A few weeks ago, my primary computer crashed. Sad I know, but being an IT professional, it was distressing to say the least. The problem was severely compounded by occurring during the worst possible time. The last several weeks have been extremely busy at work I did not have any time or desire to address the problem. Once I could catch my breath and figure out what had failed, it still took a couple of weeks to order parts and find the…
We work hard to stay on the straight and narrow path by staying focused in our work and driving towards our goals. However, as the pressure and demands on us increase, our focus begins to break down and bad old habits that we believed had been conquered long ago begin to emerge once again. Our clarity is diminished as if we are looking through a broken window. Recently, I fell into this trap. In an effort to move several personal and professional projects forward, I slid…
Individuals, departments, and companies must track their performance in order to have a baseline and comparator for improvement over time. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are a great baseline for understanding historical performance, setting future expectations, and keeping the team on the competitive edge. If you do not have a good baseline and understanding of performance metrics, you will not know when you are slipping into mediocrity or worse. Several weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of KPIs for individuals and departments. I received a few e-mails asking what KPIs I would…
If you review email as it arrives in your inbox, you are lowering your productivity. Email can be as much of a distraction or lure as YouTube or online shopping for many employees. Email as a medium of communication has leaped from purely business to a social communication vehicle. Corporations must deal with excessive amounts of spam, personal and business related e-mail that all directly impact employee productivity. A study found that “nearly a quarter of all corporate e-mail is personal in nature“. Frequently…