Posted by Marty O'Neill on Thu, Jun 10, 2010 @ 10:11 AM
Last week I was in Miami and spent some time with a group of Investment Bankers attending the
National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts (NACVA). I had just posted a blog on the importance of cultivating an "abundance mentality" when I had a conversation with a banker from Chicago. Charles Andrews is the Managing Director of The McLean Group's Chicago office and one of the most well read business people I know.
Chuck volunteered that he always kept two magazines in his brief case. One was the "
The Atlantic" and the other was "
Inc." Chuck always wants to stay in the know and he is interested in more than just sound bites on today's major business and world news. But he suggested that a periodical diet heavy in editorials and op ed pieces on today's headlines will leave you lethargic and depressed.
The anecdote for the abject dreariness of "The Atlantic" headlines, according to Chuck, was "Inc" magazine. He argued that "Inc" was filled with positive stories of innovation, turn-around ventures and entrepreneurs living the American dream while the headlines of the "The Atlantic" made you want to hit the snooze button, stick your head under the covers and call in sick!
I was not quiet convinced so I put my crack team of researchers on the job of finding out what periodical was more prone to get your juices flowing. I'll let you be the "decider!" These are the topical headlines for the business section of the June 7
th publication of "The Atlantic"
The Case Against More Stimulus Hey Americans, How's That Massive Debt Coming Along? Can You Guess How Many Studies Financial Reform Requires? Death by Regulation Hungary Says It's Books Were Cooked Wow, hand me my 16-guage Martha! Not exactly motivating copy! Lets see how "Inc" looks at the world.
Is Chile the Next Silicon Valley? Mastering Your Elevator Pitch 4 New Killer Sales Apps Wal-Mart Gets Creative on Employee Retention The Best Industries for Starting a Business Chuck may have a point.
Now I know this is an apples to oranges comparison but the point of the discussion is that you have to balance your diet. If you live on a diet of "The Atlantic", Fox News and the "Wall Street Journal" you may begin to think Chicken Little was right! On the flip side, entrepreneurial optimism is both the greatest asset and one of the biggest faults for any CEO.
Perhaps Aristotle, St. Ignatius of Loyola and Benjamin Franklin were right! Everything in moderation!
Posted by Marty O'Neill on Mon, Feb 08, 2010 @ 07:36 AM
That's how much real action is in a typical NFL television broadcast. David Biderman's article by the same name in the January 15
th edition of the
Wall Street Journal cites a WSJ study of four recent broadcasts that suggests the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes. So if you add up all the real action between the time the ball is snapped and the time it is whistled dead, you come up with a whopping 11 minutes. That means you could actually watch each of the conference championship games during half-time of the Super Bowl and still have enough time to have a few beers.
That got me thinking about how productive I am on a daily basis. Let's say that instead of a 3 hour NFL broadcast, we triple that and say we worked a brutal 9 hour day. Now the question I have to answer is; have I put in more than 33 minutes of real work in that 9 hour ‘broadcast'. Was 60% of the time spent standing around or thinking about my next move like it is in the NFL?
The ratio of inaction to action in the NFL is about 10 to 1. Apply that ratio to your workday. On a typical 10 hour day, are you in action more than 1 of those hours? What or who is eating all of your productive time?
Now the NFL is as popular a sport as any in the world and by all accounts they have cracked the code on this 11-minute workday thing. You know to be honest, I haven't decided if I'm confused or simply jealous.
I've got to go ... this blog took me 20 minutes to write and I promised myself I was going to have a better work-life balance in 2010. I'm suddenly exhausted!
Posted by Marty O'Neill on Mon, Oct 26, 2009 @ 06:11 AM
I was introduced to this term last week while running a planning offsite for a client. I can't get it out of my head.
Most of us are familiar with
Stephen Covey's concept of the four quadrants. Covey's tool is great for effectively managing your time and many leaders in the midmarket use some form of the four quadrants. You know the drill. Your break down your daily activities into categories based on whether they are urgent (not urgent) or important (not important).
Rule one for the leader who is aiming to build business value is this: stop focusing on anything that doesn't add value. Sounds simple, even juvenile at times, but it can be oh so hard to do. But you must find ways to move beyond the "hair on fire" approach to management, the lurching from crisis to crisis that bedevils so many CEOs.
But this term "tyranny of the urgent' reflects how many organizations establish priorities. So many organizations find themselves going from crisis to crisis. Even the routine becomes a crisis.
We've done this to ourselves in the business world. Does your company culture expect an answer to an email question within an hour? Are deadlines arbitrarily set? Do you find yourself responding to texts or emails as soon as you receive them? Do you expect immediate response to your queries?
The problem is not with a workplace culture that is responsive, the problem is a workplace culture that doesn't think, doesn't balance, doesn't have clearly communicated priorities.
If everything is urgent, then nothing is urgent. And the trivial gets done at the same time as the critical.