20%

So lets say your boss came up to you and said the following:

"Four days out of the week you work on what I tell you to work on.
On the 5th day you can work on whatever you want?"

Do you think this would have an impact on employees?
What would people work on?
Would they know what to do?
What would you work on?
Why aren't you doing this already?
Do you really need the bosses approval?

Think about it.

Waiting

Playing the waiting game is no fun.

Waiting for that email.
Waiting for that phone call.
Waiting for that text.
Just waiting. Waiting.

It makes me tense. Anxious and uptight. Why can't it be done now. Why can't they respond now. What' the deal.

Sometimes you can take control of what you are waiting for. You can just do it. Make it so. Engage. Jump right into the deep water and see what happens.

Sometimes you can't do anything about what you are waiting for. Or can you? Take a step back. Think. Look around. Is there another way in. Am I really waiting, or am I just procrastinating. Blaming my own inability to take action on someone else.

Think about it and figure out what are you really waiting for?

Meeting the resistance

Sometimes people like to get together and meet to discuss the current work. Sometimes this is good and sometimes this is bad. Sometimes its wiser to cancel the meeting and use that time to complete some actual work. This is much better than holding the meeting and saying it will take about an hour to complete this task, and then promise to get it done by the end of the week. Just cancel the meeting and get it done, then recall the meeting and talk about it.

I like to keep floating meetings on my calendar. These are free to move both times and days if need be. If there is no reason to meet today, push it off until next week. If you need another 4 hours to do something, push the meeting out a day.

Obviously this can be abused, but most of us already have too much to do, so why not delay the meeting a tiny bit so that some real work can be done.

Feeding the resistance

So there was some pretty visible resistance at work today. These included numerous small group discussions at random places in the building. You know what I mean right? Two or three folks in the hallway talking in hushed voices when you pass by. Cubicles with coworkers discussing the latest management screw up. All clear signs of the resistance. It is no wonder that an average person only actually works a few hours out of the day. So much time is spent feeding the resistance movement. These little gatherings get to be common daily activities. You go to work looking forward to them. Sounds strange but its true. A long time ago I was asked to cover a coworkers job while he was on vacation. I did some training with him the week before he was gone and we would be "working" up to eight hours a day completing his tasks. The week he was gone I completed his tasks in less than 2 hours time. The rest of the time was spent feeding the resistance. Think about it. Then stop doing it.

Remember that Chef vs. Cook thing?

So do you? If not, just recall that the chef is constantly creating new things and cook is making the same old stuff by following directions. For part of today I was the chef, and part of the day I was the cook. While I was the chef it was amazing - ideas were flowing, creativity was abound, and time flew right by. When I was the cook, I felt my energy drop and time seemed to grind to a halt. I found myself struggling to make any progress at all. I found myself longing to be the chef again. If you have not experienced a day like this yet, well that could be good or bad. You could be the chef who is doing art all day long, or the cook who is doing work all day long. I guess you have to ask yourself at the end of the day, was I the chef or the cook today?

Browse a good (Face)Book lately?

There was an article published on Fast Company today that discussed a new trend in web browsing. It would seem that young female Facebook users, who can spend as much as 5 hours online each day, spend almost all of that time on Facebook. You probably are not that surprised by that, or maybe you are, but it obviously deserves some thought. Lets look at 2 responses to this statement

1. Oh no, we need to update our websites so they will surf outside of FB.
2. Lets move everything we have to FB!

What do you think most companies will try? Option 1 or option 2? I am thinking most will find themselves leaning towards 2. Will it work? Of course not.

Which option would you "LIKE". Hopefully you said option 2.

So get out there and start posting.

Whats next for Grounded

So I am working on a few new videos/promos for the grounded series. Should be interesting to see how they turn out. I wish I could give more details, but I want to keep it quiet for now. Maybe after I shoot some material I can post some teaser info for everyone to enjoy.

Stay tuned...