Thursday, July 27, 2006
'If you’re indispensable, something’s wrong!', says Carole Spiers, female keynote speaker.
Indispensable.
A label that is both flattering and frightening.
It does not in fact benefit any organisation when one person is so crucial to its survival.
But it’s easy to see where the indispensability myth starts.
Self-reliance taken too far
For the best reasons, a career-beginner is encouraged to be self-reliant, to work to the highest standards, to root-out bad habits, and to be intolerant of low performers. And the underlying proposition is based on individual responsibility - with a strong suggestion of being indispensable on the small scale.
Later, when they move up and start supervising others, they try to enforce these high standards right across the department - and inevitably there are teething troubles. Along with certain popular cries:
“In the time it takes to explain it to this newcomer, I could have done the job myself”
True, but not the point - and in fact a thoroughly short-sighted view of the position.
If you did the job yourself, you would be neglecting other, more heavyweight tasks which represent a better use of your time.
When the newcomer eventually gets the hang of the job, the system will be working correctly.
“The job simply hasn’t been carried out to the standards we’ve been achieving.”
Yes, that’s teething - and your system must allow for it. Like losing a bit of acceleration when you change up a gear.
For an initial period, you’ll be having to spend more time than usual checking the work in detail.
The ‘rule of three’ has been found reliable: your newcomer will probably take three shots to get the routine right. Only after that should you declare the situation problematical.
“Letting go is the hardest part…”
Delegation is always hard, but it’s like adjusting your vision from short-range to long-range.
As leader, it is for you to focus exclusively on the big picture, the strategic overview - and make sure the others understand their responsibilities relative to it.
Identify the tasks that only you can do, and leave all the rest to those you have delegated, making sure that the systems are firmly established and understood.
Carole Spiers – successful entrepreneur occupies a special niche as a motivational speaker who brings together the separate cultures of individual empowerment and executive management - proving to corporate business that empowered employees improve performance and output. Carole’s keynote presentations have educated and inspired audiences all over the world. She is also a high profile broadcaster, journalist and current President of the London Chapter of the Professional Speakers Association.
Our publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. To sign up for our FREE success quotations http://tinyurl.co.uk/yhgv, or for more information email info@carolespiers.com to telephone +44 (0) 20 8954 1593 a href="http://www.carolespiers.com/">http://www.carolespiers.com/
A label that is both flattering and frightening.
It does not in fact benefit any organisation when one person is so crucial to its survival.
But it’s easy to see where the indispensability myth starts.
Self-reliance taken too far
For the best reasons, a career-beginner is encouraged to be self-reliant, to work to the highest standards, to root-out bad habits, and to be intolerant of low performers. And the underlying proposition is based on individual responsibility - with a strong suggestion of being indispensable on the small scale.
Later, when they move up and start supervising others, they try to enforce these high standards right across the department - and inevitably there are teething troubles. Along with certain popular cries:
“In the time it takes to explain it to this newcomer, I could have done the job myself”
True, but not the point - and in fact a thoroughly short-sighted view of the position.
If you did the job yourself, you would be neglecting other, more heavyweight tasks which represent a better use of your time.
When the newcomer eventually gets the hang of the job, the system will be working correctly.
“The job simply hasn’t been carried out to the standards we’ve been achieving.”
Yes, that’s teething - and your system must allow for it. Like losing a bit of acceleration when you change up a gear.
For an initial period, you’ll be having to spend more time than usual checking the work in detail.
The ‘rule of three’ has been found reliable: your newcomer will probably take three shots to get the routine right. Only after that should you declare the situation problematical.
“Letting go is the hardest part…”
Delegation is always hard, but it’s like adjusting your vision from short-range to long-range.
As leader, it is for you to focus exclusively on the big picture, the strategic overview - and make sure the others understand their responsibilities relative to it.
Identify the tasks that only you can do, and leave all the rest to those you have delegated, making sure that the systems are firmly established and understood.
Carole Spiers – successful entrepreneur occupies a special niche as a motivational speaker who brings together the separate cultures of individual empowerment and executive management - proving to corporate business that empowered employees improve performance and output. Carole’s keynote presentations have educated and inspired audiences all over the world. She is also a high profile broadcaster, journalist and current President of the London Chapter of the Professional Speakers Association.
Our publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. To sign up for our FREE success quotations http://tinyurl.co.uk/yhgv, or for more information email info@carolespiers.com to telephone +44 (0) 20 8954 1593 a href="http://www.carolespiers.com/">http://www.carolespiers.com/
# posted by Carole Spiers @ 9:58 PM 
Monday, July 24, 2006
Motivational Speaker Carole Spiers Discusses Your Fear Of Public Speaking - understandable, unnecessary, and curable!
It can happen to the best of us. Even great actors can suffer stage fright for no logical reason. You’re up on that platform, and suddenly the audience looks like a huge enemy force, out to destroy you.
The causes of this illogical syndrome can vary. It may stem from some early humiliation, perhaps in a school play, which might indeed register hard on a young person. Or it may relate to some long-running insecurity about voice or appearance. Or more likely than either, it’s just a simple fear of performing badly in front of people who influence your career and your livelihood.
What is certain is that it is unnecessary.
This is the Communication Age. You must be able to present, convince and sell.
If you’re in any kind of business or professional career, you will have to acquire presentation skills as a matter of routine. Contracts are overwhelmingly awarded on the strength of a spoken pitch, perhaps quite short, that manages to swing the whole decision. It is simply part of the territory, and you can’t dodge it, any more than a salesman can dodge learning to drive.
Curing yourself - identifying the problems and rooting them out.
Keep a log of those bad moments on the platform. What seems to trigger them?
Forgetting your lines? Then you must train yourself to recover your poise before they’ve noticed. Audiences don’t particularly register words, as such. They register meanings and attitudes, put across with confidence and conviction. They respond better to cheek and charm than to hesitant modesty.
An unexpected interruption? Be actively rehearsed for this kind of moment, and don’t let yourself be thrown by it.
A difficult audience? Try to remember that a difficult audience is basically a naughty child, challenging you to show who’s boss. Give as good as you get. Cover-over with humour if you can, without appeasing them. Never show fear.
However bad the moment, get right back on that platform as soon as you can, before you lose your nerve.
And ignore the buffoon who tells you that one little drink will set you up for the session. That leads only to helpless dependence and fatal loss of mastery.
Asking advice from professional speakers - and perhaps becoming one
If the self-cure isn’t working well enough, you may need advice from some of the many experienced professional speakers who have - believe me - suffered the same symptoms.
You might attend a presentation skills seminar or take a course in public speaking offered by your local community college or other continuing education provider.
Or you may be interested to know that the Professional Speakers Association (www.professionalspeakers.org) includes many topics for speakers at its regular meetings, and it would be worth contacting your nearest branch for a first visit. I am President of the London Chapter so feel free to get in touch with me – cs@carolespiersgroup.com and pop along to one of our meetings and give us the opportunity of welcoming you to the London community. Be that motivational speaker that you dream of becoming....
But if you don’t want to go on a course or join an association, then the best advice is to embrace your speaking agenda with enthusiasm, get yourself invited up on platforms large and small whenever you can, and your persistence will eventually pay off in the form of a practised skill that will be in demand everywhere.
Carole Spiers – successful entrepreneur occupies a special niche as a motivational speaker who brings together the separate cultures of individual empowerment and executive management - proving to corporate business that empowered employees improve performance and output. Carole’s keynote presentations have educated and inspired audiences all over the world. She is also a high profile broadcaster, journalist and current President of the London Chapter of the Professional Speakers Association.
Our publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. To sign up for our FREE success quotations http://tinyurl.co.uk/yhgv, or for more information email info@carolespiers.com to telephone +44 (0) 29 8954 1593 www.carolespiers.com
The causes of this illogical syndrome can vary. It may stem from some early humiliation, perhaps in a school play, which might indeed register hard on a young person. Or it may relate to some long-running insecurity about voice or appearance. Or more likely than either, it’s just a simple fear of performing badly in front of people who influence your career and your livelihood.
What is certain is that it is unnecessary.
This is the Communication Age. You must be able to present, convince and sell.
If you’re in any kind of business or professional career, you will have to acquire presentation skills as a matter of routine. Contracts are overwhelmingly awarded on the strength of a spoken pitch, perhaps quite short, that manages to swing the whole decision. It is simply part of the territory, and you can’t dodge it, any more than a salesman can dodge learning to drive.
Curing yourself - identifying the problems and rooting them out.
Keep a log of those bad moments on the platform. What seems to trigger them?
Forgetting your lines? Then you must train yourself to recover your poise before they’ve noticed. Audiences don’t particularly register words, as such. They register meanings and attitudes, put across with confidence and conviction. They respond better to cheek and charm than to hesitant modesty.
An unexpected interruption? Be actively rehearsed for this kind of moment, and don’t let yourself be thrown by it.
A difficult audience? Try to remember that a difficult audience is basically a naughty child, challenging you to show who’s boss. Give as good as you get. Cover-over with humour if you can, without appeasing them. Never show fear.
However bad the moment, get right back on that platform as soon as you can, before you lose your nerve.
And ignore the buffoon who tells you that one little drink will set you up for the session. That leads only to helpless dependence and fatal loss of mastery.
Asking advice from professional speakers - and perhaps becoming one
If the self-cure isn’t working well enough, you may need advice from some of the many experienced professional speakers who have - believe me - suffered the same symptoms.
You might attend a presentation skills seminar or take a course in public speaking offered by your local community college or other continuing education provider.
Or you may be interested to know that the Professional Speakers Association (www.professionalspeakers.org) includes many topics for speakers at its regular meetings, and it would be worth contacting your nearest branch for a first visit. I am President of the London Chapter so feel free to get in touch with me – cs@carolespiersgroup.com and pop along to one of our meetings and give us the opportunity of welcoming you to the London community. Be that motivational speaker that you dream of becoming....
But if you don’t want to go on a course or join an association, then the best advice is to embrace your speaking agenda with enthusiasm, get yourself invited up on platforms large and small whenever you can, and your persistence will eventually pay off in the form of a practised skill that will be in demand everywhere.
Carole Spiers – successful entrepreneur occupies a special niche as a motivational speaker who brings together the separate cultures of individual empowerment and executive management - proving to corporate business that empowered employees improve performance and output. Carole’s keynote presentations have educated and inspired audiences all over the world. She is also a high profile broadcaster, journalist and current President of the London Chapter of the Professional Speakers Association.
Our publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. To sign up for our FREE success quotations http://tinyurl.co.uk/yhgv, or for more information email info@carolespiers.com to telephone +44 (0) 29 8954 1593 www.carolespiers.com
# posted by Carole Spiers @ 9:11 PM
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Female Keynote Speaker Carole Spiers Talks About How To Prevent Email Overload …
- Q: I run a small business and I’m at my wits’ end trying to hold back the constant tide of incoming emails. What can I do?
A: Email was meant to make our lives easier, but many people have ended up feeling stressed-out by their inboxes. Thanks to email, mobile phones and text messaging, we’re expected to be on call 24/7 – even when we’re out of the country. So all of us need the skills to manage emails more efficiently, before our stress levels increase even further.
The ideal would be to tackle email overload at its source – by preventing emails from arriving in the first place. Most email programs have filters to separate ‘spam’ emails from the ones we actually want, but can still direct emails to the wrong mailbox. It’s important therefore to check your junk mailbox as regularly as your inbox, and make sure that ‘junk’ emails really are before deleting them - otherwise you’ll end up simply adding to your problems.
Whatever size your business, you’ll also be familiar with colleagues who feel the need to copy you on every email they send – whether or not they’re relevant to you. And then there are all the people who requested your email address when you signed up for a flight / concert ticket / online purchase etc – all of which makes managing your inbox even more challenging.
Research suggests that many people are starting work earlier and earlier, simply to deal with the emails that confront them every day. I know many people who come into work an hour earlier each day and work an hour extra at the end of the day – just to catch up.
If this is happening to you, 12 simple rules will help ‘control the inrushing tide’. You need to manage your email the same way as you manage your time: being organised is the key to ‘good email management’!
1.Set aside time to deal with your emails – don’t just react when the prompt sounds. Deal with email once or twice a day, but don’t spend more than half an hour on it at any one time.
2.Return unwanted emails – only then will the sender realise you didn’t want them. Don’t do this with unsolicited email though, as this can confirm to the sender that your address is ‘active’.
3.Don’t open emails with attachments from people you don’t know – they may contain viruses.
4.Structure your mailbox – use folders to keep your messages well organised.
5.Have a box for urgent, non-urgent and nice to read, so that when you need a break away from your day-to-day working, you have your reading email box waiting for you.
6.Be careful to flag up everything you have read. It’s very easy to read an email and THINK you have responded when you haven’t. This can be a problem if the recipient asks if you have given a response and you think you HAVE when you HAVEN’T!
7.Before sending an email, select the best medium for your message. Is email the most appropriate and do you really need to send one? Many people have stopped phoning or walking round the office to see a colleague rather than emailing them.
8.Make the purpose of your email clear. Put as much detail as possible in the subject line to help the recipient.
9.Use short words and sentences, and check your attachments before sending – many are unnecessary and could just as easily be included in the message itself.
10.Show consideration to the recipient by allowing time for a response. Expecting one immediately is unreasonable.
11.Never send an email when you’re tired or angry.
12.Always check the addressee(s) and don’t just copy everyone. You can cause considerable upset by emailing the wrong person!
Your company may or may not have an email policy, but this needs to be the responsibility of each and every individual. Be responsible for each email that you send out. Does this individual need to be aware of the information you are sending them? Do they need to be copied in on this email?
Email is a wonderful tool but it needs to be managed. Keep in control of it – rather than it being in control of you!
Carole Spiers - The Empowerment Guru grows successful people. An International Female Keynote Speaker, Conference Chair and Business Mentor who helps you to achieve step by step success with inspiration and motivation. Carole is President of the London Chapter of the Professional Speakers Assocation. Check out her ecommerce site for personal development products - CD's, books, audio - http://www.carolespiers.com/
# posted by Carole Spiers @ 1:50 PM
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Gamblers Always Lose Out!
Carole Spiers - The Empowerment Guru grows successful people. An International Female Keynote Speaker, Conference Chair and Business Mentor who helps you to achieve step by step success with inspiration and motivation. www.carolespiers.com
If you know someone in danger of gambling addiction, get specialist counselling before that wheel spins out of control
A group of young men are drinking in a pub. One of them is playing the fruit-machine. The others are wanting to move on. They ask him to finish off and come with them. He looks at the coins in his hand and says. “Hang on. Just wait till I’ve…”
He doesn’t usually finish the sentence. Because it would be “Just wait till I’ve lost this lot.”
Notice that he’s not saying “Wait till I’ve won the Jackpot”, because they’d be there all night. No, the message is clearly “Wait till I’ve lost.”
That little cameo of small-time gambling reflects a psychology which bulks-up big in those serious cases where huge money is blown away, and whole careers and families wrecked. It proves that on one level, gamblers want to lose.
It stands to reason.
You look at the sumptuous furnishings of the casino… the flash bookie with his stretch-limo… the huge fortunes of the dotcom gaming promoters…
Who’s doing all the winning ? Not the punter. And he knows it - only a little below that shallow surface where he can still pretend he’s about to scoop the pool. Which mostly reflects a desperate lunge at recovering losses.
What Your Gambling Addiction Says About You
You have to face the unflattering truth that a gambling addict is basically an inadequate and immature character.
Leave aside the depressing spectacle of the all-day drunks lurching in and out of the betting-shop, so obviously going nowhere in life.
Try a respectable casino, and take a look around that roulette table. One or two big swaggering figures, perhaps with dubious connections. But mostly ordinary little people. All the shy and sheepish types who would never dare take a risk in the real world of business, or in the other real world of romance. (And don’t fail to notice the sad little elderly widow who always seems to be there, so obviously looking for substitute excitement.) All the ones who might be called losers.
About to become losers in another form.
Knowing deep down that they can’t win-out, then, what is the buzz ?
One is the sheer fantasy world they are allowed into at second hand - James Bond, Monte-Carlo, the Mississippi riverboat. A world of triumphant winners (as often portrayed garishly on fruit machines and pin-tables) with their cigars and buxom mistresses. Remember, gambling addicts are chiefly the sort of people who will never experience one single day of life beyond the office and the train home.
Another is a kind of snobbery concerning effortless wealth - the feeling that a flick of a card here means enough for a world cruise, a few chips pushed casually across the green cloth could be a sports car. This is essentially sneering at those who strive and earn. It is a deeply deceptive idea of an elite club of special people who are too good to work, and of course deeply unreal. Those who sneer at effort are usually rotten to the core.
Gambling Compared To Other Addictions
But seeing that it doesn’t directly damage health, you might still rate gambling addiction as less serious than other habits. Well, here’s a first-hand comparison.
A famous entertainer’s wife and agent once described her husband’s three addictions: alcohol, drugs and gambling.
Alcohol was the least of it, she said - not ruinously expensive, mostly just boring. Drugs were somewhat worse - dangerous and messy, with sinister people hanging around the house. But neither was as bad as the gambling. Nothing, she said, was so depressing as to watch four or five-figure sums disappearing over that green cloth in a matter of minutes, especially as she had been the financial brains behind their fortune.
The Need For Specialist Help
When you do face up to your condition as a gambling addict, you’re going to need more than a sympathetic chat. You’re going to need trained specialist help by counsellors directly experienced in tackling gambling addiction.
Carole Spiers Group (CSG) can boast twenty years’ experience of counselling and consultancy to blue-chip corporations on a vast range of stress-related conditions, including many kinds of addiction.
So call in an expert specialist from our nationwide team without delay.
And stop that wheel before it turns once too often.
For more information on CSG’s services including in-house and public stress management training, post trauma support, mediation, impartial investigations, nationwide employee counselling team, and coaching and mentoring services, please contact us:
Carole Spiers Group
International Stress Management & Employee Wellbeing Consultancy
Gordon House, 83-85 Gordon Avenue, Stanmore, Middlesex. HA7 3QR. UK
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 8954 1593 Fax: + 44 (0) 20 8907 9290
Email: info@carolespiersgroup.com
Web: www.carolespiersgroup.com
Carole Spiers - The Empowerment Guru grows successful people. An International Female Keynote Speaker, Conference Chair and Business Mentor who helps you to achieve step by step success with inspiration and motivation. www.carolespiers.com
If you know someone in danger of gambling addiction, get specialist counselling before that wheel spins out of control
A group of young men are drinking in a pub. One of them is playing the fruit-machine. The others are wanting to move on. They ask him to finish off and come with them. He looks at the coins in his hand and says. “Hang on. Just wait till I’ve…”
He doesn’t usually finish the sentence. Because it would be “Just wait till I’ve lost this lot.”
Notice that he’s not saying “Wait till I’ve won the Jackpot”, because they’d be there all night. No, the message is clearly “Wait till I’ve lost.”
That little cameo of small-time gambling reflects a psychology which bulks-up big in those serious cases where huge money is blown away, and whole careers and families wrecked. It proves that on one level, gamblers want to lose.
It stands to reason.
You look at the sumptuous furnishings of the casino… the flash bookie with his stretch-limo… the huge fortunes of the dotcom gaming promoters…
Who’s doing all the winning ? Not the punter. And he knows it - only a little below that shallow surface where he can still pretend he’s about to scoop the pool. Which mostly reflects a desperate lunge at recovering losses.
What Your Gambling Addiction Says About You
You have to face the unflattering truth that a gambling addict is basically an inadequate and immature character.
Leave aside the depressing spectacle of the all-day drunks lurching in and out of the betting-shop, so obviously going nowhere in life.
Try a respectable casino, and take a look around that roulette table. One or two big swaggering figures, perhaps with dubious connections. But mostly ordinary little people. All the shy and sheepish types who would never dare take a risk in the real world of business, or in the other real world of romance. (And don’t fail to notice the sad little elderly widow who always seems to be there, so obviously looking for substitute excitement.) All the ones who might be called losers.
About to become losers in another form.
Knowing deep down that they can’t win-out, then, what is the buzz ?
One is the sheer fantasy world they are allowed into at second hand - James Bond, Monte-Carlo, the Mississippi riverboat. A world of triumphant winners (as often portrayed garishly on fruit machines and pin-tables) with their cigars and buxom mistresses. Remember, gambling addicts are chiefly the sort of people who will never experience one single day of life beyond the office and the train home.
Another is a kind of snobbery concerning effortless wealth - the feeling that a flick of a card here means enough for a world cruise, a few chips pushed casually across the green cloth could be a sports car. This is essentially sneering at those who strive and earn. It is a deeply deceptive idea of an elite club of special people who are too good to work, and of course deeply unreal. Those who sneer at effort are usually rotten to the core.
Gambling Compared To Other Addictions
But seeing that it doesn’t directly damage health, you might still rate gambling addiction as less serious than other habits. Well, here’s a first-hand comparison.
A famous entertainer’s wife and agent once described her husband’s three addictions: alcohol, drugs and gambling.
Alcohol was the least of it, she said - not ruinously expensive, mostly just boring. Drugs were somewhat worse - dangerous and messy, with sinister people hanging around the house. But neither was as bad as the gambling. Nothing, she said, was so depressing as to watch four or five-figure sums disappearing over that green cloth in a matter of minutes, especially as she had been the financial brains behind their fortune.
The Need For Specialist Help
When you do face up to your condition as a gambling addict, you’re going to need more than a sympathetic chat. You’re going to need trained specialist help by counsellors directly experienced in tackling gambling addiction.
Carole Spiers Group (CSG) can boast twenty years’ experience of counselling and consultancy to blue-chip corporations on a vast range of stress-related conditions, including many kinds of addiction.
So call in an expert specialist from our nationwide team without delay.
And stop that wheel before it turns once too often.
For more information on CSG’s services including in-house and public stress management training, post trauma support, mediation, impartial investigations, nationwide employee counselling team, and coaching and mentoring services, please contact us:
Carole Spiers Group
International Stress Management & Employee Wellbeing Consultancy
Gordon House, 83-85 Gordon Avenue, Stanmore, Middlesex. HA7 3QR. UK
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 8954 1593 Fax: + 44 (0) 20 8907 9290
Email: info@carolespiersgroup.com
Web: www.carolespiersgroup.com
Carole Spiers - The Empowerment Guru grows successful people. An International Female Keynote Speaker, Conference Chair and Business Mentor who helps you to achieve step by step success with inspiration and motivation. www.carolespiers.com
# posted by Carole Spiers @ 11:36 PM
Could Your Mobile Actually Be Slowing You Down?
Carole Spiers - The Empowerment Guru grows successful people. An International Female Keynote Speaker, Conference Chair and Business Mentor who helps you to achieve step by step success with inspiration and motivation. www.carolespiers.com
Time Management means questioning every assumption and thinking the unthinkable...
The miracle of the mobile phone!
How we celebrated this new liberating influence in our lives - business and social. Doing deals on the hoof. Cutting out formal meetings. No more waiting around for calls. Arranging little parties on a whim…
It looked like a whole new culture of high-speed living and working - cutting a thousand unnecessary corners, speeding and streamlining executive dialogue, and generally getting a whole lot more done.
Well, let’s agree that it’s certainly made a quantum difference. But not in the way we expected. For this great liberator has also had the effect of enslaving us, so that we can never avoid its demands at any time. (Try ignoring that flashing message from your biggest client, even if it’s midnight.) And as for more efficient dialogue, well, take the classic case of noise pollution via mobiles…
“I’m on the train…”
Rail journeys are now a downright embarrassment, with everybody’s inner thoughts suddenly being played-out at full volume, indeed often louder than necessary, you notice, as though in protest at decent manners and respect for peace and quiet.
Irritating enough is the ordinary social and family chit-chat. Almost unbearable, however, is the so-called urgent business talk, often dragging out to the full length of the journey, leaving you earnestly praying that the next stop will be his.
You have only to listen to a minute or two of this scrambled dialogue to see that it is unnecessary.
It stems partly from a snob-reflex, dating from when mobiles were new, reflecting high status on the speaker; and partly from a childish urge to ‘play soldiers’, generating an artificial sense of heroic emergency action.
In other words, it has no rational basis at all, and any transcript of the conversation would read like pure nonsense. The messages and meanings would be better conveyed in a single itemised e-mail at the end of the journey - and his time would be better spent privately (and silently!) composing it.
This little cameo of an everyday business situation should cause you to ‘think the unthinkable’ about mobiles.
And this is all part of Time Management, which has a lot to do with questioning common assumptions about the effective use of our time.
The true and false dynamics of urgency at work
Not surprisingly, www.carolespiers.com places a good deal of emphasis on Time Management as part of your personal journey towards that First-class Ticket through life.
Carole’s Time Management philosophy is clearly reflected in the best-selling manual by her colleague John Perry, a University Senior Lecturer in Psychology.
Titled ‘Hurry Hurry - the True and False Dynamics of Urgency at Work’, this downloadable e-book is widely used at Carole’s own executive training sessions for blue-chip corporate clients. Among the issues you are invited to question are these :
How We Manage Our Time…
· “Not enough hours in the day!”
But not all hours are equal. 80% of key tasks are often performed in 20% of the available time. Limit your availability. Delegate for time-efficiency.
· The Paper Tide
Ration paperwork ruthlessly. Bin what you can. Cut corners by phone. Even colour-coded folders and see-thru files can save crucial time.
· The art of prioritising
Amazingly, you can save up to 10 hours a week by keeping a Time Log, charting the progress of key agendas and rating your daily performance.
How Our Time Manages Us…
· The Interruption factor
The average manager gets interrupted every 8 minutes. It’s something you can’t schedule - but there are practical ways to cut the chat.
· How Meetings squander time
Everything from latecomers to attention-seekers or just an unclear agenda. Make sure it’s necessary, then keep it brisk and businesslike.
· Logging the time-waster elements
List everything that tends to hold you up - desk clutter, drop-in visitors, long-winded talk, confusion of roles, false alarms - and tackle them.
To download this valuable aid to empowerment and self-development,
http://www.carolespiers.com/productdetail.cfm?ProductID=24
Carole Spiers - The Empowerment Guru grows successful people. An International Female Keynote Speaker, Conference Chair and Business Mentor who helps you to achieve step by step success with inspiration and motivation. www.carolespiers.com
Time Management means questioning every assumption and thinking the unthinkable...
The miracle of the mobile phone!
How we celebrated this new liberating influence in our lives - business and social. Doing deals on the hoof. Cutting out formal meetings. No more waiting around for calls. Arranging little parties on a whim…
It looked like a whole new culture of high-speed living and working - cutting a thousand unnecessary corners, speeding and streamlining executive dialogue, and generally getting a whole lot more done.
Well, let’s agree that it’s certainly made a quantum difference. But not in the way we expected. For this great liberator has also had the effect of enslaving us, so that we can never avoid its demands at any time. (Try ignoring that flashing message from your biggest client, even if it’s midnight.) And as for more efficient dialogue, well, take the classic case of noise pollution via mobiles…
“I’m on the train…”
Rail journeys are now a downright embarrassment, with everybody’s inner thoughts suddenly being played-out at full volume, indeed often louder than necessary, you notice, as though in protest at decent manners and respect for peace and quiet.
Irritating enough is the ordinary social and family chit-chat. Almost unbearable, however, is the so-called urgent business talk, often dragging out to the full length of the journey, leaving you earnestly praying that the next stop will be his.
You have only to listen to a minute or two of this scrambled dialogue to see that it is unnecessary.
It stems partly from a snob-reflex, dating from when mobiles were new, reflecting high status on the speaker; and partly from a childish urge to ‘play soldiers’, generating an artificial sense of heroic emergency action.
In other words, it has no rational basis at all, and any transcript of the conversation would read like pure nonsense. The messages and meanings would be better conveyed in a single itemised e-mail at the end of the journey - and his time would be better spent privately (and silently!) composing it.
This little cameo of an everyday business situation should cause you to ‘think the unthinkable’ about mobiles.
And this is all part of Time Management, which has a lot to do with questioning common assumptions about the effective use of our time.
The true and false dynamics of urgency at work
Not surprisingly, www.carolespiers.com places a good deal of emphasis on Time Management as part of your personal journey towards that First-class Ticket through life.
Carole’s Time Management philosophy is clearly reflected in the best-selling manual by her colleague John Perry, a University Senior Lecturer in Psychology.
Titled ‘Hurry Hurry - the True and False Dynamics of Urgency at Work’, this downloadable e-book is widely used at Carole’s own executive training sessions for blue-chip corporate clients. Among the issues you are invited to question are these :
How We Manage Our Time…
· “Not enough hours in the day!”
But not all hours are equal. 80% of key tasks are often performed in 20% of the available time. Limit your availability. Delegate for time-efficiency.
· The Paper Tide
Ration paperwork ruthlessly. Bin what you can. Cut corners by phone. Even colour-coded folders and see-thru files can save crucial time.
· The art of prioritising
Amazingly, you can save up to 10 hours a week by keeping a Time Log, charting the progress of key agendas and rating your daily performance.
How Our Time Manages Us…
· The Interruption factor
The average manager gets interrupted every 8 minutes. It’s something you can’t schedule - but there are practical ways to cut the chat.
· How Meetings squander time
Everything from latecomers to attention-seekers or just an unclear agenda. Make sure it’s necessary, then keep it brisk and businesslike.
· Logging the time-waster elements
List everything that tends to hold you up - desk clutter, drop-in visitors, long-winded talk, confusion of roles, false alarms - and tackle them.
To download this valuable aid to empowerment and self-development,
http://www.carolespiers.com/productdetail.cfm?ProductID=24
Carole Spiers - The Empowerment Guru grows successful people. An International Female Keynote Speaker, Conference Chair and Business Mentor who helps you to achieve step by step success with inspiration and motivation. www.carolespiers.com
# posted by Carole Spiers @ 11:18 PM
