Carnival of Leadership Development

Welcome to the August 1, 2007 edition of carnival of leadership development.

Krishna De presents How to ensure you ask powerful coaching questions posted at Talking Coaching: changing the world through coaching.
Warren Wong presents Just Do It posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, "Are you pondering over a task? Are you not sure if you should do it? Here's why you should just do it!"

Louise Manning presents Mediation Leadership posted at The Human Imprint.

Adam Pieniazek presents Leadership Tests posted at Adam Pieniazek, saying, "Discussing the leadership style of Jack Hartnett and Pernille Spiers-Lopez, as well as discussing the relevance of leadership assessments."

Christopher J. Brunner presents Enhance Your Image Through Your Words posted at GreatFX Business Cards, saying, "What you say and how you respond to others reflects upon your capabilities and attitude, so it's important to say things that enhance your image rather than harm it."

Praveen presents Business Lessons From Goldman Sachs posted at My Simple Trading System.

Jim Stroup presents A random climb up the career ladder posted at Managing Leadership,

Millionaire Mommy Next Door presents The Millionaire Mommy Next Door Recipe for Success, Wealth & Happiness posted at Millionaire Mommy Next Door, saying, "Add ingredients generously and mix thoroughly to blend."

Charles H. Green presents Is Neuroleadership More Than Reinventing Wheels? posted at Trust Matters, saying, "Is neuroleadership doing more than just codifying common sense? Are there any lessons leaders can take away from it?"

George Courtney jr presents The Authentic Bartender Blog: Three Steps To Increase Your Creativity posted at The Authentic Bartender Blog.

Ant presents 5 Distractions To The Nesting Entrepreneur posted at The Beef Jerky Blog.

Ivan Rios presents 5 More Contradictions That Will Make You a Better Leader posted at artofleading.net.

Sue Massey presents The Price Of Ignoring What?s Wrong posted at Business Management Life, saying, "I talk about how it's important for employees to feel good about their job. If you have employees you should read my article."

Bhupendra Khanal presents Top 10 Mantra for Professional Success posted at Analytics Bhupe, saying, "Leadership and success are not luck but decisions."

Rolf F. Katzenberger presents Personal, timeless organization: 4 suggestions for your checklist posted at Evomend | Timeless resources for personal organization.

Katie presents I’m Jobless & Remembering What Mattered Before the 9-5 World posted at Aridni,

Warren Wong presents Taking Risks posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, "Are you afraid to launch your own business? Are you afraid of losing what money you have? Here's why you shouldn't be."

Debra Moorhead presents Talk is Cheap . . . Or is it? posted at Debra Moorhead.com.

Jay Gordon Cone presents Facilitating Trust: What team leaders need to know posted at Interaction Associates - Thought leadership and practical tools for collaboration.

Christopher J. Brunner presents Showing Compassion posted at GreatFX Business Cards, saying, "In this post I discuss how, as leaders, we should show compassions to those who are less fortunate, and motivate others to do the same."

Ianternet presents Top 30 Entrepreneurs: My Input on Each posted at Ian Fernando

Peter25 presents Visualize Your Failure posted at Small Business.

Stephanie West Allen presents Your values: One way to lessen the stress of conflict posted at Brains On Purpose™, saying, "New information on how to reduce stress in stressful situations."

Mike Buckley presents Not So Smart After All posted at Mine Your Own Business.

Jim Stroup presents Clean plates posted at Managing Leadership,

Karl Goldfield presents Building a plan: Performance Expectations - A smidgen of Sun Tzu posted at Coaching sales champions.

Warren Wong presents My Partner?s Not Doing Enough Work! posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, "Do you find that your partner's not doing enough work and are angry for having to pick up the slack? Here's how to handle it."

Cade Krueger presents 3 Huge Steps On How To Leap From The Security Of A Job To A Home Business posted at Write To Right.

Charles H. Green presents Negotiation and the Short Term Performance Trap posted at Trust Matters, saying, "Leadership requires understanding how the short term very quickly becomes the long term, and how the long term determines short term success."

Charles H. Green presents When Business is Incontinent posted at Trust Matters, saying, "So often we know what we should do, nothing stands in our way, we want to do it... and yet we don't. Why?"

edithyeung presents 7 Phrases Successful People Would Never Say posted at Edith Yeung.Com: Dream. Think. Act..

Ant presents Are you a Millionaire Yet? posted at The Beef Jerky Blog.

Ivan Rios presents 9 Surefire Ways to Be a Bad Leader posted at artofleading.net.

Chris Tackett presents How to Write a Headline and Grab Your Prospect by the Eyeballs! posted at Direct Marketing News

Eric Hudin presents You Can Make More Working Less posted at Everyday Marketing Ideas, saying, "Time management is a myth. Time doesn’t stop. There is no managing something you can’t control. What you can do is eliminate your wasted movements to become more efficient and effective."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
carnival of leadership development using our carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Focusing at Work

Some thoughts for the weekend

• According to the National Association of Professional Planners says there is about 52 hours of unfinished work on it.
• Research says that people face a distraction every 11 minutes
• Once distracted it takes 25 mins to get back to the task.
• A study at University of Michigan in 2005, between 20-40% of a person's productivity is eaten up by task switching.

Wow - makes you focus doesn't it!

There are 3 questions that I would ask you

1. How much development time is spent on priority management?
2. How much as a leader are you distracting your team - and actively reducing their productivity?
3. Do you and your team know the difference between what is "urgent" and what is important?
   

Focus - the key to shorter working hours

Sam Ewing said "It's not the hours you put into your work, it is the work that you put into the hours"

Successful people have the ability to focus. They know what their objectives are, how to achieve them and then get on it with it!

If you find that you are not achieving what you want to despite the long hours then take 5 minutes and look at what you have been working upon during the day. Long hours lead to a lack of focus, and tiredness. Tiredness leads you then to not be able to work to your optimum, you take more breaks - a quick gossip, a few more coffees, longer meetings etc

Focus is key so proudly on your table put your personal objectives.....then each day look at your commitments and ensure that they are achieving your objectives.

Overworked?

If you think you are busy - you are! We all look for quick fixes - treo's, blackberry, filofax, lists etc but none of these items will make you less busy, indeed can increase time pressure.

To solve time pressure you need to look at

1. An average worker gets interrupted every 5-7 minutes for 5 minutes! Control your interruptions, if they don't add value then don't allow others to take away your most precious resource - your time.
2. Review your objectives and make sure that your time is concentrated on achieving them. Often we waste time on easy things to do, but don't let these distract you.
3. Plan to get your objectives achieved by 3pm each day. Too many people expand work to the 8-6 mentality.
4. Check your inbox at 3/4 times a day. Outside those times don't be sidetracked by the email.
5. Be honest. What is REALLY taking your time? Are you choosing distractions? Be honest, and look at the real reason you are allowing your time to be managed by others. Then deal with the root cause.

Time Tips

Couple of tips today to help you manage your time. Time is precious, and a scarce resource so you need to protect your time well.

1. Build in interruptions to your day. We all know they will happen. Too many people book back to back meetings - don't plug in some time that acts as a buffer.
2. Why use 30 minutes chunk's? Use 20 minute slots....save 10 minutes. Helps people focus and no matter the time people will fill their slot.
3. When you have a to do list, write a time and date by the side of each item. By placing a time it helps focus the day and also gives it more importance.
4. Cancel any meetings that don't add value!