When my parents died, they still lived in the house where I was born. They had no intentions of moving. Ever. It was a big old Minnesota farm house. They added on to it many times, gradually molding it to their lifestyle and tastes. And it was filled with stuff. Bookshelves were plentiful – floor to ceiling, horizontal bands between door jams and ceilings, straight-ahead and above your head as you climbed three flights of stairs. And that was just the books. They had built-in cupboards for all the old record albums as well as several generations of audio equipment. More for the photo albums, movies, and videos of every birthday party and family trip. Once my siblings and I left the nest, my parents traveled the world. Turkish canes, Thai pitchers, Siberian relics – art and memories from more countries than I can name – adorned apparently endless nooks. More cupboards were needed for the companion pamphlets and maps. After each trip, they extolled the virtues of their peaceful, eclectic house, looked forward to reviewing their maps and photos, and enjoyed finding spaces for cherished mementos. After they died, I took one look at the tremendous quantity of stuff and realized I had a choice. I could relive their lives or I could live my own. There was no way I could possibly do both. I chose the latter.
I’m the new kid on the Forbes block. I write about clarity, its power to improve everything from growth to employee engagement, why it is so uncommon, and how to create it. I didn’t label my talent for clarity until I started my business a little over a decade ago, but the evidence goes way back. Some people, like my elementary school principal, confuse belligerence with clarity. I’ll never forget the day our lunchroom ladies started withholding dessert until we cleared our plates.
I am excited to announce that I’ve been selected as a regular contributor to Forbes.com. That means I have my own Forbes blog. Look for me in the Leadership category. Better yet, go there now and follow me! I only have one post up so far but more are coming. If you read them, share them, and leave comments, I’d really appreciate it!
Boston, MA – Ann Latham has been selected by Forbes as the expert blogger on clarity. Latham will be writing about the power of clarity to drive high performance and galvanize commitment. Her articles will be featured regularly on Forbes.com at www.forbes.com/sites/annlatham/. Ann Latham is the founder and president of the Boston management consulting firm, Uncommon Clarity®, Inc. Her clients represent 38 industries and range from for-profit organizations, such as Hitachi and Medtronic, to non-profit organizations as diverse as Public Television and Smith College. PRESS RELEASE Uncommon Clarity™, Inc. August 31, 2015 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Ann Latham 603-784-5727 Uncommon Clarity, Inc. ###
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.
Are you ready to be obsessed with your customers? Evolving marketing slogans, values, principles, mantras – whatever you want to call them – have driven significant improvements in customer service. Examples include “the customer is always right” and “we put our customers first.” Slogans like these have been adopted wildly as companies gradually recognized the need to meet, if not exceed, customer expectations. Oh, wait! There goes another! “We will meet, if not exceed, customer expectations.” As a result, customer relationships and customer experiences are now often considered to be as important, if not more important, than the product itself. But time never stops and so the slogans continue to evolve. As each one becomes commonplace and ceases to stand out in the crowd, someone installs an upgrade. Amazon’s “Customer Obsession” is a case in point. It’s quite the attention getter. “Wow! Amazon is upping the ante on customer centric commitments!” So what are you waiting for? Are you ready to declare your “Customer Obsession”? Or maybe you want to leapfrog the competition and be the first to claim “Lunatic Devotion.” Before you do that, there are three things you need to think about when adopting a new approach.
We knew living in the center of the city would mean having less space. But we had also seen plenty of small but efficient living spaces when traveling abroad. Even New York City, with its tiny rooms, sometimes surprises you with the comfort and convenience planned carefully into small rooms. Thus, we were willing to consider something pretty small when we came to Boston in March to determine whether we could live in the city When we visited Beacon Hill apartments, we discovered spaces that failed hands down, no matter how charming, by simply feeling cramped and unmanageable. Most seemed fit for no more than one small, non-claustrophobic person. Back Bay units kick up the size average just a notch, but that is also where we learned how much layout, light, and high ceilings matter. The place we fell in love with scored high in all three, not to mention charm, of course. So now that we’ve been here for two months, I thought I’d give you the low down on tiny house living to date!
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
Seen the sights of New York, Chicago, or San Francisco? How about Paris and London? Do your memories include a good dose of exhaustion? Endless walking? Long lines? And an open spigot where your wallet usually resides? When we first arrived in Boston on June 4th, we were returning from eastern Europe with fresh memories of the pros and cons of city travel. Take Istanbul, for example. We enjoyed the sidewalk cafes and criss-crossed the old city, sampling the baklava and Turkish Delight with both eyes and mouths. We quenched our thirst with fresh squeezed orange juice available on nearly every corner. We planned carefully to avoid lines, got up early, and hit several of the most wonderful places: the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, Topkapi Palace, Basilica Cistern, and the Galata Bridge. After two days, we were exhausted, ready to move on, and felt we had seen the main sights and sampled the flavors of the city. Rinse and repeat. Budapest, Krakow, and Prague. Had it not been for slower paced interludes in the quaint towns of Hungary and Transylvania and the striking mountains of Slovakia, this trip would have been down right grueling. But what’s the alternative? Once “in the neighborhood,” you can’t skip Krakow! At least I can’t! And with so much to see, it doesn’t really make sense to take a day off and just sit inside the hotel to read. So we pushed onward and onward, enjoying the experiences despite the sprint. Then we returned to a new home in Boston. Another city! And that’s when we discovered the best way to vacation!!
It is amazing that I always remember the name and author of a book I barely started decades ago. The reason I do is because it taught me a powerful lesson that has returned to me countless times throughout my career: If you try to do something to others, you will likely fail. If you try to do something with others, you will likely succeed. The list of truly respectful actions that you can do with others is amazingly short: