Archives for August 2014

When we went to the FMI leadership academy, on the very first day they split you into small groups of about 6 people. Each group sets out to go through a set of exercises designed to teach you different lessons about leadership. You are assigned one of the FMI staff for your group and they lead you to an area, select one of your group to be the leader, give that person some instructions and then have them lead you through an exercise.

It’s been 10 years since I attended these classes but there is one exercise in particular that I keep coming back to. This was the rope exercise.

It was an early morning, cold and fresh at 8,000 feet in the rocky mountains where FMI holds their classes. Our group arrived at a sand pit with a rope across the center. We were given a long length of rope and told: Try to pass the ends of this rope over the rope in the sand as many times as you can in 10 seconds. So, one of our team grabbed the ends of the rope and as the FMI coach hit the timer, he waved them back and forth across the rope in the sand as many times as he could. 35. Then each of us tried it. 36, 40, 42! We were getting better.

Our coach asked: “So, is that about your maximum?” And we told him, yes, to some degree. We tried a few more things but in the end our best number was 45.

So then our coach asked us: “So, your best is 45. What if I told you that the record for this exercise is 2,500?” We just looked at him. There was no way we were getting to 2,500 the way we were doing the exercise. So we started thinking and one person asked: “What do you mean by the ‘ends of the rope’?” “What do you think I mean” came the reply. So, we coiled the rope back and forth to create a bunch of ends. Now, when we passed it over the rope in the sand we were making excellent progress. I think we ended up at about 2,000 when we finished.

Einstein once said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”. In a lot of cases in life, we use incremental thinking. So for instance, we might want to improve how long it takes to enter the timecards in our office (this is a real life example from my office). The first thing we think of is trying to make the timecards more legible, making the data entry program have less clicks, etc… So this is incremental thinking. Not changing our thinking but just looking at what we are doing and doing it better. In our rope exercise, this might get you from 40 to 45. But what if I told you that some companies (like ours) don’t have to enter timecards at all? Now you have to use different thinking. You aren’t trying to go from 40 to 45, but from 40 to 2,500. Now what? You start looking at the problem differently.

This, to me, is a revolutionary thought. I come back to this idea time and time again. It has helped us to change our thinking many times and since our entire leadership team went through the same training, it is something that everyone identifies with. We will be looking at a problem and someone will say: “Hey, this is like the rope exercise” and suddenly we all start looking at the problem from a different perspective.

Hope this gives you some food for thought. Have a great week!

In today’s world, email has become ubiquitous.  When I walk by most people’s offices, invariably they are at their desk looking at their Microsoft Outlook Inbox. I have a few thoughts on email and thought I would share them.

If you’ve read my previous posts, you know that I went paperless over a year ago.  So, I am not a luddite.  I definitely embrace technology and all the possibilities it provides.  But personally, email is one of my least favorite forms of communication.  In fact, in order to increase my effectiveness, I have worked hard at eliminating email from my day.

The main reason is that I find that email can be very efficient, but rarely effective.  I’ll give you an example.  Let’s say you come in early one day to tackle a bunch of items from your “to do” list.  You roll through each item and send out an email for each item to get that item completed.  Some items might be directing someone to do something, some items might be asking for additional clarification, some items might be answering a question.  An hour later, you feel great.  You nocked off 25 items!  But did you really?  What do you think will happen by that afternoon.  Invariably, you will receive emails back on about 20 of the items asking for additional information, more clarification or something else.  All you really did was start an email string, not complete the process.

I find that a short conversation trumps email every time.  It allows the other person to hear your tone, it allows the other person to ask clarifying questions and it allows you to make sure they understood and also get commitments on when the item will be completed.  I like using my drive time to make phone calls as it makes me more productive.  If I can’t stop by their office then a phone call would be my second choice.  If you are working with a team, setting up a short 1/2 hour each week to talk can almost eliminate the email strings that will develop otherwise.

If you find you get a lot of emails every day, take a moment and look at how many you are sending.  There is a cause and effect relationship here.  If you stop sending emails, you will at least eliminate all the follow-up emails that the original email begins.

I also let my team know my communication preferences.  For a quick note, send a text.  “I’ll be late for the meeting” or “Can you stop by my office” are quick notes that work well.  For anything of importance, stop by my office or call. If you email me, I’m going to assume there is no urgency to the content.  I only check email a couple of times a day and I rarely will answer an email anyway.  If it requires a response I will typically call or stop by their office.  This has made email a less effective tool for my team so they now limit their emails and call or come see me instead.

If you find yourself drowning in email, maybe try a couple of these suggestions.  Limiting your outgoing email will be the fastest way to limit your incoming email.  Meeting consistently with your customers, vendors or team will also reduce the number of emails that need a response.  Hopefully these ideas help.