Month: February 2020

Reflections on Achieving Your Goals: Don’t Sabotage Your Wins

On By AlfonsIn Getting things doneLeave a comment

Constant dropping wears away a stone

And paper cuts can kill you…

Most people are focused on the big, challenging and shiny projects, and that’s important. However, while we’re driving the big blocks and highly visible deliverables, we must not drop the ball on the more mundane promises we have made (e.g. project updates, the task we promised our co-worker, newsletter updates, that email from our boss,… – you name it).

Don’t undermine your big wins by being sloppy on the small and mundane tasks.

The problem with (many) little misses

We all miss something every now and then. That’s normal and ok. The problem arises, when it happens repeatedly, so that people start assuming you will miss a promise with a high-enough probability. They will lose trust in you and your reputation will erode. Once it looks like a pattern, you have a problem that you must solve.

Bringing in the big wins and celebrations is awesome! Be proud of it! Others will see them and recognize you for the achievement.

However, if there are small misses sprinkled throughout the big wins, people will remember the constant small signal much more than the sporadic big signal. What would you remember more, if I brought you a nice hot latte every morning or a $100 bill once a month? No, sorry, I won’t do either, it’s just a thought experiment.

Visibility is in the small things. If they don’t create confidence, we have a problem. Little mistakes add up and can neutralize all the good stuff you worked so hard for.

As managers, coaches, or even parents, we all know the situation. We want the best for our employees, coachees and kids. We want them to stack up wins. As we watch them over the weeks we all too often go: “Nice, nice, nice – oh shit, WHY did they do this?”. Then we start back from square one.

Tactics to Avoid misses

On the highest level, there are three key strategies to avoid creating a pattern of little misses:

  • Accountability: Track your promises – This is the most basic and simplest one. If you sign up for an action item, write it down right away. Block time in your calendar. If you can’t do it, say ‘no’ right away (read that Friday musing). No excuses after that.
  • Quality: Slow down and double-check – Don’t just try to get rid of an annoying task. Chances are you will miss a key point or your numbers or answer won’t make sense. Usually one of two things will happen as a result: either you will look like you don’t know what you’re doing, or an escalation will happen further down the road. You don’t need either.
  • Comprehensiveness: Ask yourself ‘what am I missing’ – The most frustrating thing for a (senior) leader is to have a question or count on a deliverable and then getting something that doesn’t solve the actual problem or answer the core question. Now the leader has to spend time following up and chasing down what you need. Prevent that from happening. As yourself what you’re missing and what the logical next question would be.

A word about managing senior leaders

Senior leaders have to fight a hundred fires at any given time. They need to constantly switch context between vastly different problem spaces. In meetings that is every 30 mins, in their inbox it is from email to email (i.e. within seconds). They don’t have all the details you have, and they might have forgotten a detail you shared a few weeks ago. They need to compartmentalize problems, quickly switch their thinking, recreate the full context of a new problem, get issues solved on the spot, and move on. Hundred times a day.

If they are not super-efficient with getting into a new context, understanding the problem and proposed solution on the spot and moving on, they will drown. Because of that, they usually have a very allergic reaction to anything that lacks context, is not thought through, doesn’t add up or leaves key questions open. Unless specifically booked, they don’t have time to brainstorm with you.

Understanding these constraints, here are critical things to do when responding to senior leaders:

Provide context – Don’t make them have to follow-up with questions to understand what you mean.

Be concise and crisp – Don’t make them have to search the answers to their concern in vast deserts of random data and words.

Close all loops (or at least provide timelines for when they will be closed) – Don’t make them continue keeping the topic on their worry list.

Get it done in your first reply – Don’t make them have to continue context switch in an email brainstorming conversation over days.

Double-check – Put yourself in the shoes of the recipient. Go over your answer and pretend to not have the context. Does is still make sense? Does everything add up?

Understand the intent

In order to achieve the above qualities in your response, specifically ‘getting it done in your fist reply’, it is key to not just answer the question at face value but to understand the intent.

Don’t just answer the immediate question or drop the data. Understand the intent! Ask yourself: “What is the requestor trying to achieve?”.

Once you understand the intent, what the requestor wants to achieve, you get a better sense of what additional information or context they might need. What additional questions were not asked but are required to achieve that intent? Provide the answers proactively!

Now make it consumable. Structure the data such that it serves the question and the underlying intent and the flow is easy to follow and understand.

Here’s an action for you

Spend a minute to reflect:

  • What action items and promises to others did you miss the last two weeks?
  • How may email threads with leadership did you have that required multiple inquiries and follow-ups from the leader?
  • How often was the quality of content not where it should have been for a review because you haven’t thought it through deeply enough?

What can you do to avoid and change that in the future!?

 

Did you like this article? Want to read more?

I will keep posting articles here and I have them lined up way into summer 2020. However if you want to get it all in one comprehensive, structured, and grammar-checked (!) view, check out our new book:

 

Put on your oxygen mask first - book cover

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps

By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk

ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

 

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

Reflections on Achieving Your Goals: Keep Heading Towards Your Big and Daunting Goals

On By AlfonsIn Getting things done, Healthy habitsLeave a comment

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Do you know where you want to be in a year, in 5 years, in 10 years? Do you know what you want to achieve in your life? Do you know what you want to proudly look back at when it’s time to make the big tally.

Know where you want to go and keep your goal in focus. Find opportunities to celebrate and award yourself along the way. Suck it up if times are tough, but also be gentle and forgiving to yourself – not everything will always work out exactly as you thought.

I hope you don’t just idle along from day to day, getting blown around by the random winds of life.

Know your goals

It all starts with knowing where you want to go. Don’t merely think about the next step you could do from where you are. Think about where you want to be when all is said and done. Then work backwards from that end goal and lay out the path that gets you there.

Think longterm. Prepare, invest and build for your future. Don’t fall prey to the easy way out or the instant gratification. Keep your eyes on the goal post.

Find little rewards on the way

When you have a goal that’s a little out there and maybe even daunting, it’s important to find and set rewards along the way.

Do what engaging games are doing: establish little goals and rewards along the way. Celebrate when you achieve those milestones. Keep yourself moving to your distant end goal by setting in-between goals that you reach along the way. Set rewards with those goals that keep you excited and keep you going.

Train your resilience

Some times, probably many times, it will be hard to push to your goal. There will be many temptations to go the easier way that provides instant gratification but distracts your from your desired outcome (e.g. plucking down in front of the TV instead of going for a run).

Here are some things you can do when ‘the going gets tough’:

  • Look forward – keep your goal in mind, keep the forward momentum in focus
  • Get perspective – put things into perspective, don’t get stuck in the current feeling but look at the bigger picture
  • Know your why – be clear with yourself why you are doing things, what drives you
  • Build on your passion – find the things in the current moment or the challenging situation that you are passionate about, spend as much time as you can on those

80:20

While all of the above is true and good, sometimes life happens. If you head towards your goals 80% of the time, you can be proud of yourself. If you strive for 100% you will get hard, myopic and will probably miss out on bunch of equally important things.

Always remember:

The art lies in the empty space.

Give yourself some slack every now and then. Be focused but also let go when the pressure builds up too much. Even the strongest tank needs a pressure valve.

Be focused but also let go. Don’t force yourself too much. Take a day off. Forget all your rules and duties, put down this guide and just enjoy life for at least one day the week.

 

Did you like this article? Want to read more?

I will keep posting articles here and I have them lined up way into summer 2020. However if you want to get it all in one comprehensive, structured, and grammar-checked (!) view, check out our new book:

 

Put on your oxygen mask first - book cover

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps

By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk

ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

 

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

Reflections on Achieving Your Goals: Be Deliberate About Your Growth

On By AlfonsIn Getting things doneLeave a comment

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I wanted to share how I think about career development in general but also specifically at Amazon. Take is as what it is, my personal view. However, to go with Colin Powell: “It worked for me.”

 Grow your equity

Invest in yourself!

In my mind, career growth is primarily about how you invest in yourself. It’s about what new skills you can learn, what new experiences you can gain. It’s about how you can expand the scope of your impact as you get better at what you do.

You can think about it through the lens of a job interview. We all do plenty of those as interviewers. What stories from candidates excite us? What stories can you tell and what do you need to do to expand the set of interesting stories about your professional life. Your career growth plan is how you build up the examples that will excite other people and yourself. As experienced interviewers, we know that it’s never about the title a candidate brings, but it’s always about how they solved complex problems and overcame challenging headwinds in creative and inclusive ways.

Promotion is a by-product of career growth

Career growth doesn’t equal promotion. Promotion is a by-product of career growth.

At Amazon, we deliberately only have a few levels. Therefore, the time between promotions is longer than in many other companies and the difference between levels is greater. However, the growth opportunities in a level are plenty and will allow you to build the anecdotes and data to prove that you are ready for the next step when you are ready.

Looking back to a previous life that seems far away, I remember that at Microsoft we plopped from level 63 to 64 to 65 every two years. There was lots of instant gratification, but it was also somehow meaningless, since in most cases the job title didn’t even change. At Amazon, we take big deliberate steps with longer personal growth periods in-between. The scope, responsibility, and impact we are given as individuals during those growth periods are mind-blowing in comparison to other companies.

Know where you want to go and start being that person today

Where do you want to be in 2-3 years?

Be clear in your mind what you want to do in 2 or 3 years. Understand how you will operate in that role. Look at people who are already performing in that role or at that level and understand what they do differently from you. Then look for opportunities to do the same. Work in the same way (the ‘how’ much more than the ‘what’). Talk to your manager and make sure she knows where you want to go, can provide you with proper opportunities and give you relevant coaching and feedback along the way.

Seek opportunities to learn how those role models do what they do and then find ways for yourself to show similar behaviors and outcomes (don’t just copy them, nothing is more depressing than a bad copy). Deliver at that quality bar consistently, and people will notice. Once enough people notice you will get promoted.

For example, at promotion Amazon is not a bet of leadership that you might eventually be able to grow into a new level. We don’t follow the Peter principle (i.e., you get promoted until you fail in your level). At Amazon, we promote people who already perform at the next level. We promote once people have consistently demonstrated that they are ready. Promotion at Amazon is an acknowledgment that you already have what it takes, not that we have high hopes that you might eventually get there.

Make personal growth goals

Make a plan, be clear, be deliberate, and understand what the bar is.

What is it that you want to work on? What scope do you want to expand in? Where can you help your organization? What things can you take to the next level to role-model for the rest of your team?

Understand where you want to go. Understand what the expectations are for that role and level. Understand where you need to add to your existing experiences (regular career discussion are a great tool for that). Make a plan!

Those plans don’t need to be tied to a next level though (in my mind in most cases they shouldn’t). I’m coming back to my first and most important point – it’s about how you grow your skills and equity. For example, for me, I wanted to widen my focus and impact beyond my direct PM team. I made it a goal for this year to find ways to help coach the broader org so that we can all be more effective and fulfilled. Will I learn a lot? For sure! Will that get me promoted to Director? No way. Do I worry much about that? Not a minute. It’s a ton of fun and I learn many new things along the way.

 

Did you like this article? Want to read more?

I will keep posting articles here and I have them lined up way into summer 2020. However if you want to get it all in one comprehensive, structured, and grammar-checked (!) view, check out our new book:

 

Put on your oxygen mask first - book cover

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps

By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk

ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

 

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

Reflections on Achieving Your Goals: Not Everything is as Urgent as it Appears

On By AlfonsIn Getting things done, Healthy habitsLeave a comment

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A critical part of being accountable and delivering against your commitments (promises!) is to actually have bandwidth for them, in other words to not over-commit.

We already talked about how it is ok – actually expected – to say ‘no’ when needed. What we didn’t talk about yet are timelines (or ‘deadlines’ to make it even more scary sounding).

Not everything is as urgent as it might appear at first glance.

Clarify expectations

Not everything that comes from your leadership comes with a “drop everything else and do this right now” expectation. In most cases, leaders just want to know when they can expect an answer and have the confidence that they don’t need to spend their energy to track that deliverable for you.

Don’t assume. Clarify and verify.

If a request came in without a timeline or clarification on urgency, don’t assume. Just ask: “Hey, when do you need this by?”

No decent leader will hold it against you if you ask, “By when do you need this?” I’m actually pretty sure for most leaders this will register as a plus point (if it doesn’t it’s time to look for a different leader).

What leaders want to know is whether you commit to provide the answer and by when. They want to be confident that you will do it and that they don’t have to worry about it. They will tell you if a timeline is not flexible and why.

As an employee, train your leader to provide that information with her requests in the future. However, also make extra-sure that you are managing yourself against that timeline! It is super frustrating as a leader if you need to keep your own reminders on everything you need, because you cannot rely on open loops to be closed without your constant follow-up.

Understand timelines

Not everything needs to happen right now. In fact, very few things are truly urgent, although many are perceived or presented as urgent or initially appear non-negotiable.

Unfortunately corporate culture has developed many bad habits in order to try to compensate for low accountability:

  • Setting deadlines way ahead of time to build in buffer
  • Setting short deadlines so that people do it right now and don’t get distracted
  • Setting deadlines just because that’s what you do
  • And the worst: setting a short deadline because something was sitting idle on your own desk for too long and now it’s really time to make progress

Understand the true urgency and timeline. Offer a plan to get there. Make sure you hit the plan.

Feel empowered to understand and validate urgency and tight deadlines. Ask for when a task is truly due. If it requires you to drop other things, understand what drives the urgency and what breaks if the deadline is missed.

If you think a deadline has a ‘safety buffer’ built in, ask for the real deadline. However, once you get the real deadline, you must make sure that you will be ready by that time. Otherwise, you just teach your partners to add additional buffers to manage in the future to work around your tardiness and unreliability.

If a deadline is infeasible, check your calendar and priorities and see when you can make it. Offer that alternative plan and check for agreement. If pushed, be clear what you will have to sacrifice in order to make that timeline.

In most cases, you will find that a deadline is actually negotiable.

 

Did you like this article? Want to read more?

I will keep posting articles here and I have them lined up way into summer 2020. However if you want to get it all in one comprehensive, structured, and grammar-checked (!) view, check out our new book:

 

Put on your oxygen mask first - book cover

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps

By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk

ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

 

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.