Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Meetings

Don’t Let the Latecomers Ruin Your Meeting

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Latecomers not only demoralize and disrespect those who turn up on time and have to wait around but also hurt the meeting’s productivity—especially if you have a tight and structured schedule.

  • Always start and end your meeting at the appointed time. Are your attendees tardy because they know that you don’t start the meeting promptly? Do you tend to wander off-topic?
  • Confirm that there’re enough chairs in the meeting room. A latecomer can disrupt a discussion by dragging chairs over from other meeting rooms.
  • Don't Let the Latecomers Ruin Your Meeting Don’t reprimand or embarrass a latecomer during the meeting. Speak to her later. Does she understand that she has a clearly defined role in this meeting? (People are often late to events because they’re not entirely convinced about whether they really want—or need—to be there.)
  • Don’t go over an agenda item to help a latecomer catch up. Recapitulate the key points only if the latecomer’s inputs are necessary to what’s left on the agenda.
  • If you have a chronic latecomer, check if he has a schedule-conflict. Confirm that his participation is still relevant. If he doesn’t want to—or need not—attend the entire meeting, pull him to the top of the agenda. Let him contribute and leave.
  • Try to corral the chronic latecomers by stopping by their desks en route to the meeting.
  • Could you make the meeting more beneficial for all your attendees? Invite suggestions for mutual gain so that everyone feels more productive.

Also, be alert to power trippers who get a small thrill in keeping others waiting, and then requiring you to start over or recapitulate when they arrive.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Preparing to Attend Meetings
  2. How to Stop “Standing” Meetings from Clogging Up Your Time
  3. How to Decline a Meeting Invitation
  4. Is Showing up Late to a Meeting a Sign of Power?
  5. A Great Email Time-Saver

What Happens When You Talk About Too Many Goals

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Matthew Pritchett's cartoon: Labour For the Many Brexit Positions Not the Few

To supplement this illustrious sketch by the British cartoonist Matt Pritchett, an excerpt from HuffPost’s article on “How Jeremy Corbyn Lost The Election,”

One big problem was the sheer size of the [Labour Party] manifesto and the number of policies on offer. Candidates complained that they didn’t have a single five-point pledge card like the one Tony Blair made famous. While the Tories had a simple message of ‘Get Brexit Done,’ Labour lacked a similarly easy ‘doorstep offer.’ “We had so much in the manifesto we almost had too much,” one senior source said. “It felt like none of it was cutting through. You needed to boil it down.”

“We tried to give a retail offer and also a grand vision and ended up falling between the two stools. To get across ‘you’ll be better off with Labour,’ we should have made our position clearer much earlier.”

Idea for Impact: Distill your goals into simple messages that others will find relevant and timely. When it comes to persuasion, clarity and conciseness are critical. Weak messages meander. Smart messages immediately express what’s important and help rally your resources towards your mission.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Missing in SMART goals: the ‘Why’
  2. The Power of Sharing Your Goals
  3. Communication: Begin at the End
  4. The Best Leaders Can Make the Complex Simple
  5. Everything in Life Has an Opportunity Cost

Never Give a Boring Presentation Again

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When speaking to an audience, clarity and conciseness are critical.

Even the most exciting content can become meaningless if your audience can’t absorb your message.

When preparing a speech, begin at the end

Never Give a Boring Presentation Again: Focus on Three Core Messages Ask yourself, “If my audience can remember only three points from my presentation, what do I want them to remember?” Distill your message into three six-word bumper stickers. Frame your presentation around those three core messages.

If you’re addressing an audience that you aren’t familiar with, ask the organizers for the names of a half dozen people who will be in the audience. Contact them and find out about their backgrounds and their expectations for your presentation.

Don’t assume that ‘easy to understand’ could be interpreted as ‘too simple.’

Engage your audience effectively by quickly introducing your messages, perhaps with an interesting story or anecdote. Explain why you care your messages so deeply, and convince your audience members that they should, too.

Being short and snappy also helps you finish promptly and show respect for your audience’s schedules.

Idea for Impact: Don’t try to cover too much ground

A great speaker is made not by what they say but by what they choose not to say. Be clear on the purpose of your presentation and let that govern what content you include or exclude.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. You are Your Presentation, Your Slides Aren’t
  2. Communication: Begin at the End
  3. Presentation Skills #4: On Handouts
  4. Avoid the Lectern in Presentations
  5. Jargon Has Its Place in Business Communication

How to Stop “Standing” Meetings from Clogging Up Your Time

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Monthly staff conferences, progress updates, weekly sales calls, and other regularly scheduled “standing” meetings, essential though they may be, tend to be wasteful, especially so when they’re convened per tradition and attended out of an obligation.

How to Stop 'Standing' Meetings from Clogging Up Your Time The beginning of the year is a great time to examine all the standing meetings that you’re invited to. Review your calendar and consider the RoI of each standing meeting. Make each one of those meetings defend the use of your time—and your employees’ time.

Ask how else you could accomplish the goals of each meeting efficiently. If you must hold a meeting, remind all its participants of the reasons for gathering, and check if the meeting—and the frequency—still serves that purpose. Rewrite the charter of these meetings if necessary. Look at ways to complete the meetings more efficiently—perhaps in half the time, half as frequently, or with half the people.

For instance, a design team may convene for twice-a-week status reports at the project launch while there may be many decisions to make. Once the early frenzy subsides, only a monthly meeting may be justified, complemented by frequent status updates shared via email.

Idea for Impact: Don’t keep going to every meeting just because you’re invited, or because you think you have to.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How to Decline a Meeting Invitation
  2. Preparing to Attend Meetings
  3. Email Tips: Delegating to Another’s Employee
  4. Save Time by Meeting in Others’ Offices [Effective Meetings]
  5. The Three Dreadful Stumbling Blocks to Time Management

A Great Email Time-Saver

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When you’re trying to schedule a meeting with someone, make it easier for them to respond by proposing one or two choices in your initial email: “How about 9:00 AM on Tuesday?” or “Are you available on Tuesday at 10:00 AM or on Wednesday at 3:00 PM?”

Don’t give them many options (“any time next week”) or, worse yet, don’t ask them to leaf through their calendar and suggest a time (“I know you’re busy. Let me know when you want to meet.”)

Keeping it brief and specific maximizes the chance that one of your suggested times will work out, and they’ll quickly say “yes” without further iteration.

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  5. Stop asking, “What do you do for a living?”

Don’t One-up Others’ Ideas

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A manager who has the tendency to put his oar in his employees’ ideas ends up killing their ownership of ideas. This diminishes their motivation and performance.

When employees feel disrespected or unappreciated, survival instincts will kick in—employees turn inward and stop participating fully in their teams. It will only erode their commitment and led to poor results.

People Tend to Reject Ideas Offered by Others in Favor of Their Own

'What Got You Here Wont Get You There' by Marshall Goldsmith (ISBN 1401301304) In the bestselling What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (2007,) the celebrated leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith describes this behavior as the tendency to “add too much value.”

If you’re inclined to get wrapped up in adding your two cents and improving the quality of an idea a little, you may devalue an employee’s commitment to execute the idea:

Imagine an energetic, enthusiastic employee comes into your office with an idea. She excitedly shares the idea with you. You think it’s a great idea. Instead of saying, “Great idea!” you say, “That’s a nice idea. Why don’t you add this to it?” What does this do? It deflates her enthusiasm; it dampers her commitment. While the quality of the idea may go up 5 percent, her commitment to execute it may go down 50 percent. That’s because it’s no longer her idea, it’s now your idea.

Don't One-up Others' Ideas

Effective Coaching is Helping Others Discover Insights

Focus on helping others discover insights—not by solving the problem for them, but by helping them improve how they’re thinking about the problem.

  • If you have an idea that the other must hear, don’t tell them immediately. Use Socratic questioning to tease the idea out of them.
  • Examine how you hand out ideas. Resist the temptation to add your advice. Before you propose an idea, pause and ask yourself, “Is it worth it?”
  • Avoid declarative statements such as “you should …” or “I think … .”
  • The higher up you go in an organization, the more your suggestions become interpreted as orders.
  • Don’t marginalize the concerns of your team members in the interest of moving your ideas forward. Ignoring employees’ inputs can send a message to the entire team that you’re not actually looking for their creative ideas, but that you’ve got your own agenda and just want them to rubberstamp it.
  • Get your team involved early. People are more motivated to do the things they have to do if they are part of the planning and strategy.

Idea for Impact: Improve your team performance by encouraging better thinking, not by handing out advice.

Don’t give unsolicited advice. Don’t make team decisions to which you—but nobody else—is committed. Learn to persuade others to see things your way by tapping into their talents, passions, and abilities.

Remember, being an effective manager is not about winning yourself; it’s about making other people winners.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Advice for the First-Time Manager: Whom Should You Invest Your Time With?
  2. The Difference between Coaching and Feedback
  3. How to Conquer Cynicism at Your Workplace
  4. 20 Reasons People Don’t Change
  5. Don’t Lead a Dysfunctional Team

A Little-Known Public-Speaking Tip

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If you’ve expected to address an audience that you aren’t familiar with, it can be difficult to connect with your audience and build a rapport.

Ask the organizer for the names of a half dozen people who will be in the audience.

Contact them and find out about their backgrounds and their expectations for your presentation.

Thank them when you start your speech.

Doing this homework, identifying the specific requirements, and customizing your presentations will impress the audience. Whatever the topic, audiences respond best when speakers personalize their communication.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Presentation Skills #4: On Handouts
  2. You are Your Presentation, Your Slides Aren’t
  3. Communication: Begin at the End
  4. Avoid the Lectern in Presentations
  5. An Essential Secret of Great Speakers: Pauses in Talking

Jargon Has Its Place in Business Communication

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Jargon Has Its Place in Business Communication

Jargon and Buzzwords Can Hinder Communication…

The media’s excessive loathing of jargon and buzzwords is somewhat unjustified.

Yes, business communication is inundated with clichéd catchphrases with murky meanings that add no real linguistic efficiency. People tend to use such language merely to sound intelligent and important.

Why not? It’s all part of “locker-room chat.” It’s only human nature to pattern our language (and behavior) to prove that we are “in the loop.” If others are looking smart or fashionable from using specific slang and buzzwords, we will feel enticed enough to belong to that clique.

… But Jargon and Buzzwords May Be Very Helpful

Jargon and buzzwords may be annoyances, but crisp communication often needs the use of the appropriate vernacular. Every industry, profession, company, and team has a lingua franca that’s full of well-recognized acronyms, phrases, and lingo for concepts and ideas. Ordinary words do not lend such efficiency.

When used properly, purposeful jargon can actually be an efficient way to talk about complex topics in a concise way—for example, phrases such as “mission-critical” and “key differentiators” may convey much significance when discussing the “strategic resource allocation.”

Idea for Impact: Don’t Use Jargon and Buzzwords Just Because They’re Trendy

Master the vernacular of the industry, company, and team you’re working with. Limit jargon and avoid the overuse of buzzwords. Use them only when it is sensible and pragmatic—to facilitate concise and clear communication, not just to look “cool” or to “belong.”

Remember, effective communication isn’t about demonstrating your fancy vocabulary or rosy language. It’s about communicating your message in the best way possible to the audience that you’re targeting.

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  1. Why They Don’t Understand You and What to Do About It
  2. Resumé Tips #6: Avoid Clichéd Superlatives and Proclamations
  3. What Everybody Ought to Know about Writing Better Emails
  4. Communication: Begin at the End
  5. Albert Mehrabian’s 7-38-55 Rule of Personal Communication

Why They Don’t Understand You and What to Do About It

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Have you ever left a conversation or a meeting and felt that you weren’t heard—let alone understood? Do you tend to get blank stares from people as you are talking with them, as if you are speaking a foreign tongue?

Here are things you can do to help people understand you.

  1. Get your thinking straight. Cluttered thoughts nurture confusing communication. Think of the best ways to convey your message to the audience that you’re targeting. Prepare. Organize. Practice.
  2. How to Speak Confidently in Meetings Keep your messages succinct and simple. The more words you use to make a point, the more confusing the point can be. Get to the point quickly and don’t beat around the bush. Be concise without being boring or terse.
  3. Keep your communications focused. Prepare your message. Stick to your objective. Get rid of anything unrelated or irrelevant to your objective.
  4. Master the vernacular. Speak the same language of the industry, company, and team. Insider-lingo not only promotes a sense of belonging to the “crowd,” but can also help to get your concepts across more clearly.
  5. Speak their language. If you have a chance, listen to comparable meetings and observe how folks communicate. What are their hot buttons? What interests them? What are their objectives? What is their line of questioning? Try to adapt your arguments by aligning up your points with things they care about: their hot buttons and their pet topics.
  6. Customize the communication. Some people are visual learners, others respond best to arguments in long-winded, written form. Some like analogies better; others prefer concepts discussed directly. Determine how the people you are communicating with operate—you may have to present your data and information in a variety of formats. Other times people like to hear stories, so tell your information in a story format. Bring some props, prototypes, and samples.
  7. Rally some supporters. Determine the key opinion leaders and speak to them individually before the meeting. They will also let you know how they feel about it, which could influence others in the meeting. You can count on their support to your arguments and avoid surprise reactions and disagreements. If you get their support, chances are that you will get the support of others. (The management consulting firm McKinsey calls this “pre-wiring.”)
  8. Don’t broach details straight away. Avoid being too technical or precise unless the audience is geared up. Start with broad strokes to see if your audience understands you. Only when they are following you, introduce the complexity and detail.
  9. Portray yourself as a knowledgeable professional. Avoid stating fact with qualifiers like “I think” or “in my opinion.” Avoid slang and filler words such as “uh,” “uhm,” “like,” and “you know”—excessive use of filler words tends to make you seem mumbling, hesitant, and unintelligent.
  10. Be sincere. If you don’t know something, say so. Avoid losing your credibility or bringing into question your insight, experience, or impetus. If cannot answer a question you’ve been asked, don’t fake the funk. Say, “I don’t know the answer at this time, but I will get back to you.”
  11. 'Speak Like a CEO' by Suzanne Bates (ISBN 1260117480) Disagree tactfully. Think before you voice your own opinion: Will you be able to justify it? When preparing for the conversation, list all your arguments and ask a likely challenger to lay out the possible counterarguments. Try to incorporate those contentions into your arguments.
  12. Be confident but don’t brag. Frequently, when people try to be confident and persuasive in a presentation, they end up being boastful. While there’s nothing wrong with demonstrating a bit of complacency, it’s best to cast that boast in terms a benefit to the customer. For instance, saying just “I have 10 years of experience in this field” is a boast. In its place, say, “I have 10 years of experience in this field. I can assure you that any problems that arise will be handled promptly and competently.”
  13. Don’t try excessively to get them to see your point of view. Don’t persist too hard to get them to understand you. Know how hard to push your point and when to back off.
  14. Get feedback. After the meeting, don’t hesitate to ask a sympathetic member of the audience how you did. What did the audience get from the conversation? How could they better understand you in the future? By asking these questions, you will have a much better chance of connecting with them in the future. Plus, by asking the questions you have shown to them that you care about them understanding. And that helps build the relationships.

Idea for Impact: Good speaking isn’t about demonstrating your vocabulary, intelligence, or talent. It’s about communicating your message effectively.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. A Little-Known Public-Speaking Tip
  2. Preparing to Attend Meetings
  3. Communication: Begin at the End
  4. Presentation Skills #4: On Handouts
  5. An Essential Secret of Great Speakers: Pauses in Talking

How to Handle Conflict: Disagree and Commit [Lessons from Amazon & ‘The Bezos Way’]

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How Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Propels Innovation

Entrepreneurial Lessons from Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos once remarked that it takes five to seven years before the innovation seeds that Amazon plants flourish enough to have a significant impact on the economics of the business.

Since its founding in 1994, Amazon has made endless investments in expanding its business models. It has successfully used its money-making ventures to bankroll explorations into peripheral lines of business. Many of its capital allocation decisions haven’t yielded strong profits; yet, Amazon has flourished beyond everyone’s expectations and its growth potential is undeniable.

Central to this innovation strategy has been Bezos and his leadership team’s foresight, early commitment, and stubborn confidence in the prospect of R&D. Under Bezos’s direction and long-term focus, Amazon still operates as a founder-driven start-up in several major areas.

Bezos has a compelling cultural influence and has institutionalized his distinctive entrepreneurial mindset across the company. His core values are codified as Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles, one of which is “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit”:

Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

“Disagree and Commit”

Jeff Bezos’s latest short-but-compelling annual letter to his shareholders contains pearls of wisdom on leadership, management, and teamwork. Read the letter; it won’t take long.

Speaking about high-velocity decision making in an ingenious culture, Bezos says he encourages Amazon’s leaders and employees to use the phrase “disagree and commit” to disagree respectfully and experiment with ideas:

Use the phrase “disagree and commit.” This phrase will save a lot of time. If you have conviction on a particular direction even though there’s no consensus, it’s helpful to say, “Look, I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?” By the time you’re at this point, no one can know the answer for sure, and you’ll probably get a quick yes.

This isn’t one way. If you’re the boss, you should do this too. I disagree and commit all the time. We recently greenlit a particular Amazon Studios original. I told the team my view: debatable whether it would be interesting enough, complicated to produce, the business terms aren’t that good, and we have lots of other opportunities. They had a completely different opinion and wanted to go ahead. I wrote back right away with “I disagree and commit and hope it becomes the most watched thing we’ve ever made.” Consider how much slower this decision cycle would have been if the team had actually had to convince me rather than simply get my commitment.

Note what this example is not: it’s not me thinking to myself “well, these guys are wrong and missing the point, but this isn’t worth me chasing.” It’s a genuine disagreement of opinion, a candid expression of my view, a chance for the team to weigh my view, and a quick, sincere commitment to go their way. And given that this team has already brought home 11 Emmys, 6 Golden Globes, and 3 Oscars, I’m just glad they let me in the room at all!

Entrepreneurial Lessons from Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos: Disagree and Commit Bezos’s “fail-and-learn” refrain echoes what he wrote on risk-taking in Amazon’s first annual shareholder letter in 1997: “Given a 10 percent chance of a 100-times payout, you should take that bet every time … Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.” That letter has become Amazon’s manifesto on the benefits and methods to long-term thinking and Bezos quotes that letter in every year’s annual letter.

To “disagree and commit” compels people to step out of their comfort zones and to sincerely commit to a project’s success. There is no room for sabotage and disruption—neither can people wait in the wings to exclaim “I told you so.” To “disagree and commit” is to be willing to take prudent risks by acknowledging that others may have diverse beliefs, approaches, ideas, and styles.

Idea for Impact: Embrace Failure because it Leads to Innovation

Many people want to be curious, creative, and experimental—they like to take initiative and investigate new products and solutions. But, when facing difficult choices, they’re naturally afraid of what they don’t know. Self-doubt sets in. They resort to safe and predictable processes. This mindset stifles the very inventive approach they want to apply and foster.

Fear of failure and self-doubt are not usually rooted in facts. They’re emotional. Don’t let this emotion make you play it safe. Don’t overthink your way out of challenges. Understand the types and amounts of risks that are acceptable to you. When facing the prospect of failure, you’re more likely to get unstuck by trying low-risk actions. Experiment. Fail. Learn. Innovate.

Success may instill confidence, but failure imparts wisdom.

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  2. I Admire Business Leaders Who’re Frugal to an Extreme
  3. Ever Wonder If The Other Side May Be Right?
  4. Admit When You Don’t Have All the Answers
  5. Who Told You That Everybody Was Going to Like You?
Here’s a prayer to help you deal with annoying people. Learn from the Stoics!