I sometime take pictures of their desk before I begin working with them. One day I might ask my clients if I can publish some of these pictures — you would not believe your eyes!
When I ask people why they chose this ‘information management system’, the most common answer is, ‘Trial and error.’ I then ask if this is the best system for them, and I hear, ‘I don’t know — I have never been shown how to do this.’
Another example which demonstrates that most of us have never been taught how to work is the way we manage our priorities. The most common way I have observed is what I call the ‘note pad strategy’. At the start of every day, you start a new ‘to do’ list in your note pad. You write all the tasks which need to be done for the day.
On one hand people enjoy having a ‘to do list’. They can keep track of everything they have to do and they can add things throughout the day.
On the other hand they are often frustrated with this system. New things keep being added to their list. They finish the day with half of the list not completed. And at the start of a new day they have to scramble through all their previous ‘to do’ lists to collect all undone or unfinished items.
When I ask people why they do it this way, I get answers such as, ‘I have so many things to do every day that I need a system to keep track of all this.’ When asked if this is the most effective system for them, most people don’t know. They have never been taught some simple yet effective work habits.
As most people have never been shown how to work, they have developed work habits that are not the most efficient and effective ones. There is nothing wrong or shameful in this. Peter Drucker was one of the most famous effectiveness coaches. He wrote many books including the famous The Effective Executive. In this book he wrote:
‘In forty-five years of work as a consultant I have not come across a single natural, an executive who was born effective. All the effective ones have had to learn to be effective. And all of them had to practise effectiveness until it became a habit.’
We are not born naturally effective. We have to learn the principles and practise them until they become habits.
My main focus is to improve the performance of individuals, teams or divisions by challenging their work habits. And the lift in productivity and performance by simply improving people’s work habits is amazing. So much time, energy and money is wasted because of poor execution.
The purpose of this book
The purpose of this book could be viewed solely as a guide to improving your performance at work by giving you simple and practical tools to be more effective.
While I want to help you to improve your productivity by challenging your work habits, my ambition in writing this book is to have an impact not only on your business life but also your personal one. Business and personal life are intrinsically linked. If you are out of control and stressed at work, it will affect your personal life.
As an effectiveness coach, my personal motivation comes from hearing the impact I’ve had on the lives of my coachees. My ambition is to change the life of each person I interact with. It may sound ambitious, but this is what drives me. Comments such as, ‘You have changed my life,’ or ‘I feel so much more in control and happy with my job,’ or ‘My performance has dramatically increased since I have worked with you,’ are my best rewards.
I will never forget the first person who gave me this feedback. It was the last session with one of our first clients, a group of managers from a bank. I was asking each participant for their feedback, for the changes they had made throughout the four months’ journey we had undertaken, and the impact of those changes.
The feedback from the team was terrific. The journey had had an amazing impact on their work habits and they were all very positive about it. And then Marnie stood up and explained the impact for her. She mentioned that as a result of this journey, she felt much more organised, her desk was cleaner, she was on top of her emails, she was much more focused. As a result she had no doubt she would over-achieve her KPIs (key performance indicators), and that she would achieve her business goals for this year.
And then Marnie made an amazing comment. She said that this was not the big win for her; that this was not the most important thing. I was intrigued. What Marnie had mentioned so far sounded great and I was pleased she had achieved so much throughout the program.
Marnie said something I will never forget: ‘The big win for me is that I sleep at night.’ I was not expecting this and asked Marnie what she meant. She then explained, ‘I have a challenging job. I love it, but for many years I have brought my stress home. I have found myself waking up in the middle of the night with ideas of things I should do or should have done, of things I had forgotten or let slip. I had to sleep with a note pad on my bedside table to write all this down.
‘For the first time for many years, I sleep well at night. When I leave the office, I feel in control, I feel I have achieved what I need to. Even my husband is seeing the difference. This journey has changed my life.’
I was nearly in tears. This was one of those moments when you realise why you are doing what you are doing. This became the focus and vision for me, something that drives me forward — ‘changing lives’. Since then ‘changing lives’ has become the mission of my business, Primary Asset Consulting. A very ambitious mission, indeed. But if you do not aim high, you are unlikely to achieve great things or to bring great value.
I hope this book will help you to be more effective, to perform better at work and feel more in control of both your professional and personal life. Ultimately my goal and hope is that this book changes your life.
Efficiency versus effectiveness
When I mention in the corporate world that the focus of my business is to increase performance by challenging people’s work habits, I am often met with doubt.
Performance is a well-worn word, used in all industries and for whatever is being sold. What a company does or purchases is ultimately aimed at improving its bottom line and performance. Performance means so many different things that I sometimes feel the word has lost its power because of misuse and over-use.
When we deal with a sales team, performance is usually quite easy to define. It can be measured, for example, by the number of meetings or the amount of revenue and profit. When we deal with a legal team, performance is more difficult to measure. In some law firms it is measured in billable hours per day. Other legal teams link performance to internal feedback and satisfaction. Or a combination of both.
When we work with a marketing team or a senior executive, performance has yet another meaning. In this case performance can be linked to the revenue generated from marketing activities, to indicators such as improved brand recognition or client satisfaction, or to the delivery of specific projects.
However there are often two criteria that influence performance. Let’s take a few examples. When you discuss performance with a sales team, you will hear success measured using these factors:
On one hand you can be a great sales person, have a very good understanding of your products, target the right clients, and have a very good sales approach (quality). However, if you do not make any phone calls and have no meetings (quantity), it will be hard to perform.
On
