Stress and a Couch

Merriam-Webster defines stress as to cause or experience physical or emotional tension. It's not an object we can put in our hand or pour into a glass. It's felt on an emotional level, but it can be just as real as a punch in the face. A lot of people are talking and writing about stress these days. A global pandemic will do that.   

You have family and career and health and finances and deadlines and all the other items on your list called your life. The layers seep into each other and affect the results of everything. If you're stressed about the health of a loved one, your work is probably going to take a second seat. If you have financial issues, your family may suffer.  

Real or Imagined? 

You have a deadline for today. A client is waiting and it absolutely has to be delivered. That's stress. Add to that, your boss has called you four times to remind you of the deadline and adds revisions each time. That's added stress. Your partner calls and your child is sick. Then the client calls and wants to ditch the whole idea and start over. That's about when you're ready to throw your laptop. 

I have mentioned this several hundred times on this site, but if I talk about self-inflicted, self-doubt, or self-stress, I know of it only too well. That's where we get into the weeds, as my business partner would say. The client has changed the scope, the kid has the sniffles, and your boss has added useless additions to the deck that is now scrapped.

Reversed Delegation 

A former boss walked into my office one morning just to say hi and see how was I doing. He could tell I was stressed. He asked me what the issues were and if he could help. I admitted I simply had too much on my plate and I didn't want to miss a deadline. 

I usually have a written to-do list next to my laptop and he asked to see it. He grabbed a pen and started putting a line through a lot of the items and handed it back. But I needed to know how he could just arbitrarily take stuff on my list. 

Their List 

He said he had been in most of the meetings where the items were raised, but for some reason I had added them to my to-do list. He told me to send them back to the people who came up with them, ask them to flush them out, and bring them back to me with more ideas of how to accomplish them. He said most of the items will disappear. He told me I was suffering from a serious ailment – reverse delegation.  

The lesson for me was that real deadlines can cause stress but self-created ones that shouldn't be on our list only complicate our lives. Stress is part of life's recipe but we don't need to add any unnecessary ingredients. We can discuss not making everything on our to-do list a top priority in another post. 

Stress is part of life. Adding more than necessary isn't required.

 _____________________________________________________________

What is Stress?

Merriam-Webster defines stress as to cause or experience physical or emotional tension. It's not an object we can put in our hand or pour into a glass. It's felt on an emotional level, but it can be just as real as a punch in the face. A lot of people are talking and writing about stress these days. A global pandemic will do that.   

You have family and career and health and finances and deadlines and all the other items on your list called your life. The layers seep into each other and affect the results of everything. If you're stressed about the health of a loved one, your work is probably going to take a second seat. If you have financial issues, your family may suffer.  

Real or Imagined? 

You have a deadline for today. A client is waiting and it absolutely has to be delivered. That's stress. Add to that, your boss has called you four times to remind you of the deadline and adds revisions each time. That's added stress. Your partner calls and your child is sick. Then the client calls and wants to ditch the whole idea and start over. That's about when you're ready to throw your laptop. 

I have mentioned this several hundred times on this site, but if I talk about self-inflicted, self-doubt, or self-stress, I know of it only too well. That's where we get into the weeds, as my business partner would say. The client has changed the scope, the kid has the sniffles, and your boss has added useless additions to the deck that is now scrapped.

Reversed Delegation 

A former boss walked into my office one morning just to say hi and see how was I doing. He could tell I was stressed. He asked me what the issues were and if he could help. I admitted I simply had too much on my plate and I didn't want to miss a deadline. 

I usually have a written to-do list next to my laptop and he asked to see it. He grabbed a pen and started putting a line through a lot of the items and handed it back. But I needed to know how he could just arbitrarily take stuff on my list. 

Their List 

He said he had been in most of the meetings where the items were raised, but for some reason I had added them to my to-do list. He told me to send them back to the people who came up with them, ask them to flush them out, and bring them back to me with more ideas of how to accomplish them. He said most of the items will disappear. He told me I was suffering from a serious ailment – reverse delegation.  

The lesson for me was that real deadlines can cause stress but self-created ones that shouldn't be on our list only complicate our lives. Stress is part of life's recipe but we don't need to add any unnecessary ingredients. We can discuss not making everything on our to-do list a top priority in another post. 

Stress is part of life. Adding more than necessary isn't required.

 _____________________________________________________________

Accepted Behavior

8:13 Tuesday morning

Glen is late again for the weekly sales meeting. It’s the third week in a row. He says there’s a lot going on in the morning with day care and school buses and making lunches for the kids and traffic. So the sales manager surveys the team and discovers four other members are dealing with similar issues. She carefully asks the entire team – so to not hinder those who don’t have kids – whether it would help if the meeting was moved to 8:30. Everyone agrees.

8:42 Tuesday morning – four weeks later

Glen is late for the third time. What would you do as sales manager? Most fall into two categories – yell at Glen or ignore it and hope it goes away. Neither is wise. People have kids, families, life outside of work as they should, but the sales meeting is 8:30 Tuesday mornings – moved because Glen couldn't make it for the original 8am time – and if everyone else can make it, so can Glen. There will always be exceptions, but the sales manager and Glen should deal with it and not inconvenience the team again. Or Glen may need to have his future freed up to find somewhere else to meet.

I was speaking with a colleague this week about deadlines. She says a member of her team is habitually late on projects. I asked for clarification whether it was every deadline and she said yes. Every time her colleague is given a target, she misses it.

Several Options

First, you could fire her, which is a bit rash. Second, you could create fake deadlines that are ahead of the real ones so the rest of the team isn't negatively affected by the person who is always late, which is a bit ridiculous. Third, talk to her and tell her if she is late again, refer to the first option. Or fourth, dig deeper on why she’s late – what is the deep rooted reason for this behavior?

It’s easy to say she doesn't respect the fact she’s holding everyone up by being late, but there could very well be a deeper issue here. One thought, she may have never been reprimanded for missing deadlines so her motivation isn't there. It's hard to believe she simply doesn't respect the rest of the team but that can't be ruled out either. Or she may think deadlines are for others and not her.

Two Perpetrators

The person missing the deadline and the person who accepts the behavior own this situation. We don't have difficult conversations because they are difficult but while avoiding a firm chat with one member of the team, the rest will know you’re avoiding the issue and may decide to miss a deadline or two themselves since it doesn't seem to be important. That would be a shame and create a much bigger issue.

Years ago I had to finally let a team member go after he was late seven times. He showed up on that last occasion with a fresh take-out coffee which was a nice touch.

The behavior we accept is often what we continue to receive.
__________________________________________________________________
Kneale Mann | People + Priority = Progress

pretzellogic

This Time of Year

Summer has arrived in North America where I live and the tone of client conversations is changing. People seem a bit more relaxed and happy. Void of data, I can assume after a long hard winter, most are looking forward to some vacation time, time to unplug, time for family and friends, time without deadlines and email.

I know I live a privileged life. Like you, I have plenty of challenges and setbacks, but if perspective is kept in clear view, it’s a pretty good ride. But if we don’t take time away from work, our work will suffer. If we don’t unplug and step away, we will burn out. And if we never take time for life, well, you know the result.

Turn it Off

What would happen if you didn't check email for a day or attend a meeting tomorrow or not return that call until next week? The sun will come up, life will go on, and in fact, you may even be more rested and sharper to deal with deadlines after some time away.

Now add in the feelings you get when you are about to take some vacation time or when you’re away enjoying that thing called life. That’s the imperative ingredient to bring back with your new suntan.

Now go enjoy some time off, you've earned it!
__________________________________________________________________
Kneale Mann | Leadership Strategist, consultant, writer, speaker, executive coach facilitating performance growth with leaders, management, and teams.

forbes

Think Time

I was recently in a meeting with a client and asked how often she has time to think. She laughed and looked at me curiously and claimed she was thinking all the time. I clarified my question by asking when she booked time to just think – no emails, no meetings, and no interruptions. She laughed even louder.

What followed was a list of tasks and deadlines and deliverables like we all have on our plate. There was no time to just think – time is money and there are things to get done.

Cut the Waste

I like to challenge leaders to find 25% of their week they spend on tasks they don’t need to be doing such as; too many meetings, meetings without a clear agenda, meetings that go on too long, emails that can wait, time which could be used to just think and plan and clear their head.

This realization hits me daily as I discover time wasted on unnecessary items that seemed important at the time. They say time is our most valuable resource yet do we give it the priority it so rightly deserves?

A Challenge for You

Find one work day a month and don’t go to the office, don't book any meetings, tell your team you aren't available. Then get a pad of paper, your laptop, your tablet, or any other note taking device of your choice. Get in the car, treat yourself to a decadent beverage, find a spot by yourself, and just think, make notes, get clear, then focus on the core of what you need to get done. Then make time to visualize the things you want to accomplish for you.

Think of it as career or business meditation. You may have immediately dismissed the idea as lunacy because how could you possibly give up one entire day a month to just think? There are things to do, deadlines to meet, emails to send and receive, and... Wait, we’re doing it again. You may realize think time needs to be a part of your life.

Something to think about.
__________________________________________________________________
Kneale Mann | Leadership and Culture Strategist, Writer, Speaker, Executive Coach engaging leaders to build successful talent and profitable business.

wallpapersdb

Leaping Forward

The saying is that time is our more precious commodity. We’re always chasing for more yet we never seem to have enough. The bigger question is, do we value it properly?

Much will be said and written about today, February 29th. It happens once every four years. We have an entire extra day this year to catch up on all those things we keep meaning to do. Make those calls, give more thought and get it done.

It takes 365 days and 6 hours for a complete revolution around the sun so to catch up, we get a leap year every four years. If you’re born today, you may have a celebration every four years or do it on February 28th or March 1st.

Some notable February 29th events 

In 1504, Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Native Americans to provide him with supplies. The city of  St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated in 1892.

On February 29, 1956 then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower announced that he is running for a second term. Family Circle comic strip made its debut in 1960. February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Julian calendar in 1712.

And among those born today are; Tony Robbins, Jimmy Dorsey, Dinah Shore, James Mitchell, Henri Richard, Dave Williams (Drowning Pool), Simon Gagné and Cam Ward.

We have an extra day this year. Let's use it wisely! 

Kneale Mann

image credit: knealemann

Why Are You in Business?

Focusing on what you want and why you want it, not on whom you’re going to sell it to or how you’re going to sell it.

That is from an email a friend sent me. It caused me to pause and read the line a few times. I don't sell paint or fix plumbing or increase revenue in one meeting. The value I bring is tougher to measure in a world of instant wins and spams that claim to solve all your problems with a click of a mouse.

Clients and prospects don't care about my quarter century of experience, they have issues that need attention. And that remains the challenge when deciding what companies to approach in the first place.

Narrow the Focus

No matter if you run a publicly traded multi-national organization or work for yourself, you cannot be everything to everyone. You do some things well, you need to improve on other items and you are not tapping into the true power of your people and your network. Or perhaps I'm alone on this.

If you are unclear on what you want and why you want it, your customers, direct reports and colleagues will be unclear as well. And perhaps that is where we slip up when trying to grow business?

Find the Quiet

Our lives are full of chatter and meetings, opinions and deadlines, politics and stress. We aim to please while we lose ourselves in the process.

Big company or sole proprietorship, it is imperative to have an honest look under the hood. You may discover the reason you're doing all this in the first place.

Do you know what you want and why?

Kneale Mann

image credit: soshable | original: mar 2011

Finding Your Why Business

Focus on what you want and why you want it, not on whom you’re going to sell it to or how you’re going to sell it.

That is from an email a friend sent me last week. It caused me to pause and read the line a few times. I don't sell paint or fix your plumbing or solve your revenue issues in one meeting. The value I bring is tougher to measure in a world of instant wins and spams that claim to solve all your problems with a click of a mouse.

Clients and prospects don't care about my quarter century of experience, they have issues that need attention. And that remains the challenge when deciding what companies to approach in the first place.

Narrow the Focus

No matter if you run a publicly traded multi-national organization or work for yourself, you cannot be everything to everyone. You do some things well, you need to improve on other items and you are not tapping into the true power of your people and your network. Or perhaps I'm alone on this.

If you are unclear on what you want and why you want it, your customers, direct reports and colleagues will be unclear as well. And perhaps that is where we slip up when trying to grow business?

I'm often called a social media guy. In reality, I'm a help clients build a stronger business guy. I'm a work with clients on business, marketing and digital guy. If that requires two cans and a string, so be it. My focus is not what Kneale Mann thinks you should do but rather what you want and why you want it. We all have the same tools to choose from and it's not about what we can do but rather what we will do.

Find the Quiet

Our day is full of chatter and meetings, opinions and deadlines, politics and stress. We aim to please while we lose ourselves in the process. I have earmarked some time this week for a business spring cleaning to assess and focus on why I want what I want. If I can't keep refining that, I am useless to my clients and prospects.

Big company or sole proprietorship, it is imperative to have an honest look under the hood. You may discover the reason you're doing all this in the first place.

Do you know what you want and why you want it?

Kneale Mann | How can I help?

image credit: dailymakeover

Reflecting on Time

Fall Back and Think

The clocks fell back to standard time in many parts of the world today. It’s all part of an energy saving, sunshine increasing plan we call daylight saving time. It was devised by a New Zealand dude named George Vernon Hudson in 1895 who originally proposed a two-hour time shift.

There are all sorts of good reasons we still do it today from economic to environmental but let’s not forget how much we love the long stretch of sunlight from the end of March to the first week of November.

Tick Tock

Time is one commodity we cannot renew. Despite our denial, none of us has an unlimited supply. Yet often we use it like we do. We fill our days with busy tasks and stress as we look toward the weekend for a few stolen hours of rest. Then we fret about work, wish we had more money to buy that item and fight our way toward winning some sort of self-made race.

Projects need to be delivered, meetings must be attended, activities have to organized. Life can be hectic and we miss the important stuff though we seem to have gotten good at giving it lip service.

As we gain an hour today, here are some wise thoughts about time...

Time is the only thief we can't get justice against.
Astrid Alauda

In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular.
Kathy Norris

Men talk of killing time while time quietly kills them.
Dion Boucicault

Life happens while you're busy making other plans
John Lennon

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.
Willaim Penn

Time waits for no one.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

Life is about the gift not the package it comes in.
Dennis Costea

Time is making fools of us again.
J.K. Rowling

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. Denis Waitely

Cherish your time.

knealemann | email

Join me for Movember.

image credit: getty

How Much Time Do You Have?

Just Say Hello

I thought it was time to put aside my "busy" schedule to contact a few people I hadn't talked with in a while. There was no agenda, it just a quick note to see how they were doing.

Quite a few of them mentioned how they were "busy", working too much but doing just fine.

Work No Play

It got me thinking of how we live like our time is infinite.


Why don’t we take more chances or go for things we want? Perhaps we think it'll be too difficult to complete? Maybe it’s easier to stay where it’s nice and comfy? Maybe we're just too "busy"?

How About Now?

We are not guaranteed tomorrow. But let's hope we get there. We have a lot of busy and important things on our to-do list.

It all sounds dramatic but have you ever stopped to think about the time you spend waiting and wishing and hoping and worrying instead of doing?

Busy Busy

One of my clients says that "busy" is a victim word. We use it as a crutch or badge of honor. We also use it as a shield to hide from things we don’t want to do, chances we don’t want to take or fears we don’t want to face.

Now What?

Watch Ray Zahab speak at TED2009 about his trek to The South Pole. He is also one of three men who ran the entire length of the Sahara Desert. You can say this dude is focused.

Then think about it. How much time do you have?
I know I am.

knealemann.at.gmail.com

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek."
Joseph Campbell

image credit: impossible2possible.com | highpointswim.com
video credit: ted.com

Call Me In September

It begins with the usual signs. Traffic is a bit more congested on the way to the office in the morning. Ah yes, school is back and the unofficial end of summer is upon us. Depending on your region or level, school goes back on different dates but school is back for everyone as of tomorrow. It is Labor Day in the U.S. and Canada and there is no denying it – school is on.

Fall is on its way in North America. It’s September, a month of transition and rites of passage. It is a time to remember school summers of yore or the one that just passed. It is the month that turns summer in to autumn and projects in to deadlines.

Ah yes, dear sweet September. Call me after Labor Day and we can discuss it. Let’s revisit that in September. A month filled with many expectations and new beginnings.

As we gaze upon the Halloween displays in stores and thousands of additional cars on the way to work, reality sets in.

But let’s remember with fondness, the lazy hazy days of call me in September.

@knealemann
Let's create experiences, not campaigns

Is Thinking A Lost Art?

The mind is the most capricious of insects.
Virginia Woolf

If I asked you how often you think, you’d probably say – always.

And that’s true.

If I asked how often you allow yourself time to think about what you want to accomplish or roll an idea around in your head before acting or just sit in your workspace and ponder new creations – how would you answer?

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
Voltaire

Why don’t we allow ourselves time to shut off the unrelenting chatter and noise once in a while to strategize and let a project filter through our gray matter?

What would you do if you walked into someone’s office and they were simply sitting in their chair staring out the window? Would you wonder if they were napping or perhaps daydreaming? Is it possible that they could simply be thinking?

Believing is easier than thinking.
Bruce Calvert

If you do presentations as part of your job, you probably have some sort of ritual. I enjoy cranking some tunes while I make hand written notes. Then I slowly piece together the story. I have a colleague who can’t do any presentations at the office, she has to take them home where there are no distractions.

Distractions are everywhere, they never leave us and if we ever find a rare moment void of them we have gotten very good at creating some simply but going to a website or signing on to the social web.

Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament,
a new source of energy, from which new arts flow.
Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus

I used to work with a guy who spent his entire day stuffed inside his blackberry dealing with "other issues" rather than making eye contact and dealing with the one he was currently facing. I call it 'technological avoidance'.

We humans can’t seem to deal with the quiet, the time alone with our simple thoughts. We have this inherent need to fill our minds with stuff then blame the stuff for our busy lives.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts
into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Geothe

We don’t give ourselves or each other the proper time to think things through. Time is money, deadlines loom, the client needs an answer right away, we have to finish that immediately.

Where is the time to create? How on earth can we give anything the proper deliberation when society judges us by solution reponse rates?

A caution: thought without decision won't work either.

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein

When was the last time you devoted an entire day to thinking. No email, no websites, no calls, just you and maybe a notepad and pen. If you haven’t tried it, you should. If you are a manager, you should get your people to give it a shot.

Schedule some think time in your day. Don’t just fill it up with stuff so you can end each day exhausted and satisfied you "got a lot done today”.

Thinking is doing and we simply don’t do enough of it.

When do you think?

image credit: msclipart

Clock Management

Minutes To Go - Time Out.

It’s amazing what can happen in the last minute of a sporting event. This is when the coaches on either side of a basketball game seem to call endless time-outs. It’s when we expect heroics during the last ditch effort from the quarterback.


One team pulls their goalie for an extra attacker and often it works to tie the game and send it in to overtime.

You are reviewing your presentation in the hotel room before hitting the showers. The same presentation you have been working on for days, if not weeks. And you just want to have one more look at it.

Why do we do that? Why do we wait?

Why don’t we manage the clock better when we have hours, days, weeks, even months to prepare? Why does the coach not call a time-out and get his team pumped for a 90-second touchdown drive in the third quarter?

Why doesn’t a coach pull the goalie in the second period to see if it can boost her team? Why don’t we trust our abilities in the presentation and have a calm breakfast before heading to the client’s office?

Because we are human.

Think back to school and how many times you crammed for exams or did the project on the Sunday night before the deadline. We do it to ourselves and cause additional unneeded stress. Or is it the juice we need to get the job done right?

Can Convenience Help?

I can remember when I first started banking online. A bill would come in the mail and I would immediately pay it. In the “olden days”, I would have to find a stamp and write a check to the company. Inevitably, I would be writing it a day or two before the deadline hoping the mail service had a monumental day and got it to the payee in record time.

So if we know that most of us operate like this, how do we increase our chances as business partners and colleagues? What can we do to help each other manage the clock better?

@knealemann

Where Does It Hurt?

Sally wakes up Wednesday morning. Her tummy aches. She calls for her mom. The first thing her mom says is; “Where does it hurt?”

Batter Up

Carl loves playing baseball in his Thursday night league. It’s the 6th inning, Carl is at the plate, man on 1st, his team is down 4-2. Fastball, perfect, down the middle. Carl connects and the ball sails over the shortstop’s head. Fielder picks it up and throws toward the plate as Carl’s teammate rounds 3rd. Ball meets glove. Catcher meets Runner. Suddenly, there is a heap at the plate. Shouts immediately come from everywhere “Are you guys okay”. Carl's teammate says; "Am I safe?"

Tick Tock

Jerry is late for the sales meeting. Jerry is late most weeks. He can somehow make the 7am tee-time on Saturday but 8:15 comes way too on a Tuesday. This week, the boss tells Jerry that the big account called and is ready to cancel. He then informs Jerry that he’s been late for the sales meeting 21 times this year. It’s not looking for dear old Jer.

Feel The Burn

Mile twenty-three was especially difficult for Marie. After years of training, she had never felt it before. Sure, she was familiar with the wall but this time was different. This was her third marathon and this didn’t happen on the first two. There was a point where she felt it was too difficult and she wasn’t going to be able to make those last three miles.

Just Breathe

Brice has the biggest presentation of his career in the morning. He has over prepared for this one. His theories, his bright personality, his smarts got him to this point. Brice is terrified. It’s as if everything he ever learned or wrote on the topic has vanished. Cold sweats. Shaking. Nervous. Can’t sleep.

Find The Pain

If you've ever heard the phrase "find the pain" you know more than most who sell stuff for a living - and we all sell stuff for a living. It's not enough to find out that someone needs bigger profits. You need to find out the cause, the reason and it's not always sales. You need to find the pain.

If you work in the medical community or you're a parent, you certainly know what it means to find the pain. The old sales' adage that you aren't selling a drill but a way to put a hole in the wall to hang that picture rings true.

We often forget that we connect with other humans. They have deadlines, fears, pain, concern, stress and all the other stuff we have. But somehow we forget. Why is that?

@knealemann

photo credit: http://assets.disaboom.com