Best Travel Tips?

The holidays and holiday travel season is upon us.  This short post is a request for the community to share any great travel tips they have for less stressful travel.  One of the podcasts series I listen to is ManagerTools.  One of their casts discussed great travel tips.  I’ve adapted a couple of their ideas and added some of my own.  Full disclaimer.  I used to try to surf the web and get the best deal on different aggregator websites.  I’m now a BIG believer in using a travel agent.  it just took one flight cancellation out of Portland OR coming back to the East Coast for me to be a believer. If you want a recommendation, I can certainly give a ringing endorsement to my travel agent, Janine.

Here are three tips I have learned:

1-Choose a primary airline. Base your decision on where you fly most frequently and whether the airline has a hub near you.

2-Get and use a travel agent-see above.

3-Enroll in a Frequent Flyer program.  Look especially at those programs that allow you to double dip and use your points for things other than simply flight miles-gives you many more options.

Now what are yours? Please comment below.

All the best,

Chris

Building Time into Your Calendar to Think

(Crossposted on Leadertalk.org)

I heard the CEO of a Fortune 50 company speak about what the organization expects of senior leaders.  One of the points he made was that once you move to an executive role, you are expected to be able to dig into deep issues that will affect the organization both in the short term and the long term.  His next comment struck home: “You MUST make time in your calendar to think.  That  is what the organization expects of you. If you simply move from event to event, you are doing yourself and your organization a disservice.”

I’m sure I’m not alone in that I am guilty time to time of moving from one meeting to the next, scheduling them back to back and not making the time to do my homework to dig into the issue.  Mabel Miguel talks about a possible solution  to make time to think:

Use your commute time to think through a knotty problem.  Do the same if you are on a relatively short business trip (3 hours or less). Turn off the radio or iPod and simply think. Decreasing the white noise and clutter that swirls around inside your head is an effective way to get some clarity, focus, and attention.

I’ll suggest another solution.  Make an appointment with yourself to prep before going into a meeting.  Build the time into your calendar and hold that time as being as important as an appointment with another person.  Use this time to dig into the issues and come up with ideas to resolve the challenge.  I’ll wager you’ll be more effective and your organization will reap the benefits as well.

Grind without Gain?

There are VERY few school executives who are not driven to succeed.  We serve as teachers or guidance counselors, or other roles within the schools before we become school executives.  We are proactive, we learn to anticipate problems and solve them and in some cases, look at these problems as challenges to be overcome.  So we take action and list out what needs to be done by when and by whom.  Most of time this serves us well.  Yet, I’m learning that there are times where I simply have my head in the weeds so deep that I don’t stop to step back and see what I am trying to accomplish with all of this action-I recently heard the phrase, “grind without gain” and it seems to fit when I get in this mode.  it is like I am simply checking off to do items with little knowledge of how they fit into the larger scheme of what I want to accomplish in terms of larger organizational goals.

I’m learning I need to step back periodically and look at what I want to accomplish, then use the resources I have to achieve what I want to accomplish.  I heard a pretty good and elegant way of phrasing it that seems to help me-the trick will be consistently executing on what I’ve learned. 

Here’s the idea-you determine what you want to accomplish-no more than 3-5 big priorities, then recognize that you have four essential resources to accomplish your 3-5 goals-time, people, stuff, and dollars.  Use those resources to drive your action lists.  No big deal, so far.  Here’s the big deal-weekly, biweekly, or monthly, sit down and review for yourself (or with your leadership team) to review what you wanted to accomplish, where you are with the big 3-5 goals, and use your time resource to help reinforce with others what you want to accomplish and to push your agenda. The key, I am finding, is to loop back in a disciplined way to ensure that your big goals don’t get pushed aside from the day to day activities that can easily consume all of us. (Thanks Harry and Mark for your wisdom on this).

I’m curious as to what are some ways that you are able to keep your agenda and priorities front and center?   Look forward to hearing from you.

Chris

What Justifies You Being on the Payroll?

This quote from the late Peter Drucker has had a profound impact on me and my work.  I think that he was asking what are the top two or three activities that somebody in your position must do that no other position in the organization can do.  Those are the activities that you must concentrate upon.  Another way to think about this is to ask, “what do I contribute to the organization?”

If you choose, jot down on the left side of a piece of paper the top results that you are held accountable for.  On the right hand side, jot down what you consider to be your strengths.  Then draw lines from the left to the right hand side. If you have any top results that do not have a line drawn to them, it’s not a crisis (yet).  However, you must find someone who has a strength in that area that can achieve that result, delegate the task to that individual and track it’s performance relentlessly.

Finally, be sure to put time on your calendar each day or week that focuses upon that key result.

Incoming Phone Messages-send to Voicemail or to a secretary?

Here’s a question for you-do you have your school secretary screen your incoming calls and put them on a phone log or do you simply have them patched through to your voice mail?  I have a bias, but I am curious about how others do this.  My bias is to have all phone calls routed to a live person, rather than to my voice mail.  I’ve gone to a column type word processing document that has columns for completed, date, phone number, person and notes. We print out a new sheet each day for the calls. The secretary keeps the sheet by her desk (we’ve color coded it in “cosmic orange” to make it stand out from all of the other pieces of paper on the desk).  I’ve listed my biases below-I’m curious as to your perspective-feel free to disagree.

• The secretary can screen, prioritize the call, and calm the waters with an angry caller.  We’ve all been switched to voice mail when we wanted to talk to a live human voice.  When we get voice mail, it makes us even angrier.  The same is true with your callers.  An effective secretary can tell the caller where you are (“She’s out in the building visiting classrooms-she should be back in about an hour. May I take a message?”), gauge the intensity of the call and give you a heads up when you return (“Call Mrs. Smith immediately-she is very upset about the new bus routes.”). 
• A second advantage is that your call log gives you additional time to make the callbacks in the order and priority that you decide.  If you go back to your office, and listen to your voice mail messages, it may take you up to five times as long to listen to the messages as it would if you simply read the notes section for each call.  You then take the phone log, make the return calls, and log when you completed the call (for a shorthand tool to note when there has been a call back or you are waiting on someone, check the section on dots, circles, and dashes below).  The time you save by simply having your secretary answer your calls can also reinforce your focus on classroom learning (“She’s observing teachers this morning. May I tell her you called?”).

What is leadership?

This question has been debated by many people FAR wiser and more experienced than me, yet a program I was recently involved with caused me to have another look at this question.

I’ve heard (and subscribed to) the theory that leadership is more important than management-starting with Bennis’ comment that managers do things right, leaders do the right things.  Mintzberg and others have pushed back on the overblown significance on leadership (the people and exciting part) as being more important than management-management is somehow a distant relative in the universe of leadership development-somewhat lower on the ranking order.

This past week, I heard a senior leader give a short and succinct summary when he was talking with his executive team about the importance of enterprise thinking.  He noted that “leadership is the ability to motivate people and manage processes”.  He went on to say that both are critically important, especially when you are looking at declining resources for initiatives.

So, how do you balance the leadership and management aspect?

Managing Your Calendar

I recently talked with a senior executive about how he has seen highly effective executives use their time and calendar.  He shared with me the way one of his bosses managed the calendar.  This individual was on the road for 40% of the time but when the executive was back in the office and had periods of time that he could control, he ran his calendar by the following rules, which I share with you as a way to look at ways you might adapt for YOUR calendar management. (Thanks for sharing this, Speedy!)

Rules: No meetings that start before 8:30 AM, no meetings that start after 11:30 AM, no meetings that start before 2 PM, and no meetings that start after 4:30 PM.  This executive also required that most of the meetings be less than an hour if possible.

Here is what the executive did with his calendar days that he had control over:

7-8:30 AM: voice mails, emails, and initiating phone calls

8:30-noon: various meetings or blocked time for his projects/priorities

Noon-2 PM: work out, personal mail, lunch, voice mail returns, and notes on action items to do based upon the morning meetings.

2-5 PM: meetings or open blocks of time

5-6:30 PM: clean up days’ actions with his administrative assistant and keys from the day.

You might not be able to replicate these times or even have the flexibility to do so, but I was impressed with how this executive had a framework from which to work. Hope you find it useful.

Sparky the Wonderdog and the wisdom of thinking it through

One of my favorite dogs was Sparky the wonderdog.  She was a rat terrier and, shall I say, had a great deal of energy.  She would run through our invisibile fencing to  terrorize squirrels and birds in our backyard and she simply lived for me to throw a tennis ball to her. She would turn tail and run and bring it back and bark at me to throw it again and again, no matter how tired she got, how hard she panted, and how exhausted she was.  If she saw a ball, it was almost a Pavlovian response with her-see the ball, chase the ball.  I had some (admittedly mischevious) fun in faking the throw and then tossing the ball the other way, watching how she would circle around, hunt and sniff for the ball before proudly bringing it back to me, and bark at me to throw it again.

I was reminded of Sparky this past week when I was talking with a manager about a project that was marginally successful. It was an intranet rollout for web tools as part of a larger corporate initiative (from an acquired organization and the intranet was to be used as a one stop shop for all employees for HR and benefits).  This project had an aggressive timeline and required additional people to be hired temporarily, had the internal webmaster as the technical expert and project manager and this manager was the project sponsor.  She was bemoaning that while the project was assigned to her and she was excited about the end result and the visibility, the project timelines, and resources were not  well thought out, resulting in delay after delay after delay.  Compounding the mess was having to ask for more and more resources because the users wanted more, then less, then different features and ways to access the information that they wanted. 

This manager felt like a failure and was trying to learn from what she perceived as a failure. As she talked and sketched things out as she was explaining it to me, it dawned on her that she was so busy to initiate and implement the project that she didn’t step back to see whether the timeline and resources were appropriate to the scope and that the technical expert and she did not talk up front to see what was missing. Each assumed that the other had a “handle” on the issue and was waiting for the other to speak up.   I thought of Sparky and the feints to get her to run back and forth, with the result an exhausted wonder dog who was still looking for the ball.  I’m NOT saying that people were doing this intentionally, it simply happened to work out that way.

To me, there were several lessons in this. One was the value of having a colleague (inside or outside of the organization) to bounce ideas off of (a STRONG endorsement for the value of networking and building relationships). Yet, even more importantly, I think, is the requirement to step back and think things through has tremendous value-admittedly, this is difficult with the 250—500 decisions that executives make in a day.  I think this is especially important with initiatives and projects that have high value for both you personally and the organization.  You don’t want to end up like Sparky, legs splayed out, tongue hanging out, waiting to get JUST enough energy to go chase after that ball again.

How do you make your professional development “stickier?”

I’m asking this question because of several related recent events and perspectives. How do you increase the chances that the professional development you attend and the professional development that you send your staff to “sticks” and ends in changes in behavior to achieve your goals (either personal or schoolwide). I’m going to give my three perspectives, then ask you the question again at the bottom of the post.  As one of my colleagues, Dave Hofmann quips, “this is known as a non-rhetorical question-I ask and you respond…” in a joking manner (he ALWAYS gets a laugh out of this).

Perspective One-The “Presenter”:  As a workshop leader and facilitator,  I’m frequently asked to “do a session on XYZ (fill in the topic). Generally, the sessions go well, I receive candid feedback on where I hit and missed the mark by use of “smile sheets” or ratings scales with comments. Like all facilitators, I look at these and work to improve each time, finding both the comments and the raw numbers valuable.  Yet in many cases, I’m part of a larger initiative within the district. Some of my colleagues call this “drive by PD”.

Perspective Two-The “Participant”-I’ve also been involved with a number of initiatives where I have been a participant in either a long term program or as a conference attendee.  Almost always, I’m impressed with the quality of the presenters and the behind the scenes work of the support people who make these events (either within a district or at the state or national levels).  They remind me of roadies who make the sessions flow sooo smoothly (at the risk of showing my age, cue Jackson Browne ‘s version of “Stay a little bit longer“).  Yet when I return to the office, the good ideas get caught in the flotsam of the daily rhythm and flow that intensifies when I return to work.

Perspective Three-Dan Heath- I’ve read and reread Made to Stick and have had the good fortune to chat with one of the authors, Dan Heath.  The premise of the book is that you have to find ways to make your message “stick”. I started wondering, if message stickiness is good (and I believe it is), then what are some concrete ways that you can use to make your message stick, then can you use similar principles to make PD for your team and for you ‘stickier?”  I combined this thought with a re-read of several other articles and books from the business world (Execution and the Knowing-Doing Gap), which remind us that it really is a disciplined focus on implementation, rather than simply talking about what we are going to do that has the biggest impact.

NOW, here is the non-rhetorical question: Given all the myriad decisions and work that we all do on a given day, how do you transform the good intentions that you get from professional development, conferences, fellow bloggers (like LeaderTalk), and your readings in professional journals “stick” to help you achieve your professional and personal goals?

Stay tuned (I hope) for LOTS of responses.

Chris

Batching It (part 2)

In my post two weeks ago, I talked about the idea of batching similar activities and creating file folders for each person or regularly scheduled meeting. The same principle of batching can be used with your electronic personal information management system. I’ll intentionally be vendor neutral on this-whether you use Entourage, Outlook, Lotus Notes, or some other electronic method of keeping your calendar and tasks together, the idea is the same. Find a way to group all the action items, reminders, and follow ups that you have so that you can focus upon them when you need to.

One way to digitize the file folder concept is to have a task or a project with each person’s name (look in the table of contents for the idea labeled “P for Projects” Then when I get an email or read an article that I want the person to focus upon or be aware of, I’ll simply copy and paste (if it is a small amount of text) or copy the link and put it in the task notes section. When I am ready to meet with the individual, or go to the management meeting (whether physically or via phone), I print out the task list and have it as an agenda for the discussion.