Friday’s New York Times article, A Sea Change in Treating Heart Attacks, is a great example of dramatically improving results, not because of subject matter expertise, but because of attention to process. Heart attack death rates have dropped 38% in a decade. And that number probably under reports the real success due to changing demographics and increasing numbers of diabetic, obese, and other high risk patients. The improvement is not the result of new medical techniques. Doctors still remove blockages using a catheter, tiny balloon, and stent. What’s different is speed. The longer a blockage remains in place, the more damage is done to the heart and the more likely the patient is to die. Typical times between emergency calls and blockage removal have dropped from as much as two hours to under 60 minutes. At one hospital, that interval was cut from more than 150 minutes to 57. Some hospitals are now under 50 minutes. This is progress easily measured in lives saved. In hindsight, the changes seem simple and obvious. So simple you may think there is nothing your business could learn from them. I challenge that. Here is what you can learn.
Under cover of darkness, “America’s Wine Superstore,” with 100 stores in 15 states and offering 8000 wines, 3000 spirits, and 2500 beers, quietly opened at a prime intersection just outside the city limits of a first ring Minneapolis suburb possessing 3 ho-hum municipal liquor stores. Now, a mere 5 months later, “Edina blames Total Wine for falling revenue.” This headline in the Minneapolis Business Journal caught my eye because I lived in Edina a dozen years ago and know exactly how exciting those stores are. Edina, hello-o! That store was not built overnight. It is not a tiny, unrecognizable threat. Furthermore, you got a huge reprieve when Total Wine lost a full year battling for a liquor permit. Meanwhile, what did these stores do to prevent the revenue loss? Probably what many businesses do:
I recently worked with 24 leaders and participants of regular virtual meetings. A few weeks later, I asked co-workers of this group for evidence of improvement and I thought I would share the results. My group was seen: Driving toward clearer criteria for making decisions Prioritizing more effectively Communicating more clearly Choosing a variety of approaches to move things forward rather than waiting for the standing meetings Bringing greater value to discussions Proposing better ideas Maintaining perspective relative to the “big picture” One co-worker summed it up as follows: “Their performance has jumped to the next level.”
Are you sick of meetings that suck up time and accomplish little? Join the crowd! But why is no one doing anything about it??? (Besides me!) So here is the solution! This short, powerful presentation will make your meetings short and powerful too. “We’ve Got to Stop Meeting Like This!” provides advice you are not getting anywhere else! These techniques have been proven to cut meetings in half while accomplishing twice as much. You can not afford not to try it!! And, of course, once you experience the joy of really driving an effective meeting, once you receive the accolades and thanks from your peers, don’t forget to recommend “We’ve Got to Stop Meeting Like This!” With your help, we can make people’s lives better and their businesses more productive.
We arrived early to make first tracks in the fresh powder. The snow has been so fabulous this year that we’ve become completely spoiled. But not so spoiled that we were unprepared for disappointing conditions! After one run, I’m back in the lodge waiting for the sun to climb higher and soften the snow. In the meantime, I can answer emails, write a blog post, and make a few calls. Instead of feeling disappointed, I seize the opportunity to get some things accomplished. Business, and life, rarely go as planned. To increase your odds of success, prepare for those disappointing conditions. Is your business overly dependent on a single individual, vendor, facility, or condition? Do your plans involve many unknowns or interdependencies? Are you relying on luck and people outside your control?
An ounce of planning is worth a pound of rework. If you’ve ever: Wasted time on a wild-goose trail that turned out to be irrelevant to your goals Built something that wouldn’t fit Been stuck waiting for something that no one thought to do Been a day late and a dollar short You know that insufficient planning can lead to tremendous delays, wasted money, and great frustration. But do you also know that accurate, complete, and detailed plans can be counter-productive?
Would you believe the average office worker spends 28% of working hours reading and writing email? If the 2012 McKinsey study is still accurate, and I doubt things have improved, that’s the equivalent of 3 and a 1/3 months each year doing nothing but email! Imagine if your company could cut that time in half. What might your employees do with an extra 7 weeks each year? How many more customers could you serve with the same workforce? What would that do to employee stress levels, yours included? So what are you waiting for?!?! There is no reason to let email consume more than a quarter of your day. Here are 5 steps your company can take to reduce email immediately.
Stacking firewood this weekend brought out a bit of the craftsmen in me. Stability was somewhat important, of course. We didn’t want it to topple over. Finishing was most important. Beauty and consistency were nowhere on the list. Nonetheless, I faced ample temptation to build a fabulous wood pile! It must be human nature – pride in workmanship, a little aesthetic compulsion, the intrinsic reward of learning how to do something better, finding a challenge to combat the tedium, … Who hasn’t done a better job than necessary on some task at some point? And who hasn’t been proud of delivering a better than expected result? Don’t we applaud excellence at every turn? Well, yes, until we decide it is eroding profits! Companies everywhere struggle with gold-plating tendencies – producing quality and features the exceed the requirements. Whether your employees are:
I learned about the Brat and the Chicken at a conference last week. Laurie Gerber of the Handel Group gave a lively talk on time management at one of the sessions. We all know about the little voices that sit on our shoulders, whisper in our ears, and generally prevent us from doing what we need to do. What I liked about Laurie is that she reduced the voices to the two most prevalent. The Chicken is the fearful voice, scared and afraid of failing. The Brat is the little whining kid with constant complaints and masterful arguments as to why you shouldn’t do what needs to be done at any particular moment. Neither the Brat, nor the Chicken, have any business controlling your life! What shocked me was how readily I could come up with examples from my Brat, especially when it came to exercise! I don’t feel like it today. The weather is bad. I don’t want to stop what I’m doing. I’m on a roll. Awww, come on, just 10 more minutes! I need a cup of coffee first. I need to finish this, and that, first. I can’t decide whether to pole walk, lift weights, ride my unicycle, do yoga, read on the treadmill, …. Time to squash the Brat!
It’s here! The cheat sheet for clarity! The best quick tips for getting better results faster with greater confidence and commitment at your fingertips! Download Ann’s Clarity App from the iTunes store today! It’s loaded with tips you can use and share immediately to improve decisions, meetings, planning, holding others accountable, and more! Imagine the value gained from sharing and using nuggets such as the: only 6 types of outcomes for any meeting 4 steps to better decisions, 3 of which are usually skipped biggest mistakes people make when planning how victim-hood prevents us from managing our time 2 criteria you should use to include others in your decisions 4 words that will make your productivity soar and more, including more to come! Since shared clarity is the most powerful clarity, encourage your colleagues to download Ann’s Clarity App right away as well. Need another incentive to act now? The introductory price can’t be beat! Once you’ve tried the app, I’d love to hear your reaction. And don’t forget, new content is on its way!