Renaissance Leadership

If You Can't Handle Conflict, Then Stop Leading

I've been coaching people for more than ten years and the two beliefs I swear by are:

1. Change never stops. If it does, you've just signed the death warrant for your company's demise.
2. Conflict is inevitable.

One of my newer clients sought my services because he had become so bitter at work that he was having trouble coping. Every day he'd wake up with stomach cramps and head to a job fraught with problems. He's highly skilled at what he does and has the track record to prove it. He's creative, intelligent, knows his industry and gets along well with just about everyone in his office. His direct reports love him--they enjoy his company, they value his input, and he's one of the most popular people at his office. So you're probably wondering why this guy needed a coach, right?

Turns out the one problem he (and everyone else) has at his company is the CEO.

While his CEO knows the industry they're in and can manage dealing with the public this company supports quite well, he comes an ostrich once a problem arises.  This is someone who thinks teamwork is the ultimate answer for everything, but to an extreme where no one is allowed to have a contrary opinion. He truly believes everyone must cooperate to where no one can challenge him. He's even told his own senior leadership team that they "must support each other even if they know someone is not performing well."

Unfortunately for this man, we live in a world where conflict happens. If you stick your head and the sand or plug your ears when you recognize someone has a dissenting view or a person in your midst is not pulling their weight and needs confronting, then you lack a backbone and need to excuse yourself from managing others.

When I first started managing people in my twenties, I admittedly felt it was more important that people like me, so I personally hated giving people critical feedback. I thought they would not consider me a friend any more. However, after failing to produce the results my company wanted, I realized I needed to change as I was not acting in service of my team. So I practiced the skill of providing feedback in an objective, clear and respectful manner to where my team member would not necessarily want to hear the feedback at first, but they respected my honesty and approach.

But my client's CEO obviously has not learned this lesson. The minute you disagree with him, he writes you off. In fact, he's skilled in passive aggression.  And this just makes it worse for everyone. What's sad is recognizing that this is a man who lives in total fear and has little self-esteem. He's got great technical skills and is thoroughly happy when engaged in a discussion where everyone gets along and there's harmony. But introduce conflict, and he immediately shuts down.

People like this make it through the day by constantly living a lie--their own. In his mind, negativity is a bad thing. He marginalizes everyone as being "complainers" and that they need to "suck it up" when people "cannot have their way all the time."

The dangerous notion here is that sometimes "complainers" have a point. Telling people to play nice and act as if nothing's wrong when you have someone in your midst who is driving people out of your organization or is incapable of producing positive results is deadly. The message you're sending is that you're so afraid to confront a bad seed that you must also be incapable of managing yourself.

We live in a world that constantly changes. We also live in a world where just because you get a title after your name that says EXECUTIVE, it doesn't mean you deserve the respect of all and cannot ever have your decisions questioned. You want that kind of leadership, go back to the 1950's or try managing a prison.

To truly lead, you must embrace your own humanity and recognize you will make mistakes, there will be conflict, and you need stamina to guide others toward achieving your vision--which sometimes can get altered in the course of carrying it out. You have to be strong enough to know that when you have a person in your organization who is not producing that you either need to correct the problem or transition them out of the company. You can't afford to have non-producers, even if they are the Vice President and your personal best friend. When someone is not doing their job, help them for the sake of the greater good. Don't become their enabler and drive everyone else in your organization away because you lack conviction.

So what's my client doing?

He's learned that if your CEO is ultimately the problem, that sometimes the only way to respond is to let it go and look for other opportunities. Now that he recognizes he works for a man who will not change during his tenure, he accepts the fact he'll never get the support he needs nor the recognition he deserves. His boss will always label him a trouble maker whenever there's a disagreement. It's sad, but part of being an adult means realizing that not everyone can do a good job and that there are organizations that hang onto their existence because no one's allowed to say the Emperor has no clothes.

And despite the economy, my client's had some opportunities presented to him--so there are jobs out there and you can find them...but that's another blog entry!

What Obama Needs to Learn from Edward Kennedy

This was a difficult week for many as we honor the late, great Edward Kennedy, a man who truly understood the mission and vision for being a civil servant.

While you can perhaps criticize him for some of his personal choices, you truly cannot detract his unwavering personal regard for people. In fact, he was just like all of us--human and not without faults.

But with his death, comes a true void in our political community. Though he came from wealth and a prominent family, Teddy Kennedy was the people's hero. He knew the importance of the energizing sparks that needed encouragement among our children.  He recognized that every human on the planet offers value and that at the end of the day, we are all one. He believed that every citizen in our great nation had equal rights and he fought for many years to secure them.

Kennedy was not a corporate politician; his soul could not be bought for the almighty dollar. Up until his very last moments, he worked to build a nation that would truly live up to the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, documents that many politicians seem to forgotten of late. Indeed, if I were Obama, I'd look at the Kennedy legacy and ask "how can I truly emulate these great men?"

Obama won an election based on espousing ideas that would radically reshape our nation and restore a sense of true patriotism. Sadly, he's only uttered the words and his actions have yet to live up to the promise of greatness from his campaign speeches. Obama still seems to be too tied with the almighty dollar and power of corporate influence. He has yet to prove that he's truly a man of the people.

Kennedy, however, emulated this each day. During his political career, he helped craft the Voting Rights Act of 1965, along with the Freedom of Information Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Americans With Disabilities Act. His entire life was about advocating basic rights for all.  You can thank Kennedy for COBRA as well.

He didn't get to be President, but he sure as hell made an indelible mark on our society. 

RIght now, Obama and many leaders continue to praise his legacy. But I'd rather see our chief executive actually do something and take action.  Obama has yet to prove his true greatness. We voted him in on a promise of hope and a "Yes We Can" message. Let's hope in four years we don't find ourselves saying "Oh No You Di'int" instead.

Wouldn't it be nice to see some genuine leadership again?

What the hell happened to Leadership?

There was a place in time when leaders actually lived out their values. For someone to speak of integrity, they had to have it. If someone spoke about honesty, they used to live by it. We used to live in a country where it meant something to be a leader. You had to have a vision, a commitment to something greater than you, and the stamina to carry out your vision and take others along for the journey.

Plus, leaders used to be humble enough to admit to a mistake and correct their course with a quiet dignity.

Not  so much anymore. Now we have people who think leadership is all about profits and making a fast buck at the expense of others.

Look at our tired health care system. It’s done nothing but create a further divide between the rich and the poor and the well and the unhealthy. Hospital executives don’t want you to come to their institutions to get better, they want you to come to their institutions so they can charge you out the ass for their meds, so the drug companies give can give them profits by shoving said meds up yours.

Reporting the news used to carried out with objectivity, professionalism, and a sense of responsibility to keep the public informed. Nowadays, executives in media departments only care about ratings and advertising dollars and what sells, thus reducing news—especially television news—to merely reporting on who was wearing what while they bought fresh produce at Whole Foods or whacked their girlfriend on the head. Forget about reporting on the harsh reality that racism is alive and well even though we’ve manage to elect our first African American president.

I won’t begin to comment on the lack of leadership in most corporations. There’s not enough space here and I might as well go off and write a book. 

But what I will say is that there are indeed woman and men out there whose spirit is not driven but the dollar, who truly care about making a difference for the greater good, and who understand that there’s a greater mission than a quarterly dividend when carrying out your goals.

We just need more of you to stand up and be seen so the majority of citizens see you to know there is a better way

Setting Sail in Your Leadership Journey:The Ritual of Beginning

I think one of the things many of us have forgotten in our leadership journey is the beginnings of it.  I was talking to a former client of mine who was recently promoted into management.  She felt no excitement about the promotion, nor did her company as she was merely given a pay raise and no congratulatory remarks from anyone, not even her senior leadership! 

One of my current clients just promoted someone within the organization into the role of Sales Manager.  And even with my encouragement, the President of the company simply gave the man a raise and didn't make any fanfare.  What's sad about this is that this is a small company who is rapidly growing.  This is the first time a sales manager role is in place and the company promoted someone from within the sales team to take on the management job.  The president realized he had neither the constitution to coach and develop people nor the focus to motivate his sales staff as his energies have shifted to retirement and succession planning.  And for the gentleman who got the promotion, he felt no sense of having arrived at a major milestone in his career.  His first week on the job resulted in the following assessment of his promotion: "More hassle and less pay is what I've signed up for."

This example is just one of the many I've read about in recent times and it points to a sad state of affairs in that we no longer celebrate successes.  It seems we're too busy to get to the next meeting or return that email within five minutes of showing up or we're too busy putting out the fires that result from a lack of planning.  And yet, taking that first step into your leadership journey is an important one and I think we need to make time in our lives to do that. 

Having some sort of ritual--whether it's a team luncheon where you say goodbye to your former job and hello to new responsibilities or you go out with your new boss to celebrate your promotion--is a very important process.  Getting an increase in salary is certainly great, but I think we need to honor the start of a true career milestone--making it into management. 

You'll only ever be a "first-time" manager once in your life; it's well worth some kind of celebration!  If your company doesn't feel this way about the process, then I think it's important you do something for yourself as you cross the threshold into leadership.  Perhaps you can go buy a high-end pen to sign your name with, invest in a new power suit to match your new sense of managerial power, or you could get your name imprinted on a custom business card holder.  I would even go so far as to invite your loved ones to go out for a special dinner at one of your favorite restaurants.

The point of this is that we are a culture who appreciates rituals--ones that represent a certain rite of passage: baptism, graduation from middle to high school and from high school to college, turning twenty-one or graduating from college.  These are all occasions we love to mark with a certain level of fanfare and excitement, so why not a ritual for when you see a true sign of career success and make it into management!

In fact, I would encourage you to celebrate each career milestone you achieve--when you make it to a Director Level, Senior VP or even President!  Or if you start your own company, take yourself out to celebrate the fact that you've signed up to be an Entrepreneur-one of the true American archetypes! 

When we find ways to honor ourselves and our achievements, it's a positive reminder that all that dedication and effort has started to pay off.  The phone calls, the emails, the Excel sheets will be waiting for you every day; the opportunity to acknowledge and truly honor your first day as a leader only comes along once.  Make the most of it as you set sail for the seas of change! 

Sins of Omission and Talent Management

According to one Executive Jobs Website, an article talking about workplace discrimination states that discrimination starts at the top in many organizations.  A survey the article features reports that people still find discrimination in their workplace – about 54% of the respondents! 

However, the article is not clear as to what type of discrimination the respondents are experiencing.  I find it interesting that most people think that discrimination is visible, as if it’s something you can easily identify, punish the bad guys and protect the innocent.  I find in most of my experiences that discrimination is rarely blatant and rarely that evident, and that the most powerful way to practice discrimination today is simply to ignore the career of an executive or a manager.

In today’s marketplace, if you are not being actively promoted and championed, you’re not likely to be on any fast career track or any kind of successful career track.  And what I have seen and actually experienced is that rather than blatantly and explicitly discriminating and denying people opportunities, what senior leaders do is simply don’t spend any energy  at all or make any effort to champion people.  And, by most definitions, that wouldn’t be discrimination.

It’s a subjective response that executives can make all the time as to who they want to spend their time with and why. In today’s hypersensitive areas of legality around discrimination, rarely do I find overt discrimination.  What I see is more of a “sin of omission,” where executives simply let careers in their company languish from a lack of effective succession planning.

Why Diversity? Why?

Any leader who takes on a diversity program needs to think about the driving forces for wanting to take on such an initiative.  “Why are we doing this?” is perhaps the first and best question you can ask before ever initiating a diversity program.

I have found that most diversity efforts start for the wrong reasons.  Some companies launch diversity initiatives because they’ve read about it in trade magazines and see that everyone else in their industry is doing it.  So you have companies launching diversity efforts merely out of wanting to be in step with the industry.  Other companies pursue a diversity initiative in response to a legal issue; this is often done in response to a corporate crisis.  When companies take on diversity as a result of pending legal action, a lot of damage has often already been done (lawsuits, bad press, and staff erosion), which make it more difficult to fully realize the goals of their program.  Some companies pursue diversity out of misplaced altruism.

At the end of the day, for many, the answer should simply include the phrase “because it’s the right thing to do.”  Beyond the current legislature that protects employees basic rights, diversity efforts indicate that a company wants to provide the best possible employment experience and values the unique contribution each individual can make.

Focusing on diversity means that your company is interested in taking the different voices, with different perspectives, backgrounds, and ideas to help you identify opportunities for continual success and growth.  A strong diversity effort also implies your company is willing to be more competitive as the world continues to evolve more into a global marketplace.  Realize that your suppliers, your communities, and your customers are changing and so must your company in order to succeed.

I think one of the critical first steps once you've asked the WHY question is to immediately create an advisory group to help communicate the rationale for creating a diversity effort. At many companies, diversity is spurred by a serious issue that needs to be addressed, like high turnover, too many unskilled workers in a specific ethnic group, or not enough gender or racial diversity at higher levels in the organization.  This advisory group can also help you communicate the business imperative for taking on diversity and can assist in developing an implementation model to roll out the initiative throughout the organization.

But first, I encourage you to seriously consider the WHY question.  If you cannot truly answer that one, then ask yourself why you're even in business at all...

Talent Management: It's Not the Same Old, Same Old Anymore...

One important skill leaders must possess in today’s volatile environment is the ability to recognize talent; particularly in a multi-racial and multi-ethnic environment of diverse talent.

One of the issues I have with most executives and senior hiring managers is that they often fail to recognize talent when it does not look like them, does not think like them and does not perform like them. Leaders often just want to reproduce themselves because they can only see value in people they think can behave that they do; and, that is who they choose to select for the next generation of leaders. 

I think a major challenge for senior leaders is to understand that clearly the world marketplace is very different from when they were moving up in their organizations.  The world is more interconnected than ever before and our newer generations of employees share vastly different values systems, capabilities and beliefs. 

Leaders need to constantly assess the true talent in their organization.  And I think the best way to start doing this is to examine the top performers in the organization and review what competencies and skills these people offer.  I think it’s also necessary to get input from others to get a realistic people of how people perform as senior leaders may not often see the day to day proliferation of capabilities.  This means a commitment to leaving your office and having conversations with people about their work and how they view others. 

If you truly don’t know who the top talent is in your company and you don’t know why they are that way, it’s going to be more difficult when you assess where you want your company to go in the next several years.  Start today by being open and willing to put aside your views of what talent is and allow others to influence you—you’ll find many surprising things about how people approach their work and innovative ways to take your company to its next level.

Leadership Transition Troubles and Self-Esteem

An recent article in the on-line edition of The Wall Street Journal speaks to the issue of executives engaged in career transition and succession planning and how many Baby Boomers are struggling to transition themselves from the executive suite and back onto the street.

The article speaks mainly to the rise in popularity of CEOs who wish to remain on payroll either due to a lack of retirement planning or simply the fear of no longer being a Very Important Person.  The piece also describes how a shift in leadership in some companies actually created chaos and resulted in the departure of several senior team members. 

What surprises me about this article is that it doesn't address the root causes of these issues: self-esteem and the lack of it. 

Face it, in corporate cultures today we place a high and unrealistic regard for our senior staff. As you move up to the top of the ladder in many places, not only do the paychecks get bigger, but also the perks, which feed on the egos of far too many a CEO who often learns to take him or herself far too seriously.  Drive into the garage of some of our larger corporations and you'll see that the entitlement begins in the parking lot: reserved spaces close to the door as if leadership shouldn't have to walk more than 20 paces to enter the castle where they rule on high. 

The open-ended expense accounts, the travel perks, the use of plush limo services, the free tickets to sporting events and sitting the company box, and the Executive restrooms all tend to feed the ego.  And the reason why so many executives are having issues concerning their pending retirement is that without the all important job title, the endless pampering and the constant care and feeding of their personalities, many leaders truly lack healthy-self esteem.  Most executives tell me that without their jobs, many of them would truly not know what to do with themselves. One CEO admitted to me that he devotes himself to work because he has no idea how to relate to his wife or children (most likely because he cannot control their fates in the same way he does for his executive team and thousands of staff!).  His identity is so closely tied with his job; he has no idea who he really is outside of his work.  This, unfortunately, is a sad reality when we scan the halls of our Fortune 1000 companies. 

While there may be major increases in technology, new and improved ways to engage customers and a surplus of ideas on how to improve businesses, there's an epidemic lack of self-esteem that begins at the top of the organization and trickles down to the front-line rank and file managers.  Think about those wonderful folks at Enron or Tycom, or America's most famous hotel diva, Leona Helmsley.  It's not that these people were ultimately too greedy or mean, it's that they all lacked healthy self-esteem and a highly imbalanced sense of self-esteem often leads to behaviors which appear cruel, vicious, and generally evil. Your self-esteem impacts your corporate policies, your culture and climate and your customer satisfaction.

Don't believe me? 

Ask the person on the other line of the phone as to why they don't sound too enthused about providing stellar customer service the next time you want to dispute a charge on your credit card bill and you might find out that some executive has administered an unrealistic policy that doesn't allow people to take rest room breaks until call volumes reach a certain level.  Ask yourself what kind of company would do that and why such a policy would exist.  You'll find you can just go the top of the organization to find out that fear, which comes from low esteem, is the culprit that induces such ridiculous policies.

There are a lot of metrics and policies and office politics that come about because someone takes their power far too seriously and feels they have to control every aspect of their people to maintain their existence at the top of the heap.  And while you might think I'm over-exaggerating, just look at how women still make less on the dollar than men do, how some organizations still can't manage their race relations, and why executives do all they can to tread lightly around the issues of domestic partner benefits for fear it's making a statement about advocating rights for gays, lesbians and transgendered employees. Dig a bit deeper and you'll find self-esteem is at the core of all these issues!

Another clue that your self-esteem might be creating some issues is to look at how much you use the word DESERVE.  People with self-esteem issues often feel as if they deserve something to make up for the lack of respect they have for themselves. Watch how often people say "I deserved that promotion more than her," "I have been here for ten years and he's only been here for five, I should be the new Director," or my personal favorite "I'm the boss around here, you do as I say and not as I do."

I suggest leaders start examining their relationship to their self-esteem every day and discover how it shows up.  One way is to ask yourself "where do I lose power in my life."  Think about your decisions and discern whether or not you're acting from a place of confidence and heart or a place of fear.  There is a difference.  You can also ask "where could I potentially be doing harm with my power."  That can be a real eye-opener for some!  The main thing is to start looking at the role your self-esteem plays in the thoughts you have, the choices you make, and the behaviors used to carry them out. And realize that this is not always easy to do--even when you're onto the notion that something now needs to change.

Self-esteem is one of the major challenges you'll ever face in your lifetime.  In fact, I think it ranks up there as one of the most important things you need to learn how to manage--even more important than having competencies such as strong interpersonal skills, decision-making abilities and a sense of vision.  Without healthy self-esteem, the rest of these are truly not possible.

Over the years I've coached a lot of clients and ultimately self-esteem is what shows up as the real issue I need to address. It is something you can learn to develop, but it requires a lot of letting go and taking on full accountability for your thoughts and actions.  And the reality is, your self-esteem will always be a moving target--you just have to learn how to engage with it in a very productive way.

Whether you're at the beginning of your leadership career or you're facing the inevitable stepping down to join the gainfully post-employed, I encourage you to spend some time with your self-esteem now and really learn how to work with it as opposed to letting it left unattended to create chaos throughout every aspect of your entire company.  That kind of succession planning only results in one thing: total extinction.   

The Cost of Promoting Your Problems

I got an announcement in my email last month from an organization where I did training earlier this year.  The note happily proclaimed the company promoted someone from general management to Sales Vice President.  Ordinarily I would applaud a greeting like this, but it reminded me once again of a systemic problem we have in the corporate world: We love to promote our problems into higher positions instead of often dealing with them.

While I worked for this company, I learned this individual was not qualified for his job.  His only reason for being with the company was because he had tried to make it in another industry and was repeatedly told he had attitude problems, forcing him to make a career change.  He ended up coming to work for his father, who is the president of the company where he now works.  And those attitude problems are still on full display in the workplace. 

This is a person who violates every HR policy the company has.  He has a reputation for coming in every morning and reading the newspaper for at least two hours before he'll approach a single person.  And when he does manage to leave his office, he very rarely greets people when he walks in front of them  Part of his job requires servicing customers who have issues with the sales or installation teams within the company.  However, when faced with a customer complaint, his tendency is to get fired up, often choosing an angry and abusive response for the individual who just wants a problem solved.  I've heard multiple accounts of his physically threatening his staff as well as calling the company's valued customers names.  I don't know about you, but when a nun calls in wanting to resolve a service issue, the last thing you want to do is call her a name typically reserved for female dogs inside a kennel. 

This gentleman is supposed to be the enforcer of HR policies which protect employees from violence in the workplace, and yet he repeatedly threatens employees when there's a problem.  He also peppers his dialog with off-color language and has also demonstrated a glaring disrespect for women.  What's sad is no one in the office feels safe enough to complain about him to the company's executives as the senior leadership team is made up of family members--his parents among them.  As one sales manager commented to me "No one wants to tell you that your baby ain't right!"

But behind closed doors, everyone talks about how this person is unfit for the job.  Insteead of addressing his poor interpersonal skills, he's constantly promoted to even higher levels within the company and given more financial responsibility while remaining unfit to lead others.  I think the senior leadership's team rationale is if they remove him from people completely, maybe he'll do something good. The problem is that this is a company that prides itself on its reputation and customer service, and they've set themselves up for more dissent in the days ahead.

People in the company are considering leaving as this sends a very bad message.  Not only do the senior managers publicly endorse incompetency but this most recent promotion to Vice President makes it clear that in order to succeed in this company, you have to have the same last name as everyone else on the executive team. 

It's amazing to me how companies continue to banish themselves from the marketplace by making mistakes like this.  Instead of addressing the anger issues and lack of interpersonal skills this person has, they just choose to deny there's a problem and learn to work with it.

If you've got a front-line or mid-level supervisor whose role is to inspire others--whether it's customers or employees--and they lack sufficient leadership skills, stop rewarding their short-comings by promoting them and address the problem head-on!  By avoiding the issue and moving people up the corporate ranks, you're sending a real harsh signal that there's no regard for legitimacy in your business environment.  People eventually won't tolerate working for an ogre and they'll leave.  And customer satisfaction will continue to erode as long as you have someone taking high level complaints who's response to dissatisfaction is to call people names no customer should ever have to endure--no matter how unreasonable they might sound.

The moral of this story is that you have to learn to address your managerial problems in a direct manner.  If you've got employees who lack integrity and respect for both customers and employees, deal directly with them instead of promoting them out of harm's way.  The reality is people can see through your motives and moves like the one I just described will surely result in more employees seeking better companies with more integrity. 

Customers who also suffer from the abusive nature of a sales executive will also spread the word that your company provides bad service, resulting in a horrible reputation and loss of market share.  And if you think you can't undo a fifty-year plus reputation of being a leading service provider by word of mouth, think of companies like K-Mart or Dell Computers and ask where they are today.

If you truly think promoting your problems is a good business practice, then I advise you to get a good Employment Law attorney--you're going to need one some day when someone finally crosses a line and there's no other recourse left but legal action.  Just ask the women of Wal-Mart about this...

Multi-Tasking....May it Rest in Peace...

One of the women I work with who's an executive recently complained that she never seems to be able to get anything done.  "I don't know what's wrong with me," she said. When I asked her what was stopping her from accomplishing anything, she said that she was suffering from information overload, but as our conversation progressed, I realized what was really stopping her from being productive: multi-tasking.

Don't you just love that word and all that it implies?  So many employers love to hear that their employees "multi-task well."  Many consider it a blessing to be able to juggle five things at once, but I'm convinced that not all multi-tasking is created equal and it gets more of us in trouble than we'd like to admit.

My client, for example, creates polices and procedures for her company.  When she settles in at her desk to write, however, it's the last thing that happens.  She gets phone calls on both office and cell phones, she leaves her AOL open and constantly gets IMed by her colleagues who work at remote offices, and she has Outlook open so she can check her mail, which sends a pop-up to her desktop every five minutes.  And to top it all off, she has several documents in the works at one time! 

So are you surprised that her boss recently told her that her work quality was poor?  Spelling and grammar errors populate her work; she even manages to put the wrong text in her documents! 

Does this sound familiar?

I think the information age has allowed us to take on too much at one time.  Between the web, email, blackberries and cell phones hooked to our belts and purses as if they were intravenous feeds, it's amazing we can get anything done.  Technology has created a whole new set of distractions that all too easily interrupt our work flow and sometimes we need to be in that "flow" to do our best work.  All this multi-tasking often causes our quality to suffer so things end up taking longer to complete and we ultimately end up at work longer than we need to. 

When you've got a task or an assignment that's important and you need to be focused to do your very best, try  MINI-TASKing instead.  According to author and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: "The best (performance) moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."  Obviously we can't create policies, documents, products or presentations when when we involuntarily allow others to interrupt our flow. 

The most important aspect of mini-asking is that you have first give yourself permission to do your best work and take all the steps necessary to create the environment to succeed. 

Here are some practical tips to help you mini-task and focus on your best work.  You can apply some of these to your entire team:

• Push the "send all calls" button on your desk phone.
• Turn your cell phone off or put it on mute.
• Turn off your browser and email.
• Schedule a meeting with yourself in OUTLOOK so others cannot impose on your focus time.
• Leave your office and take a laptop someplace else to write.  I love going to Starbucks and sip coffee when I need to do some serious creating or planning!
• Request that your staff and colleagues do not disturb you--even hang a sign over your head that says "Genius at Work--Please Do Not Disturb"
• Create a "No Fly Zone" where for a certain period of time in the day, all conversations are taken outside the immediate environment. 
• Establish a Mini-Task zone in your office where people can work without a ringing phone nearby.

So the next time you hear someone complaining that they're too distracted and can't seem to get anything done, do them a favor and tell them to try MINI-TASKing instead!

Try it yourself and be sure to let me know what happens!