Three Productivity Tips

Productivity tips I learned from Alan Weiss (@BentleyGTCSpeed):


1. Get a paper calendar planner that shows each month at a glance.


2. Forget work-life balance,use calendar to track both work/personal.


3. Don't make to-do list—treat tasks as appointments & schedule on calendar.

Ikea's Ingvar Kamprad and Simplicity

Ikea's late founder knew the value of simplicity in business.

A recent WSJ obituary mentioned that he resisted pressure to tailor the company's products for each local market, because "that would have added complexity and raised prices."

Future AI Technology Neither Panacea Nor Threat

I contributed to this "Society for the Advancement of Consulting" Press Release:

https://www.expertclick.com/NewsRelease/Future-AI-Technology-Neither-Panacea-Nor-Threat,2018153611.aspx

Ease, A Slower Pace, Less Chaos

People today are thirsty for ease, a slower pace, and less chaos.  I think it's a reaction to our times, which I called the "Attention Scarcity Age". We have left the Information Age. Now, we are drowning in information and big data. We tweet in sound bites and rush around, always on call. This is one of the reasons that Strategic Simplicity® is so important for businesses today. Your customers, employees, and suppliers are all overworked and overwhelmed. You are fighting to attract their attention and loyalty. One of the best ways is through incorporating simplicity throughout your business. I help my clients with 4 types of simplicity: change simplicity, market simplicity, decision simplicity, and user simplicity.

The Hard Truth of Becoming an Entrepreneur

As the owner of a solo consulting firm, I'm an entrepreneur myself and also work with other small businesses.  As I learned from my mentor Alan Weiss, the hard truth about being an entrepreneur is that, no matter what product or service you provide, your main business is marketing (not sales).

Especially for services, cold calling doesn't really work, since we are in the Attention Scarcity Age.  People are bombarded with pitches, emails, social media posts, etc.  

Somehow, entrepreneurs need to break out of the noise and attract prospects to come to them.  The insidious thing is that this issue doesn't manifest itself right away.  Most entrepreneurs have enough connections that they can attract customers for a year or two.  But, then business starts to dry up and they find that they need to attract people outside their circle.

This is the hard truth of entrepreneurship: either build a pipeline to keep providing prospects, or else suffer feast or famine.

Think Like An Entrepreneur: Continuing Education and Reinvention

What I love best about being an entrepreneur is that I control the training budget, and can pay for any training I feel will increase my value to my clients and give me a great ROI.  


When I was in the corporate world, even in management, training was one of the first things that were cut to reduce expenses and I felt that, rather than invest in keeping employee's skills updated, corporations were willing to simply replace them when new skills were needed. 

So, even if you are an employee, in this case it pays to think of yourself as an entrepreneur.  Be willing to invest in yourself, and keep your skills relevant.  

Don't let your career stagnate.   Look for opportunities to reinvent what you do.

Praveen's Strategic Simplicity® Framework

My Strategic Simplicity® framework helps leaders dramatically drive business growth and improvement.


Here are the components:

1. Change Simplicity -  This refers to thinking about a transformation / project as a TV series as opposed to a movie. We should break change into phases, or “micro projects,” that can be implemented iteratively. “Rinse and Repeat,” as the wisdom of the shampoo bottle tells us. This way, we can easily adjust to changing marketplace relevance.

2. Market Simplicity - This is about stating the “Why” of the project as succinctly and clearly as we can, so everyone understands what results we want. It is also about prioritizing, clarifying, and triaging business requirements, so that we focus on only implementing change that is strategic to the business. Transformations and projects are successful when the outcomes are relevant, stated simply, and clearly worded. Many problems occur not because of technical issues, but because of communication issues.

3. Decision Simplicity - Having to make decisions based on ambiguity and/or having too many options results in paralysis by analysis. We need to narrow choices and filter information in a way that allows apple-to-apple comparisons. All through the project—from strategy through implementation– we need to be able to synthesize information to make timely, informative decisions.

4. User Simplicity  - Most companies are aware of the need for positive user experiences for their customers, but they neglect their “internal customers” (employees). Many technology companies have employees straining to be productive on internal systems with clunky interfaces that they would never sell to their customers. Timely implementation success depends on teams being able to work effectively, without having to deal with unessential road blocks.