Post from Transformation Tom- Lead the Parade: Chapter from “The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas”

November 6, 2018 / tomdowd / News

In the early 1990s when the word “clueless” was popular and I was in my early days on the phones talking with customers, a peer of mine looked over at another teammate of ours and said, “Some people lead the parade, some people watch the parade, and some people don’t even know there is a parade going on.” His reference for this peer was the latter. He was saying the person was “clueless” in a descriptive manner, but he was right. The person came to work each day and many times we wouldn’t have been surprised if he didn’t know what day it was. He was in a constant fog and seemed to let the world around pass him by. It was hard to describe, but the fog was not about attention to detail or intelligence. He seemed to come to work, do his job to the minimum (not coast, because that actually takes effort to slow down), and went home. Sometimes, I wondered if he even remembered coming to work after he left. His cluelessness could only be accurately described as not even knowing a parade was going on.

I imagine in most corporate and professional settings, your colleagues, your management, and your customers depend on you to do your job well. However, it can be more than doing well at your own job. You can be the leader of the parade. Be a leader strong enough to motivate more people to get in the parade—regardless of your position in the company. You are surrounded by people who may be coasting along professionally hoping to do no more than the minimum. You have an opportunity to maximize your own performance and the performance of others.

You can assist in leading the company by staying informed about your business, and sharing what you learn with the people around you. You can read and watch the news about industry updates, and overall national and global events. You should also stay informed with internal company news when it is available, to give you a good idea of what is going on in your surroundings. These surroundings are not just physical space; you should also be keeping up with current events, business relationships, organizational changes, personalities, styles, idea generation methodologies, meeting preferences, and routines.

You can be part of the parade by asking questions and being curious. You can take the lead by sharing the information you’ve gained with others. The information is great for your own learning and development. You become a leader when you share your own development with others and allow the information to keep on giving. You can share stories via email, or talk about interesting business information during downtimes rather than discussing the most recent sitcom or sports. These types of conversations can spur new ideas for your business. You can also add to the conversation by sharing your best practices. You might call this, “Have a clue, get a clue, and share the clue.”

I have been involved in many meetings, especially conference calls, in which people were obviously not engaged. The disengaged population is often multitasking. Besides the people who readily admit they are multitasking (you would be surprised at the number of people who come right out and tell me), there are the people who don’t say a word during the entire meeting, other than to say hello in the beginning and goodbye at the end. The multitaskers also are the obvious ones who say, “Huh?” or “Can you please repeat the question,” when they hear their name directly. Some are bold enough to say, “Johnny and I were just instant messaging and I didn’t catch all of that.”

Ryan Buxton cited in 2009 a new study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that found that multitasking may do more harm than good. The article states, “Multitaskers are more susceptible to memory interference by irrelevant details, according to the study.” The effort to move from one topic to another and the exertion required to return where you were impacts the true retention of information gathering for multitaskers. I won’t be a hypocrite and say that I have never done it. However, since I’ve limited my multitasking, I have found myself asking what just happened in a meeting much less than I had in the past. I will say that my concentration level and my engagement has grown substantially since I made a concerted effort to concentrate on one task, one meeting, and one conversation at a time. I became more knowledgeable about what was going on and could react and take action in the conversation. Much of my success can be attributed to my effort to reduce my multitasking. I found myself taking more of a leadership role in many phone calls than I previously would have as an inactive listener.

We all have the opportunity to step up and lead the parade at times when there are stale or unproductive meetings. Although it may be difficult at first, try to professionally disregard hierarchies during the times when no one is stepping up. What I mean by this is that leaders are born during a crisis, or when there is no clear roadmap to get there. Be proactive by creating the roadmap and developing solutions yourself if they are not clearly in front of you. In a meeting, this doesn’t mean just taking over or dominating it. It means assisting with the meeting facilitation in order to achieve the purpose of that meeting. In some cases, the purpose itself is unclear. Start with questions of the audience pertaining to what they want to accomplish and massage that information until you find a clear direction. You can also lead by turning meetings into brainstorming sessions, in which you can ask open-ended questions and facilitate dialogue, as needed. Don’t wait for someone else to do it—everybody’s time is valuable and you are simply looking for that value.

If you are not leading the discussion, you can at least take an active interest in a meeting and be ready to answer questions, assist the dialogue, and offer ideas or suggestions. You are already invited to the meeting; you might as well make it productive. If you feel the meeting is not worth it or is unproductive, particularly if it is part of a long-standing series, speak up. There may be other people in the room or on the phone who feel the same way. I realize that this is easy to say, and tough to do. However, try it and you will start to gain a comfort level and see the true impact you can have. Your fellow employees will see that you are only looking out for everyone’s precious time, and this should increase their respect for your courage.

We have all most likely worked at one time or another with people who were constantly late for or missed meetings, lost track of time, derailed conversations to fulfill their self-interests, waffled at decision time, or never made a decision. All of these situations and personalities can cause frustration, confusion, and relationship tension that grows over time. However, many times, these are just the people who don’t know that the parade is going on around them and can’t even hear the band playing. Next time you are in a meeting or on a conference call with several people, look around and actively listen. Ask yourself, “Who is leading the parade, who is in the parade, and who doesn’t even know a parade is going on?” Then, choose to be one of the few to lead the parade.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com. Book, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only) purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

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Post from Transformation Tom- Build a Network: Chapter from “The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas”

October 27, 2018 / tomdowd / News

Brian Uzzi and Shannon Dunlap tell an introductory story in their study in the Harvard Business Review article, “How to Build a Network,” about the well known Paul Revere as an historic figure in America. They then ask the question about the reader’s familiarity with William Dawes. Apparently, he and Paul Revere rode from Boston on April 18, 1775, in separate directions with the same goal of letting everyone know about the beginning of the Revolutionary War. I say apparently because I had no idea who William Dawes was. The point the authors were making was how much more effective Paul Revere was in his networking ability.

Our society and culture have a great willingness to socially network through Facebook, LinkedIn, texting, and many other means. We have exponential links to good friends and colleagues, and are even willing to connect with many people we barely know—and in many cases people we don’t know at all. However, social networking has evolved into its own culture and comfort level for people of all ages. When it comes to networking within your own company, I have found an uncomfortable hesitation among the employee base. We are willing to socially network with virtually millions, but we do not go beyond our own boss or our boss’s boss when it could help our career immensely.

When discussing and presenting networking, I often ask how many are in mentor relationships. I usually get a decent response. When I ask the question, “How many of you have met with your mentor within the last month?” most hands go down. I think we feel the comfort of saying we have mentors, but many of these relationships quickly become inactive or dormant. We should maximize all mentor relationships as a networking springboard. Specifically, we should not only be gleaning advice and learning during these sessions, but we should always be asking questions, such as, “Who do you think I can meet with to learn about (fill in any subject here)?” and, “Do you think (fill in leader’s name) knows who I am?” If you have a mentor, make it an active relationship and use it to build your network. Why can’t we use the same tenacity for professional networking that we might with social networking?

I am not naïve enough to think that company employees do not sit around the water coolers and conference tables talking about people. Much of this conversation is comparing one person to another. Whether the judgments are performance-based, potential-based, or skills-based, these conversations are happening daily all around us. This comment is not to make you paranoid about interacting with others or about being yourself. The comment is to make you realize that each day presents an opportunity for you to promote yourself in the eyes of the people making decisions. It does not mean doing cartwheels up and down the aisles to get someone’s attention, but it should cause you to realize that you have a professional obligation to represent the company well, and also present yourself in a way in which you can be recognized and grow. First impressions are lasting. Lasting impressions may be all someone has when your name comes up in a conversation. The key message is to take a proactive approach to building your network and making others aware of what you have to offer.

During one of my mid-year conversations, my manager told me about a conversation that had taken place around a conference table when names were being discussed for future positions. She asked me, “How many of the fifteen leaders around the table did you know?” I thought I did well when I said I knew about twelve of them. She said, “That leaves three leaders you don’t know.” She then asked, “Of the twelve people you do know, do you truly know them, do you know of them, or do you just know their names?” I said I truly knew maybe half of them. Therefore, my revised number was six out of fifteen people who could adequately make decisions about my future. She said I had work to do.

We continued the conversation. She reversed the questions and asked, “How many around the table know you well enough to speak intelligently about you and what you’ve accomplished?” The number was embarrassingly low. She emphasized a point I already knew: I had work to do. I instantly built time into my calendar to meet with a senior leader once a month. Every time I have done this, I ask who else I should talk to, and every time I seem to get at least three more names. My list is long, but the effort is worth it and has been extremely beneficial in my growth. I received more calls from senior leaders in the first year of doing this than I had in the previous nineteen years.

My boss shared this story because she was almost burned. Her mentor was in on one of those conversations about future moves and my boss’s name came up. When her name was mentioned, her immediate manager said nothing. An extremely bright and talented individual was about to have her moment in the sun dismissed either because the manager did not like her, was in a bad mood, was intimidated by her own peers, did not hear the question, or simply just because. We can continue with the excuses all day long, but the point is that none of us can leave all of our eggs in our manager’s basket, even if we have the highest regard for that manager. The mentor stepped in and sang her praises. Do you know what your manager would say about you if he or she had a chance? Are you sure? If you do not know that answer, or you are not sure, get to know the answer. There should be no surprises (good or bad). Communicate with your manager…often. What if your manager called out sick that day? Make sure he or she is talking with others about you, too. It is all right to ask this question if you have built a strong relationship.

You need to set the tone for yourself on these types of settings to significantly increase the control of your own career. Most people are not doing enough to network because they are unsure of the value or definition. Networking is not “kissing up,” as some people like to put it. Networking is not even intentional job searching. Networking allows you to understand how to better maneuver through the complexity of the business and the culture by improving partnerships, building bridges, finding integration points, and sharing best practices. Additionally, networking is making you stronger in the eyes of the decision-makers and leaders. Unfortunately, all of this takes time and energy. I have found that people begin this trek only after they see a potential job opening arise. By this time, it is often too late.

When I started my first job in which I had no one reporting to me, I enjoyed the freedom of being on my own—until I realized that I had limited power to influence unless I networked and built partnerships. My job was the task force to assess employee attrition. I had no choice but to see the value of networking to achieve my goals to retain more people. I had to hit the circuit and speak to as many managers and frontline people as possible to ensure that I understood their opinions and feelings. Networking was beginning to get fun. There were points of views I would have never come up with on my own. I needed networking, and together with the management team, business partners, and frontline associates in other areas of the company, we were making a collective dent in reducing people voluntarily leaving our company.

So, after you come to the realization that networking is beneficial, the natural question is, “How do you start a conversation with someone you don’t know? They’re going to think I am crazy. How do I start?” The answer is simple. Be honest and straightforward. Explain what goal you want to accomplish in the meeting. The person you want to network with should understand if your goal is to learn a different part of the business, to meet someone new, to job shadow, or to job search. The reasons may vary, and all are good for your growth. The constant, however, is always coming back to building an exponentially expanding network—make sure this is clearly stated to the person with whom you are meeting. Networking, if done right, can and should work for you after the meeting has ended.

Two things made the difference for me when I first started networking. The first two people I spoke with told me to contact them in a few months to give them progress reports. I didn’t believe them or think it was a real request. When that incredible but nagging boss of mine asked if I had followed up with them yet, I said that I had not. I called them both later that week and found out they had truly meant it. When I did it, one of them said, “You made my day,” while the other said that he was excited about my progress and had already heard about some of my successes. The second thing that made a difference for me was when I thanked one of the people I networked with for his time and told him how much I had learned. He stopped me and said “thank you” to me for investing time with them. He told me that he got just as excited about meeting someone new and adding them to his contact list. In addition, he told me how excited he was to share his business story with others. One of my first network contacts said to this person, “You should talk to Tom at some point. I think he may have something to offer to you.” He said, “I already did, and I hired him.” I was not shopping for a job.

I now understand that the nature of one person talking to another is really one person talking to many others. It is funny how things work when you are proactive and assertive, and even push yourself outside your comfort level just a little bit. Dots quickly get connected and people in your network connect with people outside your network to become a part of it.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

advice, anxiety, author, be different, book, break, build a network, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, communication, Communications, Confidence, control, development, Dowd, example, excuses, fear, feedback, gestures, growth, hard work, Inspiration, leadership, live, Management, Marketing, mental, Motivation, network, Networking, orator, Personal, personal growth, personality, physical, practice, preparation, prepare, present, professional advice, Professional Development, public-speaking, relax, Résumé, Résumé Writing, set an example, set exmple, smart, speaker, speaking, stage, strength, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas Dowd, tom, Tom Dowd, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, visualize success; live in the present, work hard

Post from Transformation Tom- Don’t Let People Leave Their Manager, or the Company: Chapter from “The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas”

October 27, 2018 / tomdowd / News

Compelling research shows that people most often leave their manager, not the company. I spent almost two years solely dedicated to researching the topic of employee retention. I served on a one-person task force with a mission to “fix the attrition problem” we were having in our department of over two thousand people. As a call center, high voluntary turnover is somewhat expected, but my research found far too many easy ways to keep people. I invested a significant amount of time with management in the ten different sites in which we worked at the time. The goal was to ensure that I understood the root causes, and they understood the potential countermeasures to retain their people. It was clear that some managers needed to truly understand how delicate their relationships were with the people they worked with and how easily we lost good people. As an immature manager in my earlier days, I could empathize with a lack of understanding of the criticality of a strong bond.

Sometimes, managers of the people on the front line who deal directly with customers, for example, look only at their immediate team. If someone leaves, it’s no big deal—they will get someone new and move on. Outside of the investment expense and effort to retrain, however, we are at risk of losing the knowledge a person leaving had, and, worse, are allowing many of these great people to potentially move on to a competitor.

According to Leigh Branham in the book The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, she writes, “89% of managers said they believe that employees leave and stay mostly for the money. Yet, my own research, along with Saratoga Institute’s surveys of almost 20,000 workers… and the research of dozens of other studies, reveal that actually, 80 to 90 percent of employees leave for reasons related NOT to money, but to the job, the manager, the culture, or the work environment.” Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans stated in the book, Love ’Em or Lose ’Em that, “A 25-year-long Gallup Organization study based on interviews with 12-million workers at 7,000 companies also found that the relationship with a manager largely determines the length of an employee’s stay.” Both references clearly indicate how much impact a manager has on retaining an employee.

During my research, I found that employees typically don’t leave over an event, but add up multiple “little” events prior to making the decision to go. An employee may claim she left over a performance appraisal score, but it was most likely just the straw that broke the camel’s back. She was most likely formulating thoughts to leave long before that discussion. The decision to leave typically festers over time as people gradually change their thoughts of leaving into taking action. The time it takes varies from days to weeks to months and is contingent on many factors, including the economy, the presence of a reliable back-up plan, and the employee’s tolerance level with what is going on.

The employee often disengages from work responsibilities, culture, and management. This disengagement time frame will vary based on the severity of what the employee is up against, both personally and professionally. The responsibility clearly resides with the manager to identify the warning signs as far in advance as possible prior to a person making the commitment to communicate his or her intentions to leave. Once that announcement is made, it is most likely too late to save them. This is a key factor in knowing the people you work with and knowing when to intervene.

The organization has the obligation to invest the time and make the effort to save people who want to be there (and are performing or have the potential to perform). They obviously were good enough to hire, and deserve the effort. Sometimes, the person may just be in the wrong position. How many managers are willing to invest the time to find the right fit in the company? As an inexperienced leader, I remember saying, “Who needs that person anyway?” The company does. I have heartburn every time I think of the number of potential people who left the company on my account. I don’t think the number is too large, but anything more than zero is too many.

Once, a young woman said to me that she was having personal issues and needed to talk. I said that I would be glad to talk after I got back from my meeting. She said it was important, but I chose not to listen. When I got back from the meeting—which was not very important—the person quit, and I never heard from her again. She had been a consistent performer and needed someone to listen to her issues. I saw the obvious sign but did not attach the appropriate urgency to it. I’m sure a couple of minutes could have saved her.

I vowed to never let that happen again. A couple of years later, I received a message that a woman who had worked for me for a short period of time had quit without notice. She had come in to let us know and had already left. I took a chance and ran down to the Human Resources office and found she was wrapping up with them. I asked for a couple of minutes with her—a couple of minutes I could not have bothered with years earlier when I chose to ignore another pleading person. We spoke for a while. She was having personal issues at home and also felt she lacked the appropriate support at work since she was only an average performer. I knew she could perform well if she was focused. I asked her to go home and commit to coming back the next day, and we would work out a plan together. The honest and mutually direct conversation built a bond that grew as time went on. She became a consistent performer and eventually moved on to another line of business in which she became a top performer. I see her in the halls every once in a while and I burst with pride. I am proud of her staying with the company for an additional twelve years and still going. I am proud that I refused to allow my stubbornness, at the time, to allow her to leave. She was good for the company then and is great for the company now. I just didn’t know how much at the time.

Whether it is moving the person to another area, moving them to another manager, or working on building the relationship between yourself or an employee, the tough part is being attentive enough to see the signs and courageous enough to take action to save them. It is too easy to say he or she is just having a bad day and we’ll talk later or, worse, we’ll get another good person. Before you say, “Oh, well, ” you might want to first contact the people who need to invest in the recruiting to get them, the trainers who will teach them, and all of their new surrounding teammates who will invest time in bringing them up the learning curve. Make the effort to retain and save good people. The relationship between managers and employees is critical to everyone’s success.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

advice, anxiety, attrition, author, be different, book, break, build a network, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, communication, Communications, Confidence, control, development, Dowd, example, excuses, fear, feedback, gestures, growth, hard work, Inspiration, leadership, live, Management, Marketing, mental, Motivation, network, Networking, orator, Personal, personal growth, personality, physical, practice, preparation, prepare, present, professional advice, Professional Development, public-speaking, relax, Résumé, Résumé Writing, retention, set an example, set exmple, smart, speaker, speaking, stage, strength, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas Dowd, tom, Tom Dowd, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, try, visualize success; live in the present, work hard

Post from Transformation Tom- Have the Right Priorities: Chapter from “The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas”

October 21, 2018 / tomdowd / News

Ask yourself if what you are so worried about at this very moment is the highest priority? Priorities are funny things. There are differences between urgent and important matters. There are fires that have to be put out, and people are busy and stressed and have to get stuff done yesterday.

I worked with a manager peer once who was obsessed with what people were wearing to work. He was the unofficial dress code monitor. At the time, we had a dress guideline, and not necessarily a dress code. However, he managed his work environment with the unwritten code of men being required to wear ties. He kept bringing the same person into his office to address why the employee wore a sweater over his dress shirts as opposed to wearing a tie. He had this conversation many times with the same individual. The sweater guy either chose not to conform, could not afford to conform, or just didn’t understand the feedback (I doubt this was the case). The person was dressed nicely, but was not dressed the way his manager felt he needed to be. The amount of time and energy spent on monitoring what was worn and the wasted conversations could have been targeted toward higher priority issues. For example, there were employee dissatisfaction concerns and morale issues caused by being micro-managed for lower priority things. The person he was hounding was a decent performer and could have done without this type of counseling. Sweater Guy had no desire to move up from where he was and was content with coming into work every day, apparently prepared to mentally torment his manager. The irony is that the dress code changed a few years later to casual dress, including jeans. Now the person who received the feedback is overdressed compared to his colleagues.

I once had a boss who gave me a goal to recruit and hire twenty people per month for our department. I lived in a somewhat sparsely populated area and recruiting was often difficult. My team managed to hire about fifteen to eighteen highly qualified people per month and felt proud of our efforts. I realize the importance of goals and the need to exceed them. However, this particular goal was set because it was a nice round number, not because it mathematically met the business needs. Each month my pride would be crushed because I was a couple of people short.

The number twenty became my manager’s priority, and he lost his perspective relating to the quality of the hires and the impact his aggressive goal would have on stealing recruits from other departments we worked with. I had to make marginal hires to meet the number. These couple of extra hires per month met the goal but caused heartache for the trainers because of some borderline attitudes, marginal performance, and higher attrition that had to be dealt with.

As recruiters, we became overly competitive and were internally fighting to make sure we got a candidate that was breathing. The extra pressure we put on achieving our own goals soured our relationships with other recruiters and our HR partners. I wish I was strong enough at the time to set the appropriate priorities by setting the appropriate goal based on our actual business needs and capacity. I also could have stood up to my manager by presenting these facts and ensuring he noticed the teamwork needed to accomplish the goal and emphasized the quality of the people hired was first and foremost the top priority. I identified what our priorities were, but I needed to effectively communicate them to my manager.

Alternatively, one of my favorite managers was considered a leader in the industry in his field. He was bright, communicated effectively, and was clearly leading his team to many wins. He found out that his mother was dying and only had a few months to live. During those few months, I was amazed at his willingness to drop everything to ensure that her last days were happy. He flew her on a long journey to visit with family for the last time and made many visits during work hours to her home and hospital—both were over an hour away. I instantly gained more respect for his ability to realize that the job would go on without him. He made himself available for urgent matters but knew he would never get that time back with his mother. By making himself available for urgent matters but giving us a clear direction to keep the business moving, we knew he trusted us to get the job done and that he was there for us. His mother died with dignity and respect, and with the pride that she raised a great son. He had the right perspective to not just say that his family was important, but lead by example for all to see. He taught us to set the right priorities and to have the right perspective.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

adaptable, advice, anxiety, attrition, author, be different, book, break, build a network, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, communication, Communications, Confidence, control, development, Dowd, example, excuses, fear, feedback, flexible, gestures, growth, hard work, Inspiration, leadership, live, Management, Marketing, mental, Motivation, network, Networking, orator, Personal, personal growth, personality, perspective, physical, practice, preparation, prepare, present, prioirities, professional advice, Professional Development, public-speaking, relax, Résumé, Résumé Writing, retention, set an example, set exmple, smart, speaker, speaking, stage, strength, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas Dowd, tom, Tom Dowd, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, try, visualize success; live in the present, work hard

Post from Transformation Tom- Be Flexible and Adaptable: Chapter from “The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas”

October 12, 2018 / tomdowd / News

Built to Last is a book about eighteen “visionary companies.” These admired companies were recognized for their ability to “prosper over long periods of time, through multiple product life cycles and multiple generations of active leaders.” The authors, James Collins and Jerry Porras, wrote, “Indeed, all of the visionary companies in our study faced setbacks and made mistakes at some point during their lives…Yet…visionary companies display a remarkable resiliency, and ability to bounce back from adversity.” Companies that failed to exhibit flexibility may have had short-term success, but lacked sustainability. I’m sure it’s not hard to forget the dot-com era.

My father worked for Sears Roebuck & Company for over twenty-five years. I grew up with the story of the stability of a company that thrived in the retail business for many years. I remember growing up with my Christmas holidays revolving around the Sears catalog. I remember conversations with my father about the history of the catalog and how it was here to stay. I also remember how long they took to adapt to using credit cards outside their Sears card or making decisions to sell other brands besides their own. Their inability to change with the times and their insistence on sticking with tradition cost them profits and many people lost their jobs as business models changed in the 1970s and 1980s in the retail space. Their business model was caught up in tradition and lacked the flexibility to adapt with the times. Sears has since adapted in many ways, but they are in a much more competitive retail environment with the likes of Walmart, Target, and now Amazon and other online retailers everywhere.

I personally have averaged about a year and a half per position within my own company. I always wondered if people really wanted me or if they just wanted me to move away. I have come to the realization that it was a little of both, depending on where I was in my maturity, my job knowledge, and my ability to help the business. In my constant changing of positions, I always found my adaptability to be one of my strengths.

As a child growing up, my family moved out of state on eight occasions. My ability to integrate myself into a new environment grew easier over time—first in school, and then professionally. When someone recommended The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins, I was instantly hooked on the idea of how methodical Watkins’s message was with respect to what needs to be accomplished when taking on a new role. According to Watkins, it is important to “promote yourself,” “accelerate your learning,” “secure early wins,” and many other key tenets. I realized that I was forced to transition so many times in my life that I had gotten used to living in a flexible manner, but probably not in the most efficient or effective way. I liked having the reference at my fingertips, so I pinned the book description up in my office, which contains a “roadmap for creating your 90-day acceleration plan.” I refer to it often when I need a clear plan of attack in a new role or a new assignment, which has been often. I have recommended this book to everyone I have known who was taking on a new job. The message in the book is clear as to how much a company and an individual can lose if the transition to a new job fails. The book emphasizes the acceleration needed to be nimble as you begin your new adventure.

It is sad but true that people come and go in any company. In smaller companies, there may be less movement between roles and positions over time. However, people move out of town, employees retire, some quit, some are laid off, and others are unfortunately fired. Being prepared for new situations is important for anyone’s success.

As mentioned in the introduction, “Change is inevitable, growth is optional.” How you react to the employee movement—the constant movement in some cases—can make or break your ability to grow professionally. You may grow despondent because you have lost close friends, you may be frozen because there is too much work to do, and you may get tired of teaching new people what needs to be done. All of these examples are the negative approaches to change. Your personal growth comes in your ability to transform yourself to meet the challenge head-on.

As you begin to ebb and flow with the changes, you, too, will be seen as a go-to person in times of crisis and change. If you have close friends who may have left the company, you can seek out their assistance as outside mentors and seek their objective point of view. If there is too much work to do, put together the business case for more resources, find efficiency opportunities, and find effective ways to delegate and spread the work. If there is a constant influx of new hires, come up with a clear plan of action to rotate the responsibilities, tighten up the training guides, and enjoy the fresh perspective staring you in the face.

I have been through multiple jobs and managers. My former company has gone through multiple CEOs and has been through multiple acquisitions prior to me losing my job due to cost cuts. All were potentially traumatic events for me personally, and for any company as a whole. I know for a fact that I have come out stronger because of them, and because I adapted my attitude as the events were happening. I am convinced that if any of these events occurred in my first five years, I would have reacted differently, including overreacting with a negative approach. You may have heard the phrase often said in business, “If you are not moving forward, you are moving backward.” You have a choice to keep going with the flow, or stay behind. Your ability to be flexible and adaptable is critical to your success.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

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Post from Transformation Tom- Be Aware That “Nobody is Not Trying”: Chapter from “The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas”

October 1, 2018 / tomdowd / News

I actually had someone say this to me after I made a disparaging comment under my breath about someone I believed was not giving their best. I realized the passive-aggressive comment was not professional, but I felt like I had done everything I could do and the person was not listening. What I realized was that that person’s definition of working hard and my definition of working hard were different. The individual calming me down at the time slowly convinced me that no one wakes up in the morning and says, “Today, I will refuse to work hard and I will not try.” He simply said, “Nobody is not trying.”

I began to understand that discrepancy in what I wanted and what some people wanted to give. I wanted a top performer out of everyone. I needed to understand that everyone was giving their best and it was my job to work closely with the individuals to figure out what needed to be done to get them there. I felt obligated to maximize the effort and performance, and to drive greater consistency. As I learned over time, effort and performance are like opinions, and they will often differ.

Many times, the effort and performance can be sporadic in some individuals, while you watch the solid rocks of your teams perform day in and day out. If a consistent performer is struggling on that rare day, it typically becomes very obvious. As a leader, we should work with the person to understand the root cause of these short-term struggles and offer our support. Many times, there is no need to micro-manage a person like this. The attention given asking, “Are you all right,” may be enough. Providing assistance may also be as easy as letting someone work through it on their own and letting them know you are there to help, if needed. Performance managers should not allow this to be the easy way out every time. However, if you know your people well enough, you will develop a good sense of when to interject and when to just check in. The message is to ensure that you are not blanketing everyone with the same type of feedback.

You can also never go wrong with extra encouragement. It is the individual’s ability to cope and break through that may make the difference. Individuals respond to certain methods differently and how you have built the relationship is important. Please note that this does not have to be a manager-employee relationship. It can be peers we work with, in whom we have noticed a dip in performance.

The key is to understand what the root cause for the variation in performance is, and what we can do to fix it. It is important to understand as early in the given day as possible if you feel someone is not performing at his or her best. Neither of you want the whole day wasted. I have seen too many managers wait until the end of the day to say something because they didn’t notice until the end-of-day statistics came out, or felt too busy to offer a simple encouraging word or tap someone on the shoulder and let them know they were there for support. In these cases, eight hours could have gone by causing a non-productive day that must now be written off. Even if the effort was there but the performance was not, the lack of attention during those troubled times may hurt the overall team, and may cause further frustration for the person and send them into a longer slump.

If I am dealing with a person who consistently struggles, I need to better understand what motivates the person, what his or her skill set is, and change the way I am working with them. If I have gone to the same well over and over, I need to ask what I can do differently. Notice that I said what “I” can do differently. I may bark the same instructions or use the same canned motivation to drive the person. If it is not working, I need to change. Creativity is important. I can’t give up on them. I personally see it as my own failure if someone struggles with his or her performance, and it is my obligation to fix it. Early in my career, this perspective was because I thought I would be looked at negatively by upper management. As the years went on, I felt the challenge of breaking through with all performers and building each individual relationship as my own motivation.

I banged my head on the wall about a particular individual who seemed to not get it. His frustration level and constant low performance made it look like he wasn’t trying. He simply froze when speaking with customers on the phone. He said he wanted to do well, but his efforts did not exhibit this. The individual said he felt that he wasn’t getting answers to make him better and felt he lacked direction from me. I felt like I had invested far too much time with him and it was time to put my efforts elsewhere on the team. We were at an impasse. I knew I did not want to give up on him, but I felt I could not sacrifice the rest of the team for this individual. I almost did give up. I tried to get him into another department, and asked if he really wanted to be with the company.

I woke up one morning and said I was going back to basics. I decided to try a different tack. I started asking him more open ended questions. I know he mentioned that he wasn’t getting enough direction from me, but I decided to provide him with even less. I needed his buy-in. I asked what he thought his issues were by asking him simpler questions. I had previously been too targeted with my questions, many of which were assumptive in nature. I assumed I knew the issue and thought I was providing remedies to my self-diagnosed symptoms. What I failed to accomplish was getting to the real root causes.

I began to ask if the struggles were in the phone conversations themselves. Was it the selling to our customers? Was it the computer system? I knew he may not be able to put his finger on it, but I could act as a detective to diagnose where to start—but only after I had his buy-in to be part of the solution.

It is easy to have the poor performer sit next to other top performers and say, “Do what I do.” People learn at different paces and in different ways. Some like classroom learning, others like visual stimulation, while many just like to be thrown in and just start doing it themselves. We can’t blanketly teach each person the same way. In that case, the two of us began to rearrange how the computer system looked on the screen. We put certain applications in the front that he seemed to reference more often and placed other applications in the background that he didn’t use as much but could get to quickly, if needed.

We both had an immediate epiphany. He had been overwhelmed with his own system set-up. His frustration translated into mincing words with customers because he was worried about where to go next on the screen. This impacted his ability to sell the most suitable products to meet the customers’ needs. This simple change in his screen set-up created an almost immediate superstar top performer. His confidence level climbed and he significantly exceeded his performance expectations. He was making a difference on the team and was quickly becoming a leader. He came from the verge of elimination to the top of the podium.

Each individual is unique and needs to be driven, inspired, and motivated differently. Each person’s ability to try and succeed also varies and needs to be understood at an individual level. If you think someone is “not trying,” take a different, creative approach. We need to be patient when someone is not performing, since some people break out of it more easily than others. I am now convinced that most people can do it with the right coaching, leadership, and support. I have learned that I can’t offer solutions until I can identify and fix the symptoms first. I realized I had to try to understand the cause first. The person may be having personal issues or may not be feeling well, but I am confident that he or she did not wake up and say, “Today I’m going to intentionally have a bad day.”

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

Post from Transformation Tom- Step Away and Clear Your Head: Chapter from “The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas”

September 25, 2018 / tomdowd / News

If something is not working, you are having a mental block, or you are getting frustrated with a situation, step away and clear your head. Your ability to mentally get through these types of challenging times is an important skill. Part of the mastery of this skill is to know when to give yourself a break to refresh that fragile mental state. Even in times of high intensity and urgency, the ability to take a step back and refocus on the situation is important. You can choose to spin your wheels or take a breath.

How long you step away is up to you based on the immediacy of what is going on around you at the time. Even a minute to push your chair back and not look at your computer could be beneficial during crucial times. If you can afford it, take a couple of minutes to get some water, or even better, if timed right, get up to take a lunch break. It doesn’t mean walking away from an important meeting or confrontation, unless it makes sense. You need to make an individual assessment of the situation prior to doing this. However, stepping away to clear the head is invested time that allows you to then come back with new energy and focus.

When you do choose to do it, you are not walking away from the problem. You are walking away for an answer and for a fresh perspective. Walking away can help soften some of the stress and create enough of a change in atmosphere to get the juices flowing again or calm you down from major frustration. I have had many days during which I drank a lot of water or twisted the chair around. There are other days when I have had to stick my tongue out at the computer, have a quick laugh at how immature I just was, and move on with the day.

We all need to take ourselves out of the root cause of a problem or frustration and understand the rejuvenation factor. What you choose to do to break free for that moment can be anything. If you can afford the luxury to read the news, listen to music, take a walk, or even go for a run, it is important to cause a significant enough disruption to your spinning wheels.

The break is important. I have found myself staring at a presentation and getting stuck on a particular page with writer’s block. I have tried to force my way through it by trying to find the next magical words. The inability to think clearly always seemed to get worse as I tried harder. If I just consistently make an effort to recognize that walking away is an important part of the process, I am much better off.

Make it a habit to break up a day of meetings or calls, or just go outside for the fresh air. If possible, try to find a regular time in your work day to schedule time away from the office, or at least step away from your desk. I actually put it on my calendar to take a lunch or break. Whenever possible, I personally like to go for a run and break up the day. I am convinced that since I started doing this I have been more productive and have had more creativity in my day. I am not sluggish at the end of the day. I knew going running on many days would add extra time. However, the increased productivity and satisfaction level actually cut significantly into that extended time. I was getting more done in the same amount of time. I know the concept of stepping away is counterintuitive to the notion of putting our noses to the grindstone, but it is worth it.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

advice, anxiety, author, be different, book, break, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, communication, Communications, Confidence, control, development, Dowd, example, excuses, fear, feedback, gestures, growth, hard work, Inspiration, leadership, live, Management, Marketing, mental, Motivation, Networking, orator, Personal, personal growth, personality, physical, practice, preparation, prepare, present, professional advice, Professional Development, public-speaking, relax, Résumé, Résumé Writing, set an example, set exmple, smart, speaker, speaking, stage, strength, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas Dowd, tom, Tom Dowd, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, visualize success; live in the present, work hard

Post from Transformation Tom- Open the Gift of Feedback: Chapter from “The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas”

September 11, 2018 / tomdowd / News

I loved feedback when it emphasized my strengths. I listened to opportunities I needed to work on. However, I never proactively sought out the feedback that would make me better, nor did I spend a lot of time after it was given taking action based on that feedback. I either felt the feedback wasn’t valuable or I felt I didn’t need it. In many cases, even if it was valuable, I typically fell back into old habits and waited until the next performance appraisal to hear something similar.

As previously stated, I typically hit the statistical performance expectations, so I rarely invested the appropriate amount of time or effort into making a difference for myself. The irony is that the same feedback given to me caused a lot of my frustration. I felt that the management providing me the feedback must have been part of a conspiracy if different people wrote similar feedback about me. I just didn’t get it. I now tell people that feedback is not about agreeing or disagreeing with what they’ve heard, it is about doing something with it. Whether or not it has validity, at that point in time someone deemed it worth mentioning, therefore something needs to be done about it.

Feedback is considered negative in most people’s eyes. It is human nature to defend ourselves or feel that others are simply being judgmental. Feedback is a process designed to make us better. Your reaction to the process, and the feedback itself, is what will make us stronger. With addictive behavior, it is often said that admission is half the battle. Your ability to admit that you are not perfect is your first step towards being more open to feedback. Your strength will show when you are able to recognize the validity of that feedback and be accountable enough to do something about it. We should all take action on the constructive opinions designed to make us stronger. Someone invested the time and had the courage to provide it, and therefore we should do something about it. The key is to understand that we need to move away from the feeling that it is all negative and just grasp hold of the nuggets of wisdom sitting on our doorstep.

Do we need to implement every bit of feedback presented to us? No. However, we need to seriously listen to it and consider it. Again, it is not a matter of whether we agree or not, it is a matter that someone somewhere perceives something about you that needs to be addressed. It is worth the investment to pay attention to this gift.

As we open ourselves up to being more accepting of feedback, we should also go on the offensive. We should be proactive about asking for it and not wait for a prescribed time or place. Who said you had to wait until your year-end review to make yourself better? If you are even luckier and work with a company in which you are having monthly conversations, you should consider yourself blessed.

We should take advantage of every feedback opportunity and never let it go by without actively asking what we can do to be better. Once you get comfortable with asking, you will start to gain the trust needed to expand the feedback process, thus allowing more sincerity and depth to the overall conversation. That depth, in turn, makes each subsequent conversation more impactful. The proactive approach may surprise some of the people you work with early on, but it will eventually allow you to build a bond. In time, you will find that more people become open to it. Try to imagine that every day is a holiday with the free-for-all feedback right there for the taking.

I rarely have meetings with people I directly work with without asking what I can do for them and what I can do differently. I now thirst for feedback and gain respect from anyone who is willing to stop and provide it to me.

I am an active provider of unsolicited, balanced feedback. I know that I had hesitation as to my own receptiveness to feedback early on. I also realize that many of my colleagues are not in the habit of asking for feedback, especially if they do not work directly for me. I do what I can to position my coaching in a way that they are an active part of the process or can easily buy in to it. It’s important to not let a coachable moment go, since it is a gift.

We sometimes rely on the formality of our specific manager or a specific time of the year to receive an evaluation of our performances. What we need to do is give people feedback whenever it is relevant, regardless of who reports to whom, and give it when it is still fresh in all of our minds. Immediacy is often lost otherwise, which impacts the benefit. As the one providing the feedback, I work to ensure that I am balanced in my approach, and that I gauge how the person may react, but to still make it a point to provide it as soon as realistically possible. The key is to provide non-biased critical feedback that will make an individual stronger. I have actually gained many mentors by providing this type of teaching feedback. The responses I have received have been along the lines of, “I wish someone said that to me earlier in my career,” or, “Thanks for telling me something I thought I didn’t want to hear.”

Whether you are the giver or the receiver, be honest and be direct (with a filter, if needed). I am not a big fan of the sandwich type of feedback by stating something positive, something that needs to be improved, and something positive again. The prescribed approach is too predictable and often comes across as insincere. If you are honest and forthright, you will build trust, respect, and credibility. To maximize the feedback process, make sure you attack the informal feedback channels to gather information. You can speak to your peers, as well as people that work for you and people for whom you work. In addition, you can talk with business partners whose paths you may cross but to whom you are not directly linked. The third-party, objective point of view is always valuable insight. Just be open to looking for it and doing something with it. Whether feedback is from up, down, or around, it is a gift.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

advice, anxiety, author, be different, book, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, communication, Communications, Confidence, control, development, Dowd, example, excuses, fear, feedback, gestures, growth, hard work, Inspiration, leadership, live, Management, Marketing, mental, Motivation, Networking, orator, Personal, personal growth, personality, physical, practice, preparation, prepare, present, professional advice, Professional Development, public-speaking, relax, Résumé, Résumé Writing, set an example, set exmple, smart, speaker, speaking, stage, strength, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas Dowd, tom, Tom Dowd, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, visualize success; live in the present, work hard

Post from Transformation Tom- Let Your Music Out: Chapter from “The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas”

September 4, 2018 / tomdowd / News

How often have you said one of the following: “I wish I could learn more about a different part of the business,” or, “I wish I could learn to lead like the person down the hall,” or, “I wish I could communicate more effectively,” or, “I wish I could do something I have always dreamed of doing?” We often wish we could do more of something or start to do something we’ve always wanted to do. We may say that we do not have the time, the resources, or the drive to make it happen. We may say we have other obligations and priorities. What we don’t have is the drive or commitment to take that one step it requires to face our “wish” head-on and make it a reality. We still have the music in us.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.” I say, “Or you can be hit by a bus tomorrow.” It’s time we let the music out, now.

Many of you have heard about the sad story of the Orlando Florida Sea World trainer, Dawn Brancheau who was drowned tragically by a killer whale in February of 2010. There has been controversy over the event. I will not go into the debate about animal training and the event itself. However, one thing is clear from the many pictures of her smiling with the orca whales. She loved what she was doing and died doing what she wanted to do. Her music was being played every day she was with those beautiful animals.

On a personal note, I learned the first twelve notes from the song “The Rose” by Bette Midler when I was about ten years old in school during music class. I have never forgotten how to play it. I never learned to play an instrument or even to read music growing up. However, for more than thirty years, I played these same notes on every piano I walked past. I have been an admirer of Elton John’s and Billy Joel’s music for as long as I can remember and I love the sound a piano makes, but I never learned to play. At the age of thirty-eight, I got a call from my in-laws, who were eight hours into their twelve-hour trip to see us. I was told to get some help because they had a trailer with their old upright piano on it. What a nice surprise. We had hoped to get their piano when they got a new one, but could never come up with the right timing or means to move it from Maryland to Maine.

The next day, slightly sore, I began to “let the music out,” literally in this case. I started with my wife’s piano books, which I found in the piano bench from when she was eight years old. I began the journey to learn to read music and play the piano. I had my first informal recital in front of a close group of friends four months later on New Year’s Eve. I do not claim to be great, but I do claim that I really enjoy playing. I also claim to be doing something I’ve always wanted to do. My three beautiful children decided they also wanted to learn to play. A couple of them stopped after a few years of lessons, but only to pursue other interests to let out their own music. I chuckle to myself when the two who are no longer playing walk by the piano and play a few notes of a song they learned. It’s funny how you let out your own music and you start to influence people around you.

I share this personal story because it carried over into my professional work. I have found commonalities with people I never knew played instruments, and have come to work humming tunes I was playing the night before. My increase in personal satisfaction has bled into the professional work as I started each new day.

On the professional side, I felt I had things bottled up inside me. I knew I needed to communicate more effectively if I wanted to move forward with my career. I joined Toastmasters. Toastmasters gave me the platform to significantly increase my confidence as well as the ability to think more quickly on my feet, and to tell my stories with more personality. Toastmasters encouraged me to strive to go farther in the organization through communication and leadership certification. They walked me head-on into the competitive world of speaking. Over the years, that has opened so many doors that I feel my own music had just begun to play. This book would not be possible if I had not won a door prize at one of the Toastmaster International conferences. I won a CD and a book from a professional speaker who was present at the conference. I decided the next week after reading the book and listening to the CD that I wanted to do what he had done. I had always had these crazy ideas running in my head about wanting to write a book. I had work to do, but I wanted to let the music out.

We may not even know what music we want to play yet. We “don’t know what we don’t know,” and thus may need to continue to search for our own music. When something gets your attention and you say, “I wish…” you should stop and ask if it is something you should pursue. You might surprise yourself by taking the first step.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

advice, anxiety, author, be different, book, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, communication, Communications, Confidence, control, development, Dowd, example, excuses, fear, gestures, growth, hard work, Inspiration, leadership, live, Management, Marketing, mental, Motivation, Networking, orator, Personal, personal growth, personality, physical, practice, preparation, prepare, present, professional advice, Professional Development, public-speaking, relax, Résumé, Résumé Writing, set an example, set exmple, smart, speaker, speaking, stage, strength, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas Dowd, tom, Tom Dowd, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, visualize success; live in the present, work hard

Post from Transformation Tom- Work Smarter, Not Harder: Chapter from “The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas”

August 27, 2018 / tomdowd / News

I have known too many people who work far too many unproductive, long hours. They cause stress for themselves while running in circles to get their jobs done. Working more hours and adding more effort does not always complete the task you are attempting. I have found that when I am running on a treadmill harder, it does not get me to the destination any sooner. As I have worked harder, I have often lost my ability to think with a level head and I start to build up that feeling of self-induced pressure, pushing me to work even harder.

We may think that working harder means putting on the blinders and looking straight ahead to get to the finish line. We also think this means we need to work faster and put in more hours to get more done. When the feeling of control continues to get lost, you may feel the need to work even harder as the pressure grows more intense to meet approaching deadlines and get to that finish line. The feeling you have in the pit of your stomach may tell you to dig deeper and get more intense. I suggest the counterintuitive advice of stopping what you are doing at the moment and regrouping. I recommend trying to understand the goal or the task you are trying to accomplish. Are you trying for quantity or quality, or both? Are you trying to meet a deadline, or just trying to get through your emails? Who is putting the line in the sand? Is it your boss or personal pressure you are putting yourself under?

Taking the time to stop and understand the true purpose of your mission and task is time well invested, which will assist you in coming up with a game plan and pointing you in the right direction. You need to incorporate what should be considered a lower priority and push that to the side for now, or delegate those tasks while you accomplish the most pressing task. These first steps are critical in order to see what is on the horizon. The ability to stop what you are doing to outline the next steps will save you time and effort in the long run. It is possibly the hardest thing for go-getters to do because we have been programmed to constantly be going a million miles per minute.

I personally like to maintain and reference things I have worked on in the past. I pride myself in organizing my working files (paper and virtual) for easy access and reference. Far too many people waste time reinventing the wheel. Are you always scrambling to put together a last-minute presentation? I have base slides that I constantly keep updated and put together. There are few times that I can just copy the slides in without making modifications, but it always gives me a starting point to get past the writer’s block stage. It is also not plagiarism if you are copying from yourself and your team (as long as you have permission and are giving proper credit). The ability to have a solid foundation to work from actually gives you time to dedicate to the creative process (e.g., brainstorming, team discussions). You might be surprised that your end product looks nothing like the original, but that jumpstart puts it in motion. I have been around many hard-working and smart people who have already put the effort into creating reference materials that can, and should, be used more than once when it makes sense. Using their materials is the sincerest form of flattery. The key is to keep it organized and updated, and know where to go to get off to a quick start.

There are certain times when there is a legitimate need to put in more hours to complete a job. You must ask yourself, is it necessary each day and each week? Do you find yourself constantly putting out fires and not being able to manage your calendar because of it? If this is the case, you should complete a self-assessment around what kinds of fires you are constantly putting out and what commonalities there are.

For example, at the end of every month is your manager asking for the same types of reports or summaries? The first couple of months may still be fire drills, but the rest should be routine. You should do what you can to build routines that minimize the unexpected.

In your preparation for the unexpected, you should categorize and target your efforts so that when you are under pressure, you know how to utilize your resources. For example, can you never find a phone number? If this is the case, make sure your phone directory is always updated. A few years ago, when we used to do more paper filing, I had a manager who tried to hide her files from me in a large drawer. When I asked her why she just didn’t file them immediately when she was ready to put them away, she said it would take too long. Looking at her pile, it was true, but if she had done it right away it would not have been an issue. I realize these examples are over-simplified, but that is the point. The simple actions of doing things right away are often our biggest timesavers.

Don’t let the simple tasks be your time constrainers. If you are not good at remembering to keep your directory updated, place a recurring appointment in your calendar as a reminder, delegate it to someone who can, or know where to get it from someone else. You can be creative in your simplicity, just make sure it gets done. Do not allow the small tasks to add up to a point where they are causing the frustration, or make you work harder than you need to.

Can you never find the notes you took from that meeting last week? Centralize them. Whether your notes are handwritten or done online, have an organized place to go back to them—you can have paper files, online folders, or scanned objects. It is not possible to remember every conversation you had. However, if you took notes, it was obviously important enough for you to jot it down. The key message here is to know where to go to get it. Do not dump it into a generic folder or stack in the inbox. To state the obvious, if it is related to something from Human Resources (HR), create a folder for HR. Your filing and organizational techniques will never be the same as anyone else’s. That’s all right as long as you know where to find things. I have seen too many “Miscellaneous” folders that only cause more hard work in the effort to find something that can be so easy to reference with a small investment of time.

Finally, set aside specific times to get to your routine tasks, such as reading your emails. You should set aside specified time to do this every day as opposed to managing them throughout the day while you are multitasking. Although some multitasking is necessary and can be done productively in today’s busy world, such as eliminating junk emails during a conference call, attempts to run your entire day doing multiple things at once is not working smart.

If you are attempting to read critical email details during a conference call, you are not truly listening to what the other person is saying. In reality, you are not even multitasking since you are sacrificing one of the tasks. You are simply taking up a phone line while reading emails. I am being realistic and want to make sure we all have the appropriate prioritization and dedication to the task. Remember, it is not about just getting the job done, it is about getting the job done right. You may create more work than expected if you give a half answer to a conversation you were only half paying attention to, or erroneously respond to an email without reading all the way to the bottom. I know we have been told to do more with less and to keep our noses to the grindstone. I get it. Just be smart about it.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

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