As a young manager, I was involved in a significant crisis which had the attention of not only the partners in the firm but also its CEO. I, like many of my cohorts, was nervous about the crisis, its impact on our clients, and my employment status at the firm. There was a very senior partner who was tasked by the CEO to assume responsibility for navigating the firm through the crisis. It took us a year to work our way out of the crisis; and we all learned some valuable nuggets. I thought I was a good leader before the crisis. Now I realize how naïve I was in my assessing my leadership skills. That experience, while excruciatingly painful, was an inflection point in putting me on the path to becoming a better leader. As a result of this and other crises I’ve experienced, I’ve learned a number of very valuable tenets that I adhere to when in crisis mode, as follows:
Time and time again I’ve seen crises separate great leaders from merely average leaders. If you want to be one who rises to the top of the leadership heap during a crisis, take note of the following tips:
Hey crises happen. Next time one rears its ugly head be the calmest one in the room and put these leadership actions in place to navigate through the crisis. Lonnie Pacelli along with his wife Patty created the Six-Word Lessons series. He is the author of Six-Word Lessons for Project Managers, Six-Word Lessons to Avoid Project Disaster, and Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids. See more at lonniepacelli.com.
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Recently I wrote an article about creating a sustained lifestyle. In the article I introduced a concept which contrasts achievement (doing something meaningful that accomplishes a desired result which gives you joy) and stress (the degree of mental, physical, or emotional strain undertaken to achieve a desired result). In the model I define four different lifestyles driven by achievements and stress, as follows:
As I’ve thought more about the achievement/stress concept, it’s occurred to me that the push-pull of achievements and stress apply to more than a person’s career or vocation. It can apply to elements such as family relationships, health, and finances. You can have high achievement/low stress in your career, but if you have low achievement/high stress in another area of your life, your overall contentment level is adversely impacted. It’s not enough to manage achievement and stress only in your career or vocation; it needs to be managed in other areas of your life as well. Given so, I adapted the good-enough contentment model I created for my Behind Gold Doors-Nine Crucial Elements to Achieve Good-Enough Contentment book to include achievement and stress as driving factors. I tested the model on myself (I ate my own dogfood as we like to say at Microsoft) and was surprised at the clarity I found in defining what good-enough contentment means to me. So, here’s the revised model, explained step-by-step:
As you work through this model there are a few considerations for you to ponder:
Maximizing achievement and minimizing stress across your life is critical to achieving good-enough contentment. Take some time to download the model and go through the exercise. Comment below with your thoughts! Lonnie Pacelli along with his wife Patty created the Six-Word Lessons series. He is the author of Six-Word Lessons for Project Managers, Six-Word Lessons to Avoid Project Disaster, and Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids. See more at lonniepacelli.com. In 2004, I left Microsoft so Patty and I could homeschool our son Trevor. He was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at age five, and we decided as he was entering seventh grade that he would need more help than what his public school could offer. I was his math and science teacher for two years until he re-entered public school in ninth grade. After my homeschooling stint, I decided to focus on writing and consulting, and later Patty and I starting a publishing business. From that point until now, I have regularly been asked if I’m “retired.” At first, I would respond with a strong “no” due to my opinion that retirees spend their days on the golf course or playing bridge. Over time, though, I recognized I had to come up with a better description of what I do as a profession. It’s not a choice of either the golf course or the 8-to-5 grind. For me, it’s something I call sustained lifestyle. So, what’s sustained lifestyle? Here’s the definition, then we’ll unpack it: Sustained lifestyle is when you have a high sense of achievement accompanied by a low degree of stress, making it something you can sustain for a long time. First let’s talk about achievement. This is about doing something meaningful that accomplishes a desired result which gives you joy. It could be delivering a project on time, helping people in need, or coaching lesser experienced professionals. It’s about getting something done that matters to you and seeing the fruits of your labor. Next is stress. This is the degree of mental, physical or emotional strain undertaken to achieve a desired result. Delivering a project on time with high-pressure executive meetings, project team infighting, and an unreasonable customer is much more taxing than one with cooperative execs, project team members, and customers. The end result is a completed project, but the execution was like pedaling uphill in tenth gear. When stress and achievement are combined in the context of lifestyle, one of the four results are realized: A frustration lifestyle is the result of high stress accompanied by low achievement. Think burning the midnight oil on projects that get cancelled last-minute or never used. A boredom lifestyle is the result of low stress accompanied by low achievement. Think getting up every morning with nothing to do. A burnout lifestyle is the result of high stress accompanied by high achievement. Think successive strategic projects with demanding customers, a dysfunctional team, and irrational management. A sustained lifestyle is the result of low stress accompanied by high achievement. Think volunteering for a cause you’re passionate about on your work terms. Now don’t get me wrong; I’m in no way saying that a sustained lifestyle means no stress. There are certainly things in life that crop up and cause great stress. However, a sustained lifestyle gives you margin to handle unexpected stress more effectively than if your stress bucket were already full. Here are eight tips to create a sustained lifestyle that’s enjoyable and fulfilling for you:
Lonnie Pacelli along with his wife Patty created the Six-Word Lessons series. He is the author of Six-Word Lessons for Project Managers, Six-Word Lessons to Avoid Project Disaster, and Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids. See more at lonniepacelli.com. This one is a bit of a departure from my typical article topics. Recently I wrote a book about what I call “good-enough contentment.” It’s an allegory about a forty-something man who is unhappy with his life. After a magical train ride, he learns to define what contentment means in nine areas of his life: career, family, health, friendships, finances, leisure, spirituality, giving, and legacy. Writing the story caused me to look back at my own life--the things I did well and the many mistakes I made. It inspired me to write about nine nuggets that I wish I could go back in time to tell my younger self. Some I would have done the same all over again, others radically different. All, however, are worth putting down in writing to spur your thinking about things you need to start, stop, or continue. Here they are: Career: Your career can’t take the place of family, health, leisure, and friendships – In the movie The Family Man, Nicholas Cage’s character is a hard-charging investment banker who gets to see what his life would have been like as a middle-class husband and father. He comes to realize that there’s much more to life than business. By all means, continue to vigorously pursue your career aspirations, but not at the expense of other important areas of your life. Family: Don’t squander memories – My father worked very hard as a baker; so much so that he missed out on many family events. In his last years he told me how he regretted missing so many events and milestones with my five siblings and me. Don’t look back on your life regretting not being there for the memory makers. Health: If you don’t decide to take care of yourself, the decision will be made for you – I had an emotional breakdown at age 30 due to running myself ragged both mentally and physically. I thought I could just keep pushing and tough things out. Wrong. I had no choice but to stop and make some changes to get myself healthy again. If you don’t focus on taking care of your health, something out of your control will happen to force you into action. Friendships: Have a couple of friends who would help you out at 2 am, no questions asked – Recently I was on vacation when a tenant in our rental property called and said the washing machine wasn’t working. I was 3,000 miles away and couldn’t get there, so I called a dear friend who was at the rental in 30 minutes and addressed the problem. Having a couple of close friends you can rely on to help you out of a jam is worth gold. Being someone your friend can rely on is just as important. Finances: No one cares about your finances more than you – When I graduated from college, I bought three books on investing. Those books formed the foundation for my investing discipline. At times, though, I let others who didn’t have my best interests at heart manage investments on my behalf. Now I manage every dollar myself and keep current on investment strategies. Putting your money in the hands of a paid advisor will ensure bread is put on his or her table along with your money. Do as much of this on your own as you can. Leisure: Work/life balance means slowing down, not speeding up – I’ve known way too many people who worked 60+ hours during the week only to cram “life” activities in the weekend. They had work/life balance, but it was achieved by running 100 miles per hour. Leisure time should include time to relax and recharge, so use at least some of it to rest, and be careful about trying to fit too many things into your life. Spirituality: Walk the talk on your beliefs – Whatever your spiritual beliefs (mine are Christian), don’t be a Jekyll and Hyde in what you say and what you do. Cursing up a storm in meetings during the work week then heading into church on Sunday just doesn’t square. It’s not about judging your belief system; it’s more about ensuring your actions align to your beliefs. Giving: Give out of love, not out of convenience or obligation – My son loves to cook. He regularly volunteers to cook and deliver meals to families in need. He loves to give of his time and money to help families who need a hot meal enjoy his cooking. The quantity and type of giving is up to you, just do it out of love and enjoy the gratification you get in return. Legacy: Live to your eulogy – A number of years ago I created a personal purpose statement. After a lot of soul searching, I came up with: I will work to help others to help themselves and not simply enable them. When I die, I want people to say three words at my funeral: He helped me. If you have a personal purpose or mission statement, live it. If you don’t have one, a book like The Purpose Driven Life might be helpful. My hope is that you, my readers, might be able to glean something from my nine life lessons. If I help you do or think differently about some aspect of your life, then mission accomplished. Thank you for helping me live out my purpose statement. Lonnie Pacelli along with his wife Patty created the Six-Word Lessons series. He is the author of Six-Word Lessons for Project Managers, Six-Word Lessons to Avoid Project Disaster, and Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids. See more at lonniepacelli.com. Do you ever glance at the clock just before 5pm when the workday has almost come to an end and ask yourself, “what did I accomplish today?” Are there days when you feel like you just couldn’t accomplish anything on your “to do” list? One thing we recommend to our clients in this situation is to use a time log to track how they spend their time. You can create your own time log by creating a spreadsheet that has the time you start your workday to the time you end your workday. Not an Excel wiz? No worries, this exercise can be accomplished just as easily by taking out a piece of paper and writing time slots down the left hand side. We recommend using 15 minute increments. Next to the window of time, write down what you worked on or did. For example, write down what you did from 9am to 9:15am, 9:15am to 9:30am, etc. Did you check your email, talk on the phone, talk with a co-worker, work on a project, file, surf the internet, etc.? Block off some time on your calendar right now to create a time log. Once your time log has been created, make it a priority to keep track of your daily activities for the next few days. Be brutally honest about how you spend your time; remember, this is only for your benefit. Keep your log close by so that it is easy to update throughout the day. The purpose of this log is to raise your awareness about how you currently spend your time. Once you have a few typical days worth of your time logged, take some time to review it. You may be surprised to see where your time goes. Check back for our next blog post on how to review and analyze your time log. Don’t want to create your own time log? We’ve created one for you and its included in our current package special, “A Shot of Time Management “. You’ll get a one hour consultation, a time log, our book, Six-Word Lessons to be More Productive and two 15 minute follow up calls to help you analyze your log and create an action plan for change. Contact us today to book your package. Debbie Rosemont is a Certified Professional Organizer, Productivity Consultant and Trainer and Owner of Simply Placed. Simply Placed teaches organized systems and productive habits that allow busy professionals to maximize their time, focus on their priorities, reduce stress, improve their customer service and increase their bottom line. She is the author of Six-Word Lessons to Be More Productive. What is accountability? Accountability is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “the quality or state of being accountable; an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility for one’s actions.” Accountability is a willingness to accept responsibility for our own actions. The benefits of an accountability partner Motivation helps get you started, but in order to stay on track and sustain the results, you need an accountability partner! When we commit to something to another person, we are much more likely to follow through. Studies show that if you have an accountability partner, you’re 65% more likely to compete a task and you’ll increase your chance of success by up to 95%! Do you have someone to help you keep your goals moving forward? If not, you would be surprised to learn how motivating and powerful it is to be accountable to someone. Once you choose your partner, here are a few ways to get started:
Sharing your goals with someone else creates a lot more energy and momentum to follow through, keep at it, and work through challenges. An accountability partner is a highly effective way to increase your productivity – personally and professionally. If you don’t already have an accountability partner, think about someone you could ask. Because this is a two-way relationship (in return, you hold them accountable for what they’re working on), it’s a win for them as well. Accountability in action In February, our “It’s About Time” virtual productivity program will focus on Accountability in Action. Participants will learn how accountability works as a productivity strategy, how to choose a partner to hold them accountable, structure the relationship, conduct check-ins and much more. If you could benefit from this, or other productivity strategies, we’d love to have you join our group! Are there other productivity challenges you’d like to overcome? Do you need an accountability partner that won’t let you fail? We play that role with our Six-Month Productivity Transformation Package clients. It’s a valuable part of the program that leads to results. Schedule a free discovery call and let us help you make this your most productive year, personally and professionally. With accountability, you will stay on track and sustain the results! Debbie Rosemont is a Certified Professional Organizer, Productivity Consultant and Trainer and Owner of Simply Placed. Simply Placed teaches organized systems and productive habits that allow busy professionals to maximize their time, focus on their priorities, reduce stress, improve their customer service and increase their bottom line. She is the author of Six-Word Lessons to Be More Productive. Is overcoming procrastination a goal you’ve set for your life or work this year? Is there something you’ve been putting off because it seems overwhelming, won’t deliver immediate results or for which you lack clarity? It starts with changing your habits Procrastination is one of the biggest roadblocks to productivity. You can avoid procrastinating on something that is important to you by changing your habits and making it a priority. While that sounds like common sense, there are several strategies you can use to establish more productive habits and overcome tendencies to put things off. Here are a few things to try:
This month in our “It’s About Time” virtual productivity group, our topic is “What Are You Waiting For?” If this a question that resonates with you, we can also help you learn valuable strategies that will help you get “unstuck”, overcome procrastination and get priority work done. Could you use some help overcoming procrastination? We work every day with private clients in productivity coaching sessions to identify their goals, remove barriers and time wasters, planning and prioritizing their time and creating effective systems so that they accomplish what they want, with less stress, and have more time for what matters most to them. Are there productivity challenges you’d like to resolve? Schedule a free Discovery Call today and let us help you tackle what is holding you back. Next time you feel there is something you are procrastinating on, take the first step – just a small one. The momentum you will gain from that will propel you forward toward your goal. Debbie Rosemont is a Certified Professional Organizer, Productivity Consultant and Trainer and Owner of Simply Placed. Simply Placed teaches organized systems and productive habits that allow busy professionals to maximize their time, focus on their priorities, reduce stress, improve their customer service and increase their bottom line. She is the author of Six-Word Lessons to Be More Productive. A LinkedIn interaction from some time back still sticks with me today. Why? He and I connected, then he immediately asked to review my personal finances so he could do for me what he had allegedly done for so many other “thrilled customers.” I told him “No thanks.” He replied back asking me why. Being the direct guy I am, I told him I thought it was insincere to connect with me and immediately want to review my personal finances and try to sell me on his service. He said he never asked me to send my personal finances through LinkedIn. At this point, the discussion was no longer about him trying to sell me a service; instead, I wanted to provide a teachable moment for him. I told him that sending personal finances through LinkedIn wasn’t the issue, but I didn’t want to divulge my personal finances to someone I didn’t even know who connected with me only 30 minutes ago. After another couple of interactions, he told me that “nice people” would agree to meet with him (I guess I’m not a nice person) and that he was rescinding his offer to meet (even though I already told him I didn’t want to meet with him). It was kind of like “you can’t break up with me because I’m breaking up with you first”. He then wished me the best. He made an impression on me for sure, just not one he wanted. As of this writing, LinkedIn has over 600 million users and has become a dominant force in connecting people to do business with each other. It has disrupted geographic barriers, so that someone in his basement in Cleveland can do business with someone in Los Angeles, Paris, or Bangalore. It’s also insanely cheap and easy to establish a platform and reach potential customers who 20 years ago would have been out of reach. This low barrier to entry and massive audience potential is fertile ground for ambitious businesspeople (who I refer to as LinkPitchers) to canvass large populations for business. Now I’m in no way telling the ambitious to not pursue business using LinkedIn with all their passion and energy. But there are right and wrong ways to do it. My years of LinkedIn experience have led me to seven fatal errors LinkPitchers make:
By all means use LinkedIn and the powerful tools it can bring to your business. Just keep these seven fatal errors in mind during your next LinkPitching expedition. Lonnie Pacelli along with his wife Patty created the Six-Word Lessons series. He is the author of Six-Word Lessons for Project Managers, Six-Word Lessons to Avoid Project Disaster, and Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids. See more at lonniepacelli.com.
Typically, career choices are made based upon responsibilities, compensation, or prestige where a businessperson makes a change to get a higher salary, more responsibility, or greater prestige. What about the situation, though, where the driver behind a career choice isn’t any of these; where it’s the needs of a child that drive the change? My choice was precisely that.
Trevor was a happy, normal, active baby. He was able to laugh, coo, cry, and do all of the other normal things that his big sister, Briana did at that age. To my wife Patty and me, everything seemed to be just fine. At about age two, we noticed that Trevor was hardly saying any words and was very into his own world with puzzles, coloring, and videos.
Over the next couple of years, we took him to a speech therapist to help him with his language and also enrolled him in a special-needs preschool. During this time we noticed other peculiar characteristics for a toddler; a strong desire for structure (his preschool teachers called him “Mr. Rigid”), obsessive fixations on various topics, and no real desire to associate with other children. Yet Trevor was very easy in that he would keep himself occupied for hours on end playing by himself and acting out whatever imaginary things he could think of. It was very perplexing to us.
When Trevor was five, we took him to specialists at the Autism Center at the University of Washington who conducted a series of tests to assess speech, cognitive understanding, and relational behaviors. At the end of the assessment, one of the specialists explained that Trevor had Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), a mild form of autism. This was odd to us because we had associated autism with more severe cases (think about Dustin Hoffman in “Rainman”) where speech was limited to non-existent at all and no real interaction between the child and others. Trevor was able to speak and interact but was about two years behind his peers developmentally. The specialist explained that, while Trevor had many characteristics of “normal” children, he saw the world as if peering through a rolled-up newspaper; he had a narrow focus on the world and was inattentive to things that didn’t interest him or how other people perceived him. To give you an example, think of Jack Nicholson in the movie “As Good as it Gets”. His character, Melvin Udall, was a bright, successful author who was obsessed with cleanliness, kept a very rigid schedule, did not walk on sidewalk cracks, and was generally unaware of how he came off to others. Though he wasn’t labeled as such, Melvin could have had PDD-NOS.
In some respects, knowing that Trevor had a milder form of autism was a relief in that he could learn to control his behaviors and be a high-functioning adult. In other respects, though, having a milder form of autism put him in a sort of purgatory when it came to other kids. He didn’t fit in a traditional special-needs category yet he was clearly unique when compared to other children. Had Trevor grown up prior to the 90’s, his actions would have been viewed as a behavioral problem and he would have been labeled a difficult child. The truth is Trevor wasn’t a behavioral problem; he’s just wired differently than normal children.
Trevor’s public elementary school was wonderful in working with him; he qualified for special services and was able to get one-on-one assistance with a special education teacher. While we were very appreciative of the attention the public school system gave him through sixth grade, we grew concerned about his transition to middle school. Through a lot of discussion, we decided the best thing for Trevor was to pull him out of mainstream school in seventh grade and take on a more customized home-school approach. Patty and I decided that, for Trevor to have the best opportunity to succeed, we needed to share the teaching responsibilities. I had spent eleven years at Accenture and was in my ninth year at Microsoft and was very happy with my career. At the same time we also realized the importance of giving Trevor the best possible educational experience to secure his leading a normal adult life. We decided it best for me to leave my secure, full-time job at Microsoft to focus on a new career which gave us more flexibility to tend to Trevor. It was at this same time that I had written a book called The Project Management Advisor which was in process of being published. I had also just started a new business with a colleague. The timing seemed perfect to take the plunge and leave Microsoft to build a new career as an author and entrepreneur around ensuring Trevor was given what he needed to secure a normal, happy adult life.
Immediately I saw great benefit in being more available to my family and in Trevor getting used to me being around more often. I still have tremendous peace with my career choices and focusing on Trevor was far more important than any promotions or accolades I could have received at Microsoft or some other traditional job.
I realize that a choice like the one I made may not always be feasible. We’ve been very blessed in having the financial means and opportunities to make this decision. What I can say, though, is this investment in Trevor’s future will yield a return that is far greater than any return I could be getting in a more traditional career and see this as the smartest career choice I’ve ever made. Read Part 2, 12 years later here.
Lonnie Pacelli along with his wife Patty created the Six-Word Lessons series. He is the author of Six-Word Lessons for Project Managers, Six-Word Lessons to Avoid Project Disaster, and Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids. See more at lonniepacelli.com.
Some time back I was responsible for a portfolio of projects being done within the finance organization of my company. One of the projects was outsourced to a large consulting firm who supplied the project management, analysis, and development resources to the project. I would hold weekly meetings with the project manager who consistently gave me a "thumbs up" on the project up to the first key milestone being hit. When the week of the first milestone approached, he announced that the milestone was going to have to slip by a week to ensure successful delivery. The next week came along and again the project slipped a week. This went on for two more weeks with the promise of "we'll for sure nail it next week." I decided to do some crawling around the project to assess where the project was really at. Turns out we were at least a month away from delivering to the milestone which was already a month late.
Needless to say I was less than thrilled with the consulting firm running the project. They sent out one of their heavyweight project managers to assess the situation. After two hours of reviewing the project he reported back to me that the project had slipped, not due to anything his organization had or hadn't done, but because of things we as the client did to cause the problems. Needless to say I pretty much lost it with him. I then went through the project plan with him and went through each task and peppered him with questions about why his project manager hadn't managed the execution of the project and why we were continuing to get a 'thumbs up" when in fact the project had slipped horribly. After my inquisition he said he'd follow up and get back to me. I'm still waiting. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Despite how pretty a project schedule looks, how clear the organization chart is, or how well articulated the risks and issues are, the most successful projects execute great to a great plan. Solid project management execution means driving the plan, making adjustments as necessary to address unforeseen issues (if you are able to run projects that never have issues email me at lonnie@leadingonedge.com; I'd like to spend a day in your world), and removing roadblocks which can inhibit successful completion. The project manager has to stay steady at the helm making sure these things happen; they won't just happen by themselves. To articulate this a bit more here are three formulas for you to keep in mind:
Planning + Execution = Project Success
Execution - Planning = Randomized Flailing Planning - Execution = Well-Dressed Inertia
Through my experience I've come up with six techniques that can help you as a project manager better ensure project success. While this isn't an exhaustive list of everything you can do, it does highlight some specific areas which can help keep a project from derailing:
Excellent planning coupled with strong execution is crucial to ensuring the success of any project. Subtract planning or execution from a project, and you either get the randomized flailing of a project out of control, or the well-dressed inertia of a good-looking project going nowhere.
Lonnie Pacelli along with his wife Patty created the Six-Word Lessons series. He is the author of Six-Word Lessons for Project Managers, Six-Word Lessons to Avoid Project Disaster, and Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids. See more at lonniepacelli.com.
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