We all seem to get involved in projects. But how to make projects work better?

Sometimes by asking questions we get ‘arrowed’ and other times we are ‘volunteered’ by others. Best when we volunteer as we really believe in the project or cause. No matter how you got into the project, here are 3 tips to help you survive and even thrive while working on your projects.

Projects Work Tip # 1)  Realistically plan for the time the project will take from your schedule. Most of us have a tendency to underestimate the commitment in time. If you fall short of time, chances are, your success will be diminished and your stress level will skyrocket. Better to say ‘no’ and have people think you might be selfish than say ‘yes’ and have them convinced you are incompetent.

Projects Work Tip # 2) Minimise the texting, emails, phone calls and paperwork. I’m currently chairing the Raise Your Game event.  I set all Action Team members  (not committee members) up on a BCC list for announcements, updates and action items. This way, members cannot hit ‘reply all’ and send drivel to everyone, bogging the entire process down. This also shields them from the inevitable contrarian who must argue with everything and ultimately destroys the fun of the project for all. Further, for help and input, I rely on two co-chairs who give me quick and insightful feedback on all key issues so it’s just not me making the decisions. If they have any trouble with an Action Team member, they refer that person back to me, maintaining their enthusiasm and keeping the project moving forward.

Projects Work Tip # 3)  Short but regular meetings. Keep most meetings to under 2 hours and maybe even one hour or less. This ‘pressure cooker’ keeps long winded members under control and produces more results in less time. Phrases like, “Back on the agenda…” and “If we can refocus on…” help to turn the discussion back to the relevant topics at hand as do ‘mile makers’ of how much time is left for the meeting.

Projects are fun and rewarding if handled well. They can be hell if you let them get bogged down in minutia, politics, in-fighting and private agendas.

Smile Makers: Interesting thoughts:

• If Vegetarians eat vegetables. What do humanitarians eat?

• “A sure way to make your car run better, is to look up the price of a new car.” David Koutsoukis

• Steven Wright once asked, “What is another word for thesaurus?”

• If you do not expect much, you will never be disappointed. You will also never achieve much.

Got comments or questions about how to make projects work better? Just leave your comments here.

Upcoming Events

Public Speaking as easy as ABCD!
Public Speaking Seminar with Michael Podolinsky CSP in Singapore (25 - 26 March 2010)
You will learn to speak confidently, articulately and eloquently.

Raise Your Game 2010 (1 March 2010)
100% of the profits will go to Singapore Cancer Society

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Grow Your Business, Grow Your Career

Whether you work for big organisation or are self employed, the steps to growing your business or your career are often the same. Here are 3 `Growth Hormones` for growing your career or growing your business.

Growth Hormone # 1: Loyalty. Loyalty to your customer will make them more loyal to you. Frequent flyer points for free trips are expensive ways to buy loyalty. Instead, giving your regular customers a better deal, more then what they asked for or special treatment including recognising their names, one to one attention or a free gift is more effective and demonstrates loyalty. This works in business and in careers.

If you are loyal to your boss, your team, your company, speaking well of them, building them up and standing up for them. This pays off in increased loyalty towards you. A good career move.

Growth Hormone # 2: Perpetual marketing. Do you think this newsletter just happens by itself? Writing, e-mailing and posting it to our Web site  is a major commitment. So are the 2000+ e-mails we send out to reconnect with past clients and prospective clients. Hundreds of postcards, journal articles, writing books and more are all part of our perpetual marketing.

Does all this effort pay off. No way! In reality, very little does. Most people are too busy to respond or to care. Why do it?  Two out of one hundred DO respond and forward this newsletter to someone who hires us or they call us in for work.

In your career, if you expect every little thing you do will get noticed, you are deluded. Most of what we do is what we were hired to do. It is consistency and more importantly, the innovative things we do that get us noticed; another good career move.

Growth Hormone # 3: Think IN the box. Instead of trying to think outside of the box, think IN the box. That is, think of current procedures and how to refine them. How can you make them run on automatic so you can focus your attention on something that will bring you a better return on your investment of time?

Work your systems to get them to run on automatic. Coach your people instead of telling them what to do so they learn to solve problems on their own. Look into your box so it runs so well, you can live most of your life completely outside the box.

In a career, if your team can run autonomously of you, think of the ways you can exert your effort and ideas to transform the organisation you work in and propel your career.

Loyalty, perpetual marketing and thinking IN the box are just 3 tools out of thousands we cover in our workshops, speeches and seminars to help you grow your career or grow your business. The next time you hear of someone looking for a speaker, trainer or facilitator, how about passing on our contact details to them and THEIR contact information back to us? I will gladly send you a FREE e-book for your effort. See… I practice what I preach.

Join other Success Minded People by subscribing to the “Success Series Blog Tips” and GET the eCourse for FREE.

Challenges…How to use a Challenge to Get Results

Have you ever had someone tell you, you could not do something? Did it make you give up or fight harder. Chances are, as someone reading this “Success Series Blog Tips“, you are in the top third of humanity who will rise to a challenge. The middle third will usually give up. Most, but not all of the bottom third tend to give up. Sometimes, it may be the only time they really rise up. The need to prove someone wrong ends up being a strong motivator for them.

Which ever group you fall into, if challenge works for you, it may also work for those around you. Unless you know them incredibly well, you may need to experiment a bit. Once you know who responds well to a challenge, use it to get the most from them.

With a child who is coasting in school and you disagree with their hair style, you might try, `I will bet you a new iPod Nano, if you get your grades up to an `A` level and keep them there until the end of the year. If you cannot, I get to say how you wear your hair for the rest of the school year. If you can, you get the iPod and I will talk to mum about your hair, as long as it meets school requirements.`

If you lose the bet, you have an `A` student with weird hair. If you win, you have a clean cut `B` student. Seems like you win either way.

With workers on your team, try, `The 2nd shift keeps outperforming us by 10%. If we can beat them in the next quarter, not only will I give each of you an extra day off for your annual leave, I will punch in and work your shift for you so you take that day off. If we miss the target and 2nd shift still outperforms us, we work weekends the following month until we equal their production.` Big incentive to win. Bigger incentive not to lose.

With your spouse you might try, `I am really tired of picking up your socks off the floor. If you can remember to pick them up every day for a month, I’ll give you a full body massage for an hour. If you miss just ONE day, you owe me TWO body massages. Deal?` This may work out so both win… win or lose.

These specific examples may not work with individuals or teams in your life. The idea is to think of challenges the people you need to influence will respond to and make the outcomes so desirable and the consequences of failure so horrible, you are guaranteed to get the result you desire.

To have this kind of simple yet effective thinking in your organisation, just contact me.  In addition to training, we speak at conventions, conduct strategic planning retreats, sales meetings and facilitate sessions to optimise team growth and productivity.

Managing Crisis…How To Come Out of a Crisis?

Look at crisis as opportunities and benefit from it.
What companies can do to come out from crisis and prevent future failures?

Check out my below video.

To your success, find out how Michael Podolinsky will help you and your organization by browsing through the links below:

• Browse through Michael’s Products, Speech Topics, Seminar & Workshop Topics and  Public Seminars
• Check out what they say about Michael
• Click here to contact Michael to find out more about his training

Join other Success Minded People by subscribing to the “Success Series Blog Tips” and GET the eCourse for FREE.

Are Leaders Born or Made? Are Leaders Born or Developed?

What do you think? Check out the below video.

If you have feedback or questions on whether leaders are born or made, just leave your comments here.

To your success, find out how Michael Podolinsky will help you and your organization by browsing through the links below:

• Browse through Michael’s Products, Speech Topics, Seminar & Workshop Topics and  Public Seminars
• Check out what they say about Michael
• Click here to contact Michael to find out more about his training

Join other Success Minded People by subscribing to the “Success Series Blog Tips” and GET the eCourse for FREE.

Someone once said, `They don’t care how much you know until the know how much you care.` I believe that is true so here are 8 ways to tell people that matter to you at work and at home, how much you care about them.

1. Active listening is probably the single most important way to say you care about someone. As they share, do not just nod your head. Repeat a bit of what they say and ask questions.

2.  Write a personal note. Putting a written note (not an email) on someone’s desk for them to find later is a powerful motivator and easy way to show care and concern. Simply stating, `I just wanted to say I appreciate what you did for me. Thank you so much. It is a joy to work with you.`

3.  Remember what that person likes and give it to them. If they like a special brand of chocolates, when you see them, buy a bar or box and present it at an opportune time.

4.  Say it with flowers. If someone does a favour for you, send them a small potted plant. Everytime they water it, they will remember that you cared enough to say `thanks`.

5.  Perform a favour. I can still remember the day in 1978 when I had a ton of orders to write up and my supervisor Karl Bjornson was leaving the office at 6 PM, saw me doing all that paperwork and put his bag down, grabbed some of the work and stayed an extra hour to help me.

6.  Laugh at their jokes. My father would always laugh at a customers joke, even if it was one he knew very well. Why? The reason for a joke is to make people feel good. Laughing at their jokes makes the teller feel good. Ever had someone say at the end of a joke you told, `I’ve heard that one before.` or `I don`t get it.`?

7.  Ask them to help you or to do you a favour. This may fly in the face of logic initially, but trust me, it works. Soliciting help in the right way endears people to you. `You know so much about this…`or `It is a lot to ask I know. Would you be willing to.` or simply, `I really need your help and expertise on something.` You stroke their ego and have more opportunities to thank them and bond with them along the way.

8.  Pray for them or better yet, with them. When my wife an I kneel and pray together as husband and wife at the end of the day and she hears me thanking the Lord for her in my life or when it is her turn and she thanks God for me, well, I just love her all the more.

Saying `I care about you.` takes a little thinking and a little work, but it can literally mean the difference between breaking even or exceeding targets; between surviving a relationship and thriving in it. Start letting people know how much YOU care, today!

Here are 10 ways to cut waste in your office:

1.  Set up red rules and blue rules for all office supplies. When do you use good letterhead and when do you print on plane paper. When do we print copies VS. when do we send it electronically. Red rules you NEVER break. Blue rules you are flexible on.

2.  Fully use everything you buy. Print out a piece of paper only to find a typo or it wasn’t what you expected? Don’t throw it away. Reuse the back side as scratch paper or for future printing experiments.

3.  Don’t duplicate resources. Each office may not need it’s own set of records. One central space may be enough. Better yet, do it electronically for faster access and pooled sharing.

4.  Put strict email policies in place. NO jokes. NO naughty or funny photos. NO cc everyone. NO Bcc emails. You won’t waste any time looking at useless information.

5.  Replace wall switches with motion sensors in conference rooms, toilets, tea rooms or any room that is infrequently used. You enter, the light goes on. No motion after 5 minutes, the light goes off. (This also tells employees not to hide in the toilet for an hour, making their colleagues work harder to cover for their laziness.)

6.  Instead of receptionists or security guards sitting and doing nothing most of the time, find work for them. If they are not checking Ids or greeting visitors with a smile, they can be sorting, folding, phoning, stapling, conducting research, or some other useful function. I asked two guards outside of a special school. I was interested in helping the children. The guards said, “Oh, I don’t know anything. You must call the school.” At LEAST have them read the organization’s literature so they know what they are doing!

7.  Lease out your resources. Instead of retrenching engineers, do what Honda does and lease them out during your slow periods. You have LCD projectors and AV equipment, lease it or hire it out if not in use.

8.  Sell resources no longer being used. Retrench some workers? Sell off their computers and other no longer needed equipment. In 2 years time if you start hiring again, those old computers won’t be worth much anyway. Ask some employees to volunteer the time at night to sell it or auction it on the Net and the profits go to the company’s Family Day. Alternatively, let employees purchase old equipment for family use at a huge discount. You are not using it anyway and it can be a real perk for a parent wanting a computer for their 12 year old.

9.  Don’t save books, read them and then give them away. You read a great management book? Give it to your 2nd in command and ask what she thinks of it. You get rid of clutter and train your people. When he / she is done, ask them to do the same.

10.  Take a course in Time Management to stop wasting TIME. Most people are BUSY but not very PRODUCTIVE. We offer a fantastic course in Proactive Time and Stress Management at SIM (65) 6468-8866. We also conduct Time and Stress Management Seminars and Workshops in house from 1 hour to 4 days in length (most are 2-days long). Just contact us.

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8 Meetings Tips to Make Your Meetings More Productive (8 GEMS)

Are all the meetings you hold at work productive or do they sometimes fall short of your expectations? Well, here are 8 GEMS to help you make your meetings more productive (Actually, GGGEMSSS).

1.  Get with the Agenda. Have your agenda out well ahead of the next meeting you run. Far too often the full agenda is only available at the meeting itself and people come unprepared. Getting a weekly meeting agenda out to all a day in advance or a monthly meeting up to a week in advance allows people to have the relevant facts and data at hand.

2.  Groom your successor at every meeting. You will never be promoted until you have someone to take your place. Meetings afford you an opportunity to let your second in command get the practice necessary to fill your shoes. Then guide and nurture them depending upon their performance.

3.  Get control. If you are at a meeting that your boss is running, offer to take the minutes and then sit at the right hand of your boss. It is a position of power and if the boss or someone else rambles, you can say, “Sorry, for the minutes, are we still on agenda point 3 or have we digressed?” You can get the meeting back on track without the boss losing face.

4.  Easy to get input if you ask the right questions. Never ask, “What are your inputs on this?” People cannot think of something they cannot picture clearly in their minds. Ask questions they can picture like, “What 3 ways can we reduce the cost of this procedure?” What 3 ways can we increase the efficiency of …” You will get some real golden nuggets when you ask the right questions.. (tons more of these tips in our book, Mining For Goldú…Facilitation Skills to Unearth a Wealth of Ideas From Your Team)

5.  Meeting Milestones. Set not only an exact start and end time to the meeting and stick to it, but make sure you have milestones along the timeline. Assign a timer and tell her / him, we need 15 minute warnings so we keep on track for an hour long meeting and 30 minute warnings for a half day or longer meeting.

6.  Shoot out bullets. No longer have long minutes from meetings. Take them in short bullet form, that is, a bullet and then the basic concept. No need for a capital letter and a full stop, just concepts. Easier to record, read and will actually be USED.

7.  Stretch their imaginations. Have a 30 second group stretch every 30 minutes. Takes so little time but adds so much more energy to your meeting, getting you great results and solid gold productivity.

8.  Stand for Success. You have 45% more energy standing than sitting. Consider shorter meetings focusing on one topic and have everyone stand while they discuss the topic. The changed dynamic will also afford you greater creativity from your team.

These 8 tips are only one of hundreds we offer in our programmes, books and audio books.  How to get people to Open - Up and share their ideas in a meeting?   If you’d like to know more about how to facilitate meetings, check out my “Mining For Gold! Facilitation Skills to Unearth a Wealth of Ideas From Your Team” Package.

The “Mining For Gold! will show you how to:

• get people to open up in meetings
• gain control of meetings before you lose it
• set the ground rules
• keep people with more power from asserting it
• get ideas to flow smoothly and quickly
• keep meetings light and fun
• handle difficult participants
• and more…

——–
“Fun to read and easy to understand and apply, Michael Podolinsky’s Mining For Gold fiilled with useful information. If you want to reach your people – I mean really learnt what they are thinking – this is the book for you…”

- - Dato Lawrence Chan Kum Peng CSP
Founder & Executive Chairman, Personal Development Leadership Management Corporation (M) Sdn Bhd

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