Jeff’s Blog / Humor
Task Management
How many times have you begun the day with a small set of priorities that you want to accomplish, only to find that by the end of the day that you had totally forgotten about them and none of them got accomplished? It’s a great practice to have your most important daily tasks identified, but…
Read MoreThe critical question when setting great goals
The critical question when setting great goals The easiest thing in the world to do is to set a lousy goal. You’ve probably done it before, and if you manage people you’ve almost definitely seen it happen. What makes for a lousy goal? Ambiguity and generalities. See if any of these “goals” sound…
Read MoreThree Ideas for Managing Your Underperforming Sacred Cows
I had a great conversation yesterday with a group of CEO’s who were wrestling with a thorny problem. Each of them had people on their teams that just weren’t getting the job done, but the CEO’s felt powerless to do anything about it because each employee in their own way was a “sacred cow”. …
Read MoreThe Recipe for Ending the Endless Conversation
Some people have no problem ending a conversation. Once they deem the conversation over they walk away, slam down the phone, turn back to their computer, or do any number of things that the more genteel among us might consider rude. And most of the time, rude is bad. So if you’re trying to keep…
Read MoreMaster Your Email Inbox with One Simple Rule
If you’re like so many people, your email inbox is one of the most serious time sucks – and energy sucks – of your day. Ask yourself: Do you leave your email inbox open all the time on my computer screen? If not, do you check your inbox incessantly to make sure that nothing new…
Read MoreLower ratings aren’t always bad news
I run a lot of meetings, and if you think it’s easy to run a good meeting, think again. Running an effective meeting is hard work, and one of the tools I use to stay on my game is an end-of-meeting rating. At the end of most meetings I facilitate the group rates the meeting…
Read MoreSeven rules to guide your thinking
Hi, my name is Jeff, and I’m a lawyer. That’s the way I introduce myself in the Lawyers Anonymous 12-step meetings, anyway. I don’t practice law anymore, but I did for many, many years. Recovery is a slow road. One day at a time. Okay, I sometime relapse into using esoteric Latin legal jargon. I…
Read MoreYour business is like a three-legged race
Three-legged races can be great fun to watch, usually because several of the teams are falling all over themselves, stumbling clumsily toward the finish line and often ending up face-first in the grass. Big fun, right? Not if it’s your business we’re talking about.
Read MoreStop annoying interruptions. You know you want to…
Do you keep regular office hours? If you don’t, you’re making it easier for people to interrupt you, and harder for yourself to get things done. I assume that you spend time in your business. Probably a lot of time, and maybe more time than you’d like. When I say “keep office hours” I don’t…
Read MoreMake bad meetings a thing of the past…
Be honest. When you and your team are working through a thorny issue, challenge, opportunity or problem do you push forward aggressively to reach a fast, effective workable solution for the greater good of the organization? If you’re like many leadership teams that’s not what you’re doing. Instead, you’re flogging an issue to death —…
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Are You Tired Of Useless Meetings?