A Note from Julian

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you have imagined.  Live loved, love life.

This is YOUR life, YOUR journey.

It’s up to you to dream it, imagine it, build it, go after it.

Even if no one else knows your dream or how you’ll make it come true, no one else needs to, because it’s yours.

The road toward a dream can be filled with challenges.  It’s easy to get discouraged along the way.

Just remember, overcoming a difficult journey will only add to the satisfaction of achieving a dream.

So go ahead.  Life is an awesome journey.  Make that journey your own.

Make it Happen!

I believe in you.

Your Freakness is what makes you unique and memorable.  If no one is talking about you, then you are invisible.  So how do you get seen on the scene?  Figure out your Freakness and put it out there, let your Freak Flag fly!  Embrace your Freakness and let people know that you are different, you are special, you are worth remembering.

Now for preparedness, when you publicize your Freakness there are three responses you could receive.

1.  People will talk about your Freakness because it is cool, fun, hip, or something else they really like.  Or it strikes a nerve in them.

2.  People will talk about how much they can’t stand your Freakness-or you most likely.  While this talk is not as good as the first, at least they are talking about you.

3.  They are not impacted at all and move on without noticing or saying anything to anyone, a.k.a. you are still invisible.

Whether you are seeking your own Freakness, or your team’s Freakness, think about what makes you unique and memorable.  What do you offer others?  What will make them remember you first?

Do something worth talking about-be a purposeful, mindful, creative Freak!

Not all his ideas are huge successes, but that doesn’t keep him from continuously coming up with new ideas.  MegaMind understands that in order to develop a skill set, you have to do something over and over again…on purpose…and think about how to do it better.  This includes creative thinking, brainstorming, problem solving, and asking questions.  These are some of the most important skill sets for leaders today.  Yet how many people practice them?

The internet provides thousands of new articles everyday.  Read fastcompany.com or go to wordpress.com and read different blogs.  A couple blogs I like to read are: sethgodin.com and fastcompany.com.  Read what others are saying.  Then go out and practice your skills.  Have creativity sessions every day, even for just a few minutes daily.  Rubbermaid has a goal to come up with a new product every day.  365 new products a year.  That’s a lot of innovation.

When was the last time you had a MegaMind idea?

When was the last time you practiced asking questions so you could better that skill?

Give us some feedback.  Who are the creative people you follow?  What are some of the things you do to keep your mind fresh, invigorated, innovative?

The Treadmill Effect:

What is your focus?

Are you focused on the short term or the long term?

The correct answer is to be a bit of both.  If you don’t keep the long term in mind, the short term may suffer.  How many things are you doing now that you could stop and they wouldn’t be missed?

Is your focus on tasks rather than results?  Sometimes we get so busy we take our eyes off the prize and only see the tasks at hand.  We stop looking for better ways to do things.  We just go along with the status quo.

Idea #1:  Take an inventory of your time-wasters

What is wasting your time?  Examine the things you’re doing.  Things you think you have to do that are not moving you closer to your goals.  Now, stop doing them.  What should you be doing in place of these things?

When was your last brainstorming session?

Change is coming whether you want it, ready or not.

How creative is your team?  When was the last time you brainstormed what you are doing and how you are doing it?  Are you afraid of change?

Make change a part of your routine and resistance to it will decrease.  As a matter of fact, employees may begin to embrace it.

Idea #2:  Examine your processes and procedures

When was the last time your processes and procedures were updated?  You should update, re-examine, and improve the way you do things on a regular basis.

Make it a fun activity, and people will start to look forward to it.

Get input from your people.  They have great ideas.  Get off the treadmill of mediocrity!

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Do you find yourself staying late and coming in on weekends just to get caught up?

It happens to many of us.  It happens because we do too much “other stuff”, not because our bosses give us too much to do.  What is the “other stuff?”  It’s the stuff you do that’s not in your job description.  You know, it’s under “other duties as necessary.”

How do you turn this raging storm of a problem down to a light sprinkling?  First, let’s look at why people come to you with their problems?  Here are some common answers.  See if any of these ring a bell.

• I am HR: Interruptions are my job.
• My boss told me to do it so I have to do it.
• I am the smartest one so they have to ask me.
• I am the only one who knows the answer so they have to ask me.
• I am the only one who will talk to them so they have to ask me.

What’s the solution?  The Socratic Method: Never tell them what you can ask them.  Here’s how it works.  People come to you with lots of questions and problems because they can.  You encourage it, for whatever reason.  So stop encouraging it.

When you answer their questions for them, you are making them dependent on you.  While dependency might seem like a great idea initially, it’s really a huge burden.  The more they come to you and get answers, the more time you’ll be spending putting out fires-solving other people’s problems.  That’s not leadership, that’s co-dependency.  You wouldn’t do this to your children, so why do it to your employees?

The best leaders, the ones who get the best results and develop the best people, don’t create dependency.  They create independent thinkers.  They help their employees come up with answers by teaching them to think for themselves.  Your employees are smart.  They are creative.  They are human.  Humans take the path of least resistance.

I have a friend I’ve been coaching.  I had her keep track of how many hours she was working, at the office and at home.  For 30 days, she also kept track of how many hours she spent in meetings and solving other people’s problems.  Her numbers staggered us both.

Total number of working hours average per week: 80

Total number of working hours spent in meetings or solving other people’s problems: 60

She was spending 20 hours per week doing her job.  Needless to say, when we saw the numbers, we both knew something had to change.  She couldn’t cut out meetings cold turkey, so she cut meetings she could miss, and not really miss anything.  She did and saved 10 hours per week.

Then she applied the Socratic Method.  Instead of answering questions with an answer, she would answer them with a question.  Instead of telling people what to do, she asked them what they thought they should do.  She began to coach employees on how they would approach situations and how to think through the possibilities and the challenges.  After 360 days, she took another inventory.

Her new work week averaged 50 hours per week, 5 hours in meetings and 10 hours per week solving other people’s issues.  That meant she now spent 35 hours per week doing her own job.  She could spend more time brainstorming and finding ways to help her department be more productive.  She was now being proactive instead of reactive.

Take an inventory of where you are spending your time.  Apply the Socratic Method and find out how much time you can save each week.  Not only for yourself, but think of the work hours of your people.  How much more productive will they be?

I have seen this tool save managers over 20 hours per week alone!  Never tell them what you can ask them.

Another suggestion, start with the low hanging fruit.  What things could you stop doing that would not be missed?  What things are you doing that encourage your employees to do things you have to fix later?  A behavior rewarded is a behavior repeated.

I had a client who did not like to deal with conflict.  She never reprimanded her employees.  She couldn’t figure out why they never took her seriously.  She kept rewarding their negative behavior by allowing it, because she could not deal with the conflict necessary to end the negative behaviors.

If you could stop doing three things that you do now, it would save you 8 to 10 hours per week.  What would you do with those hours?  How much would your organization benefit if you spent 25% more of your time moving the ball forward?

The defensive team in football can only score two points at a time (a safety, if he intercepts or recovers a fumble, he becomes the offense).  So spend your time on the offense, being proactive and moving the ball forward.

It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that if you are spending 20 hours per week putting out fires, it only leaves 20 hours to do the 40 hours worth of work you are paid to do.  None of us are paid to sit still.  We are paid to move the ball forward; be the offense, not the defense.  Here’s more math-how many hours would you have to work to get your 40 hours of work done?  80.  80 hours per week.  That’s without doing anything extra.  Now you know why you and your management team are so tired.

“But Frank, I have to do these things,” you say.  Well, if you don’t have time to do things again, then do them right the first time.  It’s amazing to me how many things people in our positions do that they have no business doing.  What is the best use of your time right now?

Make a list of what you do for one week.  Make entries every 15 -30 minutes.  Then add things up at the end of the week.  What you will find may surprise you.  When did you become a part-time volunteer fireman?