Making Time

Willie Nelson once sang "If you've got the money, honey, I've got the time." He had it backwards. The real issue for us is "if you've got the time, you'll make the money." What I mean is if you have the time to do the most important things, the things that link to growth, then you'll make money! The problem is that we let the urgent crowd out the important and confuse activity with priority. Try this: break your activities (and all the new demands you think are being placed on you) and divide them into Rocks (the most important), Sand (next in importance), and Water (last in importance). Then, with a blank weekly schedule, put the Rocks into your calendar first, the Sand activities can work around the Rocks, and the Water tasks can flow around Rocks and Sand.

Cool Under Pressure

Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III--doesn't sound like a hero but he is. He was the captain of USAir Flight 1549 which he had to crash land into the Hudson River this week. His cool decision making, the professional focus of the flight crew, and the amazing response of the NYC rescue teams saved the lives of all 155 people on board. That's the leadership you and I need to exhibit to our teams. No matter what happens or how challenging--cool, focused, never forgetting our purpose, taking care of our co-workers, and clients. We need some heroes today

Quality and Common Sense

I was talking with a friend of mine in Kansas whose company is starting their lean transformation. They are a small manufacturing company that makes livestock management equipment. After they began their research (one of their board members does lean for GM), one of the senior leaders said, "This is just common sense." My friend replied, "It does look like it...after you're done." My friend is right. On the front end a lot of continuous improvement and lean stuff (like taking 1/2 hour for the team to brainstorm better ways to do things rather than doing data entry) seems counter-intuitive. One piece flow. Don't do what your client won't pay you for. Only produce exactly what you can sell. Etc. But once you've made a few improvements and you look back, it really is just good old common sense.

A Great Tool for Thought

2009 will require better thinking than ever. Analytical and non-linear. Strategic and Creative. There is a great and free tool available called FreeMind. It's a "mind mapping" application that helps free up your creative and non-linear juices. Check it out at http://freemind.sourceforge.net And, Happy New Year!