Successful Blog

Business Rule 10: Is Their Urgency Real?

by

Set Your Urgency Level on Facts

Business Rules Logo

My title was Director of Project Managment. My job was to make sure that the client’s needs were met as product was built. I was also responsible for strategy, budget, schedule, and all project issues.

My production manager was a bit of a pain. He was young. He was focused on personal recognition. He wanted to be KING.
I was no piece of cake either. I was young. I had no aspirations for territory, but I was focused on being SUPER MANAGER, DOER OF THE IMPOSSIBLE.

One day the production manager, Larry, stopped by my office. He said that he needed a particular something by 2 p.m. tomorrow, because it was due to the printer. I had about 800,972 other priorities that were equally urgent, but being SUPER MANAGER, DOER OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, I agreed to the deadline. I could find a few minutes between 2 and 3 a.m. when I might fit in reviewing it. Then I would have to send it over to be corrected and proofed. Then I would get it back again in time to check it before I handed it off to Larry. It could be done, but it would take keeping a close eye on.

I made it happen. In fact, I got it to Larry’s desk at 1p.m. He wasn’t there. I asked the woman at the next desk when Larry was due back from lunch. She said, “Oh, he left at 11 and he’s not coming back until Monday. He’s on vacation–extra long weekend. Didn’t he tell you?”

I couldn’t believe it! He told me he desparately needed it by 2p.m., and then he was gone!. In that split second, I made my mind up never to blindly buy into someone else’s sense of urgency again.

What to Do When Someone Is Urgent

These days when someone says, “I need this by . . . ,” I follow a set 3-step routine.

  1. I pick up a pencil and prepare to write.
  2. Then I ask, “When will you actually be able to work on this again?” That always makes the person stop to consider the date I’ve just been given. The usual response is something like, “Well, now that you mention it, . . .”
  3. At the point a new date is offered, I write down that date, the project, and the person’s name in very large handwriting, so the person sees me doing it. No words are necessary.

Just three simple steps help me find where to place my own sense of urgency so that I know when I’m urgent I am urgently moving things that will keep on moving.

I don’t get frustrated anymore by a false sense of urgency. Oh yeah and I gave up trying to be SUPER MANAGER, DOER OF THE IMPOSSIBLE in favor of trying to be MANAGER WITH A HEART WHO BELIEVES IN QUALITY a year or two after that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related
Business Rule 9: What’s the Value of Money?
Business Rule 8: What Are Your Square Periods?
Business Rule 7: Sound Bytes, Stories, and Analogies
Business Rule 6: Who Dropped the Paddle?

Blog Herald Today: Are You Looking in the Right Direction?

by

Looking Up and Letting Things Down

I heard my little boy say, “Don’t look that way,” as he pointed left, “and walk that way,” as he pointed right. He was telling me to be looking in the right direction to navigate the mountain.

Read the whole feature in today’s Blog Herald by clicking the logo.

The Blog Herald

It’s about blogging and real life.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
SOBCon 07 limited seating. Register Now!

Drew McLellan Can’t Keep a Secret

by

Or Can He?

Perhaps the real question is
Should he?

If by some force of magic, and you were Drew,
then would he?

If he were offered millsions of $dollars,
then what do think the answer is? Could he?

All I know is right now. Drew is
advertising that he’s got a secret about SOBCon 07.

Click the title to find out about the secret that Drew has.

Want to know [Drew’s Confidential] secret?

Pass on the secret . . . there’s only 16 days left!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
SOBCon 07 limited seating. Register Now!

We Talked About Song Lyrics!

by

Hi Everyone! Every week Sandy and I try to think how to sum all that we talked about but you know it’s impossible to capture the joy, humor, and camaraderie of four hours in one simple blog post. And as much as I like taking a clever comment and sharing it here, it sure takes time and once in a while it embarrasses folks.

So we’re going to stop trying to do the impossible, trying to retell a fabulous memory, and instead let you enjoy the comments as they were said whole.

It was a busy night. We were talking about words we can’t get out of our heads, songs we love; songs we hate, lyrics we wish we had written, how songs affect our moods, silly songs, romantic songs, childhood songs, happy songs, sad songs, and our song.

You can read all about it in the comments.

Here are some cool links we shared.

Thanks to everyone for the cool links and for being part of the conversation.

See you next Tuesday? I sure hope so.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

WANT TO GUEST HOST AN OPEN COMMENT NIGHT WITH ME? PICK A THEME AND TELL ME ABOUT IT. C’MON IT’LL BE FUN!

You Can’t Write My Blog Post

by

A Bad Facsimile

power writing hit logo

She came into my office and sat across the desk from me. She might have been the brightest person I ever hired. I know she is the best.

We were meeting on her first lesson for a teacher guide that she was working on. Her name was J.

I looked down at the lesson. I looked up at J. I said, “Do you like this lesson?”

J said, “Do I like the lesson? Well it has this, and this, and that.”

I repeated myself. “I said, “Do you like this lesson?”

J said, “Well it has that, and that, and this.”

So, I said, “J. This isn’t a test. Do you like this lesson? Would you actually teach from it?”

“Oh no! I wrote what I thought you wanted. I’d never teach it like that.”

J get this straight. You can’t write my lesson. I can’t write yours either. If we tried we’d both just fail miserably — we’d both write bad facsimiles. I’d write a bad facsimile of your lesson. You’d write a bad facsimile of mine.

Writing a blog works the same. You can’t write my blog post. I can’t write yours either. What I can do is pay attention to how you do things and find my own version of doing them that makes sense for me.

I can’t write your blog post.

But I can find my version. That blog post that would be only me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
SOBCon 07 It’s incredible. Are you coming?

Related
10 Reasons to Write and Publish Every Day
Put Yourself into What You Write

Change the World: Tell Someone You Know

by

With Your Head, with Your Heart, in the Dark Nights

changetheworld8

This is the story of a brilliant, shy man I know. We were joined by a mutual friend who is so dear to each of us. At the time that this story took place, the brilliant, shy man was someone I knew well, but had hardly met.

He stood 6 foot 6 inches tall and, in the English cottages and restaurants where I often saw him, he had to bend quite low to clear the doorways. I was traveling internationally to make a small publishing company happen. He was the CEO of a multi-million dollar international publishing giant. He would always make time to have a meal with me.

He won my heart one day after lunch as we walked to the car. I asked him, “Do you ever have trouble when you’re traveling in another country, deciding whether to go back to the hotel or to go out to dinner with the people who invite you?”

“Oh,” he said. “Those dark nights in a hotel room.”

“Wow!” I thought. “He’s the CEO of an International Publishing Mega-Company and he gets that way too.”

One second, I was walking next to that brilliant, tall person wondering why he took time out for me. Then he said that and I suddenly felt taller. He didn’t look at me, but I literally looked up at him in a way that was new.

You see, he didn’t have to, but he told me he knew.

As time went by, the International Publishing Mega-Company began to ask things of this shy, brilliant man that weren’t who he was. The stockholders asked him to do things that he found counter-intuitive. That took a toll. Then the result of that was that he had to break his word to the people who worked for him, and he had to do it again, and again.

Until finally it exhausted him completely. He was left dazed, a bit broken, and confused. When I went to England, he sent his regrets through our mutual friend. This time he could not see me. Our dear friend said that the tall brilliant man was seeing no one at all, except his own family and our dear friend.

I so wanted to give back what he gave me.

All I could do was send a message through our dear friend.

This is the message I asked our friend to relay,

Just because they talk the loudest, doesn’t make them right.

“Will you tell him, please? It’s important. I want him to know that I know that.”

That’s what I said to our dear friend, and because he is our dear friend, he did.

In time the tall, brilliant man was fine.

Now he is far better than ever.

It’s a gift to tell someone that you know . . . about the dark nights..

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss