displays how much of the month has passed. Get it for free by clicking here.

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