I’m not sure exactly how I am going to utilise my blog, but everyone seems to be doing one these days and I do like a good band-wagon to jump on. So, I guess I’ll just dive straight in and see where it takes me. I’ll endeavour to write something at the end of each week Doogie Howser style where by I ponder on the weeks lessons.
I actually wanted to write this last week when it was all still fresh in my mind, but time got away from me. However, my energy and enthusiasm have waned little in the week since I attended a day seminar by Verne Harnish – The Growth Guru.
The 8 hours (yes, 8!) were jam-packed with inspiration, ideas, strategies, advice and most of all confidence; the kind of confidence everyone, in any field, should strive for.
As much as I’d enjoy writing reams about what I learned, I think it would be more self-indulgent than informative as Verne has his own website (www.gazelles.com) where you can explore his business approach with much better writing skills and visuals than I provide.
So this blog is to simply highlight the 2 points I found most valuable on a day-to-day basis in my job as a Project Manager and why they will stay with me for the rest of my career. I have paraphrased these as it’s how I remember and understand them.
1. If you deem it important enough to schedule daily/weekly meetings with someone(s), honour that commitment 100%. If you reschedule or cancel the odd meeting here or there, chances are you don’t need the meeting and it isn’t an effective use of anyone’s time.
This resonated with me as I often feel so much of my day is dictated by meetings. I schedule my work load around them, only to have them cancelled or changed at the last minute. I then spend wasted time reorganising my day to accommodate the extra time or the loss of time on another day. This can overflow to the next day and the next and the...
I would like to focus on keeping meetings to a minimum and have a set time frame for them that is non-negotiable. Also, by ensuring we have a specific agenda pre-arranged, the meetings retain their integrity, rather than becoming meetings for meetings sake.
2. Be a sniper rather than take the machine-gun approach. Prioritise your areas of focus and hit them one at a time and get each one right before moving on the next one.
If you make everything priority #1, then you haven’t prioritised. If a business or project is failing, it is usually the result of deficiencies in several areas. Chances are these areas all failed bit-by-bit at the same time as each other. It makes sense that to try and fix these areas in the same way they failed is not the way to go. Choose the area that is directly most detrimental to the business or project and focus everyone on that one area. This will build a stronger foundation for each area to survive on. By having just one focus, the necessary changes in practise that need to happen are done one by one. People respond better to change when it is done consistently and step-by-step.
By getting people to focus on every area, all your hard work may result in an across the board improvement, but will that improvement be enough to sustain each area and in turn the business or project?
