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Simple Steps for Reducing Complexity in Organizations

June 4, 2013 By JoeSieglerMD Leave a Comment

Recently, unnecessary complexity has been increasingly cited as a key business challenge.¹
Organizations can achieve improved productivity and synergy through implementing strategies focused on simplicity. While many managers may insist they lack the time to address it, a new article provides ideas for leaders to tackle their organization’s complexity problems “in their own areas, at their own pace, in their own ways.”

These ideas include:

Analyze and eliminate time wasters.
“Declutter” your systems.
Focus on the needs of your customers and implement strategies that will allow you to connect with them more effectively.
Continually reassess priorities.
Maximize efficiency by eliminating excess steps in work tasks.
Reduce levels of management and micromanaging others.
Delegate.
And the last and most important step – repeat the above steps frequently!

¹Reference: http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkenas/2013/05/seven-strategies-for-simplifyi.html

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Alternative Approaches to Implementing Change

May 23, 2013 By JoeSieglerMD Leave a Comment

Is change always good? We are constantly trying to change our organizations and ourselves in order to optimize productivity and goal completion– but a new article advocates for an alternative approach.

Actually, the concept of change management may increase your degree of fear, resistance and even failure to reach outcomes. It may lead you and your fellow team members to experience loss of control and even a sense of helplessness.

So what to do? New approaches advocate involving employees in solving business problems. Problem solving can motivate change through autonomy and skill development. I often advise leaders to ask employees to link solutions to their complaints. This practice fosters and optimizes morale because it encourages taking responsibility for creating your desired work environment.

By involving team members in implementing solutions, your organization as a whole can see increased benefits, results, and synergy.

Source: Daniel Markovitz at http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/no_one_likes_to_be_changed.html

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Amplify Individual, Team, and Organizational Performance by Transforming Thoughts into Words and Actions

April 19, 2013 By JoeSieglerMD

Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher recently died in 2013, but her legacy will live on forever. The following quote comes from the movie Iron Lady, which was titled for her frequently uncompromising politics and leadership style.

“Watch your thoughts for they become words
Watch your words for they become actions
Watch your actions for they become habits
Watch your habits for they become your character
And watch your character for it becomes your destiny.
What we think we become.”

This quote depicts how our thoughts effectively can mobilize our subsequent actions and work performance.

In our professional lives, we can become more effective individuals, teammates, and leaders by:
1. Harnessing our conscious thoughts — rather than acting upon fleeting emotions.
2. Actively using words that reflect our thoughts and can then generate goals and actions.

Once these actions are repeated over and over again, we create momentum that results in new habits and rituals, serving as the cornerstone of successful behavioral change. By connecting our thoughts, words, and actions, we can impact our futures and achieve our true professional and personal goals we each desire.

Filed Under: Current Events

4 Tips to Increase Employee Engagement & Boost Workforce Morale

November 14, 2011 By JoeSieglerMD

How important is employee engagement and workforce morale?

Very, according to a study published in the New York Times.

Reconsider how budget cuts affect daily progress within your workforce. Keeping resources at a bare minimum can hamper an employee’s ability to complete day-to-day tasks. Since 2008, the USA has lost around $300 billion due to workers being more dejected and less enthusiastic about their jobs.

Executives and managers need to take employee satisfaction and “engagement” seriously.

Employee morale is a typical issue for a business, yet one given little importance. Job satisfaction plays an important part in one’s life and executive coaching helps show business leaders how morale building and engagement can come from a sense of progress, validation, and fulfillment at the job.

Here are some executive coaching tips for keeping morale high for peak performance:

Let your team learn from their mistakes. If they make a mistake, emphasize the learning opportunity instead of reprimanding them.

Meaningful work instills a sense of accomplishment in employees so make sure to emphasize the more meaningful tasks in order to make employees more engaged.

Support your employees by giving your workers the resources necessary to do their job.

Be more hands-on when dealing with everyday issues. Helping employees through technical issues or overwhelming tasks helps them feel supported and then devote more time to being productive.

How else can you help your team move into greater productivity while maintaining high morale?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

How You Can Make the Most of a Bad Economy

September 15, 2011 By JoeSieglerMD

What can young college grads do when four years of college and a degree draw next to nothing during a recession? A recent New York Times Fashion and Style article seeks answers. How will this new generation of college graduates make the most of their lives and careers, despite a recession and widespread unemployment?

Unfortunately, the economic recession has limited the career opportunities for many young and talented people. But many of those interviewed haven’t given up on living a fulfilled life. Despite a lack of work, they adapt and make use of their skills as best they can.

As many continue to search the job boards, there are some executive coaching tips which can help.

Find meaning in whatever you do. One interviewee graduated college with scant job prospects. While she made the best of a low-end job, she also did volunteer work after hours.
Make the most of what you’ve learned. What’s hard about unemployment is the feeling that your talents are being squandered. Many of those interviewed utilize their life skills by joining bands, blogging, and getting involved with their communities. It may take hard work, but finding that balance in your life is always worth it.
Talk to a career coach. A coach can help you make sense out of how you will design your next-phase career. They do more then offer you advice, they’ll be involved with helping your look at every option and making the best decision possible for your future.

The worst that can happen to many in this situation is stagnation. Those interviewed may not have the careers they sought in college, but they still continue to do things that matter. Being fulfilled is vital, almost as important as being employed.

Filed Under: Balance, Current Events, Future Vision, Possibility, Responsibility Tagged With: economy, Future Vision, jobs, Possibility, responsibility

The Future of Monogamy

September 13, 2011 By JoeSieglerMD

With the dust settling over the infidelity of Anthony Weiner and Arnold Schwarzenegger, famed relationship columnist Dan Savage asks if we should prize honesty over monogamy. In a New York Times interview, Savage calls typical modern idea of monogamous relationships skewed and unfair. According to him, honesty and openness should be prized above all, even if we admit to our partners everything from flirting with others to infidelity.

The love sphere is inseparable from the rest of our lives, and it often becomes a focus in coaching. This can lead to a renewed investment in monogamy, an alternative vision of the relationship, or, if it’s best, a break-up.

Where there are problems relationships, I have some some executive coaching advice to keep in mind.

Talk to a relationship coach. It takes both partners in a couple to make any meaningful decision. A coach can work with them and help decide what is the best direction for both.
Ask yourself and your partner what you both want out of the relationship. Are you looking for something serious and long-term? Are you just looking for fun and like to flirt with others? Does you partner know what you want? Be clear with your partner your intentions in the relationship.
Open discussion of issues is the first step. Keeping destructive secrets from loved ones only exacerbates the problem and is a symptom of spinning out of control. Infidelity is damaging enough to the relationship, but denial can make it even worse. Admission allows both parties to move on and attempt to salvage the relationship.

According to Savage, most couples can live happily in monogamously. He asks that couples try to be open, honest and flexible with one another. Executive coaching values the feelings of both members of a couple, and works to make sure any solution to a problem is mutual.

Filed Under: Balance, Love, Responsibility Tagged With: balance, marriage, monogamy, relationships, responsibility, Spheres of Life

The Pitfalls of Starting Your Own Business

August 30, 2011 By JoeSieglerMD

In the recent New York Times article “Maybe It’s Time for Plan C,” lawyers, stock-brokers and IT professionals lose or quit their high-profile jobs and pursue their passions to become entrepreneurs. But they soon find that the “dream job” of owning a business includes a lot of pitfalls.

Owning your own business, according to the article, involves long hours and the added stress of being the driving force behind nearly every aspect of your self-fashioned career. According to the article, the majority of new business fail due to a lack of preparation and experience. While many of the subjects enjoy their new lines of work, the article asks readers to think long and hard before they try being their own bosses.

Starting your own business talks up a tremendous amount of time and effort. If you’re considering self-employment, here are some important executive coaching tips according to what I see as effective:

Identify your reasons for starting a business. There are major risks with going into business. Questioning your motives is an important executive coaching tool to help focus on what you really want. What’s important? Family? Job security? Personal freedom? How would starting your own business help you get what you really want out of life?
Keep your new business in balance with the rest of your life. Being your own boss may make you feel fulfilled in one area, but it can also throw off aspects in your family, spirituality and community spheres. A sudden change in your career means you’ll have devote time and effort to balancing out the rest of your life.
Determine your strengths and weaknesses. If businesses fail due to a lack of preparation, a good coaching technique is to list your best and worst traits and skills.
Talk to an entrepreneurial coach. The right executive coach can help you if you want to start your own business. They can help in a variety of areas such as how you’ll prepare and implement your ideas and plan for future growth.

Starting a business is a huge risk. As you think about what sort of business you’d launch, consider your motivations, and make sure you’re using all the resources at your disposal when you take the entrepreneurial plunge.

Have you considered self-employment? What is your experience?

Filed Under: Balance, Business, Future Vision, Possibility Tagged With: balance, business, career coaching, entrepreneurial, self-employment

How to Beat Net Fatigue

August 25, 2011 By JoeSieglerMD

Twitter, Facebook and the new Google+ help us plan our social lives and can bolster our careers. But being a social-media butterfly can be a job in of itself. “Digitally Fatigued,” an article in The New York Times, profiles several avid “net-workers” on how they improve their lives through social networking without burning out on posts and Tweets.

Using Full Life Coaching concepts, online social networks can touch on work, family, friends and community spheres. But for all of their useful aspects, if we come to overrely on online networking, we risk being behind our computers and missing out on actual life. Those interviewed in the article encountered this dilemma, but through creative thinking, they retained the advantages of social networking.

When it comes to fighting tech fatigue, there are some executive coaching techniques more powerful than just trimming your friend lists:

Keep a schedule and utilize applications to manage your productivity and avoid burnout. Overload happens when social networking becomes a habit instead of a tool. Business writer Josh Kaufman set a schedule of 30 minutes a day to catch up on his posts. He uses applications like Freedom, which temporarily blocks his Internet access when he needed to work without distraction.
Ask yourself if joining a new network will be worth the investment. Social networks appear and vanish with increasing frequency. Google+ appears powerful and enticing, but it’s too soon to know for sure. Jessica Lawrence asked herself what she could get out of Google+ that she couldn’t from Twitter. Cutting down on network clutter can prevent you from spreading yourself too thin.
Use applications that allow you to post on different networks simultaneously. Daily social networking can become a grind for those who make it part of their jobs. Applications like Ping.fm automatically syndicate posts to multiple networks. Buffer and SocialOomph work according to an automatic schedule from a bank of posts made in advance.

As our lives are becoming more integrated with social media, the importance of balancing our online and off-line time becomes more apparent. But with the right mindset in place, you can maintain an online presence without sacrificing time from your life.

Filed Under: Balance, Business, Habits Tagged With: bad habits, balance, business, google, habits, internet, net fatigue, Spheres of Life, technology

Hero: Jerry Ragovoy

August 12, 2011 By JoeSieglerMD

Songwriter Jerry Ragovoy passed away on Wednesday, July 13 at age 80. Ragovoy leaves behind the legacy of hit songs performed by the Rolling Stones (“Time Is On My Side”), Janis Joplin (“Piece of My Heart”), Jimi Hendrix (“Stop”) and numerous others. A memorial piece in The New York Times shows Ragovoy’s career as a songwriter was just as intriguing as the hit songs he’s written.

Ragovoy began his career as a music buyer for a department store in Philadelphia. Though he started his own record company, Ragovoy had is sights set on being a songwriter for Broadway.

In New York, in 1962, he found his career taking a different turn. He started writing a number of songs for groups like The Majors and Garnet Mimmis and the Enchanters. His song “Time On My Side” was adapted and made into a hit by the Rolling Stones. By 1966, Ragovoy was the head of artists and repertory at Warner Bros Records and in 1969 he founded a new record company, The Hit Factory.

Jerry Ragovoy sought to work on Broadway, but ended up getting famous for writing hit songs for classic artists, earning praise from his contemporaries for his mastery of the R&B idiom. Because he was willing to put his theatrical plans on hold, he ended up taking his life in directions few get to tread.

What executive coaching lessons can we glean from this man and his remarkable career trajectory?

Your career path may allow you to expand, shift your focus, and even change your direction entirely. Opportunities in slightly different fields may be offered to you. If you’re interested, you may find yourself excelling in something new and unexpected.
Ragovoy “shelved” his plans for Broadway to write for musicians. You may have a specific dream or goal in mind – don’t let it close you off to new experiences that may become new realities. Be prepared to adapt.

Filed Under: Full Life Inspiration, Future Vision, Possibility Tagged With: career, career change, executive coaching, Future Vision, Heroes, jerry ragovoy, Possibility

The Approach To Greatness

August 9, 2011 By JoeSieglerMD

Today’s post is an excerpt from my book Fire Your Therapist: The Coaching Formula For Success, available now.

If you’re like most people, you aspire to greatness. You don’t just want a good career, you want one that provides tremendous satisfaction and financial rewards. You don’t want to settle for an okay relationship, you want one that is enormously fulfilling. It may be that greatness, like perfection, is impossible to achieve. Approaching greatness, however, is a fair goal and one that coaching facilitates.

Approaching greatness means being the best you can be. It is hard work. There are obstacles. There must be accountability and humility. It is usually impossible to achieve it without assistance from others, including a coach. It’s much easier to settle for being pretty good or average. Yet an astonishing number of people seek greatness in various areas of their lives.

I suspect that you have these aspirations or you wouldn’t be reading this now. Perhaps your motivation involves the challenging times in which we live. As the economy toughens, violent conflicts between countries continue, and global warming accelerates, you become aware of the precariousness of existence and become focused on doing the best you can in the time you have. You may become fed up with the materialistic tendencies and trends out there and seek to simplify your life. Or you may seek a spiritual connection as the world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket. Whatever the motivation, you are driven to excel in one or many spheres to counteract the problems and challenges that arise.

Seeking greatness comes in many forms. You have to define what exactly it is for yourself, and your definition will probably be quite different from that of anyone else. As discussed, you need to examine your life in all eleven spheres and see what strengths and weaknesses you wish to optimize. This examination starts you on the road to greatness.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: achievement, book, career coaching, economy, executive coaching, Fire Your Therapist (FYT), Full Life Inspiration, success