23 minute read
HOW TO PREVENT EMAILS FROM TAKING OVER YOUR LIFE
From Taking Over Your Life How to Prevent Emails
BY DR AMANTHA IMBER
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I have a confession to make. I love checking email. I love how productive I feel smashing through hundreds of emails in a single hour. I feel efficient. I feel like I am getting things done.
But here is the thing – I used to be an email addict. I used to check email constantly throughout the day. It would happen when I was writing an article and I had reached a stuck point. It would happen when I was waiting in line for a coffee. It would happen when I would be out for dinner with my husband.
Now, email gets a bad rap. People complain that email is the biggest drain on their productivity. And certainly, it used to be a big drain on my productivity. But it’s only bad because of the mindless way most people approach their inbox. Instead of checking email willy-nilly throughout the day, we need to approach our inbox strategically. We need to utilise our inbox for its strengths, not its weaknesses.
The best thing about our inbox, which can equally be seen as the worst thing, is that once we enter it, the reward centre in our brain is lighting up like crazy. Because of the inbuilt addictive design of email-checking (the random presentation of good, or at least interesting, ‘bits’ of news), for most people, it is energising and gives us a dopamine hit. We feel super productive responding, and then deleting or archiving, emails, and it generally doesn’t require much brainpower. Which means email is the ideal activity for when your brain is at its least sharp (early-mid afternoon).
As a psychologist, understanding the psychology behind the addictive nature of email helped me overcome my addiction. I also deleted the email app from my phone which helped a lot too.
I now keep my email closed until lunchtime, or until I have completed my most important tasks for the day. But on an ideal day, I wait until around 2 pm to check my inbox because its an effective way to re-energise myself from a post-lunch dip.
This is how to apply the 2 pm email re-energiser:
Block out 30 minutes in your diary at 2 pm. Call the calendar appointment “Meeting with Inbox”.
Set a timer for 30 minutes. If you skip this step, it’s too easy to get sucked into the email vortex, only to escape several hours later. Try to avoid taking a sneaky look in your inbox for at least the previous two hours (although ideally, you have lasted the morning without any checks of your inbox). The more surprises that await you, the better. Open up your email. Most likely, you have a lovely, full inbox.
Conquer the quick wins. Spend a couple of minutes deleting all subscriptions and emails you were cc-ed on but didn’t actually need to be cc-ed or bcc-ed on. You’ll trigger the reward centre of your brain through making a tonne of progress in a short space of time. Next, start to reply to the emails where you can have the biggest impact. When your timer goes off, close your inbox. Everything else can wait until later.
Repeat later in the afternoon if you need another pick-me-up.
Dr Amantha Imber Dr Amantha Imber is the Founder of Inventium, Australia’s leading innovation consultancy and the host of How I Work, the number one ranking business podcast about the habits and rituals of the world’s most successful innovators.
A SIMPLE STEP TO ARGUE WELL
BY JOSEPH TAN
We all get into conflict situations every now and then. Instead of avoiding the disagreements, we should learn the skill to argue well! Now, to argue well does not mean to be antagonistic – on the contrary, the ability to argue well carries with it the potential to clarify the situation rather than create more confusion.
However, it requires wisdom to discern between identity and idea. Now, while all human beings are created equal, not all ideas are equal. The task of a well-crafted argument is to single out the good ideas from the bad ones while maintaining equal respect for every individual. If a person’s identity and worth is interwoven with the quality of his or her ideas, then the argument becomes personal.
Here’s the simple step to argue well:
How do you walk this tightrope to ensure that the argument remains professional without becoming personal?
1. Affirm the intention People generally begin their conversations with a positive motivation in wanting to do the right thing. Look beyond any initial prejudice to identify the heart of the presentation rather than the heat of the discussion.
2. Acknowledge the effort People are especially encouraged when we take note of the effort invested into their work. Sure, the outcome may not be what is expected but we ought to be careful not to belittle any person’s investment of time and energy.
3. Compare and contrast This is the logical part of the argument where ideas are compared against one another to determine its worth. Yet, this third step will fail if you do not first create the emotional safety net of step 1 and 2, which are vital in creating an atmosphere of mutual respect.
Innovation happens when we are able to argue well in the realm of ideas. In my experience, the bottleneck to innovation is not a lack of creativity but a lack of mutual respect for each other as fellow human beings with equal worth.
Joseph Tan Joseph is a Leaderonomics faculty trainer who is passionate about engaging with leaders to transform culture in organisations.
LEADERSHIP DURING CRISIS – A STORY FROM 12 YEARS AGO
BY REJIE SAMUEL
The year was 2008, and we had every reason to be excited about the future. My company – an automotive parts supplier – had been bought over by a private equity firm with operations in China, the US, and Australia. We had just ended 2007 with a bang: a 13% increase in revenue across all accounts from the year prior. Nor were we any strangers to profit, as the company had been experiencing double-digit growth since 2005.
We did have slight reservations about Australia and whether the automotive industry here would survive. However, we were not too concerned as more and more projects were filling up our pipeline. The upwards trajectory seemed infinite.
Then, at the start of the second quarter of 2008, customer forecasts predicted a decline. We weren’t too concerned. It was nothing more than a speed bump, we told ourselves. We would slow down for a while and then it would be back to full throttle.
And full throttle it certainly went, just not how we wanted.
The world now calls it the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Everything began to fall apart very quickly. The crisis had actually started in 2007 with a decline in the subprime mortgage market in the United States, and quickly developed into a global banking crisis.
Our sales plummeted and we finished 2008 with 30% less revenue versus 2007. 2009 wasn’t as bad though – here our revenue only declined by 27%. In 2 years, we had lost 57% of our top line.
In July 2009, General Motors, our biggest customer, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and cancelled many vehicle brands. From the four programs we had with GM, we lost three, leaving us producing at only a quarter of our capacity. At least we no longer had reservations about whether the Australian automotive industry would survive – we knew it was a matter of time before it went down under.
Decline during growth years Depending on the industry, lead times play a big role in how you can react to an event. In the automotive industry, revenue recognition starts about 24 months after an award (though it’s much shorter in China). In those 24 months, there is plenty of cash outflow to support the launch of the program. So there we were, buoyant about the future, planning our growth, when the rug was pulled from right under us. Thankfully, we had done something about earlier doubts regarding the Australian automotive industry. Since the end of 2007, we had already begun relocating assets and manufacturing lines to Thailand. Had we not done this, the company would have been unable to support our customers and we would have ceased to exist. It’s an alternative that still chills me to this day.
As if matters could not have been worse, this was the year our CEO was diagnosed with cancer and had to step down. There we were, falling revenue, poised to run out of cash in 20 days and with no CEO to lead us. Then one day the board turned to me and asked if I could lead the company alongside a chairman parachuted from a different industry.
There are times you cry for joy when you get promoted, then there are times you just cry. Whatever the case was (just crying) it was time to get to work.
Setting a clear strategy One of the most important responsibilities of a leader is to create a clear strategy and develop a communication plan for the company. This is imperative as when pretty much everything around you is in chaos, there must be clear guidelines on execution so the team knows what to do.
I developed a 3 pronged action plan: Reduce, Stabilise & Grow.
Reduce Obviously, we couldn’t pretend it was ‘business as usual’. We had to re-size and make tough decisions. And we had to make them fast.
In such situations, you have to be decisive and act as if your hair is on fire. Our primary focus was to reduce costs as quickly as possible and to renegotiate our funding structure with the banks.
The closing down of our Australia operations was brought forward and all forms of costs were cut, delayed or renegotiated. However, it was paramount that we execute the reductions while continuing to keep an eye on opportunities
for growth. In our case, we knew the industry would bounce back and we had to ensure that the restructuring did not impact our chances of growth when that time came. I have seen too many instances in which good businesses are brought to a complete halt by indiscriminate cost-cutting. We questioned everything and set clear directions for each segment of our business. We even had to exit a few of the projects we had been awarded. At the time, they were simply not generating enough value to see us through that particular period.
For us to continue to compete, we needed to enhance/ maintain our engineering capabilities and quality processes. Thankfully, we succeeded in both increasing said capabilities while finding cheaper alternatives.
Stabilise The execution of our plan had to be time-bound and strictly on schedule. To ensure the company maintained intensity, we organised a ‘War Room’ where we had daily updates on key actions. When it appeared that execution was slowing down, we increased the meeting frequency to twice a day.
Any team handling a business during a crisis needs to appreciate the need for operations to be stabilised quickly. You need to regain some semblance of normalcy so that the company can forecast cash flow requirements and eliminate surprises.
Getting daily cash flow forecasts is crucial. Additionally, you need to maintain strong communications with your key partners on your payment plans. We always started our daily meetings with a review of the cash flow for the week.
We also took advantage of the downturn to revisit and enhance our processes. We looked at previous quality issues and upgraded our processes with better and cheaper practices. I am quite happy to say it worked. We improved our financial forecasting process and became so much better at predicting cash flow that we were accurately forecasting ending cash balances.
Grow The Global Financial Crisis of 08’ truly turned the ultracompetitive automotive world into a level playing field. In the end, we were one of the very few automotive suppliers that did not declare bankruptcy. By the end of 2009, a total of 27 automotive suppliers had declared bankruptcy including Lear, Visteon and many others like Delphi and Behr had been sold.
As mentioned above, we executed ‘Strategic Cost Rationalisation’ and kept a keen eye on opportunities for growth. We focused on strengthening our engineering capabilities with a clear strategy and improved efficiency with better quality processes. As a result, we won a significant amount of projects as the automotive industry slowly rebounded.
We understood early on that electric and autonomous vehicles would play a bigger role in the future and we ensured that we had the right strategies to take advantage of this. Because of this, we developed a company that only designed and manufactured HVAC module & CRFM (Condenser, Radiator & Fan modules) to provide a wider range of solutions to our customers. We became one of the top thermal solutions providers in the automotive industry.
Our China business strategy targeted customers (or brands) that were overlooked by consumers and even the government. We had to engage the right customers who drove the China automotive industry. For our efforts, we signed significant deals with Geely, Chery, SAIC, VW China, NIO and many more.
Today, we have a foothold in more locations than ever; we’ve recently started new operations in India, Thailand, Mexico, California, Slovakia and have built yet more plants in China. Not a bad turnaround if I may say so myself.
Nimble and flexible Crisis management calls for quick actions. Because the situation is never well defined, you have to be flexible and ready to change direction quickly. Under normal operating conditions, it might be ok to wait until you get all the data before acting or making a decision. Not so during a crisis.
You will have to able to make decisions with only about 60% of the information you need. This is where having a good set of people around you is important – more on this later. The constant meetings to review progress is where you will get to see if your plans are working and if not, what changes need to be made and by when.
Execution based thinking
Even during normal periods, good businesses ensure good execution of their plans to achieve their goals. This is even more crucial during crisis management. It is all about
discipline and clarity of what actions must be taken. Do not be generic with your action plans.
For example, an action plan cannot simply be ‘reduce costs’. It has to be broken down into categoriesof costs. For each line item, the costs must be fully understood. This is important to achieve strategic cost rationalisation as it will help you evaluate the risk of reducing and/or eliminating the cost item.
You also need to take execution to a different level. Your messaging has to be clear and succinct. Get your team to give you feedback on their understanding of what needs to get done. You also need to get the team to challenge or report present situations to enable you to revisit or change tactics quickly.
Execution plans need to be visual. We created our own Execution Strategy called ‘Focus 5’. It outlined five key areas and within each of those areas was a detailed list of actions.
These five areas were based on key elements in a typical automotive business: Quality, Program Management, Cost Management, Customer strategies & People.
For starters, we asked that everyone focused on 3-5 items. Close them out and then develop the next 3. This forces team members to focus and also motivates the team. We humans can get easily demotivated if we see a list of ten or more items to be completed. Heaven forbid that the first 3 items are not successfully implemented. It would create a sense of hopelessness in the group and nothing would get done.
People
Unsurprisingly, all key steps to managing during a crisis are centered around people. At all times, you must have the right people on your team. It is one of the most important things you need to do when deciding on a strategy.
You may come to realise that some team members you valued before the crisis just do not have the right skill sets to help the company now. This was the hardest thing I had to do, and if you are a true leader it will never get any easier.
This is one of the first steps you have to take and you need to give your team the space to appreciate and understand the rationale behind your decisions. In my experience, situations destabilise when messages are delayed and communication processes are not well thought out.
It is people who get things done. No amount of latest technologies, efficient processes and fancy certifications will make up for execution by someone who lacks motivation or skill. On the contrary, this can breed negative emotions which are especially contagious in a crisis.
We developed a concept called ‘CARE’. This concept revolved around the need for people who care enough about both the product & the customer. CARE is the final, and the most obvious ingredient to make a successful company. We ensure that CARE exists at all levels within our organisation.
You need to surround yourself with people who will think differently from you and have different emotional reactions. The danger for a leader is to lapse into a false sense of security as almost everyone agrees with you. I was fortunate in that I have had team members who did not hesitate to challenge me and in fact it was at the insistence of one of my executive team members that we developed our electric vehicle(EV) strategy.
If, as a company, you never had a good human resource strategy, making and communicating changes during a crisis is even harder. That is the reason HR must play a vital part of your operations. HR cannot be a department just about payroll and getting your allowances. It has to be the glue that holds the departments and the CEO together.
Summary The current COVID-19 crisis is, in my view, far direr than the situation we faced in 2008/9. The human and economic implications are profound and it will take some time before we are back to normalcy. As leaders, we will still have to steer our organisations in these turbulent times and I believe the fundamentals gained from our prior experiences should now be applied in earnest. Having a clear strategy and working on having the right people around you are the two most crucial steps you need to undertake. You will have to make difficult decisions and when they are made, act on them and do not second guess yourself. When a team sees a leader who is not phased and is continually communicating with them, I truly believe half the battle is won.
REJIE SAMUEL Rejie Samuel has served in various positions for over 15 years the last two as CEO. He is presently a Board Member at Air International Thermal Systems. Rejie is passionate about making an impact on society and developing young talent.
NEED TO CREATE THE PERFECT WORK FROM HOME POLICY? THESE 3 SENTENCES ARE ALL YOU NEED
BY JEFF HADEN
Because where remote work policies are concerned, less is definitely more
If your employees are now working from home or in some way working remotely, you’ve probably already worked out the infrastructure kinks: Between email, phone calls, texts, and messaging platforms (Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.), communicating and collaborating may not be perfect… but you’re making it work.
Which is when many boss’s thoughts naturally turn to the next step: Creating a work from home policy.
But it can also provide the perfect opportunity — since, really, you have no choice — to shift to a more effective leadership style.
So don’t be tempted to create a comprehensive list of expectations, guidelines, procedures, policies… and worst of all, potential repercussions.
Your work-from-home policy can be, as I’ve written about before, three short sentences:
1. Get your work done. 2. Be available. 3. Over-communicate.
Yep. That’s it.
How people work, when they work, whether they’re incredibly efficient and able to get all their work done in six hours, or whether they’re relatively inefficient and take ten hours… barring any intra-day deadlines, who cares?
Bill Gates used to memorize employee license plates so he could look out the window to see who was still at work. Eventually, he realized that managing by results was more important… and a much better use, as a leader, of his time.
So don’t worry about how many hours your employees work. Lead and manage by expectations and deliverables, not by virtual “butts in seats.”
What matters is what gets done.
The same is true for availability and communication. It goes unsaid that employees should be available during work hours. It goes unsaid that employees should communicate problems, issues, challenges… as well as ideas, suggestions, and opportunities.
So just say that. Say, “This is a challenging situation, and we need everyone’s best — especially their best ideas.”
Aside from that? Treat your employees like the professionals they are. They know the situation. They know what’s at stake.
Trust them to step up.
And if one person doesn’t? Deal with any performance issues as a one-off situation, not as a reason to add bullet points to your work from home policy.
Because good employees don’t need policies. They just want to know what really needs to get done.
Wherever they’re working.
JEFF HADEN Jeff Haden is a speaker, ghostwriter, and author of The Motivation Myth: How Highly Successful People Really Set Themselves Up to Win.
Infographic: 8 Tips on How to Make Hard Decisions Fast
BY MEREDITH WOOD
Has the time come to let a toxic employee go? Should you open another business location? You likely won’t get very far in business if you haven’t mastered the art of how to make a hard decision quickly and intelligently.
If it seems like you simply can’t make hard decisions, no matter how many deep breaths you take or almonds you snack on, maybe you can’t. This is called ‘decision fatigue’.
We make anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 decisions per day, and that’s exhausting! With thousands of decisions per day and millions per year, we gradually wear down our self-control and willpower until we’re incapable of making smart decisions. Luckily, you can train your brain to combat this.
Jump to our infographic below for eight expert tips to train your brain to make better business decisions more quickly— whether you need to decide on how to cover the bills, which insurance to purchase, or any other business decision. Or, keep reading for an in-depth look at decision making.
1. Avoid ‘sleeping on it’ too often
Someone has probably told you at some point in your life to ‘sleep on it’. While stopping and thinking certainly has its merits and shouldn’t be discounted, many small business owners take this practice too far and overthink decisions to the point of inaction. Set a mental—or physical—timer for two to four hours per business decision. Aim to weigh the pros and cons and consult with trusted advisors within this time frame. If the choices are equally attractive, go ahead and make a decision. Chances are, you can adjust your decision as needed later on, and you won’t waste time deliberating aimlessly.
2. Follow the 10-10-10 method
Ask yourself how a particular business decision will affect you 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years from now. Write down your answers and reflect on them. If you reasonably think you can live with the consequences of your decision in the medium- and long-term, go ahead and make the tough call. If you think you might feel disappointment or regret, consider an alternative.
3. Practice with the little things
How long did it take you to decide where to go out for dinner yesterday? How about which TV show to watch? Give yourself a maximum of 30 seconds to make simple decisions—or not-so-simple decisions, depending on how you look at it—like these.
If you can master the easy decisions, you can begin to make heftier decisions that affect your business more quickly as well.
4. Take the ‘lean startup’ approach
It sounds a bit odd, but stop aiming for greatness when thinking about how to make a hard decision. Oftentimes, good decisions made now beat great decisions made later. All you need is a reasonably good decision to get you started and prepare you to make a more informed decision later on.
5. Write down 10 ‘if/then’ scenarios
As a business owner, you can’t account for every wrinkle in the plan that might come your way, but you can think about a lot of them!
Before a meeting, formulate some if/ then scenarios. For example, you might say that if Jerry interrupts you three times during a meeting, then you’ll say something to him. Before a business development call, anticipate what questions a potential client might ask. Write down 10 if/then scenarios and rehearse your responses. This way, you can train your brain to think logically when it comes to unanticipated difficult decisions.
6. Ditch the ‘you’re supposed to’ argument
Sure, habit and precedent can help you make easy decisions faster. However, when it comes to how to make a hard decision, you’ll want to focus on your own common sense and thought process. Making a decision just because ‘you’re supposed to’ actually limits your ability to think logically and make difficult choices in the long run.
7. Listen to your hopes
Think about how many times you’ve struggled with a hard decision because you hoped something would happen, but your brain told you it wasn’t practical.
Remember that you’re not purely rational. You have hopes and dreams and should listen to those. Often, your hopes are the best indicators of what choices you really want to make.
8. Notice your rationalisations
Pay attention to how much you’re trying to justify a decision to yourself.
Maybe you’re choosing between two suppliers, and others around you think you should choose supplier A over supplier B. Maybe you’ve also settled on supplier A, but then you find yourself dragging your feet and making excuses not to reach out to supplier A. That’s your brain trying to tell you something. (Maybe you actually want to choose supplier B.)
Listen to what you truly want to do, and follow that path.
Check out our infographic to determine which type of decision maker you are and learn how to make a hard decision the right way.
Meredith Wood Meredith Wood is the vice president and founding editor at Fundera. She is specialised in financial advice for small business owners and is frequently sought out for her expertise in small business lending.
