Seeing the Wood for the Trees

A2002 Harvard Business Review article, “Beware the Busy Manager” suggests that only 10% of us have the right combination of focus and energy that stops us wasting our time with “busy work” and keeps us focused on the real work that matters.

So how do you deal with this?

Invest time in thinking through how your work relates to your main priorities or indeed the key strategic goals of your organisation.

Write yourself a Future letter. Things should seem a whole lot clearer to you when you do.

Paint a powerful image in your own mind of what you want to achieve and find a few simple ways to remind yourself daily of that top-down perspective. This is why regiments have emblems, football teams have jerseys and special logos and countries have anthems and flags.

Ask your team: What are the three most important things we can be doing to help get us to this vision? Agree how you are all going to keep yourselves focused on that specific vision without getting distracted by the “small stuff”.

"Regular Pruning of the Hedges". One of the hardest tasks of all is the actual pruning process. In order to prune, we have to be prepared to take out the clippers and get rid of the unnecessary. Otherwise, the roses will be stifled and not blossom as nature intended them to. You can’t be everything to everyone. In fact, to be effective you’ve got to start making some choices about what you’ll be to whom. So stop the doing for a moment. And turn your attention to the interacting.

Action:

• Who are the three internal people who matter most?
• What do they want? What does that tell you?
• Who are the three external people (or groups of people) who matter most? What do they want? What does that tell you?

Once you are clear in your mind what work matters, start saying no to the superfluous. What are you choosing to say Yes to today?

Don’t take my word for it –

Arthur Schopenhauer (German philosopher): "Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."

Samuel Johnson: "Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye."

Albert Einstein: "In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."

Mao Tse Tung: “We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.”

You can read the full article on my web site

What Does it Take to Build and Maintain Exceptional Teams?

On the day that Chelsea played Manchester United in Moscow, I began to wonder what it takes to stay at the top of one’s game? I was curious about Alex Ferguson and the traits that have made him so exceptional as a football manager. And was there anything that we might learn from him? Here are my thoughts…

Personal Drive: Ferguson never gives in. He refuses to accept defeat and he has infused his United teams with the same attitude - they just keep going to the final whistle. It is because of this that United have scored so many late goals down the years, rather than leaving it to pure luck. Even when he has a success under his belt, he never rests. He is always looking to the future. And he is not afraid to start all over again when that moment of victory has gone.

Tactics/Strategy: Ferguson is a manager who is not afraid to follow his instincts or to take a gamble. His instincts, whether it be luck or some sort of intuition, always seem to be right. From an early age, Ferguson was exposed to the Scottish working-class work ethic of hard graft and toil. He has instilled that same hard work ethic into Manchester United. No team works harder than Fergie's United.

Player Management/Psychology: Alex Ferguson is probably the greatest motivator in European football. Player motivation is a finely balanced art. Too much of it every day and it can eventually have no effect, and the constant pressure of it can also destroy players.
He will always gets the best out of his players and demand 100%.

His handling of United's young stars has also been first class, protecting the likes of Giggs from frenzied media attention. In the Cantona "kung-fu kick" incident, Beckham's 1998 World Cup ordeal and Ronaldo after the 2006 World Cup, he stuck by his players and supported them through the difficult times, which in the end they repaid him with great comeback performances.

Ferguson will rarely attack his players in public or in the media. If they have under-performed or done something stupid, he will leave his criticism to behind closed doors. He can also be ruthless. If it is for the good of the team Ferguson will not hesitate to swing the axe. Fergie's rivals fear and respect him above all other managers.

His achievements at United and Aberdeen make him the most successful British manager ever, on the continent only Giovanni Trapattoni, Fabio Cappello and Ottmar Hitzfeld can even come close. The Glazer family knew it needed him on their side when they launched their takeover. They could not incur the wrath of the man who built a dynasty.

• So, what are you building with your team?


• How will you be remembered as a manager?


• What is the one thing that you want to do differently? And what’s the first step to making that happen?

Why not let me know what you intend to change by sending me an e-mail at: olwyn@pure-potential.co.uk?

You can read the full article on my web site