Successful Blog

The Discipline of Unpacking Those Boxes that Have Been in Storage Forever

by Leave a Comment

Your 3 Choices When Unpacking Boxes

To keep an item, I have to be 99% certain that I would use this again.

You need to consider these three choices:

Each item can only be held once and must be acted upon in one of three ways —>

Choice 1.

  • Decide. . . .  Decide whether an item is “a part of some whole,” “a whole with many parts,” or doesn’t belong. This choice will seamlessly establish a sorting system that matches your thinking one choice at a time. Keep these decisions rational. Don’t overvalue or romanticize. Treat every item as if it belongs to someone you don’t know. Avoid the urge to rethink an earlier decision. You can revisit any decision when all the boxes are gone. Then you will know what to do.

Choice 2.

  • Deposit it or dump it. . . . Put the item where it will stay — file it, put it on a shelf or in a drawer, or put it in the circular file. Resist the temptation to put things in a staging area. That just generates more work, making the task expand in size. Hold fast to the rule that you touch each item only once.

Choice 3.

  • Direct it (Immediately send it to someone who needs it or can act on it.)

Prepare yourself to work more slowly than you anticipated. The key is to keep an even pace to so that decisions begin to fall into place naturally. It will take longer to empty a box, if you stick to those choices, but each box will be sorted for good.

Create a Powerful Core Community by Building a Brand Values Baseline – PART 1

by Leave a Comment

(Updated in 2020)

10-Point Plan: Build a Brand Values Baseline PART 1

A Decision Model for All

Any time we interact, we have a chance to build and strengthen relationships. When we strengthen relationships with the people who love what we do, we strengthen our business. When we know the values on which those relationships stand, we can identify, attract, and connect with more people like them.

That’s the thinking behind building a brand values baseline.

Whether you’re a corporation or a solopreneur, you can start a power core community by finding 6 to 10 people who support and love what you do and bring them into this exercise.

  • Choose a location that is good for thinking and honors the participants. Think of the place you might take your most valued client or customer group to talk strategy and future relationships.
  • Invite 2 – 8 heroes — people you’ve identified as social stars, training stars, influence stars — to a meeting. The wider diversity of their skills, levels and backgrounds, the richer the experience will be. Also invite a trusted non-participant to record notes.
  • Explain that the room is designated a free conversation zone — that you’ve asked them to join you in a conversation because of their leadership skills and the respect they show for the people who work for the business. Let them know you’re counting learning from them so that the company might grow.
  • Without much talk or fanfare, ask them to reflect on the highest reason they might believe in the work your business does. Allow them time — as long as 10 minutes — to gather their thoughts as individuals. Encourage them to write words and phrases, draw images, or make a mind map of what comes
  • Allow each individual to share his or her thoughts with the group. As they speak, write notes for reference and track words that express values on a flip chart.
  • When the entire group has spoken, review what you heard and confirm that you’ve heard correctly what was said. Add your own thoughts. List your own values words to the flip chart.

Review the list of words, noting the similarities between them and poses these questions.

  • How might we take this list back to entire company to distill it down to no more than five words — a values baseline — that describes the values that drive what we do?
  • Should we distill down now and get their approval?
  • What process might we use to include everyone in this quest?
  • Who does everyone include?
  • How long will that take? What should each of us bring back to this meeting, if reaching a true values baseline is our goal?

As your heroes and champions get more interested in the values that underpin your business, so will the people who look up to them. A single meeting with the heroes and champions who love what you do can bring out the best in your company in less time than a whole team from a huge consulting firm.

Live your values and you’ll attract the people to your brand who value what you do.

How will you / did you find your brand values baseline?

Related
To follow the entire series: Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

Be Irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Too Many Options . . . A Fish Tale of Decisions

by 13 Comments

Trying to Keep Your Options Open?

Personal Identity logo

Ever been at a turning point without direction?

I know I have been.

What to do next becomes harder based the number of options. Having too many options is like having 21 fishing poles along a riverbank. Running up and down checking 21 fishing poles makes it difficult to respond when a pole gets a tug — what do I do with the fish that comes? Should I keep it or invest in what the other poles might bring? Keep it too long and it will start to . . . ahem . . . stink. Tending too many options, it’s easy to end up doing nothing.

Tiffany knows what I mean.

By defining what you are about in your career, your life, your relationships, you are actually giving yourself permission to do more, because you are choosing action over the inaction unlimited choice produces. — Tiffany Monhollon

I’ve been on few bad fishing expeditions. Now I know a good fish when I see one. The key is deciding what I want in a fish to start with. It’s like the sign in my high school said, “Not to decide is a decision.”

Are you faced with too many options? What decision could change that fishing expedition?

Liz's Signature