John C. Maxwell: 5 Qualities of People Who Use Time Wisely

"The key is not to prioritize what is on the schedule,
but to schedule your priorities."

- Stephen Covey, Author and Speaker

Want to tame time? Here's how to maximize the precious minutes we get each day.

 

From John C. Maxwell:

Time is precious.

Ask the coach whose team is behind in the final seconds of a game. Ask the air traffic controller in charge of scheduling takeoffs and landings at a major airport. Ask the news reporter who has just received a breaking story from the AP wire. Ask the cancer patient who just learned he has only two months left to live.

Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have. Our days are identical suitcases-all the same size-but some can pack more into them than others. No one has a magical ability to make time, but if our lives have direction, we can make the most of the moments we have been given.

Time stewardship is perhaps a leader's greatest responsibility. In the words of Peter Drucker, "Nothing else distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time."

How do we maximize the precious minutes given to us each day? Learn and emulate the five characteristics of people who use time wisely:

1. They are purposeful.

People who use time wisely spend it on activities that advance their overall purpose in life. By consistently channeling time and energy toward an overarching purpose, people can most fully realize their potential.

We cannot reach peak performance without a peak purpose. Purpose enlivens all that we do. In fact, I believe the two greatest days in a person's life are the day they are born and the day they discover why. Uncovering purpose helps to refine passion, focus efforts and sharpen commitments. The cumulative result is to amplify achievements.

2. They are committed to values.

People who use time correctly underscore their values with the time they spend. By acting in accordance with their beliefs, they find fulfillment. Failure to identify values leads to a rudderless existence in which people drift through life, uncertain as to what they hold dear. Clarity of values is like a beacon of light, guiding the way through life's twists and turns.

When extended to an organization, values inspire a sense of broader purpose. They make work worthwhile. In an organization, if vision is the head and mission is the heart, then values are the soul. Values endow day-to-day operations and transactions with meaning.

3. They are attuned to their strengths.

People who use time correctly play to their strengths. By doing so, they are most effective. People don't pay for average. If your skill level is a two, don't waste substantial time trying to improve because you'll likely never grow beyond a four. However, if you're a seven in an area, hone that skill, because when you become a nine, you've reached a rare level of expertise.

As Jim Sundberg says, "Discover your uniqueness; then discipline yourself to develop it." You are blessed with a unique set of skills and talents. Find them, refine them and let them carry you toward success.

4. They are choosers of happiness.

People who use time the right way choose happiness by prioritizing relationships and recreation. While choosing happiness may seem simple and obvious, far too many people are trying to prove themselves and validate their worth. These people chase after power and prestige, and along the way their friendships wither, their family is ignored and they skip vacation after vacation. In the end, any success they earn is a hollow and lonely achievement.

Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness. Prioritizing time to cultivate relationships is a hallmark of a healthy leader. Likewise, scheduling leisure combats stress and allows us to delight in the hobbies that bring us joy. In the end, happiness is an inside job. We are wise to surround ourselves with family, friends and fun, but ultimately we determine our internal response to the people and circumstances in our lives.

5. They are equippers.

People who use time properly equip others in order to compound their productivity. They realize the limitations of individual attainment, and they build teams to expand their impact. By developing an inner circle of leaders and investing in them, wise time-users multiply their influence.

Equippers recognize that legacies are carried on by people, not trophies. They pour themselves into the lives of others and watch the ripple effect of their leadership spread through those they have taught and mentored. Equippers seek significance over the long term, which causes them to have a vested interest in the success of their successors.

As much as we would like, we can't find more time-it's a finite and constantly diminishing resource. But we can learn to spend time wisely.

My Add:

Identify your ROCKS - the high priority, high value projects/actions - and block your calendar. Make appointments with yourself (60 -90 minutes at a time) and stop and focus on those ROCKS as though it is an appointment with your most important customer. No cutting it, no moving it around, no fitting it in somewhere else. Maybe one block a day.  

Regards,

Rick Wallace

Recruiting - Think Marketing and Sales

"At most companies, people spend 2 percent of their time recruiting and 75 percent managing their recruiting mistakes." 

- Richard Fairbanks, CEO of Capital One

A new Manpower study shows that even though we have the largest amount of people out of the workforce in 30 years, we have a labor shortage in the US.

The top 3 positions that are the hardest to fill are sales, service technicians and drivers.

I would like to share with you some thoughts on how that changes the long held beliefs about recruiting and some ideas about tactics you should be testing.

First, it means the best people are working for someone else. They are probably not looking in the paper or online for a job. Traditional methods to find and attract them are not going to work alone.

You have to think about Recruiting like you think about sales and marketing. What do I mean?

You have to be proactive and take action, not sit back passively and wait for people to come to you. Think about how valuable the right 'A' Player is to your company. Isn't it worth spending a couple of hours a week working on finding and attracting them?

People Marketing and Sales

• You have to profile your Ideal Candidates - just like you do your Ideal Customer.
• You need a Value Proposition - your elevator speech, your message that begins with their pain, the best solution and why you are the best solution provider.
• You have to then get that message out in all the right places and right ways: Social media, Network with business associates, or Email.
• Referrals - Visit your best customers and ask them "Who is the best salesperson that calls on you"? "Who is the best service tech that comes into your place?" Then call them up and take them to breakfast. Talk about the pain they have at their present job (HVAC hot attics, emergency calls at all hours of the night, etc. Sales people who don't have support, have to do it all, are held back, etc.)
• Have a bounty for your employees to bring in candidates and if you hire them give a little bonus on top.
• All this also means you may have to find them young and train them the way you want them to be. 

To Find Service Techs              

1. Use classified advertisements in newspapers, circulars and trade publications. Use your new Value Proposition - not the regular milk toast ads you now place. View Sample Ad with VP
2. Place an outside sign that attracts a "crafts person" or "handy person," rather than saying a "service technician."
3. Advertise job positions on the Internet and radio. Value Proposition again.
4. Sponsor an automotive/handyman related radio/TV talk show. Value Proposition again.
5. Visit with personnel that retire or leave military service and want a new career.
6. Get involved with a high or technical school. Offer to do presentations from the business owners point of view to help prepare students, do product demos, loan them equipment, let them tour your place, etc. Offer assistance to counselors and shop teachers, and participate in career day activities.
7. Develop an internship program for high school students or technical school students to work part-time with experienced technicians.
8. Encourage local high schools and vocational schools to add maintenance and repair as an elective shop course or vocational development program, and help establish a degree program.
9. Offer financial incentives such as signing bonuses, benefit packages, tuition assistance, voluntary overtime opportunities, promotions tied to competency instead of seniority, tool reimbursements and cash incentives for industry training and certifications.

You have to be doing this all the time, consistently just like you market and sell your company's services and products.

In other words, I believe this is the most important couple of hours you can spend each week - recruiting and building that bench - take action because just knowing what to do is not enough.

Regards,

Rick Wallace

Talent Shortage is Real - You Must Recruit Every Day

"At most companies, people spend 2 percent of their time recruiting and 75 percent managing their recruiting mistakes."

- Richard Fairbanks, CEO of Capital One

From Luke Graham, special on CNBC:

More than one-third of employers around the world are experiencing difficulty filling job positions, global employment consultancy Manpower reported on Monday.

Manpower surveyed 41,700 hiring managers across 42 countries in its annual "talent shortage" report in the first three months of 2015. It found that 38 percent of managers could not find the talent they needed - the highest proportion since 2007 and two percent higher than last year.

"Businesses across the world continue to face a crippling talent shortage," said Manpower in a new release accompanying its report.

It found the hardest jobs to fill were sales representatives and skilled trade workers such as chefs, mechanics and electricians.

"Talent shortages are a real problem, hurting organizations' competitiveness. From the data we've gathered and the structural changes we can see coming in the labor markets, we know the problem is only going to get worse," said Manpower CEO Jonas Prising, in the news release.

Hardest jobs to fill globally in 2015: Manpower

1. Skilled Trades

2. Sales Representatives

3. Engineers

4. Technicians

5. Drivers

6. Management / Executives

7. Accounting & Finance Staff

8. Office Support Staff

9. IT Staff

10. Production / Machine Operators

  

The best are working for someone else. You must be looking for talent every day and have you're 'A" Players always looking for talent too. Build that virtual bench.  

Next week we will discuss how. Hint: you have to think about recruiting like you think about marketing your company. It is not your father's/mother's world out there today.  

  

Regards,

Rick Wallace

Goals, Stress and Serving

"You want to make money --- simply find someone with a problem and solve that problem for them."

 - Steve Chandler 
 

The following is from Steve Chandler:

"Stressing out over hitting my goals is not the same as caring about hitting them.

No performer, when tense, or stressed, performs well. No leader does. No sales person. No fundraiser. No parent.

A stressed-out, tense performer only has access to a small per cent of their skill and talent and intelligence. (Do you want a tense person shooting a free throw or kicking a long field goal in the last moments of the game, or a confident, calm person?)

Most people stress themselves out as a form of "really caring" about hitting their goals.  But it's not caring, it's stressing out.

Caring is relaxing, focusing and calling on ALL of my resources, all of that relaxed magic, that lazy dynamite that I bring to bear when I pay full attention with total peace of mind. No one performs better than when they are relaxed and focused.

In a calm way find ways to serve people and you will hit your goals. Whether it is customers, prospects, employees, peers find ways to serve, not please.

When service is provided with the right spirit, it's a pure joy.  Mother Teresa often said in her interviews, "If people knew how much joy I was experiencing when I serve people, they wouldn't consider me to be such a saint."  Wayne Dyer has a little internal mantra he likes to speak to himself whenever a relationship or even a single conversation is going poorly. He softly says, "How may I serve?" and the answer comes to him immediately and the relationship is back into joyfulness again.  When the serving of others is done in that happy spirit, it is fun, and relationships blossom immediately."

Regards,

Rick Wallace

Employee Net Promoter Score

 "Up to 87 percent of America's workforce is not able to contribute to their full potential because they don't have passion for their work."

- Deloitte Center for the Edge

                 

You have probably heard about the Net Promoters Score from me or others - the one question survey for customers used by companies all over the US. It is the best customer survey I have found and that one question is the most powerful question I know - it gets to the heart of what you want to know.

"On a scale of 1 -10 how likely would you be to refer (your company name) to your friends and associates?"

Then there is a follow up question I like to add: "What experiences have you had with us that reflected as to how you answered to first question."

Powerful stuff and it gets to heart of the matter in two simple questions. A 9 or 10 means they love us, are our promoters and would, without hesitation, refer us to others. A 6,7, or 8 means they are passive. They don't hate us but would probably not refer us. And a 1-5 means that they do not like us and are detractors - they will tell others to avoid us.

So think about this - what if we used these same questions of our employees, via third party, anonymously, so they felt safe in answering?

"On a scale from 1-10 how likely would you be to refer a friend or associate to come to work here?"

Question 2 - "Based on your answer to the first question, what do you like or dislike or do you see missing at work that reflected on your answer?"

Do you want a more profitable company? Do you want to have 'A' Players in every position? Do you want more productivity and less stress and drama? Do you want people who are accountable for results, not just for being busy?

Then you need to develop a culture that attracts the best people and one where people like coming to work every day.

Before you can do that, you need to see where you are, what your employees think, want and need and then you can begin slowly to address it.

You can do this survey simply - via Survey Monkey - or we can do the survey for you - just get me the emails.

Regards,

Rick Wallace

Labor - Expense or Investment

"You can't manage people. You can manage things and cows, but not people."

                                                   - Rick Wallace

"The biggest difference between coaching and managing is that the coach knows she can't play the game so she has to focus on making each player the best they can be. A manager thinks she can play the game better than anyone else, is the quarterback and drags and pushes the team with her to try and win." 

- Rick Wallace

Anyone that has budgeted expenses or looks over a P&L knows that the biggest line item under the expense category is Labor. For eons, business people have looked at that line and, when budgeting for the next year, simply added 3% or so to it to take into consideration the raises they would be giving in the upcoming year.

I'm challenging that belief. Greg Crabtree, Simple Numbers, has awaken many of us to question that long-held belief and begin to look at the Profit Lever that line item can, and should, become. To look at Total Cost of Labor as an investment not as an expense we are trying to control.

To grow profits we must leverage the Productivity or Return On Investment ( ROI) in labor. Why is this different? Well today everyone is looking at labor as an expense, that is basically a given, and they try and cut it a little or simply live with the number and pay little attention to it.

Thinking of it as an investment changes the whole mindset. We should be thinking "I'm spending all that money - what am I getting for it?"

Now change your mindset about everything to do with Labor and People in your organization. We must begin to invest time, as well as money, into this investment to see the ROI we want.

These are the mindsets that need to change: 

1. Coach don't manage

• Focus on making each individual the best they can be.
• As a coach you cannot play the game. 
• Weekly coaching conversation instead of annual reviews and showing everyone "how to do it".

2. 'A' Players in every position

• Costs a little more, but produce 2X.
• Fewer people but each producing more.

3. Always be recruiting (scouting)

• Build a virtual bench, looking for talent and attitude everywhere you go.

4. Set and measure and share financial goals every week

• Let them "in on things".

People productivity is the biggest single contributor to profit and the one few of us focus on. Begin now to focus more of your time on learning the power of the mindsets above, and build a company with 'A' Players who are engaged and look forward to coming to work each day. Your profits will soar, the drama will decrease and your stress levels will go way down.

You will be building a company that has real value. Wasn't that your dream when you started?

Regards,

Rick Wallace

61 Years Ago Tomorrow

"The world we have created is a product of our thinking;
it cannot be changed without changing our thinking."

- Albert Einstein

61 years ago tomorrow Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile. So What?

False beliefs are powerful and they are holding us all back. How powerful? And what does this have to do with my business?

I answer those questions in this short presentation, The Starting Point - Beliefs

I hope you will watch, listen, and open your mind to the truth.

"The most important thing you can own is a closed mind."

Regards,

Rick Wallace