9 Rules for emailing from Google exec Eric Schmidt

3 minutes 42 seconds

Having trouble keeping up and dealing with email. Checkout an effective email strategy Time.com article "9 Rules For Emailing" from Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg authors of the new book "How Google Works."

This week's Franklin Covey quote

11 seconds

The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.

- Jim Rohn
 

For additional quotes see Franklin Covey GoQuotes.

Goals, strategies, and objectives explained

2 minutes 19 seconds

Do you have trouble defining and distinguishing between goals, strategies, and objectives? This article by TenStep helps will help you.

• Business Goals:  TenStep does not use the term “project goals”. Goals are set at the organization level – not the project level. Objectives are at the project level. Goals are high-level statements that describe what are organization is trying to focus on for the next three to five years. They are vague (on purpose) and they are direction-setting. Because the goal is at a high-level, it will take many projects over a long period of time to achieve the goal. The goal should reference the business benefit in terms of cost, speed and/or quality. (We call this "better, faster, cheaper".) Goals are vague, but not too vague. If you can measure the achievement of your goal in one year (i.e. 25% revenue increase by the end of the year), it is written at too low a level and is more of an objective. If your goal is not achievable through any combination of projects, it is probably written at too high a level (i.e. lead the industry). Perhaps it is more of a vision.

• Business Strategies:  Business goals tell you what is important. Strategies tell you how you are going to achieve the goals. There may be many ways to achieve your business goals. Your organization’s strategies are a high-level set of directives that articulate how the organization will achieve the goals, and ultimately move toward its long-term vision. Strategies are more inwardly focused and usually try to leverage internal capabilities. Projects may be authorized that contribute directly to the business goals, or the project may contribute to a strategy. For example, many organizations want to get better at project management. Getting better at project management will not directly align to a "better, faster, cheaper" goal. It is more of a "how" so it better aligns to strategy. Your organization could have a strategy to execute projects more effectively and a project management initiative can align to this strategy.

• Project Objectives:  Objectives are concrete statements that describe the things the project is trying to achieve. An objective should be written at level that it can be evaluated at the conclusion of a project to see whether it was achieved. A well-worded objective can be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART). SMART is a technique for wording the objective. An objective does not absolutely have to be SMART to be valid. Objectives are important because they show an agreement between the project manager and the project sponsor on the main purpose of the project. The objectives should be written in a way that they are understandable by all of the project stakeholders. Objectives are also valuable since they provide alignment to organization goals and strategies. Your organization should not authorize projects that do not tie to goals or strategies 

Distracted at work

2 minutes 20 seconds 

Some workdays no matter how much I accomplish I feel a sense of distraction; as a result, my productivity suffers. Find out how to overcome distraction by checking out the article "Avoid These 10 Distractions to Get Work Done" by Weekdone.

The number 1 personal branding rule everyone should know

1 minute and 47 seconds

Today I visited the Geoffrey JamesSalesSource site by Inc. Magazine. And I discovered an article on personal branding. My first thought was "Is personal branding just another marketing buzz phrase?" or "Is it something critical to our career success?" After reading the article, I came to the conclusion that I better understand my personal brand. Check out the following article by Geoffrey to get a handle on your personal brand:

The 1 Personal Branding Rule Everyone Should Know

Today's technology is dominated by apps that encourage breathless spontaneity. You're encouraged to share anything and everything as quickly as possible. That's fine when you're dealing with friends and family, but it's very dangerous in the business world.

  

Any email, post, tweet, or text that's off-base, off-color, or off-the-wall can instantly ruin your reputation. Before you know it, an unguarded thought or imprudent remark becomes who you are in the minds of the people who count.

For example, a salesperson recently contacted me because he worried that he might have alienated a customer by leaving a comment on his corporate blog that contained some harsh criticism of the company's corporate strategy.

The salesperson, to his credit, is usually calm and collect, but in this case, he was reading the customer's blog while in a lousy mood, due to some problems in his personal life.

I have no idea whether his flame-on actually burned bridges, but there's no question that he made his job a lot harder.

Here's another example. I once worked with a marketing new-hire who was bright, talented, and personable. Even though she'd been working at the facility for less than a year, management had already marked her for promotion.

One evening, while out partying, she sent a slightly sexy selfie to a friend with the jokey subject line "Free Sex!" Unfortunately, she accidentally copied the email to 400 of her co-workers and her career at that company was effectively over.

Neither of these examples is unusual. Every day, people screw up their personal brands by not following this absurdly simple rule:

Never go online if you're angry, upset, or otherwise impaired.

By "never go online," I mean don't use any program that is capable of automatically sending or posting anything. If you simply must write something, write it in an editing program that stores it as a separate file, like Microsoft Word on the PC or Notes on an iPhone.

Then, later, when you're not impaired, consider whether you want that document, comment, or tweet to become public. Most of the time, you'll find that what you've written is either inappropriate or needs heavy editing before anyone else sees it.

This technique has personally saved me from at least a dozen situations in which my opinion, expressed in the unvarnished original, could have easily killed an important business relationship.