“Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk” on body language has been viewed 32,728,866 times, more by now, for a reason. This isn’t the same old talk about how your body language affects others. She’s talking about how your body language affects you! We all know that a tall posture, firm handshake, and smiling eye contact will make a better impression than slouching and looking down. That’s a no brainer. What you may not realize is how much it changes the way you feel about yourself. Try it right now! Stand tall, shoulders back, breathe deeply, eyes straight ahead, smile. Doesn’t that make you feel stronger, more powerful, more successful?
I remember when my husband and I first considered having a baby. We discussed how it might be better to wait. I don’t remember that conversation, but I do remember the realization that we would never be ready. If we had waited until we had had enough money, wisdom, and kid-free experiences – until we were completely ready, we never would have had children! If you wait for everything to be perfect, you will never do anything. Nonetheless, I witness daily examples of people delaying action on their top priorities while they plan, practice, research, check with a few more people, or wait for someone to return from vacation or maternity leave. In other cases, they distract themselves completely by “getting all their ducks in a row” or tackling low hanging fruit of little importance. I have a Fortune 500 client who has postponed the start of our project every month since October because they aren’t quite ready. A business owner who attended my most recent speech has been thinking about doing a webinar, but isn’t quite ready. Next thing you know, it will be December again! Don’t spend February getting ready. Get clear about your priorities and figure out what concrete steps you need to take today, tomorrow, and next week so that on March 1st you can look back at February as a month of amazing action, not a month of preparation!
A few weeks ago, I wrote “8 Secrets Smart People Know About Time Management.” Among other things, I explained that there are five effective ways to deal with having too much to do and one of those is to accomplish more faster. People try to do this all the time. They buckle down. They shut out distractions. And then they beat themselves up for failing. Why do they fail? Because they aren’t really doing anything differently. You know the old adage about the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. By that definition, most people are nuts. Every week, every day, they do essentially the same things and hope that somehow they will get caught up. On top of that, people are faced with endless advice ranging from little tips to vast programs like Lean. Most people do not have time to digest all that they read or invest heavily in a process like lean. So here’s a simple way to reconsider your work and find a shorter, faster path. No new vocabulary or special tools are required. You can get as fancy as you like – but do that later. To get started immediately, embrace these staggeringly simple steps to accomplishing more:
What’s the very first decision you make each day? For some it comes while still in bed. “Should I get up or hit the snooze button?” For those who lay their clothes out the night before, have no children, and are locked into an unwavering morning routine, including the content and quantity of breakfast, that first decision of the day can be postponed. Now that I’ve written that, I’m really curious to know how long someone could actually avoid that first decision. Not that it matters. Avoiding a few dozen decisions in the morning may reduce initial stress, but it’s only a drop in the bucket of what’s to come. We make thousands of decisions every day. Many are easy, but others are complex, stressful, or both. Because there are so many decisions and because they are literal forks in the road with dramatic impact on results, costs, time, feelings, and relationships, how you make decisions is extremely important. This is why decision-making is a top priority when I work with clients to create a culture of clarity. The best way to make decisions involves a four-step process that allows you to “SOAR through decisions,” whether alone or in a group. I won’t go into the details of that process now, because I want to focus on the value of having a process, not the process itself. If your decisions actually follow the four distinct steps of SOAR and involve the right people at each of those steps, with transparency, the benefits are numerous and dramatic:
To Do lists are like blackberries, stealth multipliers producing long canes that arc gracefully across your lawn until the tips take root in new soil. One minute you are dreaming of juicy rewards. Next thing you know, you are ensnared in prickly brambles, surrounded by vicious trip wires, and unable to enjoy the fruits of your labor. And just like blackberries, To Do lists require ruthlessness!
The Patriots lost last night for the first time this season. But that is the least of their problems. Gronkowski was carted off the field and he now joins Amendola, Edelman, Lewis, Dobson, Jones – more players than I can list – who are injured. Brady looked crestfallen when Gronk went down. But this morning, what are they saying? “Just wasn’t our night.” In true Patriots fashion, they refuse to contemplate what Gronk’s injury means for the next game or the rest of the season. “It was a very hard loss” and “players gave a tremendous effort” are all that we will hear. Their job is to get it done. One game at a time. No matter what comes at them. Whether they will get it done remains to be seen, but we all know Tom Brady is special because of his uncanny ability to get it done by focusing on that and nothing else. Everyone has problems. Most people spend far more time agonizing, talking, and worrying about those problems than actually doing something about them. Save that energy. Channel Tom Brady. Your job is to get it done. One step at a time. No matter what comes at you.
A client called to talk to me about creating a vision. He was struggling because he felt hand-cuffed by too many constraints. I responded by explaining the need to maintain a clear distinction between the vision and the journey. That evening, while watching Nelson Mandela’s Long Road to Freedom, I remembered our conversation. Right in the middle of the movie, Nelson Mandela, his fellow leaders of the ANC, and two wives embodied the problems that occur when that distinction is blurred.
If President Bartlet can make fast decisions, why can’t you? OK, I admit I am a tad late in discovering West Wing. That’s what comes of never watching TV. At some point television got pretty good and I wasn’t there to notice. Now back to those West Wing decisions. In a matter of minutes, President Bartlet makes life and death decisions with imperfect information. One minute he is deciding if and how to rescue stranded drug agents and the next he’s reacting to a missile threat. All in a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, your company is holding meeting after meeting after meeting. And you probably aren’t even saving lives. I bet most of those decisions aren’t even making a sizable impact on revenue, productivity, or employee commitment. As a matter of fact, all that time you spend meeting is proof positive that you are not improving productivity or increasing employee commitment. Employees hate meetings and when they are in meetings, they are not getting important work done. So how can you justify those slow decisions? Fiction? Your telling me West Wing is fiction? So what? You are still spending too much time in meetings, involving too many people, and walking out with far too few decisions of significance.
People can help each other most easily when they share an understanding of the process underway, completed steps, and next steps. This holds true whether you are helping a youngster tie a shoe or helping your company prepare the annual budget. I call this shared process clarity. Unfortunately, one of the most common and consequential processes people use is also the most abused: decision-making. If your reaction to that statement is “Process?” my point is made. Every decision requires four basic steps. Unfortunately, most people muddle all steps into one messy, often prolonged, conversation. That’s like making the “bunny ear” loops before doing the “first part of a bow.” When it comes to decision-making, shared process clarity is extremely rare. The good news is that the decision-making process is pretty simple, universal, and rewarding! Once you have a shared understanding of distinct steps of decision-making: Decisions will be faster and better There will be less stress and frustration Employees at any level will be able to participate more easily Commitment will increase Whiners, domineers, and generally “difficult people” will become far less conspicuous You will involve fewer people over all and more of the right people at the right time Delegation will be easier for both managers and employees You will save tremendous time
There is much talk these days about the importance of adopting an abundance mentality and shedding a scarcity mentality. There is also much confusion. I just read an article on the subject that promoted big thinking and the belief that you can always do better while also discouraging the continuation of poverty behaviors like wasting your limited time searching for discounts and clipping coupons. Unfortunately, the article was totally focused on making more money and buying more things. In my opinion, it missed the point completely.