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Read on to learn six more ways to improve your job performance as a leader.

How can I improve my work performance as a leader?

Here are the six essential ways to improve job performance as a leader:

1. Connection

Recognize the importance of your relationship with every member of the team. Get to know your staff well—not just professionally, but have an understanding of who they are as a person.

If you know your colleagues and are able to connect with them, you can nurture hidden talents, put together dynamic teams, communicate successfully and command the respect necessary for good leadership.

2. Goal-setting

Growth is important for every area of an organization. Set achievable but motivating goals for each individual, team and department as well as company-wide, strategic goals.

With your entire workforce looking forwards and focused on growth, you can avoid stagnation and foster an ongoing momentum across the company that promotes growth, creativity and performance.

3. Transparency

Growth and strong job performance can only happen in open and transparent environments. Ensure your work culture encourages good job performance by promoting clear communication and honest working practices.

4. Ethos

Good work performance should be built into the core ethos of an organization.

Explore how you can positively encourage and support strong job performance from a strategic level. Consider incentives such as rewards, team celebrations, community activities, sabbaticals and opportunities for staff to explore wider interests.

5. Career development

Discover how far your organization fosters continual personal development for staff at all levels. An organization with formal mechanisms that allow all staff to grow whilst encouraging creativity and innovation, is destined for success

6. Reflection

For each of these essential skills to develop, you and your team will need to recognize the importance of evaluation and reflection.

Invite feedback for your own performance and understand the value of constructive criticism.

As you demonstrate your willingness to grow, you’ll see it has a knock-on effect on your team members, placing you in the perfect position to replicate the experience across other areas of your organization.

Published in https://blog.pluma.co/six-more-ways-to-improve-your-job-performance-as-a-leader/

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I found it odd…who is responsible for improving my job performance, if not ME?

If you want to learn how to improve your own performance at work, the vast majority of the resources available are aimed at managers and leaders. This leads me to ask: Where do we fit as employees? At what point am I responsible for my own job performance?

Let’s explore these questions in more detail and examine four ways you can improve your job performance by taking responsibility and ownership of your own personal development.

What is job performance?

First, let’s consider what job performance is. It is easy to reduce job performance to a single outcome, but it is actually a series of related, regular activities carried out to achieve certain goals.

The business dictionary defines job performance as the ‘work related activities expected of an employee and how well those activities were executed’.

These work-related tasks are multi-disciplinary and include both project-related activities and community actions. For example, meeting deadlines, building staff morale, interactions with colleagues, contributions to team achievements, networking and getting tasks right the first time.

We perform some tasks more consciously than others, and many of these actions are beyond those set out in our job description. In fact, the opportunity to discuss job performance and what it entails is rare within the workplace.

Community actions are those voluntary activities we undertake alongside project deliverables, such as helping to solve team problems and networking. Outside of the requirements specified in our job descriptions, these community activities help to drive the organization forward and contribute to the success of the team.

Why does job performance matter?

Does job performance really matter? You have a steady position and you’re getting paid – what’s the fuss? Research shows the benefits of improved job performance go much further than a good performance review and an annual pat on the back from your boss.

How you perform at work is important because it has the potential to drive your organization and your own well-being.

Contributing to the health of the entire workforce, job performance is central to the well-being of any organization. Numerous research studies explored on ckju.net, show staff performance ‘boosts the organizational climate through strengthening social networks… contributing to the culture and climate of the organization’.

Positive staff performance plays a key role in everything from employee well-being to productivity, strategic aims and job satisfaction.

Yet, the benefits go much further.

When you perform well at work, you place yourself in an advantageous position for career development. In the process, you also increase your self esteem, job satisfaction, earning potential and skill set for both professional and personal qualities.

With good staff morale, strong teams, greater job satisfaction and better opportunities for career advancement, it is difficult to see why you wouldn’t want to build your job performance.

How can I improve my job performance?

Here are 4 powerful ways to improve work performance:

1. Time management

Time management matters. The capacity to be able to meet deadlines and achieve milestones on time is invaluable. To manage your time well, concentrate on doing one thing at a time. It is easy to get distracted by multi-tasking and finish the day having achieved little of what you set out to do.

Recognize the importance of organization. Prioritize your schedule of tasks at the beginning of the day, ensuring those that are urgent or worrying you the most are completed first.

We all know productivity drops in the afternoon, so leave emails and admin until later in the day. With lots of important jobs already completed by the afternoon, you’ll feel more satisfied, less stressed and more productive for the remainder of the day.

2. Communication

When we think about work performance, communication rarely makes the list, yet it is one of the most powerful skills you can exhibit in the workplace.

Your ability to listen, collaborate and respond to both written and verbal communication has a significant impact on your performance at work.

From managing conflict resolution to building trust and cooperating with colleagues, your communication skills have the power to make or break your career and working environment.

3. Focus

In fact, if it is not understood correctly, a desire to communicate can end up proving a distraction. Interacting with colleagues, keeping up with family demands, responding to team members, contributing to problem solving and sharing expertise can all create a stream of endless interruptions that ruin your flow.

Plan how you will spend your time each day. Allot realistic amounts of minutes and hours for the tasks you need to complete each day, including things like meetings with colleagues and urgent errands for family.

With a true reflection of how you need to spend the hours in your working day, you’ll be less likely to waste precious time when you know the knock-on effect it will have on all you want to achieve that day.

4. Growth

The biggest factor in poor job performance is boredom. Be open to new things. It may not be listed in your job description, but see the opportunity to try something different as a good thing.

A wider skill set will give you more creativity and greater freedom in your work life — important elements of job satisfaction.

Be open and honest with yourself. Set new goals based on what you think you could do better and how you can grow both personally and professionally. All of these skills are key contributors to more than just work performance, they are also the hallmarks of successful leadership.

Talk to your colleagues, ask them for feedback about your performance and be open to accept both positives and negatives.

Recognize the value of patience, empathy and honesty in the workplace. Aim to be flexible, transparent and supportive – then watch as your trajectory as a leader grows.

The Bottom Line

Don’t wait for someone else to help you improve your performance at work. Take charge of your own career by embracing these four ways you can improve your job performance and personal development. Check out the next post in this series to learn six more ways to improve your job performance as a leader.

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Why is this and what does it say about politicians and people around the world?  Are the differing approaches linked to culture?

On a daily basis, we see news reports about the varying reactions to government measures – reactions that differ greatly. Some people accept the measures and follow instructions whilst others rebel with demonstrations and corona-parties or treat guidance with scepticism and ignore it.

Culture and Behaviour

Culture and its influence on our behaviour is an interesting way to understand what has happened and is still unfolding across the European continent.

Why did we not use a universal approach to solve the pandemic, pool resources and create a robust response? Although what we have may look like chaos – it is in fact, a dramatic demonstration of the  role culture plays in how we react and solve problems.

Take Finland, a country that suffered the ravages of wars for centuries. Since the end of the Cold War, Finland’s approach has been to be a country that is prepared! Taking preparation to the next level, Finland has been stockpiling medicines, raw materials and other essential goods for decades

As a result, when Covid arrived, the Finns were prepared, with all the masks, medicines and equipment they needed ready to for use. They also had an emergency plan prepared. Their past experiences had taught them to be always ready a lesson evident in many other aspects of Finnish culture.

Let’s zoom in some other countries and see how they approached the pandemic.

I have mainly explored countries with a number of similarities.

We know countries across the Asian and African continents have very different cultural responses to European countries. It was actually this thinking that caused me to begin to ask myself whether the differing approaches to tackling Covid-19 were affected by culture, politics or simply a lack of knowledge about this new disease?

I have based some of my observations and comparisons on Geert Hofstede’s 6 Cultural dimensions :

1. Power Distance Index (high versus low)
2. Individualism Versus Collectivism
3. Masculinity Versus Femininity
4. Uncertainty Avoidance Index (high versus low)
5. Long- Versus Short-Term Orientation
6. Indulgence Versus Restraint

When we look at individual country’s responses to Covid-19 we can see that approaches to problem-solving are greatly influenced by the culture behind the people, groups and governments.

Let’s start by looking at a short definition of culture:

Culture is the way we do things here – .

With this quote, Elizabeth Godfrey hints that behaviour is a driver for how organisations, groups and countries are shaped. Yet of course, culture is more than just behaviour. Behaviours usually stem from common core values, assumptions and expectations.

Covid-19 was first detected in China and quickly spread though Asia.

The Chinese approach to the pandemic was organised, quick and strong.

China’s approach was based on lessons learned from dealing with previous infectious diseases. Yet, here in the West we have faced an ongoing struggle to find the right approach.

Why – one might ask – haven’t we just copied the Asian approach? It works – why not use it? Clearly, this is easier said than done.

There are many reasons why the Asian approach would not work in the same way here in Europe.

Amongst the many factors are our financial interests, the way we think about people, how our local politics work, lack of experience of these kind of pandemics and probably, also the way we perceive ourselves in the West.

Our perceptions of self play a huge part in each country’s culture, religion, politics, wealth and citizens. All of these elements affect our approach to problem solving and planning. For example, look at these six countries and their differing responses:

• Italy- Approach: Cure Italy Decree: The Italians were in complete chaos and disbelief when Covid hit and unprepared for a crisis. This lack of preparedness is reflected in the high level of infected citizens and deaths.

 Once organised, the Italians made 3 key declarations to deal with the pandemic. The first one, signalled the first stage and was concerned with taking care of people and offering the medical assistance needed at the time.

Stage two dealt with the financial consequences of the serious and long lockdown. The third stage was a relaunch, geared to supporting the health system to be ready for a second lockdown if needed.

Italy is considered an individualistic society where each person takes care of themselves. People don’t trust politicians and there is a slightly chaotic, deal with it tomorrow attitude. However, once organised the Italians have been quite successful at managing the pandemic to date.

• Spain – Approach: #Estevirusloparamosunidos: Spain is considered a very hierarchical society. Decisions are made from the top and followed without question. However, there is also a strong sense of the collective – where taking care of family, the elderly, poor and sick is important.

 As a society with a collective outlook, the Spanish take a group approach rather than individual responsibility.

When the pandemic arrived, the government was not ready. The Spanish health system is run with a focus on day to day operations, meaning there is a lack of long term vision or forward- planning.

The result – a deadly combination of optimism and late detection. Today, Spain has one of the highest death tolls in Europe.

• The Netherlands – Approach: Intelligent lockdown: The approach in The Netherlands was to place the bulk of responsibility on the individual.

 Apart from social distancing and self-quarantine, few other rules rulings were made whilst politicians addressed the nation on the importance of individual responsibility.

The outcome created chaos due to the widespread fears that quickly developed as people were ordered to do things that they didn’t fully understand. Communication of the measures were unclear and the decentralised healthcare system was not ready for the pandemic.

There were no masks, equipment or medicines. Supplies ran out swiftly, although the response from the government was fast. Able to use their good reputation and strong credit rating, the government got organised quickly and equipment arrived with urgency.

The Netherlands is a leading example of an individualistic society, yet also considered a feminine culture where work-life balance is important and holidays and leisure time are part of daily life.

For the Dutch, the need to ensure everyone is included is a priority and consensus voting is the popular way to reach agreements. As a result, the Dutch have struggled with: working from home, staying away from family, not being able to enjoy life in the usual ways, quarantines, restrictions on holidays and the strains of social distancing.

 United Kingdom –Approach: Herd immunity: The UK was completely unprepared for the pandemic. They had no provisions set aside and initially the government appealed to individuals to take measures themselves rather than giving any government directives.

When government action came, it was too late. Considered a masculine and individualistic society, Britain ignored the approaching crisis and refused to prepare for the uncertainties coming their way.

After a slow and lax response, the actions that followed were chaotic. There was a rush to get things organised once the full weight of the pandemic hit and financial considerations have been a driving factor in the government decisions.

• New Zealand – Approach: Together against Covid-19 : The message in New Zealand was to crush the curve by acting fast and early so the government could ensure people were taken care of first and the economy, later.

 New Zealand’s approach was also masculine, however here, power, distance and an individualistic society meant they approached Covid-19 in a different way to other countries.

The biggest difference in New Zealand was that they have a female prime minister who took care of people first, a stark contrast to the priorities of other countries with a masculine approach, like Australia and England.

• USA – Approach: Patchwork: In the U.S., the approach has been- every state for itself – a policy with a patchwork of outcomes. For example, California’s response was organised and quick, whilst Florida’s was lax, sceptical and disorganised.

In the U.S., scepticism and prioritizing the economy were more important than saving lives. America’s health system is expensive and often does not support the poor.

The U.S. is a highly individualistic society, that also values freedom and the rights of the individual. A combination of opposing values, ignorance, scepticism and a concern with financial gain have turned the USA into the biggest victim of the pandemic.

Culture definitely puts its stamp on how we approach crises

Our individual and collective national values impact the way we make decisions and react to different situations.

In societies where the government is perceived as the one that does the organising and decision-making, people will wait for someone else to take the lead. On the other hand, in countries were individuals are expected to get things, people act quicker.

In The Netherlands, politicians appealed to individual responsibility, yet did not dare to impose any measures that would be seen as unpopular because they would infringe the freedom and privacy of the individual.

In Spain and Italy, the smaller collective of family, close friends and tight communities, provide protection for each other. However, people expect the government to take the lead when important measures need to be enforced. Although instructions are often delivered forcefully, people accept and follow them.

Localised decision-making, based on lessons learned elsewhere, is the most effective form of instruction because communication and expectations can be tailored to suit the expectations of the individual and country.

These are fascinating insights that are still being played out on the world stage. As we continue to deal with Covid-19, it will be interesting to see how each approach develops over time.

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Como se trata de una pandemia, las medidas que se han tomado para frenar la propagación del virus han sido las mismas en varias partes del mundo, por lo que los efectos serán de igual manera globales.

Las consecuencias del Covid-19 en el lugar de trabajo

En lo que se refiere al sector laboral, el primer cambio ha sido la necesidad de trabajar desde casa. Aunque no todos los empleos permiten esta modalidad, se ha instaurado como una manera de seguir produciendo sin correr riesgos de contagio.

Aunque hay algunos países que ya usaban el teletrabajo, no era lo normal sino la excepción. Pero lo más importante es cómo evolucionarán estos cambios hacia la vida social de metro y medio. Todo indica que la cotidianidad se regirá sobre la base de un necesario distanciamiento que se va a mantener por muchos meses.

Muchos especialistas en herramientas para el teletrabajo aseguran que este será un cambio que se hará permanente una vez que se acabe la pandemia. Giorgos Balafoutis, arquitecto cibernético de Microsoft, aseguró a Euronews que el modelo de trabajo cambiará definitivamente. Considera que las compañías buscarán ser mucho más flexibles para que sus usuarios o empleados puedan trabajar, buscarán hacer un modelo laboral que permita completar tareas tanto desde la oficina como desde casa, sin mencionar los ahorros en gasto de oficina, transporte, etc.

Las consecuencias que dejará esta pandemia van más allá de las económicas. Los efectos se sentirán en las relaciones de trabajo. El empresario deberá evaluar cuidadosamente la conveniencia de permitir a los empleados desarrollar sus tareas desde casa. Sin embargo, surgirán algunos inconvenientes que, si no los estudia desde ahora, difícilmente podrá afrontarlos con éxito cuando se presenten.

Hay estudios de antes de la pandemia que indicaban que el trabajo desde casa incrementa la productividad de los empleados, y esto es algo que tomarán en cuenta los empresarios a la hora de que se levante el confinamiento. Además, la experiencia que se vive en la actualidad ayuda a reforzar la idea de que el teletrabajo no es tan pesado para las personas, pues hay ventajas como evitar el tráfico o atender las labores del hogar a la vez.

En la redefinición de las relaciones es en donde estarán los cambios profundos. Es posible que los grandes empleadores se plateen alternativas como mantener oficinas más pequeñas o realizar reuniones con todo el equipo de manera esporádica. Buscarán maneras distintas de trabajar. Pero su gran desafío será otro.

Si se suma entonces la dinámica del teletrabajo a las nuevas relaciones laborales, es obvio que surgirá la necesidad de compaginar esta modalidad con la del trabajo de oficina. Entonces, también cambiarán las relaciones con los colegas.

Preguntas prácticas

¿Cómo se abordará el trabajo en equipo?  ¿Como se abordará el regreso a las oficinas y cómo se coordinará con la gente que seguirá trabajando desde la casa? Cuando ya se regrese a los sitios de trabajo, cómo hará el director para que los empleados tengan el mismo branding, hablen el mismo idioma de la compañía, se sientan parte de la empresa y puedan trabajar juntos luego de meses de hacerlo desde casa. Lo que no es deseable es que dentro de seis meses se reúnan en la oficina y los empleados no se reconozcan, que no sepan cómo manejar estas relaciones y tengan que empezar desde cero.

Es evidente que lo que ocurre en la actualidad es el relajamiento de ciertas reglas y políticas de trabajo. Por ejemplo, los empleados ya no se visten apropiadamente para la oficina, el contacto personal es por un lado menos natural y frío, y por el otro se basa casi totalmente en cuestiones de trabajo, para lo que se usan herramientas tan impersonales como el correo electrónico o el whatsaap. Esto ya comienza a afectar el branding y la cultura de las organizaciones. También influyen en la manera como (no) vemos y tratamos a los clientes, el lenguaje de la organización se está tornando más “casero”. Todo forma parte de las redefiniciones que son urgentes para contrarrestar los efectos del confinamiento en las relaciones laborales. Lo que se recomienda es que este tipo de reflexiones y debates comiencen a hacerse de inmediato y no esperar a que se levanten las restricciones.

Buscar un lenguaje común

Compartir el lenguaje para mantener conversaciones y flujo comunicacional efectivo es imprescindible a la hora de integrar un equipo de trabajo, y para conseguir nuevamente este objetivo luego de salir del confinamiento hay que rescatar los valores de la organización. Hay que tomar en cuenta que no estamos acostumbrados a hablar de valores, pero además, el hecho de estar fuera de las oficinas por tanto tiempo ha hecho que esos valores compartidos se vayan perdiendo.

La cultura de una compañía se basa en las experiencias de cada uno en la organización y los valores compartidos por todos los trabajadores. Si tenemos buenos valores dentro de la compañía, podemos construir una cultura corporativa en la que todos se sientan seguros, valorados, tomados en cuenta y confiados.

A partir de la reflexión sobre los cambios que han ocurrido en las empresas y los que están por venir, hay una serie de recomendaciones que pueden ponerse en práctica para avanzar en la recuperación de la dinámica de trabajo. Son ejercicios que pueden contribuir al descongelamiento de las relaciones laborales.

1. La primera de las recomendaciones es facilitar los encuentros entre los colegas. Para esto se pueden usar aplicaciones que permitan reuniones para motivar el intercambio de ideas y retomar la naturalidad de las interacciones en la oficina.
2. Los empresarios o líderes de una compañía deben procurar conversaciones en las que se expongan los valores de la organización y cómo estos pueden ayudar a la unidad laboral.
3. En el plano personal, es deseable que cada empleado estimule el contacto con sus colegas de manera grupal o individual.
4. Hay que tener en cuenta que mostrar interés por el otro crea un ambiente seguro en el que la gente se siente invitada a participar. Es por esto que se recomienda organizar encuentros más allá de lo laboral para compartir chistes, reírse juntos, interesarse por el compañero, ofrecer apoyo y solidaridad.
5. Las discusiones sobre el futuro de las empresas son ejercicios importantes a la hora de mantener la comunicación entre colegas. Reflexionar juntos sobre la vuelta a las oficinas, sobre cómo mantener el branding de la compañía o mantener el contacto con el público son muy necesarias.

Este articulo esta basado sobre una entrevista con Caribey Sánchez
Foto Unsplash

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The changes have also significantly affected economies and workplaces.

As Covid-19 is a global pandemic, measures taken to stop the spread of the virus have been the same in various parts of the world. As a result, the dramatic effects from long periods of confinement are happening on a global scale.

The fallout from Covid-19 in the workplace

When it comes to the workplace, the biggest change has been the need for everyone who can, to work from home. Although remote working is not suitable for every job, it is now the expected solution to enable business operations to continue safely and avoid the risk of spreading the virus.

Although remote working is widespread in some countries, this was the exception rather than the norm.

Looking ahead, the challenge is how businesses will evolve to meet the 1.5m social distance ruling. All signs indicate that our everyday lives for at least, the next few months, will be shaped by the need to maintain the required social distance in all contexts, including the workplace.

Experts suggest the shift to remote working is likely to become permanent once the pandemic is over.

In a recent interview on Euronews, Giorgos Balafoutis, a cyber architect at Microsoft, explained why the traditional working model for businesses is guaranteed to change as a result of the Covid-19.

Giorgos highlights the fact that companies will need to be much more flexible post-pandemic and allow employees to work remotely, with the flexibility to complete tasks from both the office and home.

The benefits to both staff and business operations are wide-ranging, including everything from savings in office expenses to transportation and more.1

The long term consequences of this pandemic stretch far beyond economics.

Further effects will be felt in work relationships and social gatherings.

The decision to allow employees to work from home is a difficult one and there are some drawbacks employers should consider now, so they can be dealt with effectively when they arise.

There are a number studies carried out before the pandemic that indicate working from home increases employee productivity – this is clearly something employers should take into account when the lockdown is lifted.

Additionally, current experiences reinforce the idea that remote working is less taxing because employees don’t have to deal with things like stressful commutes or piles of laundry when they return home.

It is in the redefining of working relationships where the most profound changes will occur.

Although larger businesses may come up with innovations such as smaller offices or keeping whole team meetings to a minimum, there will be bigger challenges in other areas.

With the dynamics of remote working added to new working relationships, it is clear that the relationships between colleagues will also change.

Practical questions for consideration

There are many questions to consider as we move forwards.

How will teamwork be approached?

How will the return to the office space be managed and how will you incorporate those still working from home?

When your staff return to the office, how will you ensure employees are working within the same ethos, speak the same company language, feel part of the company and can still work together after months of being apart at home.

What you don’t want is for your staff to come together in six months and be unable to relate to each other.

Clearly we are seeing a relaxation of many work rules and policies at the moment. For example, there is no longer a need for employees to follow office dress codes, personal contact is in many ways less natural and cold – almost entirely based on work issues and communicated via email and Whatsapp.

These issues are already beginning to affect the branding and culture of many organizations.

For example, by not physically seeing or interacting with customers, the language of organisations is becoming more informal and relaxed. This and many others are part of the urgent changes that need to be addressed post-lockdown. Ideally, the sooner, the better – don’t wait for lockdown restrictions to be lifted – start addressing these issues now.

Find a common language

The sharing of language during conversations and communications during the working day are essential to the health of a team. Regaining these skills and organisational values post-lockdown is critical.

It is important to remember that talking about values isn’t something we usually do and with so much time spent outside the office during lockdown, it is highly likely these shared values will be lost.

The culture of a company is based on the experiences of everyone in the organization and values must be shared by all employees. With strong company values, it is possible to build a corporate culture in which everyone feels safe, valued and confident.

These are my suggestions for how employers should refresh their company dynamics and ensure their company culture is strengthened as they move forwards.

1. 1. Establish brainstorming meetings where colleagues can get together and exchange ideas to get used to natural office interactions again.
2. 2. Company leaders should communicate organisational values and the benefits they have for the workplace.
3. 3. Encourage employees to communicate with each other in groups and one-to-one.
4. 4. Remember that showing interest in the others helps to create a work environment that is safe, where everyone feels welcome to participate. For this reason it is really important to organise meetings outside the workplace to share jokes, laugh together, talk about outside interests, offer support and solidarity.
5. 5. Discuss decisions about the company’s future together. These discussions about how to return safely to the workplace build communication between colleagues that are essential.

Article based on an interview with Caribey Sánchez

Image by Dapiki Moto Unsplash

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If you want things to happen, you need to set goals. To accomplish your goals, however, you need to know how to set them. You can’t simply say, “I want” and expect it to happen. Goal setting is a process that starts with careful consideration of what you want to achieve, and ends with a lot of hard work to actually do it. In between there are some very well defined steps that transcend the specifics of each goal. Knowing these steps will allow you to formulate goals that you can accomplish.

The literature shows many ways to set goals – one thing is that they have to be SMART:

Do you always apply the rule? The simple fact is that for goals to be powerful, they should be clear, realistic and motivating. The internet is full of articles explaining how to set SMART goals, but what literature hardly helps you with is in the process before you can speak your goal out loud. To set goals you need to just want something, you need to know and understand the goal setting process.

The Five Golden Rules

I want to share with you a model that is simple, and will support you not only when describing your goals and setting an action plan, but is also a great model to keep you on track and motivated. The GROW model is a 4 step model that is not only great for setting goals, but you can also use it as a diagnostic tool, when managing meetings or you need to make an important decision, and there are many factors that play a role.

Spend some time looking at the things you want, what you have and the resources you need to achieve your goals.

1. Reflect on your Goals

Reflect on issues like: What do I want, have or be? For how long have you been thinking about these goals? Am I moving into the direction of my dreams? How far am I? How much energy do I want to spend in achieving these goals? And are my goals measurable goals with deadlines?

Write them down and make sure your goal is clear and well defined. Vague or generalized goals are unhelpful because they don’t provide sufficient direction. Remember, you need goals to show you the way. Make it as easy as you can to get where you want to go by defining precisely where you want to end up.

2. Look at your Reality

Before you can start achieving your goals you need to reflect on where are you now regarding your goals. What is the situation today and what do you have: skills, resources, time, etc. You also need to know what are the elements you are missing and what are the thoughts you have about yourself and your goals and what do you need to know, including your feelings and believes before you can draft an action plan.

To help you here are some questions you can ask yourself: What is stopping me from moving forward? What do I need to have or learn? What is my present situation? What do I need to let go? Who might be involved – might be benefited or get damaged?

Write your answers down and move to the next step.

3. Step out of the box and discover what are the Obstacles and Opportunities

To be successful you need to stay motivated and there is nothing more demotivating than finding obstacles every step along the way, that is why you need to think about all the real and possible obstacles. After you identified the obstacles, consider the positive and possible elements. This will help to see opportunities in the obstacles.

The following questions are a few questions that will support you in discovering possible obstacles: Do I have the time and energy to invest in my goals? Am I going to enjoy the process? How do I manage setbacks and do I procrastinate? Now have a look at your opportunities. Be creative, be effective, and let your imagination fly. One of the questions you can ask yourself is: What if…?

Think of questions like: what if I start my own business? What kind of business? What if we expand our production, what are the market opportunities?

4. Make the shopping list – answer the W questions

Once you know your options you open up to opportunities and possibilities. Look at all your answers. You are now ready to draft an action plan. When planning be practical, ingenious and willing to let things happen.

Think of issues like: what resources are there, you need and can use now? What is the very first step you need to take? And the second? Will others suggest the same steps? What are the benefits of taking these steps? What if this does not work, what are my other options? Who is doing what and when? How do we keep track of the process?

5. Choose for elements that motivate you

When you set goals for yourself, it is important that they motivate you. This means, making sure that they are relevant to you, and that there is value in achieving them. If you have little interest in the outcome, or they are irrelevant given the larger picture, then the chances of you putting in the work to make them happen are slim. Motivation is key to achieving goals.

Goal Setting Also Valuable in Business

This model will serve you well with any project you are working on. It is simple, not only for you but for your team members as well. Include the people who are working with you from the beginning of the process. Enjoy the brainstorming sessions as many things will happen and many ideas will come afloat. You do not need to solve them all at once; you can come back later to use them. Another benefit of this model is that roles will be defined and people will have ownership. Resources will be allocated only when needed increasing efficiency and saving you a lot of money and time. When you use this model you will be in a good position to evaluate progress, performance, efficiency and keep steering where you want to be.

The post Five Tips to Set Yourself Up for Success appeared first on aNDE.

What is wrong with these statements?

We have become so accustomed to shouting how busy we are, and we are convinced that being busy is what makes us successful and relevant. We are expected to be busy, and we expect our employees, colleagues, partners, family and friends to be busy too. We have become masters in overbooking the time of our children with extracurricular activities, hobbies, and sports. We expect our partners to be active all the time with work, children, household, shopping. And our colleagues have become slaves of lack of time, cutting coffee breaks and socializing extra-long working hours and often doing the work of 2 people. We think this s normal behaviour even though we are all complaining about how busy we are.

Wake up! Choose to be productive, not busy.

What is productivity?

And how can we create a balanced work- private life?

Productivity is about investing energy and effort in making/doing something with the purpose to directly or indirectly satisfy human needs. This means that productivity includes: building things, preparing meals, taking care of the children, working and earn money. It is also about taking care of other human needs, such as rest, having fun, being healthy and having an undisturbed nap on the sofa.

Productivity is not about how much you do or how full your agenda is. It is about what you accomplish and how you feel at the end of the day. If at the end you are exhausted and frustrated, you have not been productive. Remember, productivity is about satisfying human needs.

Seven tips to be more productive:

• Do less and what matters: decide what is essential and what you like doing and leave the rest for others to take or forget about them.
• Delegate, delegate and delegate: when delegating, give the full responsibility to the other person and do not micro-manage
• Plan your daily goals taking your needs as the starting point
• Do things that are good for you: take some ME time throughout the day, to think, empty your mind or to do nothing
• Do one thing at the time: different multi-tasking activities at the time is the worse you can do to be productive. Re-doing stuff because the first time was not done correctly will eat your energy and productivity
• Learn to say NO. This should be your number one resolution: saying no to things that are not your responsibility and or are not necessary.
• Remember you are not successful because you are busy; you are successful because you are meeting your needs.

The post Are you bragging about being busy and consequently damaging your productivity? appeared first on aNDE.