Month: November 2018

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Not enough time… too much work

I really enjoy meeting up with my colleagues and friends, especially when we engage in ‘Meaningful Conversations’, but just recently, and more than ever, the words ‘I do not have enough time, I am on work overload and feel exhausted’ seem to be a running theme with life in general.
So the question is do we have enough focus, are we taking on too many initiatives?

One of the most persistent challenges that people face these days is “initiative overload” – driving themselves too hard and having too many projects and not enough time to get them done.
If you’ve ever found yourself working long days and weekends, and still not feeling caught up with your workload, then you know what I mean.

We all know that a big reason for this overload is the surge in expectations that’s tied to a technology-enabled and connected global economy. As email, texting, instant messaging, teleconferencing, and other electronic communications have become indispensable, people have grown conditioned to expect fast, if not instantaneous, responses to almost everything.

For example, a recent study found that when consumers contact companies through social media, 42% expect a response in one hour or less, and 67% expect a response the same day.
The same seems to be true with work assignments in companies: Customers, managers and even in our personal lives we do expect much more rapid turnaround times for getting things done.
And as people try to action faster, actions and changes to actions end up taking on more and more – and less gets finished.

Sometimes boards of directors and leaders are unaware of all the initiatives under way and their impact on the organisation. In other case’s organisational politics conspires to let initiatives continue long after they should have run their course.
Either way, overload can result in costly productivity and quality problems and employee burnout. With record low unemployment, companies that do not adjust the workload are also at risk of losing valuable talent.

So why does “Initiative Overload” happen?

In my experience, companies often lack the means (and the will) to stop existing initiatives. Sometimes that’s because they have no process for determining when to close things down.
A project might have been vital for the business when it launched, but later the rationale no longer exists – and yet the funding and the work continue.

Leadership teams often engage in prioritisation exercises that define and communicate where people should focus their energy. However, they undermine those efforts if they don’t also do the hard work of explicitly deciding what trade-offs to make and what has to stop.

For companies already experiencing ‘initiative overload’, focusing on the benefits of cutting back can make the path forward somewhat easier.

Organisations are at a great advantage when they learn how to say no, as Steve Jobs once put it, to the “hundred other good ideas that there are.”

They can then use their creative and productive energy more wisely, foster greater employee commitment and loyalty, and accomplish more in the areas that really matter.

The facts are that we’re subjected to thousands of distractions throughout the day. A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that you can be distracted simply by hearing or feeling your phone vibrate, even if you don’t pick it up.
Try putting your phone out of sight (and touch) for 10 minutes of uninterrupted productivity.

Modern technology has evolved to exploit our urgency addiction: email, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, and more will fight to distract you constantly.

Turn off all your notifications. Choose to check these things when you have time or allocate time to be distracted - say, during a break from work – and work through them together, saving time.

My final thought on the matter is, it’s not easy but once you build the good habit of turning off notifications, you can actually get to work and be more productive.

Schedule your priorities and stick to them.

Treat your highest priorities like flights you have to catch: give them a set time in advance and say no to anything that would stop you making your flight.

It pays to unplug.

If you can be reached via smartphone, email, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, you’re way too available and all these outlets are possible connections that can distract you from your purpose.

Disconnect and watch as your productivity improve.

Your smartphone might be the biggest productivity-killer of all time. Most people just can’t put the phone away.
If your phone is connected online, the temptation to stay updated about almost everything is very high. If you can, put down that phone (or power it off) for a while when in the office and witness the effect that can have on your level of productivity.

Don’t take on too much

The basic principle of success is to focus. It is what makes the difference between those who are successful and those who are not, regardless of how much talent, resource, and energy that they have.

The most accomplished and well-known people in history were known for something unique to them. Einstein pursued the theory of relativity like his whole life depended on it.

Relativity is one of the most famous scientific theories of the 20th century. Mozart was incredibly passionate about music. He was the very best for many generations before and after him. Even today, is there a second musician who could match his genius?

Spend most of your time on the right things and the rest takes care of itself.

It’s not enough to just ‘work hard’. Hard work is not necessarily a bad thing.

But hard work can be a waste of your life when it’s directed at the wrong cause. Decide what is good for you in the long term, and pursue it with all you’ve got.

Each time you have something extra to do or an additional goal to pursue, you further split your power.

Less is more

The key to focusing on the essentials in life and at work is to limit yourself to an arbitrary but small number of things, forcing yourself to focus on the important stuff and eliminate all else.

A great video by Carl Honore, who discusses ‘Thinking Slow and Smart’

When you are doing too much at a time, you are constantly switching from one task to another, constantly interrupted, constantly distracted.

Do less, clear away distractions, single-task, and get more done.

When you do too much, your work is spread thinner, you have lower quality, and people won’t spread your work like they should.
By doing less, you can create something remarkable. Something incredible worth sharing.

Prioritising and optimizing your time during the day will give you more time to focus on what matters, getting more accomplished in a lesser amount of time.

A really great quote by Nido Qubein, he once said:

“One of the greatest resources people cannot mobilize themselves is that they try to accomplish great things. Most worthwhile achievements are the result of many little things done in a single direction.”

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Why Corporate Governance should not be stored on your C-drive

Being a director is often challenging and potentially lucrative, but if the prospect of being sued is looming, it can be a lonely and alarming position.

Directors and officers cover (D&O) provides a suit of armour in the face of legal action, with the insurer stepping in to provide guidance at the first sign of a problem and ensuring legal costs and damages are met.

According to Eleni Petros, commercial crime practice leader for broker Marsh: “Cyber risks are a key topic in many boardrooms and are driven onto the agenda by high profile data breaches, distributed denial of services attacks and rising ransomware and cyber extortion attacks.

In the digital age, threats are coming thick and fast and directors are now more frequently having to contend with cyberattacks and data breaches – these are not just issues that affect large organisations.

Directors and high-ranking officers in public and privately-held corporations are under scrutiny like never before as they conduct business in an increasingly regulated and complex global business environment.

As regulatory authorities have responded to public and shareholder pressure in the wake of the credit crisis with more rules, heightened vigilance and tougher enforcement powers, corporate leaders find themselves exposed to even greater risks on a daily basis as they go about their roles.

The pressures on their time are vast, not least for non-executives, who frequently spend as little as 30 days a year working in the business, and for the many directors who sit on the boards of four or five companies.
These directors tell us the information packs that they receive from the companies they run are either far too large, and make it difficult for board members to target the business-critical information, or that they tell directors far too little about the key issues.

Nevertheless, directors face sanctions that make them sit up and take notice, not least the threat of jail. Though probably the least likely outcome for corporate leaders, jail terms can be handed down for antitrust failings, insider trading, bribery and corruption, money laundering or sanctions violations.
There is also the very real concern of regulatory fines and penalties. And these penalties can extend to being prohibited from sitting on boards in the future: the SIF regime now means that directors of banks that perform badly, though not necessarily personally liable, can find themselves excluded from directorships in regulated businesses going forward.

Then of course there is the growing threat of civil actions, and particularly shareholder class actions on both sides of the Atlantic. For antitrust violations in the United States, the maximum jail term for executives is ten years, and there are instances where officers and directors have served four-year terms.
These penalties apply equally to foreign nationals running companies with U.S. operations as they do to those businesses headquartered in the States, and antitrust authorities around the world are increasingly adopting similar approaches.
There are now more than 120 regimes that pursue this conduct around the world, with around a dozen of those imposing criminal sanctions for breaches.

The number of antitrust cases being dealt with by the enforcement agencies has increased exponentially in recent years, not least because the incentives for reporting incidences of wrongdoing have increased, encouraging whistle blowers and pushing companies to approach the authorities when they are alerted to issues within their own organisations.

This first-mover advantage can work to the detriment of directors, who may be implicated by the companies they work for when detailed investigations take place

It is increasingly important for directors and officers to work hard to set the compliance tone for the organisation from the top, by making it clear to employees what is expected of them, by setting an example and by ensuring that the messages are communicated across, and become part of, the company.

The guidance published with the Bribery Act 2010 is just one example of express reference to the importance of “tone at the top”.

Business leaders need to design and implement systems and controls that are appropriate to their organisation, and regularly review and test those systems to ensure they are delivering results. At the same time, compliance requires a bottom-up approach, such that the system ensures that regular requests for information are made of all levels of the business, and frequent enquiries are initiated and followed up.
Directors need to ensure that the information that they receive is both timely and appropriately prioritised, so that they know they have done their best to be on top of what is going on.

In today’s environment, directors and officers also need to look out for themselves, which means that if they have questions they must not only raise them, but also pursue answers, and record the fact that they have done so.

Directors need to be assertive with their colleagues across the business. If they find themselves dealing with topics with which they are not comfortable, they should seek external advice. There were countless examples of directors of financial institutions telling Congressional hearings in the U.S.- that they didn’t understand the collateralised debt obligation products that their banks were trading, but ignorance is not an excuse that will find favour with regulators.

The key message is that devoting time, resources and effort to the compliance programme is the best guarantee of success, and that the companies that have successfully introduced effective cultures have done so only as a result of sustained commitment.

Directors must take responsibility for introducing and maintaining a culture of compliance across their organisation, which means building the right structures; delivering regular training to employees, and particularly those in high-risk areas; setting up proper audit procedures that allow for deep-dive checks on a regular basis; and acting on discoveries in a timely and effective way.

Finally, with an ever-growing list of mandatory and non-mandatory rules is ramping up the risks faced by directors & officers. The general trend is toward raising the level of care expected of D&Os and expanding their existing duties.

These higher standards increase the personal risks and liabilities for D&Os as they look to steer their organisations through the complexity of today’s business challenges. As a consequence, at-risk senior executives are searching for more sophisticated D&O coverage.

In many instances it is not the personal liabilities of directors that have changed, nor what constitute illegal acts, but rather the appetite of enforcement agencies to hold directors and officers accountable. Reprimanding senior executives is increasingly seen as the most effective means of changing behaviour and preventing criminal and civil offences going forward.
The trend of rigorous enforcement particularly holds true when it comes to international criminal acts, including crimes committed against antitrust legislation, against the UK Bribery Act or America’s Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act, or breaching international sanctions laws.

Final thought, whether you are a large corporation or a small business, reaffirming the significance of the role of good corporate governance.

Corporate governance performed properly, results in the protection of shareholder assets. Fortunately, many boards take on this difficult and challenging role and perform it well. They do so by, among other things, being active, informed, independent, involved, and focused on the interests of shareholders.

Good boards also recognise the need to adapt to new circumstances—such as the increasing risks of cyber-attacks. To that end, board oversight of risk management is critical to ensuring that companies are taking adequate steps to prevent, and prepare for, the harms that can result from mis-appropriation of management.
There is no substitution for proper preparation, deliberation, and engagement on company related issues. Given the heightened awareness of these rapidly evolving risks, directors should take seriously their obligation to make sure that companies are appropriately addressing those risks.

Nicolas Berggruen once said:

‘The biggest determinant in our lives is culture, where we are born, what the environment looks like. But the second biggest determinant is probably governance, good governance or a certain kind of governance makes a huge difference in our lives.’

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Every day we interact with hundreds of people across dozens of platforms, but how can a meaningful conversation help your business?

Conversations are key to language development, the exchange of thoughts and ideas and listening to each other. People learn by hearing each other’s thoughts while observing facial and body expressions that show emotions.

“Face to face conversation is the most human and humanising thing we do,” says Sherry Turkle in her book ‘Reclaiming Conversation – The Power of Talk in a Digital Age’.
“Fully present to one another, we learn to listen. It is where we develop the capacity for empathy. It’s where we experience the joy of being heard and of being understood.
Conversation advances self-reflection, the conversations with ourselves that are the cornerstone of early development and continue throughout life.”

Technology is a part of everyday life, but replacing face-to-face conversation with phone conversation, via texting, emailing, etc., has taken important skills away from children and young adults.
In today’s world, there is a “flight from conversation,” as Turkle says. All ages of people cannot do without phones and screens, but a balance is of utmost importance.

How much time do you typically spend with others? And when you do, how connected and attuned to them do you feel? Your answers to these simple questions may well reveal your biological capacity to connect.

If you’ve ever been trapped in an lift with a casual acquaintance, you know just how painful small talk can be. “Such a shame that we’re stuck in the office on a beautiful day like this!” your peer may even smile. Or, “How was your weekend?” your neighbor may ask not because he or she actually cares about the quality of your weekend, but because there is an awkward silence that begs to be filled.

There’s a reason small talk like this exists. If your peer were to ask you about your darkest secrets or deepest wishes while the two of you descend floors in a tiny metal box, you would probably feel like this is too much, too fast. As in, too much intimacy, too early on in your relationship.
Likewise, small talk can help us probe for more interesting topics to talk about.
For example, if you were to answer your neighbor by saying, “My weekend was great! I bought the final component for my laser defense drone,” your neighbor would definitely have some follow-up questions.

The instant and omnipresent world of communication has increased our capacity to connect on a perfunctory level, but in some cases has thwarted our capacity to have real and meaningful face-to-face conversations.
The two forms of communication — virtual and physical — can work in tandem, though the physical kind obviously takes a bit more effort, but most often results in a far more meaningful experience.

A popular article in The New York Times, Your Phone vs Your Heart, mirrored some of these observations. In particular, the article explored how we can actually “re-wire” our heart and brain to become more secluded.
It contends, “If you don’t regularly exercise your ability to connect face to face, you’ll eventually find yourself lacking some of the basic biological capacity to do so.”
In summary, if you don’t go out of your way to form meaningful, personal friendships beyond the virtual ones, you may lose the ability to do so in the future.
A sort of “use it or lose it” model. What was also intriguing about the article was that through these connections, you actually build up your biological capacity to not only empathize but also improve your health.

Heidegger probably had it right when he made the prescient statement, “Technology makes us at home everywhere and nowhere [at the same time].”

We are more connected than ever, yet we remain walled off behind our smartphones, mobile devices and computer screens.
Perhaps our communication tools are more cosmetic than we think; they have yet to master the ancient and inimitable art of human contact.
Your success is determined in large part by your ability to have a conversation. You can be the best at what you do, but if you’re not communicating effectively with clients, staff and the market, then you’re missing opportunities.
There are many different ways to look at communication in the small-business world from the individual formats such as writing and speaking, to different contexts such as client communication and employee management.
Each and every day you will be required to flex your communication muscles and interact; a bad conversation could spell disaster for an employee relationship, a customer or your business.
Alternatively, the right words at the right time could propel your business into places you didn’t think possible and can deliver opportunities that were not available before.

Geoff Hudson-Searle – Meaningful Conversations

We should all stay inspired with ideas and innovation, creating great things!

Interestingly, meaningful conversations are not restricted to, or guaranteed by, long-term relationships. I’ve had deeper conversations with strangers on an airplane than with some people I’ve known for decades.

Karen Salmansohn once said:

“Choose to focus your time, energy and conversation around people who inspire you, support you and help you to grow you into your happiest, strongest, wisest self.”