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Tips
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DISASTER DISCOVERY TIPS (April 2006 TCHC)
How does the lesson I learned relate to performance improvement, for you and those on your team? Having thought about it as I drove from
New Orleans back to Austin, I offer five suggestions:
- Convene a regular discussion group simply to talk about ideas, concerns, issues. Keep topics open- ended and discussions open-minded. Contact
me for information about my monthly Talk-About-It sessions.
- Every time you consider improving a procedure, ask how you might improve the performance that goes along with it.
- Use a notebook to jot down your thoughts, concerns, problems. Use your notebook as a reminder source and feel free to discuss those notes you
make with others. Share your learning. Click here to see my Perfect Notebook.
- Provide frequent, non-threatening opportunities for your staff to discuss "what did I do?" "how well did I do it?" and
"how can I do it better next time?"
- Make tools available to assist your people in independent, individual Performance Improvement Efforts. Click here to download a few.
OBSERVISION TIPS
Using our eyes to see is an almost involuntary action much of the time. To help you boost your ability to observe, to notice, to “pay
attention” to more than you’re used to, try these tips:
- Be on the lookout. Build the habit of making a few moments to
“stop and see the roses.” A good prompt for this habit is a notebook. The weight or bulge in your pocket can be the nudge that tells you to take a look. You can even jot a note or two that might have value
later.
- Anticipate surprise. Use your language to open up your mind
to the practice of observing. Famous artists have begun their days with question- prompts such as: What art will I create today? Where will I find music? You can ask yourself, What will surprise me today? As
your question-prompt becomes automatic, so will its answers, from your observations.
- Ask once, answer more. As you observe, ask yourself, What am
I seeing? Answer that question more than once. Let each answer prod you to see more closely, to pick out greater details, to observe comparisons.
- Create connections. Encourage your ability to see connections
between what you see and other aspects of your life/work. This is more likely if you start with a statement, not a question. That ___ is like-or That ___ reminds me of - will get you closer to the connection than asking, What does this remind me of?
FLEXTHINK TIPS
You can complete each of these exercises in a matter of minutes. Don’t let their simplicity fool you. The more you use them, the more
flexible your thinking muscles become.
Tip 1. When you’re finished reading your newspaper,
go back and select one or two headlines that catch your attention for their wording, not for their story. Play with the words. Shift their meaning and intent. Figure ways the headline might announce a completely
different story. Try this several times. Purpose: to build the habit of broadening verbal perceptions.
Tip 2. Identify a challenge you’re facing. Freely and without much cognitive effort select an object this challenge calls to mind. Then just as freely, list as many sensory descriptors of
the object as you can in one or two minutes. Here’s an example:
- Situation: billing clerk resigns
- Object: cactus
- Descriptors: painful, prickly, green, succulent, desert, sharp, flexible, tough-skinned, juicy, sweet
Read through your descriptor list. Allow yourself to see/feel/taste/hear/smell each descriptor. See what ideas—possible solutions—pop
into your mind. Purpose: to enhance your dexterity at using a variety of problem-solving “tools”.
TIPS TO MAKE CREATIVITY WORK AT WORK
Think Creativity. Make creativity a part of every observation you make. Whether observing a building or a flower, listening to the radio or a telemarketer, writing a memo or a
purchase order, allow part of your mind to look for the creative aspects of what you’re witnessing and what you’re doing.
Talk Creativity. Make creativity a part of every discussion you have. Whether commenting on a news article or a news reporter’s necktie, discussing a restaurant’s service or
the menu at a diner, sharing weekend memories or vacation plans, allow part of your talk to be about creative aspects.
Play Creativity. Make creative fun a part of everything you (have to) do. Whether writing a report or listing parts required, entering data or analyzing results, preparing a
presentation or listening to one, have fun in the margins.
Draw upon your team’s creative powers. The right brain—the hemisphere that works with non-verbal elements such as shapes and designs and dimensions—can contribute new and exciting ways of looking at the same ol’, same ol’. Make pads and markers and pens and pencils available throughout the office. Encourage staff to use them by using them yourself. Doodling is not only fun and stress-relieving but a great idea-source.
See things differently and encourage your staff to do so as well. Toss recharge-the-creative-cells questions into conversations to stimulate “new views.” “What
else does that remind you of?” “What other things do you ‘see’ when that occurs?” “What are other ways we might look at that?”
Shuffle the way tasks are done, the way projects are completed, the way work is approached. Creativity applies as much to process as to product. Encourage your people to
think of rearranging sequence, relocating objects and instruments, shuffling the components of a routine. The shuffling can create new ideas that create great results.
SERVICE ECONOMY TIPS
Here are five tips--suggestions, really--you may use to enhance your personal Service Economy.
- Determine for yourself if you want to serve and if so how much you want to serve. Visualize yourself in serving situations.
- Focus your "May I serve you?" question by asking if you may serve in a specific way or if you may do a certain something. Build this
as your normal manner of asking, and see if your opportunities to serve increase.
- Spend one or two minutes a day concentrating on your listening skills. Increase that time by a minute each day.
- Create a list of ways you can visibly demonstrate that you care for those in your organization. Keep the list available to add new ways
whenever you think of them.
- Be the role model for expanding/extending the communication levels among your team. Allow yourself (and your team) to experience communicating
as sharing: energy, time, ideas, and feelings.
Check out our Ezine, Spirit of Performance!
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