Sipping from a Fire Hydrant

How do I stop the insanity? Monthly, I get about 60 trade magazines mailed to my office. Daily, I receive about 10 electronic newsletters in my email in-box. And, social electronic networking—between Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter, I’m bombarded hourly.

Information Assault

How about you? Are you finding it hard to decide where to dedicate your time? For over 20 years I have been listening to my friend, Dr. Terry Paulson, talk about “today’s” information flow is like trying to sip from a fire hydrant. Well Terry, it just gets worse—and the productivity professionals—yeah sure thing. We have a two-fold challenge; information flow and information retention.

For the Rest of Us

Back in the mid-1990s I used to teach a full-day course for the Dun & Bradstreet Foundation titled, “Managing Multiple Priorities” which was a solid program (for the day) on getting stuff done. The course was deeply based in tactics yet strategy is the real issue. Let’s face it, how many “pending” emails are in your inbox, neatly stored in an archive system? With how many sources of information flow are you dealing? Most importantly, how many much of this information do you really need?

A couple years ago, for some unknown reason, America Online closed the email account that I had been using for over a decade and I thought the world had come to an end. After a while I realized that it was no major disaster and actually was a nice spring cleaning. The point is that we hold onto so much that we might “someday” use and all that stuff is creating what I call, information constipation. Right this minute, look around your office. What can you toss? Before you read another word, get up and toss it—yes, I mean right now! Admit it, didn’t that feel good? That’s what we all need more of; the willingness to toss stuff.

Toss and Block

The, what to toss question has both physical and emotional elements. Letting go of the physical stuff is generally easier than the emotional. As an example, it is much easier for me to toss my piles of trade magazines than it is to decide that I no longer need the subscriptions—thinking that I might miss out on an important piece of information. Then there is the issue of what to block all together. More on making those decisions later.

While de-cluttering one’s mind and workplace is a very liberating experience, one must make decisions on one’s standard operating procedures (SOPS)—what to accept, to keep, to toss, or to block. This goes for both the mind and workplace. Without doing this, you will soon be, again, in confusion. Below, I’ve listed some helpful “dumping” questions. But first, you really do need to develop some sort of system for yourself on easily retrieving the stuff you really, really, really do need. And that is very little. Perhaps understanding why we do not get stuff done will help in the decision process?

Why We Do Not Do Stuff

The information below is from a survey I recently conducted. I asked the question, “What keeps you from doing what you say?” While I consider the first two items to be effectively the same, I listed them separately because they are subsets of the issue.

16% - Poor prioritizing

10% - Lack of time

11% - Fear of failure/lack of self confidence

9.5% - Lack of focus/distractions

9.5% - No motivation/purpose/passion

8.5% - Over commitment

8.5% - Change in priorities

4% - Circumstances beyond personal control

5% - Miscellaneous

18% - Denial (Survey respondents stated, “I always do what I say.”)

Reviewing the above list; which one is your Achilles heal? I realize that you may have more than one issue, however, there is one over-arching issue that when resolved, the others cascade behind and become resolved.

Getting Over It

At the end of each day, we all do a quick mental review and are either pleased or displeased with the day’s activities. When pleased, we sleep well—but, when we believe we could have achieved so much more; sleep can be an elusive commodity.

Below are some questions to ask yourself about the flow and retention of your physical and mental junk:

1. Do I really, really, really need to look at this?

2. Do I really, really, really need to keep this?

3. What’s the worse thing that could happen if I didn’t have access to this?

4. Am I really, really, really willing to tell others to stop sending me stuff?

My best suggestion is for you to adopt the philosophy of first only accepting what you really need and secondly scan and dump most of what you do accept. This will keep you in the know, and out of the clutter. The reality is, you will be able to find the info again if you really need it. The great lesson that I learned from AOL closing my account was that I really didn’t need all that information that I was hording. How about you?

Motivate Today’s Employees with Recognition

Are you wondering how to motivate your employees? Do you fear that today’s employees are sometimes un-motivate-able? Here’s the good news; employee motivation is easier than you might realize. Today’s employees really are motivated through recognition. The key is to understand the various kinds of activities considered to be recognition of an employee’s abilities, hence motivational for today’s employees.

Several years ago I conducted an employee motivation research project while I was traveling North America for the Dun & Bradstreet Foundation delivering full-day public seminars, targeted to business. After several months and hundreds of responses to a simple question, “What can your boss, or your company, do to improve your company loyalty?” It was amazing! Over 50% of the responses were: recognition, or something very similar. Guess what, it is the same today.

Part of Something Bigger

When you can find a way to help your employees to be part of something bigger than them, they are more engaged and their work has a purpose beyond the daily grind. For most of today’s active workforce in North America, this involvement is perceived as recognition. They receive pleasure from participating in something special; a huge marketing and sales campaign, a contest, company reorganization, special research project, community activity, etc.

The smart employer that really understands employee motivation gets in front and leads. As an example, a community project might seem like a drain on resources for a small business, but really is a marketing/publicity campaign if administered correctly. Employees are allowed to spend a small amount of company time on the project and encouraged to spend some of their own time doing the same. The innovative business leader finds ways to “spin” the project for publicity which will translate to more community involvement with the company and into increased sales.

Give Them Some Control

It has been proven over and over again since the famous “Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works” study conducted by Harvard back in the late 1930s that employee productivity increases when the employees have control over their environment. I wrote about a similar situation that I observed at a Grand Rapids manufacturing company in my first book, “The Art of Partnering.” When employees took over control of the worst production line at the factory, they solved many of the challenges. The line soon became one of the most productive and also desirable among employees to work. In both cases the employees were given the recognition of trust that they could successfully control their work environment.

Trust and Respect Are Powerful Recognitions

Today’s employees want to be trusted and respected as having something to contribute beyond mindless labor and compliance; and they want it now! For the “Baby Boomer” aged business leader, trust and respect is something that must be earned over a period of time. The natural gap here is the length of time. In order to motivate today’s employees, older business leaders must dramatically speed up their distribution of trust and respect—not a naturally easy thing to do.

For many of today’s employees, an employer’s trust equals respect in their minds; and respect equals belonging. If you can see your way to helping your employees to have an emotional ownership in belonging to the community of your organization, they will see that as recognition and will be motivated to participate at accelerated levels within the “community.” This accelerated participation, if channeled correctly, will mean accelerated productivity.

Give What They Cannot Buy

It goes without saying that you have to pay (total package) your employees well. If you do not, your competitors will. However, beyond the compensation package, you will find a myriad of opportunities to show appreciation for the value employees deliver to your organization.

Find, discover, and develop appreciation (recognition) in conduits with legs. When you hand out cash recognitions, the cash disappears instantly and is forgotten almost as quickly. Let’s say that you gave an employee $200. There are a number of consumable niceties that they could instantly enjoy—then they simply want more cash.

Or, perhaps take that same $200 and have your company logo embroidered on the back of a trendy leather jacket. Give the jacket to that same employee. How long to you think they will enjoy the jacket? Most likely for years, and every time they wear the jacket it is a reminder of your appreciation for their work. By the way, whatever you select as recognitions, make sure those items are not available to employees through purchase. Give them what they cannot but.

Recognition for today’s employees need not be elusive to employers. To motivate today’s employees, recognitions must be thought-out and implemented with the same care as a military operation; innovate, research, decide, organize, and implement. Do these things any you will motivate your employees to do more and be more than you had previously considered possible.