Shedding
A basic tenet of our Evergreen Leadership Approach is the concept of “shedding”. If you feel your load is heavy, here are suggestions on some things you might shed.
A basic tenet of our Evergreen Leadership Approach is the concept of “shedding”. If you feel your load is heavy, here are suggestions on some things you might shed.
Music, we are told, is only music because of the small gaps of silence between the notes. The pauses that
Turbulence creates an enormous amount of energy. Just think of the force of the tornado or water in rapids or
Develop 21st Century Leaders In today’s organizations, leaders are needed at all levels. From emerging leaders all the way to
Common wisdom advises us to “ask a busy person” when you have something that needs done. I’m not sure if this is because busy people have a way to get organized and just get things done or if it is because really busy people have not mastered the art of saying no.
Either way, as a busy person, I find myself asked to take on a variety of roles, tasks, and causes. More often than not, I say yes.
At times the yes serves me well. I do good work, enjoy the work I do, and meet amazing people. And at other times, the yes undermines my focus, well-being, and energy.
So, when the need arose to teach a group how to “say no gracefully” – I said YES! Because like usual, I knew that by teaching, I might learn. And indeed, that is the case.
Let me share some of the highlights of the retreat workshop and a few of the techniques, for I suspect I am not the only one who says yes too often.
Become a Better Leader The path to becoming an Evergreen Leader evolves over time – with focus, practice and learning.
The idea of having less, doing less, and managing less, runs contrary to our consumer-based market economy. Yet as Henry David Thoreau discovered at Walden Pond, it can be a marvelous thing. It can free us up for more important things. To relax. To breathe. To do the things that really matter.
Yet many of us just don’t know what to shed or how to begin. We’ve fine-tuned and socially encouraged our “more” mentality – and spent scant energy on the reverse. So in today’s post I’m providing you some specific thought starters in four categories you might consider shedding. This is not an all-inclusive list, but merely a start. I’m only going to hint at the HOW to do this… but know that you’ll find ample on-line details about purging these items from your life.
I’ve listed four categories you might consider: things, tasks, thoughts, and toxic relationships. For each category, I’ve provided three suggestions. That gives you a starting point of 12 places you might begin to shed. …
I don’t need to tell you that things are busy at work. You know it, feel it, live it. There is more work and fewer people to do the work. Your email box has reached its limit. You are continually asked to go faster. You are connected during work, after work, and perhaps on your vacation. You are bombarded with new information, processes, and industry breakthroughs.
No matter your industry, the story is the same. Restructuring, reorganizations, market changes, technology innovations and globalization have resulted in more work to be done by fewer people in shorter time-frames. As a result, many of us relay on three strategies to manage:
WE GO FASTER
We speed up, sometimes to warp speed. We dash between meetings. We charge through our work and personal life at top speed, barely able some days to catch our breath.
WE HUNKER DOWN
We come in early. We stay late. We eat lunch at our desk. Or we skip lunch. We take work home. We continue to find time wherever we can to squeeze in one more thing.
WE FIND PRODUCTIVITY SHORTCUTS
We multi-task. We automate our inbox. We download new apps and implement new technology. We search for ways to shave minutes, and sometimes seconds, from any “to do” list.
Any of these tactics, in the short term, can work. There are days we need to speed things up a bit. There are periods of time where we just need to hunker down and get through a busy patch. And who does not love to find ways to do routine tasks quicker and easier?
Our problem is that we are in a perpetual state of change, speed, and turbulence. No matter how fast we go, we are unable to go fast enough to outrun it. We can only stretch ourselves so thin until we have nothing more to give. None of these three tactics are sustainable over time, especially when just as we speed up, our world does too. …
Think about these three retailers: WALMART, KMART, and TARGET. All discount department stores. All ones that you have likely shopped in at some point. Now, see if you can match the company values with the retailer.
Retailer A
Retailer B
Retailer C
Read on to find the answers… and to explore what value congruence has to do with profitability.
Well, I’ve done it. I always had dreams of writing a book – and today I’m thrilled to announce that it is available on Amazon. It’s taken longer than one would have ever dreamed, been through more edits than I could have imagined and more changes than Indiana weather in spring! But it is here.
So what is it?
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