8. Allow Enough Time
Allow enough time to do everything well. Take the time to complete the job in an excellent fashion. Practice the “30% Rule” and always allow yourself an extra 30% of time to complete any task. Build in a cushion for unexpected difficulties, delays or setbacks. Highly productive workers always allow enough time to do the job right.
9. Maintain a Steady Pace
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Don’t hurry or rush around frantically to get the job done. Maintain an easy pace and work steadily. Remember the fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare.”
Highly productive people work with a certain rhythm that allows them to flow through enormous amounts of work without becoming stressed or anxious. As Thomas Carlisle said, “Our great business in life is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”
A hallmark behavior of successful salespeople, executives and entrepreneurs is that they do one thing at a time. They do the most important thing in front of them, and they stay with it until it is complete. They set priorities and they single-handle their tasks.
Think About Results
Result orientation, the ability to get things done, is a key quality of all peak performers. You can develop the ability to concentrate single-mindedly through practice and repetition, over and over, until it becomes an ingrained habit of success. Once you develop the skill of getting things done, the skill will serve you for the rest of your life.
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) Action Exercises:
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1. Plan your work thoroughly in advance; have everything you need before you begin work, and then resolve to focus and concentrate; 2. Bunch your tasks; do repetitive or similar jobs all at once, one after the other, taking advantage of the learning curve;
3. Work on those tasks that give you the highest return on your investment of mental, emotional and physical energy;
4. Create blocks of time when you can work for extended periods without interruptions. This is the key to the accomplishment of important tasks;
5. Set deadlines for yourself for each task, and give yourself rewards for task completion;
6. Develop a compulsion to closure. Discipline yourself to work steadily, without stopping, until the task is complete;
7. Keep repeating the words, “Back to work!” throughout the day to keep yourself focused and concentrated on your key result areas.
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Chapter Six
Managing Multi-Task Jobs
“America is unique because it offers you an economic ladder to climb. And here’s what’s exciting: it is the bottom of the ladder that’s crowded, not the top.” (Jim Rohn)
All of life is a series of projects. A project is a complex task. It is often called a multi-task job. This type of job requires the coordination of the efforts of several people, each of whom is responsible for part of the job, with every part of the job being necessary for successful completion. Your ability to handle these multi-task jobs is a critical skill for success.
All achievements of consequence are complex and involve the cooperation of many people. An example would be the moon project, for instance, where tens of thousands of men and women had to coordinate their activities to put a man on the moon.
Even simple tasks like planning a party, or producing a brochure or newsletter, require the ability to plan multiple tasks. This type of planning and organizing is one of the core skills of time management. Your ability to put together and work with a team of people on a project is the most important skill for advancement in your work.
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The Key Management Skill
A recent study by Stanford University on the qualities that companies look for in promoting people into the position of Chief Executive Officer concluded that the ability to put together a team to accomplish a task was the most important single identifiable quality of an executive who was destined for the fast track in his or her career.
Take the example of the spectacular success of a man like Lee Iacocca, who turned Chrysler Corporation around when it was almost bankrupt. One of the reasons he was hired into the presidency of Chrysler was because of his ability to bring senior executives together from a variety of different areas to turn the company around. In his first 36 months at Chrysler, he replaced 35
out of 36 senior vice presidents. His ability to assemble this team made all the difference. In his autobiography, he gives full credit to the men and women on those teams who turned the company around.
Your ability to put together teams to do multi-task jobs or complete complex projects will determine the course of your career as much as any other factor. It will enable you to multiply yourself times the talents and efforts of others, and accomplish vastly more than you ever could on your own.
A Learnable Skill
Fortunately, project management is a learnable skill, like riding a bicycle. It can be divided into a series of steps, each of which you can master, one at a time.
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1. Start with the End in Mind
In managing any project, you begin by defining the ideal desired result of the project. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? What will the project look like if it is a complete success?
Start from the successful completion, the ideal desired result, written down and clarified on paper, and work back to the beginning. Do this in conjunction with the team members involved whenever possible.
How will you be able to tell if you have completed this project successfully?
This step, of thinking through and defining your ideal end result, is one of the most valuable of all mental and physical planning tools for any project.
2. Start at the Beginning
Once you are clear about your desired result, you then start from the beginning and determine what you are going to have to do to get from where you are to the completion of this project, on schedule, and on budget.
Determine a specific deadline or target to aim at. Make sure that it is realistic and achievable.
3. Assemble the Team
Bring together all the people whose contributions will be necessary for the success of the project. Sometimes you need to assemble the team before you can even decide upon the ideal result and the schedule. Remember that 160
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people are everything. Take ample time to think carefully about the people who are going to be the team members.
Fully 95% of success in management is selection. 95% of everything that you accomplish as a leader will be determined by your ability to select the people who are going to help you to do the work. If you make the mistake of selecting poor team members, you will almost invariably find it more difficult to achieve the goals that you have set for yourself.
Jim Collins, in his best selling book Good to Great, says, “The key to success is to get the right people on the bus, and get the wrong people off the bus. Then, put the right people in the right seats on the bus.”
Focus on the people before the task. Remember that because all productivity comes from people; the people are the most important ingredient.
4. Share the Ownership
Instill ownership of the project in the team members by sharing the job with them. There is a direct relationship between how much a person feels a sense of ownership for the job and how committed he or she is to making the project a success. One of the key jobs of leadership is to instill this feeling of ownership in each member of the team, so that each person feels personally responsible for the accomplishment of the overall project. You accomplish this by discussing every detail of the project with the people who are expected to carry it out.
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5. Develop a Shared Vision
Develop a “shared vision.” A shared vision is an ideal future picture of success that everyone buys into. How do you develop a shared vision? You sit down with the members of your team and work with them to answer the question, “What are we trying to accomplish?” You encourage everyone to contribute, to visualize and imagine the ideal outcome or desired result of the project. Once this vision is clear and shared by everybody, you move onto the development of “shared plans” to achieve the vision.
6. Shared Plans
Create “shared plans” with the members of the team. These plans are essential to successful project completion. This step requires that everyone work together to discuss and develop the plans. Plans include the step-by-step activities that will be necessary to complete the project. Everyone knows what has to be done, and even more important, everyone knows what each team member is supposed to do.