The Happy Burro

It is Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada today (and probably a few other countries that I am unaware of).

This typically means a turkey dinner with family and friends if you’re lucky.  And living in the USA, many of us are lucky, by comparison to others.

What are you Thankful for?

Think this one through.  Are you thankful you have a job?  Are you thankful you received a decent severance when you were laid off so you could re-group and find something better? What about the neighbor who shoveled your walk during the last ice storm? Or the colleague who always has a kind word and a ‘hello’ for you – not knowing how that moment energized your entire day. Are you thankful your dog doesn’t bite you when you feed it?  Thanks doesn’t need to be big, small, poignant or touching to anyone but you.  What are you thankful for?

Tell It Loud and Proud

Thanksgiving is an opportunity to be thankful we’re here today.  Maybe yesterday wasn’t great, and tomorrow could be looking bleak, but we have a chance to sit still for a moment and count our blessings, many or few.

The key is to tell about what we’re thankful for.  If you’re thankful for your job, tell your boss.  If you’re thankful for reconnecting with a friend, tell them!  Thankful for the coffee your spouse leaves for you in the morning?  Try telling him/her with a ‘thanks’!  Even the family dog – tell him/her that you appreciate the tail wags at all hours of the day or night.

I am thankful for the beautiful daughter my wife carried for nine months and delivered this past July.  I am off right now to tell them both how thankful I am!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Joe Raasch :: Nov.27.2008 :: Life, Personal :: 1 Comment »

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

- Winston Churchill

Joe Raasch :: Nov.21.2008 :: Leadership, Life :: No Comments »

Times are tough all over. Your budget rarely gets increased. Your fixed expenses are going up. As a manager, you have more daily priorities than you have people or time to accomplish them. And then you get one more request, urgent, from the ‘top’. How do you balance all this while ensuring you are prepared for the coming year and another budget reduction?

1. Be the best. Whatever your job, do it like Michelangelo carved marble. Do your work so well that those before you, those that work with you, and those that come after you must pause and say, “There lived a great manager.”(from Martin Luther King Jr.).
2. Return on Talent. Now is not the time to back off on performance appraisals, rigorous and disciplined hiring, or rewarding your best people. You need the right people, in the right jobs – right now.
3. Innovate. Sacrificing the future to live through the present? That will not work for long. Reward new ideas in the area of continuous improvement – thus keeping alive the entrepreneurial spirit of your team.
4. Continuous Improvement. Get better at what you’re already good at. Your work will suffer if you don’t take time to ‘sharpen the saw.’
5. Strategic Quitting. ala Seth Godin and The Dip. You didn’t get to be a manager by doing everything. You chose to systematically quit doing some things so that you could be the best at others.
6. Resource the vital few. With a limited budget, you cannot give resources to everything. What are the critical drivers to success in the near term and longer term for your organization? Focus on these areas first.
7. Celebrate success. Even going a month with no one in the department getting sick could be a good time to cheer!
8. Involve everyone. Let your team help figure out how best to deal with the budget issues your organization is facing. Don’t work alone.
9. Rest. Take one day a week and do not work. Seriously – no BlackBerry, no email, no files, no papers. Give your brain a break. You’ll get more done in six days than seven in most cases. Resting is that powerful.
10. Stop Perfection. Don’t try to ensure everything is 100% perfect. Sure, you cannot waver from policy or law. What about other outputs? Does your demand of perfection end up with a 5% better product and a 45% drop in morale? Think about it. Not everything has to be perfect.

What do you do in your organization as a manager to contribute to the bottom line in tough times?

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(re-post from April 2008)

Joe Raasch :: Nov.14.2008 :: Innovation, Leadership :: 4 Comments »