He was caught in viewing the world through the lens of his personal career experience. As a result he’s spent months being frustrated that his team doesn’t prepare for meetings or even do the projects he assigns them in the way he expects.

At last he’s hearing me when I explain they’ve had completely different experiences and models in their work. He’s learning that there’s a higher payoff to actually giving his team an outline of the methods he’d like them to use, than waiting and berating them for not being mind readers.

Ask yourself:

“What process ‘should’ be being used, that no one is understanding?”

Now that you’ve said it, get off your high horse and call a meeting.

It’s time to inspire everyone to do the best work they can. Lay out the process you’d like people to use. Let them know that in 30 days you’ll all sit down together and revisit and refine it so everyone is vested in the success.

This process will ensure you all stay on the same page and your team can deliver to your  collective expectations.

If you’re like most of my clients, you’ve been working to smooth out the kinks in your business. You’ve put your time into systems for streamlining activities and installed processes that make the work flow efficient.

While I was on vacation, I was bobbing along on an inner tube on the resort’s ‘lazy river’. The sun, the flow of the water, the conversation of people around me all had me unwinding and relaxing. And for a kicker, I got to enjoy the periodic 4-foot waves that tore around the curves of the river when the staff turned on the wave machine.

Just like some of the surprises that crop up in business. Fun, interesting, a brief challenge.

After those waves, I noticed all the different ways people were using that river system. The basic experience was the same for everyone: a 15-minute loop around at a constant speed, inner tubes to rest on. What changed were the variables: how people used the water, the river, the flow, the tubes themselves.

I started thinking about the way our businesses can be humming along so steadily that we forget to notice the changes we could make to enliven our workday daylight hours, and even to create High Payoff results for ourselves.

Here are some options taken from the Lazy River:

Using “The Full View”

Are you putting any energy into your business, or just bobbing along?

The basics of riding the river are to plunk your rear down in an inner tube and go with the flow. Just relax, watch the view, use your feet and hands to push off the side walls and change which way you’re facing. No other attention or effort is required.

Have you noticed where you’re facing in your business? Is your attention forward towards your Vision and Goals, or backwards along the path you’ve already traveled? Or spinning back and forth as the currents happen to take you?

Shifting Onto Your Stomach

An alternative is to lie across the tube on your stomach. It’s not as comfortable as it limits your vision and that means you’ll be making apologies to people you’ve accidentally kicked. No one really minds, and it’s actually a great way to meet others. But there’s a limit to how much control you have on the trip and you actually have to stay vigilant in order to prevent your elbow and toe skin being scraped off on the walls.

Are you limiting your own view of what is going on in your business? Are constant ‘bumps’ occurring between people that need apologies? What about with your customers? Are band-aids being used to cover the breakdowns in communication or to fix the errors made due to that limited view of how things are going?

Use Teaming Up

You don’t have to do it all yourself, even in the flow. You’ll spot as many as 5 people in a circle with their feet hooked together drifting along, each person nudging the wall to direct the group as a unit. Other folks will hook together in a chain with one leading the way and choosing which side of the mid-stream islands to use.

Just as that vacationing group is creating rapid teams and adjusting to the flow and obstacles in the river, so you need to review if your business teams are using the best configuration. Are people on the watch for opportunities and obstacles in their path? Are decisions being made as rapidly and effectively as they could be? How might your teams improve your business flow?

Loose the Tube

Not everyone in that river is on a tube! Some are walking along towing the tube. Others are chasing it or even walking and diving with no tube in sight. At least half of the children are having a blast chasing each other, enjoying the speed of their swim in the current, or even just practicing floating along.

When was the last time you stood back and took a fresh look at your business, its processes and activities and asked yourself “Is this the only way to get this accomplished?” You may find yourself towing old tubes you don’t actually need  any longer, or a new way to use your time, intelligence and energy that will open new business opportunities and growth.

Walk Against the Flow

Just because everyone else is using the tube and traveling where the current leads them doesn’t mean you have to! Not only are kids hopping off the tube and adventuring in the waters, you’ll spot me and others deliberately walking against the flow. We’re using the constant predictable dynamics of the river to create a different result: sweat free aerobic and resistance work outs by walking against the flow.

Take a Lazy River Lesson. Shift your view from the day-to-day play in your business and market to ask “What might we create if we turn our business, our products, our services on their heads?”

That’s not the reality when it comes to ‘solution’ providers. Aggravate a prospective client and they won’t bother to return your calls when it’s time to sign the contract. Make it complicated for a client to work with you, and they’ll decide that next phase of work “isn’t that important right now.”

So take a frank look at the way you have complicated either your communications with your client or the work itself. Ask yourself:

“What activities am I using that could be simplified?”

Right them all down. Then prioritize them from “simplest to fix” to “most complicated to redesign”.

Once you’ve completed your list, create an action plan to solve the activity at the top of your list this very week. Your clients will love you for it!

Let me know the results you create!

This past week I spotted a trend among my clients. You might call it the ‘dash’… everyone is sprinting to prove they’re making changes in their business’s productivity as if that is a badge to earn all by itself.

And too often they are speeding down a track that is taking them to actions and solutions that will cost a lot of time and money and not even solve the issue at hand.

You may be caught in the same sense of urgency, starting an unnecessary race. So I thought I’d share the steps I use with my clients to get them focused at the right pace so that they get the full result they’re hoping for to grow their business.

Step 1 – Define The True Issue

One of my largest clients asked me to sit in during the first presentation by a tech team to address improving the Customer Services function at their company. Sure enough, the team ‘presented’ the issue by quoting back 35 interviewees’ concerns and then went straight into the proposed solution. Fortunately the COO paused the conversation and identified that he hadn’t heard the actual ‘need’ for which the proposed project was a solution.

Make sure you’ve defined exactly what is being ‘fixed’ and be sure the users of the solution are at the table defining what is needed.

Step 2 – Research the Options for Solutions

We all fall in love with our area of expertise. And the tech team members showed it clearly. They were proposing ‘web based’ technology and mega databases to gather all the interactions with clients… and they completely neglected the more familiar automated phone options and even email exchanges. Not to mention the non-tech solutions that could be created by realigning customer service personnel roles.

Take the time to flush out at least three options and run those ideas past the potential users to see if you’re staying on track.

Step 3 – Check that the Solution Matches Your Business Model

For this particular client, the end user will never be the person contacting Customer Service. Their distributors are the ones who will report issues and 20% of them are not computer users. That doesn’t mean they might not find technology solutions useful, but it won’t be sitting at their desk. They need solutions they can use when they are standing on site at a client, or get a phone call while driving between appointments.

All the technology in the world won’t solve your key challenge: make it easy for your customers to communicate with you the way they are ready to today. OR make it even easier!

Step 4 – Double Check That The Solution Works ‘Inside’ AND ‘Outside’

Not only does my client need to make it easy for their customers to be heard and responded to… They also need to capture the information so they can check internally to identify trends in their products and services and decide what may need to be redesigned. The tech team will need to design a system for gathering information easily, and passing it to those who need to know immediately, and summarizing it in reports for periodic trends analysis. At each stage, the information may look very different to each audience.

Sort out how you’ll store information over time so that you can be sure it serves improving your customer’s experience AND your own organization’s performance.

Step 5 – Design How You’ll Test And Adjust The Solution

Just like a rubber band springing back into place, changes in systems and people’s behavior can melt away when you assume it will all come together as needed. Nothing takes you off track more predictably than designing and instituting changes and then walking away from the project. Never assume the ‘design’ is the solution.

Before you invest time and money in permanently changing processes, and policies, and roles and responsibilities test the proposed system with all the users.

Commit to the project’s long-term success by assigning responsibility for testing your chosen solution and evaluating how it’s working… AND commit to adapting it as you learn what is working well and what needs to be tweaked.

Step 6 – Test And Adjust, Test And Adjust

My client is bringing together a task force of six disciplines to talk through all of the steps above. They’ll be guiding the tech team’s focus to be sure it meets all the users needs and stays on track with the Issue identified back in Step 1.

Now it’s your turn on the track.

Start with asking yourself:

“What 2 or 3 criteria must this decision meet?”

Now create a list of 10 possible criteria and then select the key criteria you’ll hold yourself to. Then evaluate the decision against those criteria. You may see that you need additional information, or you might just have everything you need. And you’ll be through that stalled stage and ready for action in minutes instead of months!

What single thing will I absolutely get “DONE” today?”

Write it down.

Now write down 3 items you’ll take off today’s calendar so you can keep your focus. Take those items and delegate, dump, or time block them so they’re off your To Do list and you can celebrate what you got DONE today and the rest of the week. Ta Da!

You’ve got dreams and you’ve got your attention on what it takes to achieve them. You’re ready to roll up your sleeves and eager to start producing massive results.

The problem is, you’re dragging. You put in tons of hours, your desk is piled with papers, and no matter how hard you work, you’re plagued by a To-Do list a mile long and growing. You’re constantly busy yet you get to the end of each week before you get to the end of your list.

Important things fall through the cracks. In fact you’re feeling frustrated, drained and overwhelmed. And you’re doubting what you’ve actually accomplished.

I started coaching this month with two new business leaders and that’s exactly what they were facing, every day. They were wondering how they’ll ever achieve their big goals when they can’t seem to dig themselves out from under their avalanche of tasks and ‘have to get done’s’.

So I gave them a To Do list Makeover. We turned that time and energy sucking list of “To Do’s” into “Ta Da’s!” they can smile about. And you can use it too!

So what’s a Ta Da! List?

Have you ever noticed that your To Do List is a never-ending list of everything you think you should be doing?

We’re all so adept at creating lists of things that need doing. But not all items are created equal—some are simple items to get done, others take major effort. As a result your To Do list is full of busy work all mixed in with the important stuff and even the urgent and critical things your success depends on.

A Ta-Da! list is results focused. It’s a list of High Payoff tasks, that when completed have immediate impact on your results and success. Completing items on your Ta-Da! List results that in energy focuses you and each next effort on accomplishments.

A Ta Da! List is a declaration of what you are committed to getting done. And that means getting it done in the most effective way possible.

Here is a 5 step plan to tame that To Do list:

Step #1: Declare Your Top 3 Priorities.

Your Ta-Da! List needs a clear focus. Every day, start a fresh list with your 3 most important projects or priorities. Don’t let your High Payoff Activities get buried – keep everything else off this list. Clearly focus on the 3 priorities that must get done, no matter what else happens. Let this focus your actions.

Step #2: Dump The Lowest Priority Items.

If everything is equally important then nothing really is. Take a fresh, honest look at your To Do list. Now filter your list for the things that you dream of getting done ‘someday’ and write them down on a separate piece of paper – out of your sight, permanently. Ask yourself “What items on my list fall in the ‘great idea’ category but have very little payoff if I do them? What items have absolutely no consequence if I DON’T do them?” If you’re finding “shoulds” that you keep stalling on because they aren’t aligned with your top priorities, cross them off and be done with them.

Step #3: Delegate. Delegate. Delegate.

Identify anything and everything that must get done, yet could be done by someone else. That means handing it to someone and overseeing their accomplishing it so you stop being the ‘only one’ who could get it done. I teach my clients to use the “If I Ran off to Fiji Test”. If you decided to catch a plane tomorrow, and it still needed to get done, who ought to have it on their list? If you’re concerned it won’t get done to your standards, set-up a formal hand off with a ‘check in’ dates and times to review progress and provide input. But commit to letting someone else handle it all the way to completion.

Step #4: Pencil Out The Week.

Take another look through your list. If there’s anything on your list that doesn’t have to be completed today, but does need to be completed within the next 7 days, pencil it onto the appropriate days. Just knowing you’ve created a time and space for them will free you up to focus on other, more important, priorities right here and right now.

Step #5: Time Block The Rest.

All that should be left on your list are those items that (a) must be done today, (b) are linked to a top priority item and (c) must be done by you and only you. You may want to break them into 45-minute blocks of time, alternating with 15-minute breaks, so you know you’ll accomplish them and also give attention to quick fix items that crop up. Write those blocks of time in your calendar.

And anything else that crops up during your day? Take them through steps 1 through five and get your attention back on your declared focus for the day!

That’s it. 5 simple steps to create your Ta-Da! List. Watch how much more focused and productive you are.

“What is a single obstacle that held me back from my goal last year?”

Write it down.

Now write down 3 steps you’ll take this week to redefine it, erase it, or get a coach to help you see a path around it so it won’t hang you up this year.

Are you staring at your calendar, musing over last year’s results, and wondering what IS the way to get started in really creating the business of your dreams?

We’ve all had that moment of scratching our head and feeling stuck. The moment, maybe hours, when we know we need to sit down and put our plans in writing. To make a couple of commitments to ourselves so we keep them in action, but we can’t get the picture in focus at all.

I kicked off my work with a new coaching client last week. Mike is looking at the next step in his career ladder. I posed lots of questions. He laid out for me his idea of where he wants to go, how long he’s wanted it… and then… there was a long silence.

A silence marked by the sounds coming from the other side of the office door.

A silence triggered by my question to him, “What have you tried so far?”

And then he said it. The painful admission uttered by most people with an idea that’s languished…

“Not much. I’ve thought about it a lot. But, what do I first?”

Mike thought that was his stalling point. Not knowing what to do. Is this where you’ve been stalling out too?

To get to that answer you have to ask the right questions.

Every single business starts from an idea. Every advancement in a profession is launched by a personal opinion or belief, or a specific realization of a possible way of being in the world.

While it’s a vital part of the process of creating a business, your “idea” is NOT your business. Ideas amount to nothing IF they never go beyond the thought. And from thought into action.

More often than not, business owners and professionals get so taken with their “idea” they fail to move forward. Like Mike, they get caught in a tug of war they cannot even name – wanting to move forward while being diverted and held back. They stall out because they miss the 4 simple steps that create a clear path to achieving that vision.

To make sure YOU don’t ever stall out with your “idea” you have to do first things first:

1) Define Your Vision – This is what all of your efforts and energy in this business will create. Your answer to this question is what gives your idea juice. In order for your answer to anchor your efforts it must be very specific.

The Vision for Your High Payoff Catalyst: To help 1,000s of entrepreneurs and business owners become successful faster and easier than they ever imagined.

2) Sort Out Your Resources – This is taking stock of all that you bring to achieving your Vision at this specific moment. Your answers to this question help you clearly see what you already have to assist you in making your business “idea” solid.

They should include: your skill set, your knowledge, your aptitude, where you came from, where you’re at now, what you have in your kit bag to make your idea a reality.

Your High Payoff Catalyst resources include some pretty unique skills, proven experience, relevant contacts and a 20-plus year track record of systematically helping hundreds of professionals and business leaders learn simple step-by-step processes that get them from “idea” to “action” to “results.”

3) Sort Out Your Challenges – This is taking stock of all that you know might delay you achieving your Vision. Your answers to this question help you to clearly see what you need to solve first. When we’re facing obstacles rather than our resources our time and attention is constantly diverted. It’s like carrying a 200-pound backpack with us on a hike.

This includes your own doubts, fears, limiting beliefs, and even old habits that work against what is wanted and needed to get to that goal. My Challenge? Getting beyond wanting every single step laid out before I start my journey.

4) Systematically Work BOTH Lists – This is giving deliberate attention to removing your obstacles at the same pace as you are using your resources. Each obstacle that you clear out of your path accelerates the success of each resource you use. And the lighter your load, the quicker your progress on your path.

Mike and I will be working on these two fronts at the same time: clearing out his limiting beliefs about how hard it will be to prove himself to his boss, and using new techniques to increase his personal productivity in the role he’s asking to step into.

To make progress to your goal, you need to simultaneously work two parallel tracks. When you recover your attention from your obstacles, you’ll easily know what is each next step to take. It will be staring right at you.

It may be to get closer to your goals, to become more expert on a topic, to educate others at the meeting, or to hand work off and free up more of your own time and energy.

Whether or not you are the person who set that meeting, who booked the time, who designed the agenda, you can influence the value you get out of it. Walk into that meeting with the answer to that question written at the top of the page and use every opportunity to create that result for yourself. And even for others.

Right Here. Right Now.