Big Picture or Little Picture View of the World
April 12, 2007 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Do you have a big picture or a little picture view of the world? Are you stressing over the administrivia or are you focused on the big picture of your life and your career? Take a look at what types of things stress you out – are they the small details, the perfectionism, the imperfect people, the gray areas on the outskirts of the black and white? Sometimes we make our own stresses and create our own energy drains by focusing on things that have less impact than the power we are giving them.
It’s tax season and focusing on numbers is something we all need to do, but getting crazed if your account is 94 cents off isn’t such a big deal in the scheme of things. Of course waiting until the bitter end and not leaving yourself wiggle room can also make you crazed. Step back from some of the situations you find yourself in and see if you’re stressing out because you’re focusing on little picture stuff. Perhaps you need to take a look at the big picture and if the stressors that are affecting you now will really matter in the scheme of things a few weeks, months, or years from now.
The big picture sometimes can pull us through the little picture stuff when things get tough – keeping our eye on why we are doing what we are doing can keep us going. Are you focused on big picture stuff or little picture stuff most of the time? Are you drowning in details or do you have paralysis by analysis? Is it taking your eye off the main goal and draining your energy? You may want to hire out your little picture stuff and have someobody else who loves doing it do what they love and allow you to keep your energy focused on your big picture. It can sure help your sanity – especially at tax time. We can all use a little energy boost at this time of year.
Happy Herd or Mad Cows at Work
December 15, 2006 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully, Wealthy Woman | By Gaia Hart
Happy Holidays!
I hope this finds you well and enjoying the wind-down of the season and the many festive office parties that are sure to abound. In appreciation for your support and adding light to my world, I wanted to share this pdf version of the new issue of Stephen Covey’s Sales and Service Excellence magazine that features Fun*cilitators and our article on Contented Cows – How to Create a Happy Herd at Work through mixing fun and effectiveness. It hits the bookshelves in January and I wanted you to have a sneak peek – I thought you might like to get a jump on your competition and be the first on your block to get the inside scoop on building a better team.
If you want a copy of the magazine article in a pdf version, send me an email at Gaia@gaiahart.com to get your own copy and share it with others who may be just chewing their cud at work.
We’ve stocked up on our 52 Ways to Have Fun at Work card deck to prepare for the upcoming publication date. If you want 52 more ways to have more fun at work in addition to the article, send me an email or give me a call to order your own card deck chalked full of ideas, tips and tidbits to practice safe stress at work. 866.Fun.at.Work or Gaia@gaiahart.com.
To Your FUNominal Success!
Gail
Last Words on Creating an Unmotivating Work Environment
September 8, 2006 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Here you go, the final installment of how to torment your team members. Be sure you read this in the mirror so you know that if you do everything backwards that this article says, then you should be successful at creating a motivating and meaningful environment for yourself and your team.
41. Have all the answers ready for them so they don’t waste their time and brain power figuring it out themselves. They can be more efficient if they aren’t testing new solutions and just do it the way you said it should be done and trust that your answer is the only right answer.
42. Don’t compliment their work. It can only lead to over-inflated egos and you certainly don’t want another peacock strutting around fluffing their feathers thinking they’re better than anybody else. That’s why you’re there- to show them that none of them are heads above the rest.
43. Take care of your own career and reputation before those of your colleagues. Be the one to kiss up to all those above you, emulate them and talk trash about your teammates so you look better in the eyes of your boss.
44. Act more privileged than your employees, after all, you’re a manager that is above them- you’ve earned it. Come in late, leave early and take your fair share of longer lunch breaks. Show them your importance by letting them know you’ve got other things to do and people to see.
45. Let it be known just how busy you are by constantly checking your cell phone or Blackberry during meetings, interviews or over lunch. Show others that you can multi-task with the best of them- there’s no need to lose productivity by focusing on just one person at a time.
46. Hire insecure people so you can easily manage by intimidation and through your tone of voice and snide comments. They will just be grateful to have a job at all- remind them that their paycheck is their reward.
47. Just for fun, use all the industry acronyms you can think of during the first days of orientation. Play practical jokes on the new hire for your version of disorientation just to see how their sense of humor will fare in your work environment.
48. Proceed to tell the new recruits the background stories, gossip and history of everybody on your team to get them up to speed on their co-workers. You will save them the hassle of getting to know people and making their own informed decisions.
49. If you need to discipline a co-worker, do it in front of the whole team. That way, it will give everybody an idea of what you don’t want and will save you the effort of disciplining others who may have been thinking of doing the same thing. Getting everything in the open shows a sense of family.
50. Have a suggestion box, use comment cards, solicit input and feedback, then do nothing to carry out the comments and pay no attention to complaints.
51. Employ the one strike and you’re out mentality. It lets them know you mean business. No second chances for first impressions. Do it right the first time or don’t do it at all. No sense in encouraging experimentation, we’ve been doing it one way for years and it hasn’t been half bad.
So there you have it: fifty-one ways to ditch your X (or your Y) generations in the workplace. Fifty-one because you should always give a little more than expected and over-deliver what you promised you would provide. If you implement these fiftyone items, you will certainly be dubbed a tormentor who infects the workplace rather than a mentor who affects the workplace.
Being mindful of how not to manage can be just as affective as being aware of how to manage. If you should hear the words “micromanager” being uttered as you walk by, know that it is not a term of endearment and take heed. Read through this list again and see if any of these nifty fifty (one) items sound familiar. Then do what you must to turn it around, or else you will watch your new recruits turn around and head out the door. One last sobering thought, if you think you can just replace those who do walk… it costs one to three times an average salary to replace an employee, not to mention the downtime, stress and team development curve. Pay attention to your people and it will pay off.
To Your FUNominal Success!
Gail
How to Drive Your Team Out the Door
September 7, 2006 | Posted in Leading Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Here you go, yet another installment of how to irritae, aggitate and finally drive mad, or at least drive away your Generation X and Y employees. Heck, this behavior may even drive away the Baby Boomers or the Traditionalists to boot. Employ these tactics and don’t be shocked if you have no employees after a while.
31. Only approve in-house professional development if absolutely necessary. Choose all courses for them. No need to worry them about all those choices. Don’t bother them with the hassles of packing and traveling to training or conferences in desirable locations.
32. Develop a serious all-business work environment. There’s no room at work for a sense of humor or fun when people are trying to be productive.
33. Ensure employees work in isolation with very little personal contact. Working as a team creates too much trust, open communication and understanding. After all, they may discuss what’s really going on in your organization and gang up on you with quality suggestions after a collaboration session.
34. Avoid getting personal with colleagues at all costs. Draw a thick line between personal and professional and don’t allow anybody to cross that delicate line.
35. Demonstrate strictness and strong disciplinarian tendencies. Avoid any pretense of being relaxed, approachable, casual and people-oriented.
36. Keep employees in the dark about how they contribute and make a difference. They needn’t be bothered with such distracting details.
37. Offer only one benefit plan for all staff regardless of their personal situations. A menu of options can be too time consuming and confusing.
38. Only promote externally to keep new blood flowing into the system with a continuous flow of new ideas and methodologies. Demonstrate to your team that if they want to move up, they’ve got to move out.
39. Don’t tell your team what you expect from them. Keep them on their toes by keeping them guessing. They will be exercising their imaginations and creative thinking by trying to figure out what is expected of them.
40. Eliminate anybody who isn’t 100% behind you. Show them you reward blind loyalty by not even entertaining a hint of conflict or confrontation with your ideas. They will enjoy only needing to learn one company policy: “My way or the highway.” They needn’t jumble their minds with ambiguity…..
To be continued with the last segment of 50 Ways to Ditch Your X (and Y) Employees by being a tormentor rather than a mentor to them.
What are you doing to create a meaningful workplace filled with empowered employees?
Gail
Surefire Ways to Chase Employees Away
September 6, 2006 | Posted in Leading Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
In our continuing series of how to ditch your X (and Y) generation team members, here’s your next installment of how to be a tormentor rather than a mentor. These are surefire ways to chase away your top talent….even your middle of the road talent.
21. There’s nothing like the use of hype to capture their attention. They’ve been exposed to over-inflated marketing claims all their lives from all media outlets. Why stop over-promising and under-delivering now?
22. Keep up the pretentious attitudes. After all, you’re older and have been there and done that. Never mind that they’ve virtually done that and been many other there’s through cyberspace.
23. Keep changing your incentive programs. After all, you’ve heard that these new generations are adept at handling change. They would probably like a flavor-of-the-month program to keep them guessing.
24. Say one thing and then demonstrate the exact opposite with your behaviors. Throw that role model notion out the window.
25. Be extremely judgmental about the new generations in the workforce. Keep a closed mind about how and why they do things differently than you.
26. Don’t worry about handing out rewards and forget the phrase “What gets rewarded gets repeated.” A paycheck is all they need.
27. Invent new policies often to cover behavior demonstrated by one person. Give inconsistent treatment or ignore inappropriate behavior by one person. Either end of this continuum will cement your role as tormentor.
28. Enforce inflexibility in the work schedule and demand all employees report to work at one time and leave on schedule without any interference from life outside work.
29. Arrange to be flexible about quitting time only when it benefits the organization and overtime hours are needed to finish a project, but for heaven’s sake, don’t compensate them for putting in the extra effort and missing a personal appointment. Chalk it up to paying their dues and being a team player.
30. Ignore personal development for your staff- they can get that on their own time.
If you want more ideas on better ways to really motivate your team – check out some of the articles on my resource page at http://www.funcilitators.com/resources.htm or subscribe to Live Wire ezine while you’re there for regular infusions of fun and effectiveness at work.
Until next time…..remember that mentors affect teams positively and tormentors infect teams with negativity. What are you doing to be a mentor or a tormentor?
To Your FUNominal Success!
Gail
Unmotivating Your Workforce & Creating Disgruntled Employees
September 5, 2006 | Posted in Leading Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
In the second of a series of how to be a tormentor and not win the boss of the year award; here are tips to make sure you keep your turnover high and your employees disgruntled.
11. Give group thank you’s, never be specific or personal and by all means be insincere and late with your praise.
12. Throw your front line to the wolves without proper prior qualifications, training or orientation into the culture of your organization. No need to waste time learning the job when they can practice on the job training and be creating an image of your company to the public.
13. Don’t waste time cleaning up the workplace, especially the back area and bathrooms. Why bother with these things that are outside of your job description? They’re just going to get dirty again anyway.
14. Ignore opinions and ideas from new staff. They’re too young and inexperienced to have fresh suggestions. Forget that they’ve been day-trading stock online, managing a credit card, and designing websites for their soccer and debate teams for several years.
15. Be in their face and on top of their every move to second guess their decisions. There’s nothing like micromanagement and hand holding for new recruits.
16. Depend on the annual performance appraisal with the numeric grading scale to suffice for management/employee relations. Forget that Generations X and Y are used to constant communication and feedback every sixty seconds on computer games to know how they are performing so they can change course if necessary.
17. Limit career growth and divide the labor responsibilities up into miniscule tasks so there is no way to guess how it fits in with the big picture. To have such a tiny job in the organization ensures limited professional growth in a dead-end job.
18. Keep the pay low for entry level positions and avoid promotions. No need to get them excited about advancement and delusions of making a living wage.
19. Don’t turn them soft by giving them too much recognition and acknowledgment. They may get too big for their britches and think they can actually take on more challenge.
20. Create a high-stress environment especially from understaffing to prepare them for the work environments they will encounter the rest of their lives…..
If your aim is to created gruntled employees, then don’t do any of these tips. Until the next installment of 50 Ways to Ditch Your X (and Y) Employees…..have a great gruntled day!
Gail
Fun & Laughter at Work
June 15, 2006 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Mixing fun and effectiveness at work is good business. Since helping people create that type of atmosphere is my business, I have been off the blogosphere for a while to facilitate just that for some clients recently. Facilitating an executive retreat at Lake of the Ozarks and combining work in the morning with play in the afternoon was a perfect combination to rivitalize the team as well as me. There’s something about being around the water and boats that makes people happy. Have you ever noticed how everybody waves at everybody else in a boat as they pass? The blend of laughter, sun, fun and shared experiences can pull a team together and have residual effects throughout the coming months and years. Creating memories and corporate lore helps cement the bond between employees.
Here’s a sneak preview of an article on my website – the link is above….showing the benefits of laughter and fun at work.
Cheers!
Gail
What’s so funny? This is a serious situation that Americans are in up to their eyebrows in stress and it’s killing them. If we’d just lighten up a little, step back, and take time to work out our funny bone instead of our growl scowl, we’d be much more healthy both physically and emotionally.
Choose to laugh at a situation now instead of years down the road. In many instances it is only the passage of time that makes something turn from unpleasant or embarrassing to hilarious. Why not decide to look at the funny side of it earlier on? Having a sense of humor will energize you and those around you while combating stress and disease. ….. more at http://www.funcilitators.com/articles/funnybone.htm
Practice Safe Stress, Relax & Renew Your Vitality
May 24, 2006 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Are you sometimes feeling that you’re on your last nerve? Have you been looking for a proven way to relax, refresh, and renew yourself? I was in a conference session with the makers of the Holosync system and I was blown away by their research and successful results and you will be too. I just had to share this secret with you to practicing safe stress.
It sounds like science fiction – it is science, but it is not fiction – it’s a very real process that helps you sleep better and your aliveness, vitality and energy increase and your quality of life will improve rapidly. Now there is a way to effortlessly meditate more deeply than a Zen monk, dramatically accelerating the meditation process and create profound changes in your mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
Studies show that 70% of our internal dialogue is negative and this system helps counteract those thoughts that are keeping you stuck in negativity.
The Holosync Solution ™ aides in increasing your mind-power and dramatically raises your threshold for stress. We feel stress when things in the world come at us faster than we can assimilate and handle at one time. Those who have had trauma in their lives at younger ages have a much lower threshold for dealing with these stresses than those who haven’t experienced such trauma. The coping mechanisms when we are pushed over our threshold show up as anxiety, anger, depression, overwhelm, sadness, substance abuse and many others…..doesn’t that sound like the American culture?
By using Holosync, just putting on headphones and sitting with your eyes closed listening to the calming sounds, your threshold is pushed higher and higher the more you use it and your dysfunctional feelings and behaviors happen less and less often and it becomes less often that environmental stresses affect you. Many people experience dramatic improvements in a few sessions, then even more in a week or two and certainly after a couple months, your stress levels will be dramatically decreased and you will be much better able to handle what life throws at you in a more relaxed, less anxious, more centered peaceful state and be more connected to others. You can try this incredible system for an amazing one-year, no-questions asked, money-back guarantee. Check out this dynamic product by Bill Harris at Holosync.
Backed by a mountain of scientific research—and proven results for thousands of users, the proprietary Holosync audio technology placed on CD’s beneath soothing music and environmental sounds will help you get results faster and with less effort than you ever dreamed possible and it’s all guaranteed. Bill has researched this system for 18 years, plus 12 years of other scientific research before him. There are over 160,000 people in 172 countries using this system and not one person has reported any negative results – it’s heartily endorsed by doctors, naturopaths and mental health professionals from around the world. There is no risk at all – except the risk of not having a better life with less stress by meditating and slowing your brain waves to the theta and delta states, which bypass the filters of your left brain in order to achieve greater clarity and easier changes in belief patterns.
Here are some of the ways you’ll benefit:
* Stimulate the creation of new neural pathways between the right and left hemispheres of your brain, balancing your brain and leading you to a high-performance state scientists call “whole brain functioning”.
* Dramatically improve your learning ability, memory, intuition, creativity, and your ability to focus, concentrate and think more clearly.
* Create true quantum leaps in your personal self awareness.
* Significantly lower your stress levels and lower your levels of harmful brain chemicals related to stress.
* Create remarkable improvements in your mental and emotional health—even in areas that have stubbornly resisted change with other approaches.
* Dramatically increase your production of vital (and very pleasurable) brain chemicals related to your longevity, well-being, and quality of life.
* Test drive it yourself, you’ve got nothing to lose, except some stress…. Holosync Meditation.