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Thinking about How We Think

June 5, 2007 by Liz 50 Comments

How Nice of You to Ask!

The email came yesterday. I smiled hugely when I read it. What a gift! What a fine idea! Talk about something that is my passion! Here was a question on one of my favorite topics. We could explore this one for days.

The email said . . .

Do you invite or encourage ideas for posts? If so, I have a thought/question, a definitive answer to which I haven’t found anywhere:

How do people think? Well, to be more specific, does one use a language to think and form ideas? Or is it the result of a juxtaposition of experiences, facts and figures that enable one to think? Or is it an imagery without words in any language that helps you make a decision? What if one is fluent in three languages?

Well, the basic question is something like: When arriving at a decision, do you use words in your head?

Thank you, Zackman!

The short answer is that we all assemble our thoughts and ideas in different ways. So before we get to far into how it all works — left brain and right, young children, adults, and folks past their prine — let’s start by describing to each other the amazing ways our minds process words and pictures to bring us to the combinations of information that we call ideas.

Reflect for a while. Then would you write a few words about how an important, special, and fully thought idea comes to you?

I’ll write how it happens for me in the comment box. Once you read that, I suspect that you’ll have plenty of room and reason to write how it happens for you.

–ME Liz” Strauss
Behind every successful business is an outstanding manager –The Perfect Virtual Manager.

Fair and Just â Do They Mean the Same Thing?

June 2, 2007 by Liz Leave a Comment

We Didn’t Do that for Her Brother

My father retold this story shortly after my college graduation party. . . .

When I graduated from college, my dad suggested that my parents have a party. He wanted to take his best friends from the saloon out to dinner to celebrate with us. My mom pointed out that they didn’t do that when my oldest brother graduated from college 9 years before. My dad said his reply was, “When we first got married, we could only afford hamburger. Does that mean we shouldn’t eat steak now?”

Throughout my life, this was a recurring theme. My mother believed in giving the same. My father believed in adjusting for changing circumstances.

I grew to think of one as fair and one as just — both as noble and loving.

What do you think? Are fair and just the same thing?

My husband says this story is about something else entirely. See my comment.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Behind every successful business is an outstanding manager –The Perfect Virtual Manager.

25 Ways to be Jazzed about Productivity

May 10, 2007 by Liz Leave a Comment

Jazzed Yeah!

Ben started a writing project on productivity. I had to get productive to even particpate in it. I might have had too much on my desk. I think I might have missed it. Kim asked me to tell about productivity. She even said that sometimes she got mean about it — no, no, not really, well, at least it didn’t seem so. She’s the Kim who is desparately escaping adulthood with Jason.

Still, I can’t let the concept of productivity sit there. So here are 25 ways to get Jazzed about productivity.

Get up early when no one’s around. Nothing’s more fun than working without interruption.

Look out the window to greet the day with a few minutes for yoursef before you begin. Then you’ll be ready to dig in.

Clean off your desk before you start working. If you haven’t done for a while, clean your computer screen too.

Make sure that the tools you use often through the day are close to you.

Make to do list. Divide according to what you can move most quickly to get someone else working too.

Review your calendar for deadlines you have meet. Determine what has be done and how much time you have to do it. Plan for when and how and include breaks.

If the work takes longer than the time you have, find the work that anyone can do and let anyone do it. Don’t ask for help — delegate. Find a partner, a pal, or an apprentice who wants to learn what you do. Barter their services.

Don’t multitask. Research shows it’s not productive.

Choose a task and a move it forward one small step. Then decide if you’ll move it two.

Choose appointed times during the day to answer email. Every two hours might do.

When an email or other tpiece of paper bearing a task comes your way. Assign it to a pile — Do it. Delegate it. OR Dump it. If you set it aside, you’ll only have to pick up and go through thinking about it again. That last pile is the waste basket.

When you are interrupted, learn to say, “Do you mind if I take a minute to finish this?” Then do. Having to start up again will steal the time that it take for you to find your place again.

Before you make call, know what the outcome is that you want and know how much time you allot yourself. Then at the beginning of the call share the time limit with the person on the other end.

Know the job and routine of the person or persons you are working with. Understand how your work and decisions impact theirs. That will avoid making work for them, which would, inevitably, make work for you.

Take a break for 3 or 4 minutes every hour to walk around, giving yourself a change of view.

Ask a child to solve a problem for you. Better yet have 10 year old organize your supplies.

Start in the middle of a hard task. Usually we know what the middle of anything we want to do will be. It’s the beginning and end that confuse us.

Organize a large document by laying all of the pieces of it on the floor and literally looking at it while standing above it with a top-down view.

Quit thinking poor. Buy the tools you need. Get the best quality you can afford. For those tools you use every day calculate how many pennies per day it will cost you. Then calculate how much time you will save by using the new tool.

Pick one hour a day that you will not take any outside interruptions — no email, IM, or telephone calls. The hour after lunch is good. Clean your desk before the hour begins and place a task that requires focus on it. Ready for when the hour begins.

Have a routine for writing that suits the time of day that you write well and get the least interruptions.

As you begin each task, allot a time to it — how long it will take you to do it. If you find yourself falling far behind at the half-way mark, stop to re-evaluate your understanding of the task.

Do a sample for every new job and every new task to ensure that what you heard is what folks really want.

Learn to say “no,’ when you don’t have time. If you can’t say “no,” at least schedule requests for a time when your schedule will allow them.

Leave one task at the end of the day about 20 minutes from finished. That way when you begin the next day, you’ll be able to accomplish something quickly and start on a roll.

Whew! 25 ways to get jazzed about productivity. Some a little and some are much larger. Every one of them will have its own impact in your life. Choose the ones that work for you. Leave the rest on the proverbial table. A proverbial person just might come along. That proverbial person might find that those you left are exactly the right fit for a problem he or she has been staring at for months.

What gets you jazzed about productivity. . . Ilker, Daniel, Jason, Singhania, Katiebird?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Business Rule 9: What’s the Value of Money?

March 20, 2007 by Liz Leave a Comment

Scheduled Pay Raises?

Suzannah of the Square Periods — you know the editor, who didn’t play the banjo but should have — was one of three editors who had started work on the same day. I started work as their Executive Editor a few months after. Sheila and Kris had been teachers. Suzannah’s husband was a teacher still.

What all three editors knew about pay raises looked like the scheduled increases of teacher salaries.

That, unfortunately, turned out to be a problem.

When the time came for their first-year performance appraisals, I met with each of them individually. We went through the process of how the self-appraisal part worked, what I would do after that, and what we would talk about together.

Sheila, the star of the three, was already being considered for the next promotion. In the meeting with Sheila something unusual came up. She might have been looking to short-circuit what she didn’t want to happen.

Only Fair or Is It?

Sheila told me about an agreement the three editors had made.

“The three of us are having lunch to celebrate our first anniversary.” Sheila mentioned that they had agreed to reveal the amount of their salary increases. She said they wanted to be sure everyone was treated fairly.

“Oooh. That’s not a good idea.” I said. “I don’t think you want everyone to make the same.”

“Why’s that?Ã¢â¬Â she asked. Remember that teachers don’t go to business school. They think in terms of grades and whole class rules. We spoke about company no tell policy, but I was focused on getting her personal investment in not wanting to share. Understanding that the no tell policy is a support and a protection is important.

“Imagine I hire a guy named Frank with a resume just like yours on the very same day as I hire you. One year later, you’ve done great work. You have managed three projects on your own. Whereas Frank has been confused at every turn and managed to screw up two projects so badly, they will miss their release dates by months. Same raises for both of you?”

“No.”

Sheila had just figured it out.

Money is paid for what the work is worth — and for management of that work in the company’s interest.

The more I wake up in the middle of the night, the more I have to think about the goals of the company, the more I’m responsible for the work of others, the more money I should make. Money = stress, execution, productivity, responsibility. End of story.

I then had the same conversation with the other two. The lunch happened. The salary revealing discussion did not.

Business Rule 9 may sound simplistic, if you already know it.

It’s key to ANY negotiation. When I learned it, suddenly I knew I understood how to buy a new car and how to purchase a house. The mysteries of talking money started to demystify before me. The value of money isn’t just important at work.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Business Rule 8: What Are Your Square Periods?

March 1, 2007 by Liz Leave a Comment

When People Don’t See

At the end of the their first year, new editors begin to “find their feet.” They’ve been through the publishing process; completed one or more projects; and know considerably more about making books than they did when they first walked through the door.

We were working on 8-page readers. These books were for kids at the earliest stages of their reading career.

We were at the beginning of the book design process. On this day, we had met to review book design samples and had chosen the one we would go with Ã¢â¬â a large square, 8 inches de all photo or art but a one-inch band for type across the bottom of the page.

The typeface was one of the four then available that had an “open a” and an “open g.” These two letters are important to early readers because they help kids make connections. They look the same way kids are taught to write them.

I tell you this because the discussion of the open a and open g led one first year-editor to over-generalize, taking her woefully astray. Two hours after the design meeting, Suzannah, the editor, came into my office looking seriously concerned.

“We have a problem,” she said.

“I see. Tell me about it.”

“We can’t use this typeface we have chosen. It has square periods.”

She showed me a two-page design spread that had two giant pictures, one sentence per page. She pointed to the periods. Indeed they were square. Pixels are square. So are periods. I guess she hadn’t noticed that you have to go through a few typefaces to find periods that are not. ItÃ¢â¬â¢s kind of like kissing frogs to find a prince. It takes a lot.

“Okay, lay out your thinking.”

“First-grade teachers teach kids to make their periods round like this,” she said demonstrating. She took out a sheet of paper and wrote a sentence like a first grade teacher might — though she had never taught, she seemed awfully certain of exactly how it was done.

“And the typeface is a problem because . . . ”

“It’s different from the teachers’ model.”

“Oh, Suzannah. Now I see.” I turned the two-page spread back to face her. “What you’re saying is . . . if I made another spread exactly like this one replacing only the square periods with round ones, . . . and if I showed the two spreads to ten teachers and asked them to tell me what was different, all ten would see it right away.”

“Oh yes,” said Suzannah. By now I’m thinking, I’d better get this girl a banjo for her knee, because she’s not seeing the world the way it really is.

“That’s okay, Suzannah. I’ll take the hit. I take full responsibility. For every letter or returned book we get because of square periods, the heat will come down on me.”

I’m not sure how long it took for her to get perspctive. I knew there was no convincing her just then. It’s hard to have an unbiased world view when you’re in love with the information in your own head.

Remembering what we once didn’t know seems to be an acquired skill not a natural talent.

That can lead us to endow our customers with information that they have no way of knowing and to us deciding what’s important to them.

Caring for customers is the goal. Configuring them is the problem. Don’t fix square periods that folks don’t even see.

I bet there are “square periods” in your line of work — they show up in conversations where I work more often than I’d ever have thought.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Business Rule 7: Sound Bytes, Stories, and Analogies
Business Rule 6: Who Dropped the Paddle?
Business Rule 5: Never Underestimate the Power of a Voice on the Telephone

Nice, Intelligent, and Strategic

January 16, 2007 by Liz 19 Comments

A Saloonkeeper’s Daughter

I read over My Blogging Goal, in the sidebar. I think about how I’m doing and I have to say that I’m only half-way there. If my dad is the model for this saloonkeeper’s daughter, I might look like him in some ways, but there was more to him than met the eye.

Everyone says I’m the “nice one,” the “friendly one,” the “community builder.” That’s so cool, and I’m grateful for that. But, my dad liked it that I was smart. That’s what this blogging goal story is about.

My Blogging Goal: Part 2

My dad worked every day at the saloon. People asked him if he ever slept. He was there when they looked for him. He was family to them and so I was too.

That meant for my Christening, he rented a farm and hired a band. The entire saloon was there to celebrate. When it was my dance recital, everyone got tickets to come. At my college graduation dinner, the long table was filled with farmers and workers who sat at the bar every other day of the week.

On holidays we went to the fanciest restaurant in town. It was one block away from my dad’s saloon. At the end of the meal, my dad would take out a writing pad and ask who was working. He’d make a list, starting with the head chef ending with the busboy — once it was the same busboy who spilled a tray of water glasses all over me before dinner. Then he’d carefully calculate tips for every person working that day. I’d put out my hand, and he’d smile as he gave me a dollar too.

My dad was a most generous man. No doubt about that.

I asked him when I was about 13, why he did that — why he tipped everyone in the restaurant. He told me this. I give you $5, and you remember me. After work you walk one block to say thank you and spend some time talking. You have a drink at my saloon.

Even at 13 years old, I knew some folks didn’t do that. After all the busboy was too young to get into the saloon. But I also knew all of the folks — especially the busboy who spilled the water — remembered the $5.

My dad was a generous man. He didn’t expect folks to come. He gave freely.

He was also an intelligent and strategic marketer, because he loved the people he served. He understood his customers.

This year I’m out to prove that I’m my father’s daughter in that way too. I’m not just the nice one. I’m also stategic and intelligent marketer.

From my new business, Perfect Virtual Manager, I’m serving people I love and having fun doing it — showing folks how to connect authentically with customers, how to let customers see their energy, how to leave that proverbial $5 that brings folks back to say thanks and spend some time talking!

My Dad was born in 1907, that makes 2007 a special year. I can’t think of a better goal in his honor than to pass on what he taught me.

The nice, intelligent, strategic one.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
My Blogging Goal,

Behind every Successful business there is an Outstanding manager. Perfect Virtual Manager