the nastsy control panel that disturbs my slumber

The window above our heads shook violently, startling my husband and I out of deep sleeps.  We sat up in bed and listened to the frightening wind storm blowing outside.  As our eyes adjusted to the light level in the room, we noticed that both alarm clocks were flashing.  Oops; we’d lost power.  Better re-set those clocks.  I grabbed my cell phone to check the actual time and realized that I had missed a phone call that had come in at 11:30pm, and that the caller had left a voice mail message.   Uh-oh. 

I’m the first phone call our security company makes when our office is shut down and the alarms go off.  Those alarms can go off for many different reasons, but the most common one is because the equipment is old and temperamental.  I know this because I had previously responded to several alarms that turned out to be nothing.  In this particular instance I was 99% sure that it wasn’t theft but a power outage that had caused the problem.  I seriously considered blowing the whole thing off- I told myself that I could go in to the office early in the morning and reset the alarm then. My company does not mandate security systems, so if it wasn’t set for a few hours I wouldn’t be in trouble.  But my conscience wouldn’t let me rest.  What if a burglar was making away with thousands of dollars worth of equipment?  What if the building was on fire?  I decided to get dressed and drive the fifty minutes out to Akron in the middle of the night (and in the storm), just to be sure.

The drive took over an hour.  The winds were gusting at fifty miles per hour and it was raining sideways.  There were sections of the highway where it was all I could do to keep the car in its lane.  The music on my radio was interrupted by an emergency broadcast announcing a severe storm warning in a four-county area.  Geez, you don’t say.

After arriving at the branch, I quickly determined that the issue was indeed that we had lost power.  The generator was running and all doors were secure.  I reset the alarm and headed back out to my car, which was still warm inside. 

Sure, the trip was a waste and I would have been fine waiting until the morning to take care of it.  But if I had ignored that alarm there would have been some permanent damage done- not to the building, but to my opinion of myself.  When you cut corners or shirk your duties, you can’t look yourself in the mirror and say that you give your job your best effort.  And in my opinion, being able to do that is more important than a few hours of lost sleep. 

10.  Buy a travel set of toiletries.  You don’t want to waste time tracking them down every time you leave the house.

9.  Just because the lights in your own car turn off automatically when you take the keys out doesn’t mean that they do the same thing in your rental car.

8.  You’d be amazed at the amount of jewelery that doesn’t set off the metal detectors in the airport.  And at the amount of liquids that you can smuggle past security in your purse.  This last statement does not apply to half-drank bottles of Diet Coke, however…they’ll call you on those.

7.  Always build in more time to your travel than you’ll need.  Sure, it’s wasted 99% of the time, but you’ll be awfully glad you did when you hit that 1%.

6.  Never completely unpack your suitcase once you arrive home.  It just gives you the opportunity to forget things.

5.  Airport gift shops are a great place to pick up unique birthday and Christmas gifts for your friends and family.  It helps kill time, and it saves you the trouble of scrambling around for these items on your precious days off.

4.  Watching takeoffs, landings, and cloud formations from the window seat of a plane never gets old.

3.  Eating out in restaurants does.

2.  Our bodies all respond differently to the stresses of air travel.  Mine requires lots of water, eye drops, and ibuprofin.  And chocolate.

And my personal favorite lesson learned:

1.  There’s no place like home.

Not the best day at the office

Being an effective leader isn’t easy.  When you look at the top of your organization you’ll most likely see a blend of strong and weak leaders.  What makes the strong ones strong and the weak ones weak?  How can you avoid being one of the weak ones as you make your way up your organizational chart?  Understanding-and staying away from- these six trouble spots will greatly increase your chances of becoming one of the good ones.

1. You don’t lead yourself well enough.  This one really comes down to your character.  Are you honest?  Trustworthy?  Do you follow through on your commitments?  How’s your work ethic?  Can you be relied on in emergencies?  Face it- if you can’t lead yourself well, you can be sure that nobody is going to follow you.
2. You don’t care enough about the people you are trying to lead.  People will not follow you until they believe that you have their best interests at heart.  This is something you can’t accomplish with a mere title; this is a bond that must be built over time.  Do you really know your people?  You have to show an interest in their personal lives and know what their career aspirations are. You have to be able to see things through their eyes.  Make an effort to connect with them regularly.  Respect them and encourage them.  Only then will they allow you to lead them.
3. You are in the wrong department or company.  Many of us have ended up in careers that we did not ever plan for; they are just comfortable.  This is fine if you are a follower.  If you aspire to become a leader in your organization, however, your job has to be a good fit for you. You must be energetic and enthusiastic at work, which are very hard to do when roles don’t fit you properly.  Do you volunteer to come in early, stay late, and work on those special projects? Is your passion coupled up with expertise in your field?  If you don’t have them, consider finding a role, company, or industry that better suits you.
4. You are not a strong communicator.  Leading is often about communicating your vision to others.  This takes many forms; training, meetings, emails, and one-on-one conversations.  Master all of them.  Read up on email etiquette.  Join a local chapter of Toastmasters to become better at public speaking.  Read the book “On Writing Well” by Zisner.  Whether you become a leader or not, improved communication skills will have a positive impact on your career.
5. You don’t have the drive.  This is the most important aspect of success to me.  It takes plenty of drive to rise through the ranks of a company.  If I had to give up all but one of my professional attributes, this is the one I would keep.  If you don’t have the drive, go back to #3 and take a hard look at yourself. Drive is a large part of what makes you promotable.  One of the employees in my office recently applied for a job opening that was two steps above his current one.  He knew he didn’t have the experience for it, but he spent an hour interviewing with one of our company’s regional managers- and when a different opportunity (a much better one!) needed to be filled by that regional manager, he immediately thought of the man he had interviewed.  Drive gets you moving- and if you don’t have it, you’re stuck in park.
6. You are not willing to make the necessary sacrifices.  I have always believed that a company’s #1 leader is also its #1 servant.  You put the employees and the company’s needs before your own.  There are late nights, travel, and missed ball games with your children.  It’s all part of the price of leadership.  These aren’t the only sacrifices; you also have to spend a good portion of your personal time developing your craft.  This could mean studying up on your industry, or brushing up on your communication skills.  And it always means pitching in to do whatever is necessary to make the company succeed.

Look within yourself.  How do you measure up in these areas?  It is hard to determine how you fare on the first two- you might want to ask a colleague’s opinion on those.  Get to work on the areas where you hare holding yourself back, and start your leadership journey.

I woke up in a panic, sweating. 

I dreamed about an employee I  laid off last year.  It was her wedding anniversary and her husband was taking her out to a fancy restaurant.  She was dressed beautifully and looked happier and more radiant than I had ever seen her.  Another worker came over and scolded me, saying that I had better tell her she was being laid off before she spent all that money on dinner.  My response was that I couldn’t tell her about the layoff now…I had to wait until the appointed time… and besides, I didn’t want to ruin her night with her husband.  In the dream she overheard me, and looked me directly in the eyes.  “Ruin my night?  With what?” she asked.  That’s when I woke up, thank goodness.

Leadership can be isolating.  You think differently than others, and over time it becomes hard to relate to some people.  You have to keep your company’s confidences.  You make unpopular decisions.  And as you continue to grow as a leader, the gap between you, your friends, and your family can widen too.  The saying “It’s lonely at the top” certainly seems true.  But can we do anything to minimize that isolation? 

• Remember why you became a leader in the first place.   Is it because you love helping people develop?  Do you relish a good challenge?  Do you have a vision that you feel compelled to share, or perhaps you have a need to serve others?  Whatever your reasons might be, they can help steady you on those days when you feel off-balance.
• Network with other leaders.  Find others, either within your company or outside of it, that you can get together with on a regular basis to discuss the different aspects of leadership.  I’m fortunate to have a boss who assembles his managers weekly to discuss leadership.  The conversation is helpful and it feels good knowing you aren’t alone out there.
• Find a leadership mentor.  Most people in leadership positions would be honored to have you ask.  Their experience can be invaluable as you struggle with issues they’ve already experienced.
• Eat some “Attitude Food.”  You are pummelled with negativity every single day.  Make it a personal crusade to keep the negativity out.  I’ve found the best way to do that is to feed my brain inspirational books or CD’s every single day.  Even something as breif as a quote by a famous leader can start your day off right.
• Exercise.  I truly believe that regular exercise fixes just about everything.  In my case, the feeling of well-being that comes over me after I exercise takes away that nagging feeling of isolation and replaces it with satisfaction.  Keeping to a regular exercise schedule also improves my self-confidence. 

Try these tips and notice how much lighter your burdens are.  You will be pleased to discover that it isn’t because you are carrying fewer of them- it’s because you’ve strengthened your back.

THE DONT’S-

• Don’t email bad news.  In my office we call this “hiding behind email.”  Pick up the phone or visit the person instead. 
• Don’t email to blame.  Sure, it may be tempting to point out the errors that other people make, but take a deep breath and write about solutions to the problem instead.
• Don’t email angry.  My boss told me a long time ago, “If it feels good to write it, DON’T send it.”  I’ve followed that advice many times and I’ve never regretted it.  Sure, type out the thoughts to get them out of your system, but don’t hit your send key- hit your delete key instead. 
• Don’t complain.  With so many of our professional relationships tied to email, it may be hard to determine who is friend and who is foe.  Don’t assume that the person you are writing to will keep your complaint confidential.  The forward key is just one click away.
• Don’t try to impress others.   This is trickier than it sounds!  Sure, we’ve all seen emails that were blatantly boastful, but that isn’t what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about the ones where you are deliberately adding information that isn’t relevant in the hopes of impressing your email audience.  Filter these out of your writing by asking yourself what the main objective of your email is, and then sticking with it.  The best way of impressing fellow employees with email is by writing them well.

THE DO’S-

• Do praise co-workers.  If a fellow employee consistently goes above and beyond the call of duty, why not send them an email telling them how much you appreciate their efforts?  Better yet, send it to their manager and copy them on it. 
• Do send project status updates.  Projects can be complex and take a long time to complete; send out periodic updates to communicate the progress that has been made.
• Do communicate changes to company procedure.  Email is a great tool for communicating changes quickly to the entire organization.  However, complicated changes should be communicated over a teleconference first and then emailed as reinforcement.
• Do keep your emails professional.  Before I hit the send button I ask myself, “If this email was accidentally cc’ed to the entire organization, would I be embarrassed?”  If the answer is yes, I re-write it.

Most of this advice is common sense, but it isn’t easy to follow.  I really struggle with a couple of these points myself.  But if we follow it to the best of our ability, we will become more skillful in our use of this important business tool.

When is the last time you received a hand-written letter?  Or found an actual memorandum in your office mail slot?  Your telephone isn’t as busy at work as it used to be, is it. But the big question is, can you admit that you’ve sent an e-mail to somebody that only sits two desks away from you… while they were SITTING there?

It’s amazing how much the rules of communication have changed in the last fifteen years.  Still more amazing to me is the fact that most of us have never received formal training on how to use email effectively.  We haven’t had much training in business writing either.  I’ve researched this subject for two reasons: 

1. I tried to purchase a course on how to write effective emails for my office but I couldn’t find one.  There are business writing courses and regular writing courses, but nothing targeted just to email. 
2. After working on this blog for awhile, I realized I was badly in need of a refresher course in punctuation myself.

Below are some tips to help make your email communications more effective.

• Tailor your writing style to your audience.  Are they casual or formal people?  Are they detail-oriented, or do they just want the highlights?  Take these things into consideration before you start typing, and write an email that fits their style.  If you aren’t sure of their style, here are some general facts about most office workers:  we receive over one hundred emails a day, and most of us read at the ninth-grade level.  This means you should use simple words to get your point across, and use less of them when possible.   This goes for emails to executives as well.  The temptation here is to write long, wordy emails that you think make you look smart.  Don’t bother- stick with simple language and sentences.  Pay attention to your spelling and punctuation instead.  They will be more impressed that you can get to the point quickly than they will be if you insert fancy words like “dimorphic” and “mnemonic” into your writing.  Go ahead, look them up- I had to.
• Avoid run-on sentences.  You’ve seen them- sentences that are a full paragraph long. If you aren’t sure if you tend to write with run-on’s, ask an objective co-worker.  You can also count the number of words between your periods.  If you tend to have more than twenty words in your sentences, you may be guilty of run-ons.  My advice here is to read your sentences to yourself before you hit that “send” button.  Make sure you have puctuation in the spots where your voice naturally pauses.  Short pauses can be designated with commas, but long pauses usually require periods.  If you are trying to use commas and your sentences become confusing when you read them , try breaking them up in to two or more complete thoughts with periods at the end. 
• Don’t rely on your spelling/ grammar checkers!  They simply don’t catch everything.  Sure, hit the “ABC” button before you hit the “Send” button- but you should also proofread your emails.  Make sure you are using the right forms of words.  “To”, “two” and “too” all have different meanings- be sure to know them.  I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen the wrong forms of these simple words in emails.  Keep a pocket dictionary at your desk, and use it.  If you are not 100% sure that you are using or spelling a word correctly, look it up.  It only takes a moment and over time it will help you to become a better writer.

Remember that your emails are part of your business persona.  Taking the time to write them effectively can significantly improve your co-workers’ impressions of you.

I turned to the experts.  I started reading Women at the Topby Diane F. Halpern and Fanny M. Cheung.  They interviewed 62 women in top leadership positions in the US, China, and Hong Kong, that either had children or took care of adult members of their families.   These women DO seem to have it all.  Not only are they successful both at home and at work, but they manage both roles calmly.  Most of them also had rich, rewarding relationships with their husbands.   Here are some of the things I learned:

• Prioritize the important.  Make a list.  Decide what comes first, second, and so on.  This is the first step to fitting everything together.
• Budget your time carefully around your priorities.  If you want to spend quality time with the kids on the weekend, put it on your calendar.  Do your best to keep to that schedule.  Make sure unimportant things don’t eat into time you set aside for the important.
• If it isn’t important, find somebody else to do it.  Outsource!  Enlist other family members to help with things that don’t add value to your day.  This may mean asking them to handle errands, cook, or clean.  If there is nobody to help at home with these things, then pay somebody to do it.  Not only does this allow you to focus on thekey tasks, but it reduces your stress level. 
• Be prepared to let go of your personal time.  The high-achieving women in this particular book set aside hobbies and other enjoyable things.  They had their priorities and understood that to reach the top, they couldn’t have a lot of activities that delayed their progress.
•  Focus on one thing at a time.  Although these women were incredible multi-taskers, when it came to the most important things, they would focus on them 100%.  When they had family time scheduled, they were intensely focused on their children.  When they were working, that was it- they were working. 
• If you need more time, sleep less.  This is not healthy long-term, as we all need a good night’s sleep in order to maintain our health and our performance both at work and at home.  Just the same, many of these women claimed that they stayed up late at night to fit in a few more hours of work.
• Choose a supportive husband.  Most of the women the authors quoted were more successful than their husbands.  In most cases, they women had found husbands who were not threatened by their success.  These men were proud of their wives and were willing to take on more activities at home to help out.  In the cases where the husbands were not supportive, the marriages usually ended in divorce.  When they re-married, they seemed to find the right type of partner the second time around.

Although my specific reason for reading this book was to find out how to balance work and family, it also showed me how much effort it takes to be a working mother at the top of her field.  It put my own life into perspective.  The next time I become tense because there is too much “To Do” list for the time available, I will remember this book and relax.  I’ll make sure I’m working on the things that matter most, and try not to worry about the rest.  And speaking of “rest”, I’ll probably set the alarm clock an hour earlier the next day, too.

The office productivity stops. Employees look around to see if anybody is missing. The conference room door is closed and the managers are all in there. The rumors are confirmed by cars leaving the parking lot too early in the day. Nobody breathes. Finally, management makes the official announcement of what everybody already knows- there have been some layoffs within the organization today. They assure the staff that they are complete and that there will be no more for the time being. Everyone returns to work, shaken but glad that the layoffs are over.

But they really aren’t over yet. Somebody has to clean out the belongings of the people that were escorted out of the building. That’s my job- the “Office Cleaner-Outer.”

I’ve packed up many boxes over my management career. More than any other part of the layoff process, this is the toughest one for me. It gives you an intimate look into the window of your employee’s lives- one that you probably should have made a greater effort to know when you still had the chance.

When you clean out an office, you collect up all the pictures of these people that you don’t recognize. There are prescription bottles for people that you didn’t know were sick. Then there are the mementos- a fortune out of a cookie that has been taped up on the computer monitor. Some dried flowers from a special occasion. And a goofy email that was funny enough to be printed and tacked up on a bulletin board. All of these artifacts give you great insight into your ex-employee’s life.

Cleaning out offices has had an interesting side effect on my own office; I’ve removed almost all of my personal belongings. Is it because I understand so well how fleeting employment can be? Or because I don’t want anybody intruding on my personal space? No- it is for a more practical reason. The mom in me doesn’t want anybody to have to “pick up after me” if I’m ever laid off. There is a small cardboard box in one drawer that contains all my personal items except a couple of family pictures. I can wipe away all memory of my existence from that office in the same amount of time it takes me to grab my purse.

I’m being sentimental, but I am really thankful for this role. It forces me to think long and hard about the lives I will disrupt before I make decisions about letting people go. I think that everyone who has the power to reduce headcount should also hold the responsibility of cleaning out offices after the people are gone. What is the antidote for the remorse of the Office Cleaner-Outer? Sit and relax with your employees regularly, noticing their decorations in their offices and cubicles. Each item holds a story that they would love to tell you. Know them- really know them- while you can.

 Once that door is shut, I can look forward to the journey. Sure, I’ll miss my daughter and the rest of my family like crazy. But the occasional business trip is good for the working mom. There are elegant meals that we don’t have to cook, pay for, or clean up after. There are king-sized beds with mountains of pillows that we can hog all to ourselves. And there are no small children or pets to disturb our slumber. Ahh- can’t you taste the hotel room coffee already? But before I can enjoy any of this, I have to fly to Phoenix.
     I never take the magic of flight for granted. You’ll always find me in the window seat with the shade open. Most of the people on board look like they are traveling on business. You could say that I do too, but I’m really still Mom, watching the unfolding scenery through the eyes of my children.   As the plane takes off, I am treated to a view of the fall foliage from the air. I’ve never flown in the fall before, and the colors and patterns are gorgeous. The trees are soon obstructed by thin, wispy clouds. “Cirrus clouds!” my son Cole would shout. He likes everything about weather, and I know he would love this view. The plane reaches its cruising altitude of 36,000 feet, where the clouds look like fluffy mountains. If Cole were with me, he’d be pointing at them saying, “Cumulonimbus! Wow!”
     The flight attendants serve breakfast. I save the tiny box of raisins for my daughter Sarah and the muffin for Shelby. I eat the Honey Chex cereal out of its little disposable bowl and think again of Cole. He would love this flavor. I’ll have to buy it for him when I get home.
     Outside, the clouds are now smooth and flat. They seem more like ground covered with snow than floating water vapor. A rainbow appears, looking as though it was spray painted on the clouds. The illusion continues as the plane heads west. I watch for a long time before I realize that I have absent-mindedly eaten all of the raisins. Oh well; Sarah has raisins at home. I eat the muffin too.
     I doze off with my head leaning against the window. Not for long, unfortunately – we hit turbulence. The infant a few seats away fusses, which makes me miss the kids again. I can see the reason for the bumping; we are flying over a mountain range. I decide that I would explain turbulence to the kids as being when the wind bounces off the mountains and into our plane. I have no idea if I’m right or not.
     The decent into Phoenix starts. The desert is broken up only by small lakes. They all have funny shapes; one looks like a lizard and another looks like a shark. Shelby, Cole and Sarah would have so much fun naming their shapes, like they do with clouds. The ground gets closer and soon I am watching cars travel on roads. I see a baseball field. A cactus. The wheels grab the tarmac and I imagine my children shouting “Hurray! We made it!”
     Now it is time to turn on the cell phone, grab the laptop, and put my family out of my mind for the next few hours. After all, I’m a grown-up on an important business trip. But before I do, I recall something I said to Shelby before I left.

     For all of us in leadership roles, it is critical that we carve time out of our days for thinking.  It affects our creativity, our ability to strategize, and it improves our overall performance in all aspects of our lives.  Dr. John Maxwell, famous author and expert on leadership, recommends that we spend 20% of our time engaged in deep thinking. 

   It isn’t that easy, though.  Both Life and technology do a pretty good job of distracting us from taking the time that we should.  The list of distrations is endless, but here are some of the worst offenders:

1. EMAIL.  Most of us are too tempted by the unopened letter icon on our computers to focus on our current tasks; we pull away our focus which causes even the simplest tasks to take longer.
2. KIDS.   Don’t get me wrong- I love spending time with my children- but between softball practice, breaking up fights, and picking Moon Sand out of the carpet, it’s pretty hard to have any quality thinking time when they are awake.
3. TELEVISION.  Sure, there is some great quality programming out there.  But most television just eats away at your time and at your life.  According to the latest Nielson rating, the average American watches 4.5 hours of television a day.  That’s a full two months of your life GONE every year.
4. COMPUTER/ VIDEO GAMES.  How many times have you intended to play for “just a few minutes” and looked up at a clock to see that an hour or more of time had elapsed?

Sure, there’s lots of distractions.  How do we put the thinking time back into our days?  Here are some suggestions:

1. PLAN YOUR DAYS AROUND THINKING TIME.  Put it on your calendar daily and build the rest of your schedule around it.  It can be your most productive, effective time; be protective of it.
2. GET UP EARLY.  Family life is distracting and most houses are quiet in the wee hours of the morning.  All the really successful people I’ve questioned are all early risers.
3. HAVE A SPOT DEDICATED TO THINKING.  It could be anywhere; a chair, a desk, or perhaps a special room that you go to when you are thinking.  If at all possible use that spot just for thinking.  Once you use it regularly your brain will immediately click into thinking mode as soon as you sit down. 
4. EXERCISE.  It brings more oxygen to the brain.  It also slows down your mental activity to a point where you can listen better to what your brain has to say.  I’m a jogger, and I’m absolutely amazed at the wonderful, deep thoughts that come to me when I’m out on the road.  When you exercise, try leaving the tv and the ipod off.  Let everything be quiet so that inspiration can come to you.
5. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR COMMUTE.  If you can keep the radio and the cell phone off, you’ll give your brain another opportunity to talk to you.  And if you keep a digital voice recorder in your car you can easily record your thoughts without driving off the road. 

When you make room in your life for thinking on a regular basis, it means that you’ll have to take that time from somewhere else.  We all only have 24 hours in a day.  Hopefully you can find room by cutting out some of the time-wasters above.  If not, I’d suggest that cleaning the house is a good place to start…after all, that Moon Sand will still be there waiting for you after you’ve had your thinking time, won’t it?