Do you "dump" on people? Learn from potty-training

We have all been in situations where we just "dumped" on another person. Maybe you were in a bad mood and a project was delayed? Maybe they told you some information that ended up being incorrect? Maybe something happened at home and now a "fire" has started at work and you are pretty disgusted.

...So you let them have it! I have seen even the nicest people do it once in a while.

If you take time in being reflective on your days, maybe you realized it later. Maybe you apologized. Maybe you learned from it. Maybe it helped to spark a more positive behavior.

I learned the other day about a new progressive, maybe weird maybe not, form of potty-training technique. You take your little kid into a very clean and empty room with preferably tile-flooring and you let them hang out there naked for a while. You can probably guess what happens. They use the bathroom and you know what? Eventually they become very AWARE of what just happened! Their own awareness of the event leads to learning and, eventually, new behaviors.

Now I am not endorsing this potty-training technique. I found it curious and was thinking how accountants could learn from that technique. I just wonder what people are capable of if they become more "AWARE" of how they treat others. How many times a day do you deal with people where you are "not at your best"?

How do you become more aware? Unfortunately we cannot use the same technique. Some ideas ...

Ask your colleagues for feedback - Do they feel better about themselves after dealing with you?
Make it a goal for a few days or a week - You go into each interaction with "awareness" of how you can treat the other person the best.
Ask your colleagues to be ready to grade you on future interactions for a little while. (I had a client do this one - it worked suprising wonders) The act of doing that may in itself make you more aware of your interactions.

Too Busy! Are you listening or mining?

I know so many accountant who are SOOOOOO busy. They have very little time during their day and they work at what appears to be a frantic pace. They have little time to .... deal with people!! At least that is how they look sometimes. There can be many causes of this: time and energy management practices, interruption reinforcement, etc. The effects can be draining. When you feel real hurried there is a skill that can take a HUGE hit - your listening skills.

Have you ever been part of a conversation where one person is only half-listening? Heck, they aren't really doing that. What are they doing? They are "data-mining". They are listening only as much as they feel they need to in case something "big" is said that affects them. Other than that they may be glancing at emails, thinking about what they will do next, and many other multi-tasking items.

What can happen in these situations?

The other person probably feels like they are only being mined. The other person might pick up those same habits. Opportunities to be efficient may go by the wayside because the parties are not fully engaged. Relationships are hampered. Information is lost. Collaboration suffers. In summary - "inefficiency" happens. So maybe the best thing to do, if you want to be more productive, is to SLOW DOWN when it comes to communicating (and especially listening) with others?!

It's Just the Two of Us - You & I

Most accountants work with a lot of people during any one year, even one week or one day.

Who do you work with most? How are those relationships? There is a word used in the coaching community that I love. It is called relationship design.

How much time do you spend thinking about your personal relationships at work?
Do you intentionally, proactively study the "design" of those relationships?
What is working? What is not working?
What general expectations do you have of each other? Are they clear and known?
What style of collaboration does that other person prefer?
What is going great in the relationship? What behaviors do you reinforce?
What motivates that other person?

Don't have time to spend focusing, reflecting, and improving individual relationships? If that is true, it will be obvious to those people and they will probably emulate you. It's probably what they are accustomed to.

LEAD change.

"A relationship, I think, is like a shark, you know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies." Woody Allen

Today I did nothing

In the 2001 movie Office Space disgruntled worker Peter took a day off (unbeknownst to his boss) and chose to just stay in bed all day. He said something like "today I did nothing and it was everything I ever thought it could be." He was proud of doing nothing.

Have you ever told yourself you were going to carve out some time for yourself just to relax? Conversely have you ever discovered that for the last few hours you have basically accomplished nothing? What is the difference? In results ... not much. But there is a big difference in the effect those two activities might have on you.

The first scenrio: You gave yourself permission to intentionally relax. It was probably empowering and it probably provided a source of energy renewal for your future activities. Maybe an energy boost?

The second scenario: You probably felt a sense of failure. You had intended to do some "stuff" yet you didn't do anything. Now you might be drained.

So, the effects are NOT the same. The only difference here: Being intetional about what you do (or "not do" in this case) Be more like Peter, be more intentional about your decisions and actions.

The Art of Saying No ... continued

OK, so in another post I talked about the need to simply practice saying no if you want to get better at it. That suggestion sounded painfully obvious yet many of us do not do it. We feel we should just somehow get real good at it so we can say no, and if we are not real good at it, we will not even try.

So let's talk more about this common problem accountants face. Saying no is not always easy, so maybe the best thing to do is in situations where you feel lots of tension and you must say no, see if you can manage the situation where you don't have to! OK, here are two questions/considerations for you...

1.) Do you want to help this person but cannot? Tell them that. Maybe there is a work-around or a smaller way you can contribute. Maybe you do not have to say no, but say you want to help but cannot commit enough resources to get the job done they want so is there something else you could do?

2.) Do you expect (be careful about assumptions) they will fight you on anything but a "yes"? Try turning the onus on them. Make it a team thing. Tell them your general priorities and time constraints and SHOW them that there is no way it is fair for you to say yes TO THEM.

For the next "Saying No" post, we'll discuss always starting with "NO" ... confidently!

"SMART" goals are missing something

You have probably heard of the "smart" acronym tool that can be used to help you create better goals.

S = specific
M = measurable
A = attainable
R = reasonable
T = time-based

What is missing? The WHY! Why does this goal matter? Where does it bring me (or my team)? Now maybe that is not the goal of using this tool, and I have seen some people expand the "m" to mean "motivational", and the "s" to mean significant, which sounds good. If you are setting a team goal specifically and you are leading the goal-setting process, make sure you ask WHY, not only from your perspective, not only from the team's perspective, but also from each individual member's perspective!

Good listening is not just WHAT, but also WHY

The other night my wife was talking about her next workday. She had a big deadline so we were talking and I volunteered to take our kid to daycare the next day to help. She agreed.

Later that night, after I had fallen asleep watching a ball game on the couch, she approaches me and mentioned that she cleaned the dishes while I was asleep (something I usually do) and she prepared our kid's food for the next day. Then she says, "So that makes us even."

What was my reaction? It was about me. I said, "I do not always worry about us being even."

I was not listening to the WHY. Why was she saying what she said? If I had been thinking about what she was saying from her point of view (instead of my own) all she was looking for was appreciation. That's it. Simple.

So what is the point beyond learning from this blogger's mishaps? Listen to others so intently that you not only hear the what but you feel the why, THEIR WHY, not your why. It will help you become a much better listener and speed up your communications because you understand the "Why."

My day was "very busy"

How was your day?

REALLY BUSY!

What does that typically mean? I'll make a lot of assumptions but for many of us -- busy does not equal productive. You would think it should be the opposite. If one is "busy" that should mean they are "busy getting stuff done." But typically it doesn't. Busy may mean a lot of things: multi-tasking, fire-fighting, interruptions, unscheduled meetings, and generally running around and doing lots of things, though maybe not completing lots of things.

Let' do this again ....

How was your day?

REALLY PRODUCTIVE!

For many "productive" is about completion and discipline. I was productive because I completed something that was hanging over my head (usually because I said no to other tasks or distractions).

So what is the difference for you between PRODUCTIVE and BUSY and how do you start with that tomorrow morning?