GTD: Getting Things Done – Page 5

Vol. 56: The Power of Personal Accountability

The Power of One concept is not new — it’s the bedrock of everything from motivational speeches to Army One.

There’s an entire industry devoted to the power we have over our destiny.

In the context of Building a Business, we can view the Power of One as a series of concentric circles that ripple outward from the center … from where we stand as business leaders.

[pullquote]“God grant me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I can’t and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Reinhold Nieburh[/pullquote]

With a stagnant economy that has brought many businesses to their knees, we’ve been inundated with economic data, shards of doubt and glimmers of hope. While we can’t ignore these external forces, we can’t allow them to deter our commitment to reclaiming control of our agenda.

As a result, there’s no better topic with which to start than personal accountability, the singular touchstone of professional success over which we have the greatest control. (more…)

Not important? Probably not!

How about that for a double negative … meaning that “Not Not Important” is actually “pretty damn important”. Some of you took English, right?
What do I mean? Many of the followers of Sword Tips know that I’m a big fan of GTD, the “Getting Things Done” framework promoted by David Allen. He wrote recently in Wired magazine about one phenomenon that comes up all the time in my work with CEOs. If like most of us you’re always struggling with priorities, you need to read this. If you’ve got some ideas that have worked for you, share them.
By any other name, it’s the “it’s just not a priority” syndrome! God knows we’ve all got too much to do, and most of us have probably tried the 1-2-3 system of prioritization at one time … soon realizing that everything was becoming a “1” because it wouldn’t get attention any other way … and then we realized we made everything a “1” … and then we realized we ended up right back where we started.
There is no avoiding the pain that arrives like a SCUD when something that needs to get done doesn’t get any attention (more…)

There’s a lot of power in a blank sheet of paper

Most of the time when we sit down to work, even in our favorite chair, we have a stack of papers or files, maybe a list of some kind, and proceed to “work” as we’ve always defined it … plow through the stack and “get ‘er done”.

But if you try it with a blank sheet of paper, as I did again this morning, and just sit back and noodle on the issues that are clogging your brain waves and keeping you up at night. … with no preconceived notions about them because your paper is blank so far … you’ll be amazed at how your mind starts to do it’s favorite thing … add some intellectual firepower to solving problems.

Give your brain some space to work

Our brain is not really that good at filing, sorting, recording and remembering what we need at the precise moment we need it. (more…)

No substitute for Leadership Team

I mentioned here before about the regular Sunday NY Times feature called the Corner Office, which summarizes conversations with various CEO’s about leadership, lessons learned, interviewing techniques, etc.
Here are 4 key lessons.

Build your Leadership Team

Sunday’s column interviewed Lawrence Kellner, CEO of Continental Airlines, who reaffirmed several points emphasized on this blog.
First, it IS critical that you have the right people on the bus and in the right seats. Leaders are dependent upon many others to fulfill their responsibilities, so if you haven’t focused on strengthening your leadership team to the maximum extent possible, you’re simply extending your INability to get things done.

Regular, Unbiased Feedback

Kellner also emphasizes how critical it is to provide regular, unbiased feedback to your people all along the way. (more…)

Ford CEO on Being a CEO

Thoughtful readers of this blog will see that Alan Mullaly's interview in the NY Times Corner Office column sounds like it's taken directly from work published by A.G. Lafley, former CEO of P&G, and Peter Drucker, on The Role of the CEO. It's a solid summary, though, about the critical…

Multitasking? Not so much!

Researchers at Stanford University unveiled a study last week that found that multitaskers aren't so great when it comes to accomplishments or focus.Interestingly, the study started out as a search to find the "holy grail" of multitasking, i.e., what DNA strand enables some people to so skillfully manage to many…

How to budget your time

The Wall St. Journal sponsored a series of video interviews with executives to probe some of their "leadership lessons".The 90 second monologue by Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft about how he budgets his time is an interesting and unique approach to making sure that your meetings and tasks fit into…

We make a lot of mistakes … but

CBS Sunday Morning is a show I've watched since its beginning, almost 30 years now. (Man, am I getting old!). It is a welcome respite from the usual tumult of the business week as it concentrates on music, the arts, theater, books and other cultural landmarks. This week in its…

Anne Mulcahy – Xerox CEO – Good Lessons!

The NY Times interviewed Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox on Sunday in their Corner Office segment. She offered several keen observations on a wide range of subjects that are worth considering:

Leadership is the essence of creating “followership” … recognize that all employees are “volunteers”. Communication is fundamental to keep everyone focused on the same ball. (more…)