Category Archives: Perform Better

Busy vs lazy (freedom?)

I am lazy. My parents would point this out to me when I was growing up.  What that really meant I was doing what I wanted to do, not what they wanted me to be doing. In my head, I would be thinking “Can’t I just be left alone?”  I like lazy. I like not having things to do, places to go, people to see. I love empty spots of time, where I can choose what I want to do because I want to do it.  Because being lazy to me, means being able to be a kid again: to not have people scheduling meetings on my calendar (curses to Outlook), asking to do something, see something, say something.

Sometimes I just want to be on my own. Like when you’re a kid, waking up on a Saturday with the whole day ahead of you. Or when you go to college, and realize you can do whatever you want on the weekend, other than study. Or when you’re on a plane, and people can’t reach you so it’s ok to watch 5 movies in a row. Or when a meeting is cancelled, and you realize you just got time back.

Supposedly, the opposite of being busy is being lazy. I would say the opposite of being busy is having freedom.  This article gives great perspective on the perils of being busy.

Life After Work

Thought this was a great article. Erin Callen was one of those women that got a lot of press: she was the CFO of Lehman Brothers. She was smart, beautiful, and had a C level job.  Then 2008 hit. Read her article in the NY Times here.

I love her comment: “Sometimes young women tell me they admire what I’ve done. As they see it, I worked hard for 20 years and can now spend the next 20 focused on other things. But that is not balance. I do not wish that for anyone. Even at the best times in my career, I was never deluded into thinking I had achieved any sort of rational allocation between my life at work and my life outside. ”

It’s easy to think that women in senior positions have it all. But as you can see from her article, she only has it all now.

23. Always take the tough assignment.

Remember in school when you had easy teachers and hard teachers? The easy teachers didn’t really push you, everyone got a good grade. The hard teachers were the ones who gave you a tough work load, kept you on your toes, had you try harder.

When I was a freshman, I was taking a history class and submitted my first paper. When I got it back, it was a C-. Now, it had been a long time since I had gotten a grade that low. I was convinced that my acceptance into school was a mistake, and that I would definitely be flunking out.

So with each paper I tried harder. Slowly, I worked my way up the letters: C, B-, B’s.  My last paper….I finally got an A, but I knew that my grade for the class would be the average of all my papers, so I knew I would, at best, get a B-/C for the course.  This was a big disappointment for me: history was my major, and I started questioning whether or not I could make it.

When I got my grades for the semester, I was completely shocked that my professor had given me an A for the class. So I went to see him to find out why. He looked at me and said “You did the work. I know how hard it was for you. But you did the work, and finally got to where I thought you could be.”

That experience was a million years ago. But I still remember it, because it taught me that you learn the most about yourself and you gain some invaluable skills with the hard assignments. You don’t learn if it’s easy. And the goal is to learn, gain skills and confidence in yourself and what you can do, so you can tackle the next thing.

I didn’t love my professor while I was going through this process, spending late nights at the library. Often, you resent the people who are pushing you and holding you the higher standards. Here’s what I realized: they hold the higher standard because they believe in you.

Reducing Stress

I get asked “how do you manage stress”? I’ll be honest: yoga, running, and meditation do not work for me.  And life will never be stress free. But here’s some things I do to help manage it:

1. Being really organized.

I didn’t used to be this way. For instance, now I have one of those closets where the clothes are hanging and grouped by color. It’s still a small closet, but I know where to go for what.  I don’t have clutter on top of my tables. I don’t have paper all over the place. No unpaid bills lurking with the newspapers.

What this does is gives me good line of sight for what I need and makes sure I got everything before I leave. The only time I left my keys in my apartment was when they were under the paper. When you can see what you have, you’re not searching, hunting, buying duplicates, and getting frustrated.

2. Simplifying.

Simplify what isn’t that important to you. What I wear isn’t that important to me. Black, gray, cream, and navy. I could be a librarian. Everything goes with everything else. My jewelry is the same every day with the exception of my necklace. I can get dressed in 5 minutes…I’m not looking for the skirt that goes with this top and needs this jewelry. Variety is exciting and interesting…but for me, it’s also stressful. Yes, it could be defined as boring. I’ll take boring over drama. Maybe it’s important to you…it makes you happy, builds your confidence. That’s fine….but simplify the other stuff. Having everything be complicated is too hard.

3. Being choosy.

I don’t accept every invitation, I don’t go to every event, I don’t see every movie, I don’t read every book…you get my drift. I try to only do the things that I think will be great. If I hold a high standard of what I do, I’m going to be pretty happy with my choices. Is there any worse feeling than thinking something was a waste of time?I was once working on an Internet website, and the developer I was working with had a great phrase: “we need to carefully curate.” I love the idea of being deliberate about your choices.

4. Limiting social media.

I know this is hard for some people.  To someone on the outside looking in, it feels like a lot of one upmanship. Is it going to make you feel good to know every thing going on in other people’s lives and to have to keep up? I think this stresses people out more than they realize.

5. Do it now.

That saying, “don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today”? Absolutely reduces stress. When you tackle that which needs to be done today, you progress. You move the ball forward. When you don’t, you’re just procrastinating. I have never seen a situation get better as a result of putting things off. If you feel like you have too much to do….it’s not that. It’s that you’re not prioritizing. Think…what do I absolutely have to get done today? There’s your to-do list.

 

 

 

15. When things go wrong….

Want to know the best way to handle a mistake, error, or problem?

Tell people immediately and take accountability.

That’s it. No matter what the problem is, big or small, this is what I observe works. Time is of the essence: the longer you wait, the worse the problem usually gets. You run out of options…or worse, it looks like you were hiding the problem.

When mistakes happen, we tend to want to blame someone.  Blame is often a waste of time.  Focus instead on the process and what the source/cause of the problem, because the goal is to fix and remediate so that you manage the risk. The clock is ticking.

Mistakes People Make About Mistakes

1. You try to get perfect information before informing anyone. You need to know enough to explain the situation, but don’t chase unnecessary details at the expense of time. The hospital doesn’t need to run 100 tests on you to know that they have to stop the bleeding.

2. You blame others

  • Nope, all you’re showing is that you’re not a leader or a team player.

3. You use voicemail or email to notify folks.

  • If it’s really important, you need voice on voice action. Live. Interrupt your manager. Escalate. Would you rely on email or voicemail if a family member was in an accident?
  • When you do send the debrief emails, you need to include everyone. Otherwise, those who are involved feel excluded….you need everyone’s help to solve the problem. Things to include: problem explanation, impact analysis, what you don’t know yet, what you know for sure.  And continue to update.

4. You don’t fix the problem fast.

  • Yes, ideally automation is a better way to fix problems. In the meantime, put the manual processes in place so you know you’ve stopped the bleeding. Figure out what’s needed to remediate what went wrong. What was the impact? Keep communicating to the necessary parties so they know what’s going on. Make sure that one problem isn’t an indicator of 50 more. Don’t forget to develop the plan for the industrial strength solution. The sneaker brigade is only a short term fix.

5. There is no post mortem (otherwise known as:What could we have done differently?)

  • I have found two valuable tools on doing a post mortem: 1) a chronology of events, and 2) a detailed description of the process. That’s what will show you what went wrong. Often it’s the process that’s flawed, not the person.
  • Your post mortem often turns into the project update for your strategic solution implementation.

Finally: move on. Things will go wrong. The key is your ability to react quickly and ensure we don’t make the same mistake again…creating a stronger organization than what existed yesterday. Then you’ve done your job.

 

When you change roles….

Throughout my career, I have changed roles: within the company or changing companies. Recently I was asked “what did you learn to help you change roles successfully?” and I realized there were some things I do that seem to help.

1. Schedule “meet and greets”.  When I start a new role, i get a sense of who my key stakeholders are: who do I need support from? Who are the naysayers? Who are the opinion makers? Once I have my list, I set up half hour meetings with each of them to introduce myself, learn more about them, and get a sense of who they are and what their perspective is.  I take notes, ask questions, and listen.

What this does is 1) begin a relationship with the person, 2) provides you with more intel on the situation, 3) indicates to the person that you’re willing to listen.  When it’s time for me to ask them for something, they’re more likely to respond.

2. Initially, focus on being liked. The first question on everyone’s mind about you is “will I like you?”  Meaning: will they trust you, find you reasonable, good to work with? Do you listen? Are you self aware? Will you fit in?  Too often, new people anxiously try to prove their value immediately by criticizing and trying to change things. We just met!  Focus on being liked first. Then you can make your suggestions.

Note: if you talk about your old company all the time, stop it.  The new girlfriend/boyfriend never wants to hear about the old one…bad or good.

3. Then add value. Once you’ve established your “likeability”, now you can start making suggestions and gathering feedback. You’re there to get a job done….so now is the time to start executing with your team and putting points on the board.

4. Circle back. Once you’ve been in your role for a number of months, put together a short presentation that allows you to update those folks you met with before, but may not deal with day to day.  I like to start with “What I heard”, which tends to be common themes as a result of my meet and greets.  Then a page on what we’re doing: what, who, when.  A few exhibits if needed. A next steps page: always ending with “is there anything else I’m missing?”

Changing jobs is always a little scary.  This time, you want them to assume positive intent about you.

 

11. Friends and family spell “love” T-I-M-E. Show up.

I get asked a lot about “work life balance” and how I do it. It’s not easy.

Personally, I don’t believe it exists if you define it as balancing work and life equally all the time. Just from a pure math point of view, if you work 5 days a week, there is no way that there can be balance from a time allotment perspective. Balance implies you have equal weight on both sides. So we feel guilty because we can’t achieve the balance, and we beat ourselves up even though it’s impossible.  And we feel bad because we’re told we can have it all. But what does that mean?

What I do believe is in work life balancing.  Continue reading →

28. Learn how to say no.

How many times have you heard this? So, there are right ways and wrong ways.

You can’t say no because you have too much to do. You can’t say no because you have no resources. You can’t say no when it’s the business or your client. You can’t say no when it’s your boss. You can’t say no because you think it’s not important. You can’t say no because your boss told you to say no. Continue reading →

24. Myth: “My work stands for itself”….

Myth: “my work stands for itself…so I don’t need to do anything. They’ll recognize that I am promotion material.”

Getting the balance between being humble but still advocating for yourself is hard. It’s hard not to take it personally when you’re not promoted, and you expected it. It’s even harder if you see peers getting promoted. So how do you navigate this space? Continue reading →

2. Say thank you.

My first summer job when I was in business school was working for a consulting practice at a big accounting firm. My first day, I was nervous and as I entered my newly furnished office that I was sharing with another intern, I spilled my entire grande cup of coffee on the pristine beige rug. I was sure I was going to be fired. Or known as the intern who spilled the coffee.

My boss came by, introduced himself, took a look and laughed…”Boy, that’s a rough start!”. He called someone to make arrangements to clean it up and couldn’t have been nicer. I knew he was going to be someone I learned a lot from.

What I learned from him wasn’t subject matter. Not that he wasn’t brilliant: he was ex-McKinsey, had lots of degrees. There are a lot of people like that. But he was also an example of someone who was kind and really good at his job. Respected as a partner. Liked by everyone. Even the janitor.

Every night, he’d poke his head in before he left (as the lowest people on the food chain, we would be working late). He’d always say “Thanks a lot for your help today.” Every day. To interns.

I try to remember this at work. Saying thank you, sending an email, ordering pizza….all of it goes a long way to affecting people’s day to day. In general, work is hard, frustrating, infuriating, and exhausting. It can also be rewarding, inspiring, and satisfying. But when you work in an environment where you feel appreciated, and you’re thanked, it refuels you for the next day.

So say thank you.