productivitymentor

It is commonplace in business to punish under-performance. It seems fair. If a child spills milk, spank the child for being careless. But neither makes any sense. If the child purposely poured milk over a siblings head, that’s one thing. But if it was accidental, should our response be to punish or change the behaviour? The same is true at work. Should we be punishing under-achievers? NO! We should be changing their behaviours.

Example: A good client of mine did not send a couple of their largest divisions to my productivity seminars. I asked why and found out those divisions were under-performing; so their budget for attending seminars was cut. Think about it. They are not being productive, so leadership’s response was to NOT send them to seminars that would make them productive. If someone was illiterate would you punish them by not sending them to literacy courses?

While this example seems obvious (it sure was not to my client’s top leadership), why then do we only send top achievers to Achievers Clubs at swank resorts where they get awesome motivation and ideas to do even better? Ahh… they earned it and it’s an incentive. I like it!

But then, if we do not give the same information to the under-performers, why are we surprised when they under-perform? I’m not saying we should not have the Achiever’s Clubs or send everyone (watering down the reward). No way! I am the product of  these Achiever’s Clubs in the 1970s when I was in sales and I know they work.

But content, good information, training should NOT be withheld from the people who need it most. That is punishing them for under-performing and making it almost impossible for them to break the cycle.

Alternative: Do not make content and information something that someone has to qualify for to receive. Make it available to ALL. Those who USE it will excel and those who choose not to use it will flounder. The punishment is tied to the lack of effort or lack of implementation, not to the availability of the information.

What then should top performers do at Achievement Clubs? Have fun! Give them some extra motivation. Let them get the information first and LIVE. Record the events and put the information on your HR Intranet available to all. Those who see the posh event, fine dinners and beautiful resort will be further motivated to work hard to attend the next one. This way, everyone gets the content.

Please, let’s not punish the people who need the most encouragement by depriving them of the very tools they need to succeed.

Smile Makers of the week: More funny American car bumper stickers

• Remember half the people you know are below average.
• Despite the high cost of living, have you noticed how popular it still is?
• Atheism is a non-prophet organisation.
• He who laughs last thinks slowest.
• Borrow money from pessimists: They don’t expect it back.
• Nothing is foolproof to a talented fool.

Don’t get me wrong. I like medical doctors. I go to them. I respect them. I want YOU to get a medical exam every year or every other year if you are very healthy, just as I do. But when your read in the news the findings in studies by various ‘doctors’, take each with a grain of salt. Not doing so can kill you.

Remember when ‘doctors said’ eggs were bad for us? Butter would kill us but margarin was safe? Coffee was poison? Beef would clog our hearts. Well, they were wrong then and makes me wonder if they are right or wrong now. Who sponsored their studies? What was the motive behind the study? Are pesticides safe? Are additives and preservatives in meats safe? Are agribusiness methods that differ greatly from the way God (or ‘nature’ if you are an unbeliever) made things?

To be productive, that is, have a real ‘value-add’ we need to be alive, right? To stay alive, we need to stop believing all the junk we read and trust our own brains. What happens in mice and monkeys may not apply to people. Small studies can be undependable.

FACTS: (Current facts from some rather large studies of 2,500 to 60,000 subjects as well as detailed lab work)

1) Eggs are great sources of selenium (from the yolk) and protein (egg whites are one of the purest and best sources of protein). Free range eggs (chickens running around eating bugs, worms and seeds) are best with an Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio of just 3 to 1. Grain fed chickens give us a 36 to 1 ratio. (Do you think chickens were designed to sit all day eating corn in the dark?

Disclaimer: Check with your doctor before changing your diet)

2) Butter (1 pat) has 36 calories, 2/3 are from saturated fat and the other 1/3 from ‘healthier’ fats. This small amount isn’t going to kill us (again check with your doctor before changing your diet). Most margarin is loaded with trans fats which CLOG our arteries and NO AMOUNT of trans fat is good. ZERO TOLERANCE! (read labels and avoid anything ‘partially hydrogenated’)

3) Coffee is now associated with lowering the possibility of contracting many cancers, boosting memory, staving off Alzheimer’s, Diabetes and Parkinson’s Disease. (I did not say magically CURE these diseases… just help prevent or slow them)

4) Beef can kill you… if you get gored by a bull. Too much of ANYTHING… even water, can be bad for us. However, grass fed beef has the same Omega 3s in the marbled area as salmon. The ratio of Omega 6 to 3 is 3 to 1 just like free range chicken eggs… HEALTHY!  Our muscles can benefit from beef’s protein and help weight lifter’s recover faster from workouts.

In grain fed beef where cows stand in a barn all day and eat grain, the Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio goes to 20 to 1. Is it natural for cows to stand still, be force-fed corn and shot full of growth hormones or to walk around and eat the grass on the plains?

New studies show it is dangerous to over-cook beef. Rare beef (not minced meat which must be cooked well done) is healthiest. Well done and particularly ‘burnt’ meat can be a contributing factor in stomach cancers. Slow cooking is better than searing and quick cook methods. Avoid deep fried ‘anything’.

8 Healthy Eating Suggestions: 

1) Eat a balanced diet. Avoid ‘white rice’, ‘white bread’ or other processed grains. Start the day with complex carbs, which fill us up, turn off the ‘hunger centre’ in the brain and the fibre keeps us regular.

2) 3 to 5 servings of veggies, well washed and ideally organic.

3) 3 to 5 servings of fruits. Organic is best, particularly for children. Go organic with fruits which absorb pesticides like grapes, apples and most berries. Bananas, papayas and melons are usually safe.

4) Enjoy 1 or 2 servings of rare or medium rare beef or chicken a day.

5) Eggs cooked but not over cooked 3 to 5 days week. If you have major cholesterol problems, monitor before and after eating eggs with your doctor’s approval. Try a handful of raw almonds with your eggs. They have the same effect for many people as expensive statins.

6) Cook your eggs in a pat of butter, pure olive oil or boil / poach them.

7) Enjoy your coffee! Just make sure it is filtered through a paper filter. The oil in ‘French Press’ coffee and many ‘designer coffees’ where no paper filter is used will raise havoc with your heart and arteries.

8) Enjoy life! What if you live 5 years longer by eating a highly restricted diet but do not enjoy the 80 years that come before? In my opinion, it would be a wasted life. Just don’t throw away 20 years of life by living on junk and ‘fast food’.

Be productive. Eat well. Eat in moderation. Eat the best of what life has to offer. Face it. None of us get out of this world alive!

Smile Maker of the week: Bumper Stickers in the USA

• The more you complain, the longer God makes you live.
• Hang up and drive.
• Don’t drink and drive…You might hit a bump and spill your drink.
• Why do we say something is out of whack?  What is a whack?
• Save the whales.  Collect the whole set.
• I feel like I’m diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

I was struck by the quotation I received from my son’s rugby coach. I suspect it will have the same effect on you.

“Do more than belong: participate. 

Do more than care: help. 

Do more than believe: practice. 

Do more than be fair: be kind. 

Do more than forgive: forget. 

Do more than dream: work.”

William Arthur Ward (1921 – 1994)

Dedicated scholar, author of Fountains of Faith, editor, pastor and teacher

Have you ever felt like you just don’t want to do any more? Like you lack motivation to do anything? Or when the boss calls or there is some other big event at work, you have trouble ‘caring’? When the kids demand yet another ‘thing’ or request, are you just tuning them out and turning the volume up on the TV? You are probably burned out!

There are 3 levels of burn-out: Singed, Toasted and Deep Fried.

Singed is when you lose interest in a few things or lose track of details. You are listless at times and you have trouble focusing on work. Singed is the starting phase and most likely will be a passing phase. We all feel a bit singed around the edges during long periods of overtime work or when work and family schedules collide and there just never seems to be a moment of rest. During this phase, we start losing our purpose in life and there is not enough of ME and life is all about work, family or something other than ME.

Solutions include: Taking a short break or a long weekend. Revisit goals to see if you are accomplishing what you want or need to. Hit the gym or exercise outdoors as both exercise and sunshine can uplift the spirit. Get more sleep by going to bed earlier or not using the alarm to wake up. Eat healthier loading with veggies, lean protein and back-to-nature complex carbs. Put some fun back into life by scheduling some friend time or a little romance. Maybe ask for different work assignments from the boss or finally start delegating the work you’ve lost interest in doing. Start praying and meditating more or longer. In short, change the routine!

Toasted is what happens when none of the above sounds like it would help. You are bored with work… enthusiasm is gone and you are just ‘tapping keys’ on the computer with no zeal or purpose. Food is not interesting and you have no energy left to call friends. You feel sick a lot and even home offers no relief. Life is one long, uninteresting event of little consequence.

Solutions include: Taking a LONG holiday or even a sabbatical from work. Getting away from everything in quiet (not in the bottom of a bottle). Reexamine your life and only after much rest, realign your priorities and plans. DEFINITELY exercise… a LOT! Start with walking and then walk quicker. Eat a couple handfuls of raw Brazil nuts a day (they help depression and cholesterol in a one – two punch combination.) Take fish oil (one study found it cut depression symptoms by 50%) and eat brown rice and cabbage… anything that boosts serotonin and EPA levels. Talk to friends (not the ones that tell you to sabotage the boss or leave your spouse and hang out with them… they might be part of the cause of your problem). Talking to people helps us cope with our issues. Pray and meditate. Pray unceasingly.

Deep Fried. You can’t even find the energy to pick up the phone to call a friend, look for your running shoes or even buy fish oil. Getting out of bed to go to the toilet is a major event. You are in deep depression.

Solution. Say to the first human being you see, “I need help, call a doctor.” Get a doctor to help you. Once you are feeling well enough to start thinking for yourself, see the solutions to Toasted above. BUT until you are there, follow the doctor’s advice. Remember this… you are loved by God, I love you and a lot of other people love you too. You are needed and valuable. Do what you have to do to take care of YOU. Get healthy. Get well mentally. Get ready for your big comeback.

I’ve seen this last stage several times in friends I wanted to help. Unfortunately, I did not know how to help them at the time and I let them down. If I knew then what I know now, I’d have acted differently. If your family and friends are not helping with there, “Snap out of it!” advice… they are not the enemy. They are just uninformed and, like me, don’t know how to help. Get the help you need from a professional and take care of you. A good start would be to smile. Smile. There is life after being Deep Fried.

Smile Maker of the Week: Great Voice-mail Messages:

1) Hi! John’s voice-mail is broken. This is his refrigerator.  Please speak very slowly, and I’ll stick your message to myself with one of these magnets.

2) Hi. This is John. If you are the phone company, I already sent the money. If you are my parents, please send money.  If you are my bank, you didn’t lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money.  If you are a female, don’t worry, I have LOTS of money.

3)  Hi. I’m actually available to speak now. I’m just avoiding someone I don’t want to talk to. Leave me a message, and if I don’t call back, it’s you.

How do you get new recruits? Maybe, just maybe, you need to take a page out of PWC Singapore’s recruitment book. Go viral on YouTube. Here’s their video parody of Call Me Maybe, the Carly Rae Jepsen top music hit. It’s had over 118,810 views as of my last check. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0YPQCTfFWM

Here are another one from Singapore called Singapore style with 260,602 views. NOT a recruiting vid but just fun to hear and see if you live in Singapore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFqLy27OSd4&feature=b-mv

Couldn’t tourism bureaus do it more like this?

How about tooth brushing? Look at how they make it fun for kids and adults and got over a half million viewers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ugQLL65BKc&feature=b-mv

Here a 6th grader makes an Apple Ap and gets over 2 million views and earns tons of money with his $.99 aps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehDAP1OQ9Zw&feature=b-mv-user

Smile Maker: How to get Sick Leave

Sick Leave: How to get the boss to give you time off?

She urgently needed a few days off work, but knew her Boss would not allow her to take a leave. She thought, “If I act “CRAZY” then he would tell me to take a few days off.” So she hung upside down on the ceiling and made funny noises. Her co-worker asked Her what I was doing.

She told her that she was pretending to be a light bulb so that the Boss would think she was “CRAZY” and give her a few days off.

A few minutes later the Boss came into the office and asked, “What are you doing?”

She told him, “O  am a light bulb.”

He said, “You are clearly stressed out. Go home and recuperate for a couple of days.”

She  jumped down and walked out of the office.

When her co-worker followed her, the Boss asked her, “And where do you think you’re going?”

She said, “I’m going home too, I can’t work in the dark.”

Unless you absolutely love your boss and think she /he is perfect, this blog’s for you. Many people are either nervous about saying ‘no’ to the boss, confronting the boss or darn right scared to speak. What an uncomfortable and unproductive (broken) system! If you cannot share your thoughts openly without fear of reprisal or being put in ‘cold storage’, there is no team and a loss of new ideas and potential miscommunications.

Here are 8 quick strategies to stand up to your boss:

1. Collect your thoughts first. Write them down. If you are better prepared you’ll have more confidence and sound more coherent. As you write, consider what the boss might disagree with and prepare to defend your comments.
2. Never attack. If you accidentally bump into a professional boxer on the street… DUCK! It’s a natural reaction for them to hit in the direction they are ‘attacked’ from. Bosses are often trained to strike back at perceived attacks and complaints. So, don’t sound like an attack. Start with, “I’d like to help here and improve the…” or “I think your new initiative is great boss. With one or two fine-tuning measures, I believe it will be the best initiative our division has accomplished this year. Well done. The two fine tuning ideas to help are…”
3. Boost your own confidence first by being financially sound. If you are living payday to payday and NEED your job to survive, you will lack confidence. Build up a financial reserve of 8 to 12 months in cash so if you were to lose your job, you are set until you get the next one. Liquidity boosts confidence.
4. Share what you want with the boss in a way the boss can understand it. If the boss is more visual, don’t explain your idea without visuals. If the boss is emotional, make sure you include a story that resonates emotionally. If the boss thinks strictly in terms of dollars, present your idea or request as a short term financial payback of 18 months or less.
5. Gain context (power / klout) before you stand up to the boss. Find quotes from your organization’s Chief Executive, the Wall Street Journal, a Cambridge study or whatever your boss would respect to support your argument or ideas. If your job title does not carry enough weight, add the weight you need from outside sources. This also shows it’s not just your opinion.
6. Know before you go. Ask others in your position what has worked with this boss or why the boss believes what she/he believes. In battle, knowing the ‘enemy’ is the first step to victory.
7. Don’t see your boss as the enemy. Contrary to strategy 6, the more you see your boss as an ally or even an extension of yourself, the more likely you are to come across as a team player. Smile. Talk as you would to a friend. Share your thoughts as a positive, contributing member of the team.
8. Reframe the meeting as a chance to be promoted. If you only do what you are told, you will be seen as someone who NEEDS to be told what to do. If you are someone who can lead, challenge and has confidence, you stand a greater chance of promotion.

Standing up to the boss may not be easy, but it is the right and duty of every employee. When teams have open communication, challenge processes and directives and engage with one another, productivity soars.

Smile Maker: The ways bosses have described under performers:

• Since my last appraisal, this employee reached rock bottom… and started to dig.
• This employee should go far… and the sooner the better.
• When she opens her mouth, it is only to change feet.
• He would be out of his depth in a car-park puddle.
• He sets low personal standards… and consistently fails to achieve them.
• A room temperature IQ.