atkinson advisor

Entrepreneur ran an article recently about the impact of excessive communication interruptions in the workplace. The article was titled “Blunt the e-mail interruption.”

A few of the findings from the article:

• E-mail volume is growing at a rate of 66 percent a year.
• The average employee checks e-mail 50 times a day and responds to 77 instant messages.
• University of Minnesota researchers discovered that frequent interruptions caused error rates on other work to double.

Research suggests the brain can focus successfully on one task at a time and that frequent switching reduces productivity. The Entrepreneur article highlights how several companies have purposefully created time without interruptions to improve productivity.

The opposing school of thought is that businesspeople cannot afford to unplug given the volume of information that is important to our everyday business lives and the speed with which that information is moving. The proponents of this approach are more apt to embrace social media and the constant connectedness that it brings.

What do you think? Is multitasking good or bad?

We often hear from prospects that they want to “get our name out there.” They believe that being “out there” will translate into new business.

This is possible if their service or product costs less than $100, because the consequences of a bad decision are minimal. For everything above $100, getting the business’ name out there is important, but it’s only step one in the process of landing a new client.

The better question is, “How do I get people to choose my company?”

It’s also a bigger question.

Prospects make decisions to spend their hard-earned money after they have cleared several other hurdles.  They include:

1. Awareness
2. Introduction
3. Attention
4. Understanding
5. Preference
6. Choice

We will tackle each one of these hurdles — and certain combinations of them — in future issues of the Atkinson Advisor.

Six Disciplines for Excellence by Gary Harpst

Author Gary Harpst found that less than 5 percent of businesses are high-impact companies, those that produce significant revenue growth and expanded employment. Likewise, he found companies that do become high impact rarely sustain their momentum more than three or four years.

Six Disciplines for Excellence is a collection of Harpst’s lessons from building several companies in his career. At the same time, Harpst takes the extra step beyond stories about those businesses and key decisions to a complete blueprint that executives can use to build organizations that achieve and sustain success over time.

The six disciplines are a set of interconnected practices that ensure employees in the organization know what they have to accomplish today to make the organizations successful. The disciplines are:

1. Decide What’s Important
2. Set Goals That Lead
3. Align Systems
4. Work The Plan
5. Innovate Purposefully
6. Step Back

For each discipline, Harpst provides step-by-step recommendations and insights that any company can use to implement a new strategic direction.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Frederick Herzberg’s Motivational Maintenance Model offer a key insight about career satisfaction.

Both theories contend that higher needs come into focus only after the lower needs have been met and that the journey of personal fulfillment increases in importance as one achieves greater levels of success.

For example, a starving man is so fixated on food that safety and security aren’t important to him. In the same way, many people become so preoccupied with salary, benefits or other factors when selecting a career that they fail to consider whether the work will ever satisfy higher needs.

Work that is not inspiring to a person will never satisfy him or her. New complaints will be constant because the person’s ladder is against the wrong wall.

The lesson: a sustainable and advancing career path ultimately comes down to whether an individual is happy with the work in and of itself.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink

Author Dan Pink makes a convincing case for a new way of looking at the world that leans more toward right-brained (intuitive) thinking as opposed to left-brained (logic).

The information age and the knowledge workers jobs that it created relies heavily on the left brain. Pink believes that macro factors – most notably abundance of materials goods and information, the rise of knowledge workers in Asia, and automation – are creating a new conceptual age that demands new thinking.

The following are Pink’s six key thinking skills for the new conceptual age:

1. Design — Function and form are crucial for success. See Apple vs. Microsoft.
2. Story — With Google, everybody has information on demand at their fingertips. Being able to tell good stories creates context and makes information more memorable.
3. Symphony — The ability to think holistically (right-brained) as opposed to linearly (left-brained) is necessary to manage information and relationships in an increasingly complex world.
4. Empathy — Deep relationships built on mutual understanding rather than transaction are becoming the norm.
5. Play — Enjoyment has practical applications in terms of learning new skills but also healing powers for the stress everyone feels every day.
6. Meaning — Having a purpose in life is becoming increasingly as important as what you accumulate in life.

After explaining each skill, Pink provides a portfolio of suggested activities, such as attending a storytelling festival to learn about storytelling, to develop each skill.

http://www.manager-tools.com/

Manager Tools is a weekly podcast now on its third year. The founders focus on specific action steps that managers can apply to their job as opposed to theoretical management models. The most recent episode discussed how to assess whether your calendar (i.e. how you spend your time) is truly reflecting your job priorities. Other recent topics included how to deliver a persuasive presentation and how to leave a voicemail. The founders consolidated some excellent content in the Manager Tools Basics section, which includes conducting one-on-one meetings, providing feedback, coaching, etc. You can listen to the podcasts online or download them to your MP3 player.