I recently booked a hotel through hotels.com. A special offer said I would receive a gift card for booking. While the card is not a big deal to me, once I’m promised something, I expect to receive it. Don’t you? But here is what has happened: The phone reservationist promised to send a link to request the card. She didn’t. Two customer service contact forms submitted online have been ignored. After explaining the situation, my first phone call seems to have suddenly brought down their computers. My second phone call was mysteriously interrupted, following my explanation, with a recorded message I have never heard before: “I’m sorry. This phone call could not be continued.” The last left me feeling like I’d stumbled into something illegal. Another phone call will probably be answered by a knock on my door.
Get your year off to a great start with these 10 tips for creating the clarity that can speed and improve results in 2011: If you want different results in the new year, you, and those with whom you work, must behave differently. Business as usual won’t magically produce increased revenue, greater profits, better products, fewer problems, less confusion, more productive employees, and happier customers. Get clear about what you and others will do differently to make this new year different. Make your top priorities clear. It is better to catapult 3 – 5 priorities into the next county than to slog up the mountain inch by inch with dozens. Decide what to stop doing. If you have too many priorities, you have no priorities. Make a clear decision to abandon, postpone, outsource, or cut corners. Don’t leave such decisions to chance.
PRESS RELEASE January 6, 2011 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Ann Latham 603-784-5727 Uncommon Clarity®, Inc. EASTHAMPTON, MA – Ann Latham to present “Uncommon Sense with Two-Step Clarity” Ann Latham, president of Uncommon Clarity, Inc., has been invited to speak at the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce’s Meet & Eat on February 8, 2011. The title of her presentation is “Uncommon Sense with Two-Step Clarity.” The Breakfast meeting will be held at Union Station at 7:30 AM. For more information and reservations, contact the Chamber are 413-584-1900.
PRESS RELEASE January 3, 2011 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Ann Latham 603-784-5727 Uncommon Clarity®, Inc. EASTHAMPTON, MA – Ann Latham, president of Uncommon Clarity, Inc., has been invited to speak at the MassMutual Conference Center in Chicopee, MA on January 5, 2011. She will discuss “Why SMART Goals Aren’t Smart and How to Add SANITY.”
This is one tip in a series of techniques to help you take control of your time, feel great about each week, and watch those weeks add up to impressive results. The key to each successful week is two-fold: Identify what would constitute a successful week Make it happen This tip tackles both. Get the unimportant tasks off the list so you can finish the important ones with enthusiasm! Uncommon Booster #4: Create Energy with Clarity Ask yourself which items on your To Do list are energizing and which are draining.
A few days ago, USA Today featured “no excuse” workout tips and an interview with Jane Fonda, who has just released two new workout videos. The perennial problem of too much weight and too little exercise is always of particular interest this time of year thanks to two traditions: cult-like over-eating from Thanksgiving until New Year’s followed by the opportunity to undo all the damage, along with previous years of damage, in one fell swoop with New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and get fit. Predictably, the newspapers print advice and the fitness and weight loss folks proffer truly astounding, totally proven, miraculous products and services. Shortly before Valentine’s Day provides another misguided opportunity to run amuck, I boldly predict a surge of articles encouraging resolve and dispensing with guilt. If happens every year so I have great confidence in my prediction.
Is your organization quick to pick the low hanging fruit? Do you gravitate first to the quick and easy? Are you prone to delay the bigger projects until you get those little ones out of the way? Low hanging fruit is, by definition, quick and easy to implement, thus the lure to pick it is compelling. And picking the first piece usually exposes another, leading to an infinite quantity of low hanging temptations. While some of these quick fixes make excellent investments, many do not, and the nearly infinite supply can become a black hole for your limited resources. Not only are the quick and easily-visualized fixes compelling, but the more important, strategic opportunities are often exactly the opposite because they can involve fundamental changes in how things are done.
PRESS RELEASE November 29, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Ann Latham 603-784-5727 Uncommon Clarity®, Inc. EASTHAMPTON, MA – Latham receives “Best-of-the-Web” award “Why Training Fails” by Ann Latham is the #1 “Best-of-the-Web” selection for business-related articles today. The goal of mgmtarticles.com is to save business people time by culling through many online articles from great sources and posting annotated links to the best. Today, Latham’s article tops their list and she joins an elite group of authors such as Marshall Goldsmith, Chip and Dan Heath, and Malcolm Gladwell. The sources searched to find the best include Knowledge@Wharton, Harvard Business Review, McKinsey Quarterly, Boston Consulting Group, Business Week, The Economist, and many more notable publications. “It is an honor to be in such good company,” says Latham, president of Uncommon Clarity, Inc., an Easthampton, MA consulting firm. “That article has been popular with my clients but it’s nice to have it recognized more broadly.”
We all have so much to do that setting our sights on anything above surviving the daily rush can seem unthinkable. Thus, organizations without strong leaders surrender to the daily struggles and believe that tomorrow or next quarter or next year will be a better time to start making changes. Unfortunately, tomorrow is always tomorrow. That’s why leaders insist on starting today. Leaders don’t wait. Leaders Create Time By Creating a Shared Vision If you create a shared vision of a better future state, you will generate energy, commitment, and time people didn’t know they had. If people are excited about a better future, their excitement propels them forward. They find a way.