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Reminder: Take Breaks During Your Work Day!

We’re talking to your schedules today. They’re back to back with meetings – where’s the you time in there? We don’t take breaks at work, especially when we’re working at home. Those long hours working a task staring at your screen slinging code or laboring away at a project are actually gradually reducing your effective productivity – and sapping your energy.

The solution is simple. Create a new habit of taking frequent breaks. Once an hour if you can, but no less than every two hours. Get your blood moving, move your energy, set your brain on simmer and breathe with intention! You’ll find yourself a little bit invigorated and sometimes you’ll get that “Aha!” moment you were looking for.

Try it today, wrangle that schedule, create some break times for yourself. We’re eager to hear what difference you see!

Entrepreneurship in Trying Times

We’ve been reading several articles (and we’ll post one in the comments) about the economic recovery, entrepreneurship and employment and we’re seeing some alignment with anecdotal evidence both first hand and here on LinkedIn. One of the things we do at 1Focus as a way of giving back is give back to young entrepreneurs with prescriptive guidance and direction, especially when it comes to technology.

We’ve see a significant uptick in solo entrepreneurs, and at least 20% of them have proven to be nimble & adept at pivoting – a greater version of which we incorporate in our global client engagements.

This is where Diffusion of Innovation Theory comes into play (link in comments). With all size of our clients there is often a concern of competition. But this is good – you don’t always want to be first, it’s ok to launch with a small pack of competitors. That competition will drive differentiators and a higher level of service – both of which are opportunities to create distinct advantages.

If you feel the drive to start a business – do it – with intention! And remember, competition is good, for your business and for your consumer and it allows you to compete on more than just price!

We’re big believers in opportunity, so, we’ll give the first three folks who ask an hour of advice – gratis.

What are you waiting for?

Celebrate the Small Wins!

Celebrate the small wins on the way to the larger victory!

Too often we’re quick to self criticize and shrug away celebrating ourselves. This would be a great new habit to build!

Whenever you accomplish something, even a small step, take a moment, take a breath and celebrate it. Stop for a moment and congratulate yourself. It’s an important way to build self motivation – which will always carry you.

And if you falter? Celebrate the lesson that mis-step taught you and avoid making the same error. Relish the fact that you get another shot.

We’re still giddy at yesterday’s featured post, even as we’re focused on the next milestone. So take a moment today, and celebrate one of your accomplishments. Then do it again tomorrow & the next day.

Start Your 1-on-1’s Today!

In our prior update & video we talked about 3 things any organization can do today to increase resiliency in their work space through better communication.

We posted another video and today we’re going to go deeper on 1-on-1’s and give you some tangible guidance you can implement. 1-on-1’s are a fundamental building block to building brutally candid but psychologically safe work spaces which is a key component to enhanced resiliency. We want to start here.

Here’s 3 actions you can take today to start.

Frist, well, start. Start having 1-on-1’s if you’re not. I would say a great many organizations don’t do 1-on-1’s or at least do them as a replacement for or supplement to status reports.

That’s not what they’re for. These sessions are for HOW not WHAT. How is your team member, your contributor, doing. These are opportunities for you, as a leader, to build rapport and trust. It’s also an opportunity for vulnerability and authenticity with your team. When you break down stiff, hierarchical boundaries, you’re breaking down barriers to transparent, honest conversations.

See where this leads to?

Second, try to keep them to at most 30 minutes and have them at a consistent time and day of the week. Look, emergencies happen, we all know this, but this is one of those activities that has to be a consistent focal point for your leaders and contributors. Aim for 98% consistency across a twelve month period. Again, you’re trying to build that trust that leads to clear communications.

Remember, while it’s ok to get personal – respect professional boundaries and know when you’re touching areas you don’t have expertise on. Nothing empowers a conversation more than for one party to say “I don’t know, but let’s find out…” No one can know all things at all times and have all the answers. We’re here to remove stress, not add to it.

Third – take notes! And follow-up! Regardless of who makes the commitment, the next time you meet, start there and follow-up. What you’re doing is not only showing you remembered, but also building in some strong accountability to go along with that transparency. That establishes the pattern of what we’re setting up.

These sessions, done consistently, are what builds up those critical connections of trust, on which any kind of relationship is built. That trust leads to clearer communication, which reinforces those relationships. When the next crisis hits, the focus will be on coming together and persevering in a way that is mutually beneficial and accountable. This is when, we say, fires end up putting themselves out because they don’t get a chance to consume the tinder and oxygen and grow.

Take a look at our video and start your 1-on-1’s or let us know what changes you’ll make based on these tips. We would be really curious to find out how this works out for you!

What Does Your Work Space Communication Look like?

We just posted a video on LinkedIn describing how, as we work on tech & process projects with our Clients, we’ve had some really cool & insightful conversations with our Clients as they debate what their return to work space looks like. They’ve asked us what we think – and, regardless of hybrid, on-site or permanent remote\home, we like to ask them what communications in their workspace looks like today.

We’ve all got challenges.

Here’s 3, proven, things we ask them to try.

First – Implement One on Ones and make sure they’re about HOW someone is doing not WHAT. They’re not a supplement or replacement for status reports, they’re an intentional weekly 30 minute opportunity for peers, leaders and contributors to connect, build rapport and build trust.

This leads to the second ask – create a brutally candid and psychologically safe work space. This is about leveraging that trust and rapport to move away from recrimination and inspection to really focus and drive solutions, especially when crisis or disruption hits.

Finally, the third ask. Learning to and accepting managing upwards. So very few organizations do this but, combined with the above, it’s an incredibly powerful method that leads to cost avoidance, increased efficacy and surprising insights. It’s also a great way to make tribal knowledge locked in people’s heads common knowledge.

These three asks can really supercharge your work space, regardless of what form it takes today, tomorrow and in the future.

Take a look at our video post on LinkedIN. We would be really curious to find out what you think – or how this has worked for you if you’ve tried it.

What Did You Do This Summer … ?

You remember those school reports – “What I Did on Summer Vacation.”
And maybe those movies too – “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

What did we do when the world changed, and went into lockdown?

We doubled down and focused on people, not just process & technology.

We connected with clients new & old, checking in with their mindsets – and how they were coping. Getting people into a more resilient, secure, safe mindset made subsequent conversations about remote working tools and processes, both more tactile and valuable.

Always start with your people.

Always.

There was no way we were going to be successful at changing work and leadership habits if we could not tend to mindsets first. Our experiences, and academic studies, have consistently proven out – happier, more resilient people work better, live better. Organizations that invest in creating those people, are inherently more resilient to disruption.

We tailored our services to accommodate different budget needs – including the micro-services of our Steps program and a subscription-based service in our əlastic Service. You can see those changes and new services at https://www.1focus.us/services/

Along the way, we realized we needed to encapsulate all the work we were doing and the new processes & techniques we were developing. We pulled together, remotely & virtually, across multiple time zones and researched and wrote 4 different books on “Coping with COVID”- essentially guides, and associated workbooks, for Leaders and Managers that, when followed, bring about the People Outcomes we are looking for whenever we’re deep in solving a process or technical challenge for our clients.

Check them out at https://www.1focus.us/eBooks/ – you can see a preview of a few of these pages below.

What did your people, your teams, your leaders – your organization do, when COVID changed your world?

The Objective Contrarian, Part 2

Sisyphus sure loved his rock, didn’t he?

Look, we’ve all been there, some of us as recently as this week. The focus, the emphasis, every sinew and mental iota turns towards that one task, that one project, that one work effort. If we can only keep pushing and get it over the hump – and one last push is all it’s going to take.

This time.

Maybe

But probably not.

The problem isn’t the rock, the problem is the concept we develop that with enough effort anything can be accomplished. After all, wouldn’t I be contradicting my earlier post if I said otherwise?

Let’s go tactile again. Let’s talk about sunk cost fallacy. While the discussion around the proto-typical movie ticket might focus on cost already invested, and not letting the investment go to waste, note that the bottom line comes down to not making the investment when it’s already clear that any further investment isn’t going to lead to a desired outcome.

This is where your objective contrarian is going to come in handy again. In this particular case, everyone thinks that with just a little more investment, the desired outcome can be achieved – because the last 2, 4 or 8 rounds of investment made a difference? Here too is where the objective comes into play. We are certainly not saying that the objective is impossible – there is, after all, no such thing.  What we are saying is that something is amiss and needs to be addressed before the desired outcomes have a chance to be achieved.  Perhaps the problem is too abstract, perhaps we’re trying to solve the wrong problem.  For example, in an attempt to rationalize two different scheduling systems, the problem might not be the integration, the problem may lay in how the business operates that impedes two units, and their systems, to cleanly integrate. The solution then stats with business operations, not technology. Automating incoherent systems leads to incoherent outcomes.

So … why are you still carrying that rock?

The Objective Contrarian, Part 1

You’re busy, I’m busy, but let me bend your ear about objective contrarianism for a moment.

Right after I got my dogs, I had to replace my dilapidated, falling over dead wooden fence with something a bit more resilient and complete. In one corner of the yard, this necessitated cutting down some bushes, a bit of stump grinding and generally leaving a significant quarter of the yard as a dirt box. Not a sand box, a dirt box.

This became a problem when my dogs decided it would be great fun to play in the dirt, as dogs are naturally wont to do – and bring in all sorts of grit that got everywhere.

Now everyone I spoke to from friends and neighbors to outfits that sprayed down yards all pretty much concluded the same thing. The dirt patch would expand as the dogs played around in it and eventually, I would be looking at an unintentional zero scaping of my back yard into the dark side of the moon. It could not be helped.

Well. I love hearing those words. Because I love being the objective contrarian – especially when everyone thinks it cannot be fixed. I sectioned that corner off with a high chain fence, got a crew in to spray the yard with fertilizer but asked them not to specifically seed that section. That would have been easy.

Being blessed with sunshine and rain here in Florida – well, you should see the yard now. Green, lush grass and no more dirt being tracked in the house, except when my dogs decide to get adventurous and dig after some random Florida critter or another.

So now to the moral of the story, which, as Alice’s Duchess would say, “everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”

Conventional wisdom is anything but and quite often particularly inappropriate when deployed to problems which have preconceived outcomes. Part “hold my beer” and part Samwise Gamgee your objective contrarian is one who is going to still try to resolve an outcome for a greater good when everyone else has decided that even Sisyphus would weep at the thought. There is an objective, an achievable objective in their mind – and a plan, which sometimes seems too obvious to work, which they will make work – and not through sheer stubborn, heads-down grit. No, the objective contrarian is going to work smarter, fail faster and get to that greater good.

Let us make the example more tactile. Enterprise integration problems have always been a bit of a hydra everyone would just rather let Heracles deal with. Well. We are fresh out of Heracles’. Cleaned right on out. At its most basic, it’s a question of zero’s and one’s – and if you’ve got access to those bits, you’ve got a workable start to integration. Yes, some of the logic can get really squirrelly, but invariably you’re going to be able to build up to that solution.  If ever you think, or more likely are being told by a vendor, that an integration will not work – just ask the objective contrarian.

The answer invariably will be – “hold my beer …”