Life Lesson

Unpopular opinion time: Being given thirty minutes back in your day hurts productivity more than it helps.

And not only productivity, but attitude and emotional resilience, too.

When someone is signed up for a meeting, they’ve opted in, they’ve enrolled in the work you’ve set out to host. They’re mentally prepared (because they know about it) and will have reserved the will power to bring their emotional labor to the meeting.

The problem with ending early is two-fold.

First there’s a feeling of whiplash. When something is going one way and then it quickly redirects. It’s not fun in a car and it’s not fun at work.

The second is that more often than not, those thirty minutes given back don’t get used productively because the person mentally set aside the time to work on your agenda, not a different one, so the time back is processed as down time.

(Funnily, those who can more easily switch to something else and be more productive are the ones who weren’t prepared or fully enrolled in the meeting in the first place.)

My recommendation: If you see the meeting you’re running can end early – don’t. You can achieve much more with a redirection; perhaps playing out the topic of the meeting further downstream or pivoting to a brainstorm. Once people are in your meeting, they are there. The problem arises when the meeting is cut short and they leave. It hurts productivity more than it helps.

Stay Positive & Leaders Lead, They Don’t Cut Meetings Short

Photo credit

You can have the most regimented process of project execution and QA, but spot checks always, always unearth either a hiccup/mistake that can be repaired or an insight/question that can help drive future work.

(And let’s be real, on the chance nothing is uncovered, the result is still a feeling of confidence and reassurance.)

Yes, a leader’s role is to trust the process, trust those doing the work and trust those QAing the work, but it’s also the leader’s role to reflect on it all – in other words, spot check.

And thinking spot checking is too micro-managy is just a cop out; a way to hide from potential issues or more work.

The impact is quite the opposite: it smartens the team, gives everyone a greater sense of how they can channel their skills to improve the work and downright shows you care about the project and impact you set out to have.

Stay Positive & Be The Spotter

Photo credit

The work your doing isn’t as strong as it can be if you go about it thinking that you are the target.

Evaluating the work you’re doing as if you are the target of it is layered with a whole slue of biases that work against you and weaken the work.

Work can really only get stronger by approaching it with empathy and observation of the real target (them, not you) and a whole lot of listening.

But there is one moment that it pays to own being the target (whether you think/feel you are or not): right before you ship.

Let’s say marketing is like making food in a restaurant and you’re the chef. You’re making food that you want the person at the table to love, and in the moment before you send it out, you look at it and ask the question “would I be happy to be served this if I were the one sitting at the table?”

This one final gut check can make all the difference in a remarkable experience for a guest – or, rather, can prevent a terrible review from occurring.

Namely, there’s a point when you get too in the weeds of doing something for the target. After all, they’re hungry and you’re rushing to get them what they want while they want it, which often results in you sending out the tacos, but the meat is overcooked.

You might have good target-centric intentions, but haste makes waste. The pause to put on the target’s hat ensures you get applause.

Stay Positive & Them First, Then You

Photo credit

They may want your cereal, but they need to feel healthy and like they are doing right by their children.

They may want your beer, but they need the feeling of connection with a tight knit community.

They may want your training course, but they need to feel treated with respect at work.

Are you marketing to what they want or what they need?

Stay Positive & You Can Guess Which Marketing Works Best

Photo credit

Saying a mantra to yourself in the morning once a week, might help you stay in the right mindset, but not as much as saying it daily.

Sharing your message with your audience might mean it stands out to the few who are afraid they’ll miss something from you, but it’s worth sharing it a few more times to ensure awareness and a touch of trust from the others.

There’s a limit with all mentions–when it goes from informing to annoying. But one things for sure in the ever noisy world we’re living in – everything can have a greater impact if it were said a few more times.

Stay Positive & What Do You Say?

Photo credit

Here’s a new format to use for your to-do list. It’s a game changer.

[Task] so that [someone] [benefit]

Finish that project brief so that the studio artist can flex her creative muscles on the work.

Clean the main floor of the house so that my partner feels less stressed.

Adding a person and how completing the task helps them changes the entire energy of a to-do list.

Everything becomes an act of generosity, not just a task.

Helping someone else thrive feels a lot better than checking a box, anyway–but this way, you can do both.

Stay Positive & Check, Check, Check

Photo credit

If you dig deeper into what makes someone impressed, you’d find that it’s not just what they see, hear, feel, smell, taste or touch.

They’re impressed with the effort and intention and heart that was put into something.

Following a stock plan might produce something beautiful, but it won’t produce something remarkable.

Remarkable requires a leap outside of the playbook into uncharted territory, full of vulnerability and grit.

Stay Positive & Color Someone Impressed Today

Photo credit