One vision, many hands

Biggest benefit of teamwork is that there is just one fixed goal and multiple minds to work on the same. It eases the process, lightens workload on each mind, and helps multiple ideas to crop up since multiple minds are involved. Since all have same goal in front, there is less chance of deviation from the end goal and multiple reasons of better ideas to come on the surface. Since every mind thinks differently, there is always chance of bringing multiple new thoughts and ideas on the table.

Time saving

Major benefit of working in a team is time saving and finishing work within the stipulated time, meeting deadline with an ease. Great work makes no sense to client if it’s not finished within the time and remains incomplete. Since a team shares responsibility and divides work as per the skills required. This way deadline is easily met.

Better adaptability and flexibility

Since people work in a team, there is less of self defensive attitude found among the team workers. People adapt better to the given situation, are found less obsessed with own work, are more receptive and adaptable to new ideas, suggestions and situations which is not seen when people work alone. People learn more in a group as one may commit a mistake which is checked by fellow group members. If one doesn’t know certain things can also learn from co-workers. People working in team are more flexible, ready to changes and new innovations.

Here are some tips to keep up the great managerial skill.

Set goals, draw routes to achieve them

As a manager you should be aware of company’s mission, vision, values and goals. To achieve them set small job oriented goals, which are realistic, achievable, and measurable. Now develop a comprehensive plan, illustrating steps to be taken to achieve those goals. Allocate work to the concerned people, coordinate all. Keep track of the projects, progress status and problems faced. Prioritize projects too, marking them as per immediacy. Call for frequent staff meetings, keep the deadlines before them, provide them with the required information, make objectives clear, and clarify doubts. Be a constant support system to them.

Analyze employees, increase their productivity

Judge your employees. Analyze their skills, interests, goals, strengths, and weaknesses. Once you can analyze employees, assign relevant assignments to them; which match with their competence. Your concern towards them will keep them interested, involved and feel valued. Allocation of appropriate work will also maximize their productivity, enhance quality of performance, and make the entire work enjoyable. When employees find you care for them, they also work harder and are motivated to excel.

Provide necessary resources and support the employees

Provide your employees with all kind of support, in terms of information and tools required, resources required, environment for work, appraisal on completion with success, encouragement and moral support. You have to look after everything from stationary items to project submission. Improve work culture of the company. Make the work enjoyable, not burden.

Make the work place unbiased, adhering to equity and fairness

A good honest employee can never excel in a work place which is full of conflicts, biased towards few, doesn’t recognize talent and hard work, and encourages office politics. Treat all in equal way. Make sure all have equal access to information, tools, and resources. Interact with all in same manner, with due respect and care. Be consistent with your actions. Lend your ear to all.

Don’t forget to appreciate before all

Don’t forget to appreciate the ones who excel. A heartfelt appraisal will not only boost confidence, but also make the employees feel valued, recognized, and motivated. Cheer for him, praise him before all. It will also set an example for others to follow.

3 time wasting monsters

Personal conversation

This is the most dangerous monster that covertly follows you everywhere, which you always fail to notice until it’s already late. You can find this monster lurking around in your office and even in your home. It makes you feel that you are doing some important discussion, but the fact is you are not. You are just wasting time talking about your personal stuff when you should be working on the project at hand.

There is a time and place for personal discussion. Confine it there only. Do not let it disturb your work schedule.

Frequently checking e-mails

E-mails are important, and some are very important. But none of them is as important as the work you have at your hand, so it will be more fruitful to spend time on doing the work than checking mails, regularly.

Make a mail checking routine. I would suggest checking your mails once or twice a day, but if you expect important mails throughout the day or if you cannot live without browsing through your inbox then check your mail 4 times a day, at max. Do not let this monster kill your time.

Breaks

Taking breaks during a day is important, as it help you energize yourself. A break helps you remove your thought from the project, and hence get a fresh perspective on the subject matter, when you get back to it after the break. But frequent or too many breaks do not allow you to come back to the subject matter, ruining the purpose of the break itself.

Too many breaks create distraction, so avoid indulging in that. In fact, I will suggest you to make a “break taking” plan around your work schedule. This will keep you on track, and the plan will keep this “time wasting” monster contained.

These 3 monsters should be avoided at any cost, if your goal is to do anything with your life.

1. Most important criteria for effective time management is organized self. Initially it may be difficult. But try to build up daily ‘to do list’. Such daily planner will keep you organized and disciplined too. Also prioritize events with star mark, which need to be done first.
2. Get rid off your lazy attitude and pushing things for the next day. What needs to be done in the morning should be done, rather than unnecessarily pushing it to evening or next day. Adhere to your time table, it will keep you stress-free.
3. If your job asks for big decision, take it as soon as possible rather than avoiding it. Avoiding problems won’t solve them. Act now. Examine the problem, go to its root cause, find solution and execute confidently. Don’t be afraid of risks.
4. If you are a team worker and you have authority to delegate work, do it effectively. Keep those tasks for yourself which seek your special involvement and attention. Less important tasks you can distribute among your team members. It will help you in managing work pressure and also perform better with good team involvement. Distribution of work load and responsibility will keep all happy.
5. Take good care of your health. You can perform your duties effectively only when you are mentally and physically fit. So don’t neglect your diet, sleep and mental well being. If your hobbies or your family keep you happy, spend your spare time with them. It will keep you at ease. Don’t forget, happiness is key to success.
6. Stress is integral part of daily life. But physical activities like sports, exercises, swimming, yoga, cycling, and running help one reduce stress and stay fit. Include them in your daily life. If a spa indulgence or massage helps you to de-stress, go for it.

With these tips you will find time is your best friend and it’s so easy to walk hand in hand with it.

1. Communication
2. Involvement
3. Setting Goals
4. Manage Poor Performances
5. Celebrating Performances

Communication is an essential element to any employee team, as it’s the most important aspect of working together to complete a project.  Keep communication channels open through team meetings, email, and conference calls.  This way everyone’s voice is heard, and nobody will feel as though they can’t get through if something is frustrating them.  Proper support will help that morale stay on the up.

Involve everyone as much as possible with every aspect of the project.  Listen to your team, and let them communicate ideas and suggestions into the development of your projects.  This way they stay motivated to always strive to be successful, as they know you’ll listen to their ideas for innovations.

Set lofty goals that your team can be proud to shoot for.  Don’t set them ridiculously high obviously, but find a comfortable middle ground above the standard, but not impossible to achieve.  This way you’re keeping your team motivated to be better and better, but not overworking them to the point they lose the faith.

Manage your poorer performers.  Not everyone on your team can excel like you would want them to, and some people will turn in a substandard performance from time to time.  But that’s where you take the time to personally manage them.  Work with them to help resolve any issues reflected in their performance, this way you can get them going on producing the quality of work you want them too, and their attitude will get better as they receive the help they need to achieve the goals you set.

And finally, celebrating individual and team achievement is crucial.  One of the oldest archetypes throughout nature, is doing work for a reward.  Yes your team receives a paycheck for their effort, yes technically this is their reward for their hard work, but that’s no reason not to throw in a thank you here and there.  Recognize your top performers, and make sure to congratulate your team when they work together the way you would like them to, as this will keep them upbeat, and motivated to keep your compliments true to their ability.

A PowerPoint presentation with objective data, three-dimensional colorful graphs, round-cornered table with drop-shadow effect, and picture of an attractive female provides useful information, which if understood well can fetch the desired outcome. This “if understood” have a big “If” which never get resolved because data, graphs, tables, bullet points, and unrelated pictures fail to make a connect with the audience, and these things can be blamed for the failure of countless meetings and numerous PowerPoint presentations.

Various studies in neuroscience, psychology and human cognition has proved many time that human mind is not a machine fuelled by logic and rationality. On the contrary, it is an organic entity overfilled with the emotionally charged synapses and is flooded with various chemicals that get charged up by the things happening in our surrounding. A good story increases the flow of these chemicals by drawing cues from the immediate environment of the audience, and thus getting the response the storyteller seeks.

A good story helps you cut through the clutter and reach your intended audience with the message you want to deliver, whereas, a PowerPoint presentation, with graphs, tables, bullet points, etc. just adds on to the clutter. A well-crafted story helps you connect, and it will elicit the response that even hundreds of PowerPoint presentations, and reams and reams of objective data working together will not get.

If you pay peanuts, you will get monkeys; if you pay carrots, you will get rabbits. This adage has nothing new to offer but it still amuses, and in this laughter and gag, management misses the point. They keep on paying peanuts and they keep on getting their back itched. This is the reality of the corporate world. Companies have lost the trust of employees and thus the loyalty is waning out. What is the reason behind this depleting loyalty? Well, one of the answers could be, or more precisely the answer could be a lack of a proper recognition and reward system in companies.

It is not uncommon to find people who complain about not getting credit or rewarded for the role they played and the benefits they bring to the company. Hence, the employees’ morale weakens over the period of time, and they hop to another job as quickly as they can. The reason behind this job hopping is the absence of any intangible (read quality) benefit, in the absence of which employees look for the money and money alone. If money becomes the sole criteria for taking up any job then there will be nothing like loyalty and long-term commitment.

A proper reward system is one of the things that can stop quality employees from leaving. A reward should acknowledge the importance of the work the recipient has done for the company. The person should get due credit for the work he or she has done. This will infuse quality at the workplace, and the appreciation they get in return of the work they have done will motivate them not only to stay with your company but also to better their performance. If your company provides better work environment, and promptly return the employees’ dues then the importance of money gets belittled. Money only works wonder if everything else is indistinguishable.

A proper reward system should be responsive and customizable. No one-size-fits-all strategy should be used for rewarding the employees. If your company indulges in this then always expect the same mediocre result from the people on the other side. You pay peanuts and you get monkeys! There will not be even a single star performer if all a best performer of your company gets are peanuts and carrots.

Star performers do not just help satisfy more customers but they also help in securing good investments. We should understand here the triangular relationship between, employees, customers and investors. One better employee will fetch at least 10 loyal customers and 10 loyal customers will bring 100 more like them. This way the customer base of your company will grow and with it will grow sale of your products. The more you will sell the bigger your company will become and the better employees you will attract. These high quality employees will breed more sales that give investors more confidence in your company and the more confident the investor will have the more he or she will invest in your company.

For investors, the size of the customer base of your company is indeed important but the quality of the team that you have assembled to satisfy the needs and wants of your company’s customers are more important. Employees, customers and investors are three sides of a business triangle, weaken one of them and your business will tilt and tip over.

]]> http://itlist.com/pay-peanuts-get-monkeypay-peanuts-get-monkey/feed/ 0 http://itlist.com/7-things-that-let-you-down/ http://itlist.com/7-things-that-let-you-down/#comments Mon, 04 May 2009 02:20:43 +0000 bikram http://itlist.com/?p=1319 Every day we make promises to ourselves and we even try to fulfill those promises, but the astounding amount of work around us lets us down. It happens with all of us. We plan, we try but we could not deliver. What is the reason? Well, this article is an attempt to tell you not only the reason but also the ways to get rid of such problems.

No priority list: This is the first thing in the list because I wanted to tell you emphatically the importance of having a prioritized to-do list. In the absence of such list you will not know what is more important and what can wait till evening. Hence, what you end up doing first in the morning is the thing that was not at all important.

A pile of task: This is almost always unmanageable. A huge list of work to complete will just immobilize you and you cannot accomplish anything, so bite only what you can chew, and leave rest on the plate for others.

Wrong Timing: This is important. Do the critical work in the morning when you are fresh, and push the less important works for the rest of the day. Checking mail in the morning takes away the time in which you could have accomplished many important things.

Untidy Mailbox: This kills your time more than anything else. Too many mails in your mailbox will not boost your productivity; rather it will stamp it down. You need to organize your mailbox by filing important mails in folders and deleting the unnecessary ones.

No Do Not Disturb Sign: This is very important. In the office, being accessible to your subordinates, colleagues and bosses is considered professionalism. It indeed will win you many friends and support, but at times this will result in delayed reports and missed deadlines. Hence, you need to put “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door when you have important work with a tight deadline to finish.

Working Long Hours: If someone told you that working for hours in a stretch will fetch you great result then he was wrong. You need to take breaks at equal intervals to recharge your battery. The more relax you will be the better result will come out. Working continuously does nothing but worn you out.

Stand Up and Say No: Saying no is a good thing. It says you care and that you know the importance of the additional work that is going to get assigned to you. If you say no when you are caught up, this way you will not only save yourself from missing deadlines due to overload, but this will also help your organization get the work done through someone else who is free at that time.

Fast forward couple of decades and many more e-mail (now web mail) providers will appear on the horizon offering free e-mail services, but instead of doubling the productivity, the e-mail has now slowed the process down. People are more engrossed in the tool, and e-mail is no longer a mean to an end, it has become an end in itself.

E-mails have become an addiction, and people started getting confused between sending and receiving mails, and real work. The more e-mails a person reads and writes the more fake-sense of accomplishment he gets. Now the problem is over communication, not the lack of it. In the changed situation, close to 90 percent of the mails in any mailbox are either forwards or useless newsletters. These newsletters still get delivered only because you do not have time to unsubscribe from them.

A disciplined approach to e-mail is required. The first step you can take towards using e-mails to increase your productivity is to de-clutter your inbox by creating appropriate filters. Every e-mail provider as well as every e-mail client has in-built filter option, but very few people use it to their advantage. Creating a well-defined filter will keep not-so-important mails away from your immediate attention.

Next thing you can do to increase your productivity is to changes couple of things in your e-mail usage behavior as well. You can start with changing the frequency of checking e-mails. Limit this frequency of checking your mail to twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening at least after seven hours of real work. This will help you focus your attention on the task at hand, and will save you from wasting time in replying the mail as soon as it come. Let the problems, issues and complains of clients wait for a while. Another thing you need to do in this direction is to keep the outgoing e-mails short and succinct. This will not save your time only, but it will also save the recipient’s time. Keep in mind, no one likes to read long e-mails, so keep the niceties out of e-mails, and be straight forward.

Gmail is a great help in this battle between productivity and e-mail behavior. I like Gmail because it has some great productivity enhancing features, like a very strong and intuitive filter, and searching for a specific mail in Gmail is as fast and accurate as is searching for information on a particular keyword in Google. You can also customize Gmail using XML according to your need.

A similar need has risen in the wake of the current corporate fiasco. This time the reason for the failure is the greed and shortsightedness of the corporate executives, of the managers who run the company and the world economy under the disguise of inspirational leaders. Their greed and focus for short term profit led the whole world to the economic crevasse, a crevasse so deep that coming out from here is very tough and will require the strength of character that is lacking in today’s’ business executives, and even if we come out of this crevasse and the economy revives, the world will never be the same again. The base has already shifted, and now an altogether different type of management style is needed to run business; now we need some truly inspirational business leaders who can pull us single handedly out of this fissure.

If the time is good, movement is easy, and when we do not need to exert ourselves to move ahead then we need someone just to look after the entire process, and to point out if something goes wrong, which rarely does. In such times we need a manager, who does not need to be inspirational or charismatic, he should only be diligent.

But, if the time is not favourable, and things started falling apart, these managers render themselves useless. In situation like these we need true leaders. The leader who can pull even the last one of us out from the deep crevasse we are stuck into by the sheer strength of his character. In such situations, we need someone to inspire us, someone to motivate us and instill the lost self belief in us. This is not the time, when dictating task and measuring the performance records will fetch any result. These tools were made for the time when things were normal, not for the time when everything has fallen apart. They will not be of any more use, but unaware of these facts today’s business managers are continuously using the same set of tools, which led them to this disaster, and the more they use it the deeper we fall in the trench.

This is the time when a fresh thinking is needed to assess and deliver the solution that was never heard of before. We need to understand that we cannot solve the problem with the mindset in which the problem was created. We need to shift the paradigm, we need to do away with the managers and their old way of thinking, and replace them with visionary leaders and their innovative ideas. We need to look for the leader who has a deep understanding of the situation and who is not scared of trying new things. We do not need those pretentious “been there done that” managers, rather we need an honest leader who accepts that he has not been through everything, and one who has the courage to accept that he doesn’t know the solutions to all the problems, but still he believes that if we work together we can get out of this economy crevasse. This is the style of leadership, which is needed. We need Leadership 2.0 to solve our problems. Like Web 2.0, Leadership 2.0 should also stand for every change that is forthcoming.

At first glance, CADIE and Gmail’s Autopilot Email program seem unbelievable!  Gmail says that you don’t have to spend all your time reading messages because  Gmail’s Autopilot will do all the work for you by matching your writing style.  If two Gmail accounts use the autopilot program then they can “converse with each other for up to three messages each.”  Before you continue reading this post, go check it out for yourself now by opening a new window and visiting Google’s Gmail.  Also check out the CADIE page to befriend the artificially intelligent being yourself.

I checked out the CADIE blogspot homepage, which seems like a cheap mock-up from the past with all of its flashy scrolling banners, and I asked myself, “Why a panda?”  The music is nice, but why does it say this at the top of the page:

All your personal World Wide Website belong to CADIE

Did Google get hacked?  It can’t possibly be!  I scrolled back to the Google page and effectively, there was the announcement for Gmail autopilot!  Google is either way ahead of the IT game or has poor security!  What do you think?  Or did Google get hijacked by a supercomputer it created?  Maybe we shouldn’t be questioning CADIE or Google!  Okay, okay, the truth (which dawned on me after a little while) is that Google has played one of the biggest April Fools jokes on the internet!  I didn’t want to spoil the joke by posting on it, so I tried to just pass the information on…  Were you fooled?  Would you want artificial intelligence to do the things Google said she could?  Is email with artificial intelligence just too much for now?  Leave a comment with your opinion…