Russell Martin and
Associates Learning Flash April 2007
Overnight, the yards here in
Indiana
have been transformed, after tons of rain, into
overnight gardens of daffodils, hyacinths, forsythia and
fruit tree blossoms. The birds are singing their little
hearts out and I even heard the ‘peepers’ chiming in on
a run the other night. The warm air feels so alive.
It is easier to look around and see the blessings that
are everywhere. Happiest Easter. In this issue:
-
Update on Vija: PHAO (Pray Hard And Often)
-
Advanced Order: The 10 Steps to Successful Project
Management
-
New Hire Loss: Could it be LEADERSHIP?
-
April 26, Take Your Daughter and Son to Work to Do
Project Management
·
Thanks for the Birthday Wishes
·
A
Fool With a Tool is Still a Fool
·
Walking on the Beach
·
Coffee, Tea and Me: Where’s Lou in April
·
Blog Update: We’re All In This Together
·
The
Women’s Leadership Conference
Update on Vija: PHAO (Pray Hard And Often)
Vija
Dixon,
our Empress of Marketing, had pancreatic cancer surgery
two weeks ago, and started an extensive chemo /
radiation treatment this week. If you would like to
drop her a note, you can do so at her carepage
“WeloveVija” at
www.carepages.com an amazing use of the power of the
Internet. There you will also see updates on Vija’s
journey. If you’d like to help, she asks that you give
blood (since she used up so much during her surgery).
I’d ask you to think of the funniest movie or book and
send it to us here at RMA (6326
Rucker Road, Suite E, Indianapolis, IN 46220). We
believe firmly in the healing power of laughter. If we
get duplicates, we will donate them to local
philanthropic organizations.
Advanced Order: The 10 Steps to Successful Project
Management
My
newest book has gone to print, as my editor said
“Amazingly, on schedule.” Remember my volunteer editors
who signed up last fall? Here’s what one of them said
about the book:
10
Steps to Successful Project Management should be a
required read for every Manager. The Steps in this book
can be applied immediately. Nothing is needed more than
a tremendous book on Project Management. I am really
excited about this book and know it will get very
favorable reviews.
M.
Holman
Intrigued? You can preorder at
www.russellmartin.com. Our 2 day
workshop is also now available. I’m proud to
announce that over 3000 copies have already been sold!
New
Hire Loss: Could it be LEADERSHIP?
A significant number of organizations lose as many as a
quarter of their new hires within the first year,
according to a survey of 2,000 human resource and
training executives by Novations Group, a global
consulting firm based in Boston. One-third of employers
suffer such a loss, and for an additional 11 percent of
companies, first-year departures can even approach 50
percent. "It appears that individuals and hiring
managers are not sharing enough of the kind of
information that would help each side determine if there
is a good match," says Novations Executive Consultant
Tim Vigue. "This makes it a lot more difficult for new
hires to get up and running in the new job, and
frequently results in new hires quitting."
Do
you have new middle managers / leaders who need a hand
to get started? Do you need a way to align your new and
old leaders into a cohesive team? Consider bringing in
our Leadership Alchemy workshop or sending your
staff to our public IT Leadership Alchemy
workshop May 1st thru 3rd here in
Indianapolis. Check out
russellmartin.com to enroll or contact Margie at
mbrown@russellmartin.com for more info.
April 26, Take Your Daughter and Son to Work to Do
Project Management
Almost eight years ago in a moment of frustration, I
built a one hour learning module to teach my daughter’s
then fourth grade class project management. I adapted
our Dare to Properly Manage Resources project management
model to school projects, for example, ‘Build a
Communication Plan’ became ‘Give the Supply List to Your
Parents’.
Many of our readers have used this module successfully.
It is completely free, and available at our website.
Just add construction toys or materials. Some of our
readers have created their own variations of these
instructions. Please contact Carol
cmason@russellmartin.com or check out
www.russellmartin.com to get your copy. Share it
with your friends! This module works all the way
through school, so don’t limit it to the fourth graders.
Thanks for the Birthday Wishes
I
appreciated all the incredible gifts I received for my
50th birthday including an authentic Red Hat
with purple sash, an fabulous hand-made pipe cleaner
bowl filled with Hamilton Park free toiletries, a Road
Trip Emergency Kit from Thelma-Mary (or was it Louise?)
helping me grin about our car trip back from New Jersey
two weeks ago, not to mention wine, gift certificates,
dead and live flowers and wonderful cards and notes. It
was the best birthday ever. Here’s a Dr. Seuss-like
poem (accompanying Age Defying Oil of Olay) from my high
school friend Glenn Deal – wishful thinking:
You do not show it in your face, You do not
show it anyplace!
You do not show it in your hair, Eyes or
thighs or derriere!
You do not show it in your mood. You’ve got
a youthful attitude!
A
Fool With a Tool is Still a Fool
We
prove this every day, don’t we? As I struggle to make my
Pocket PC consistently know the time of day this week, I
personally experience the difference between acquiring
knowledge and skills versus buying a shiny new tool. If
training means handing people a mindless checklist,
learning has not occurred. Check out my article
http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/contributors.asp?id=906
Walking on the Beach
A
project manager, software engineer, and hardware
engineer are in Miami Beach for a two-week period
helping out on a project. On their lunch hours, they
often chose to walk up and down the beach. During one of
these walks, they stumble upon a lamp.
The hardware engineer picks up the lamp and rubs it. A
genie appears and says "Normally I would grant 3 wishes,
but since there are 3 of you, I will grant you each one
wish."
Since he was holding the lamp, the hardware engineer
went first. "I would like to spend the rest of my life
living in a huge house in St. Thomas, with no money
worries and surrounded by beautiful women who worship
me." The genie granted him his wish and sent him on off
to St. Thomas.
The software engineer went next. "I would like to spend
the rest of my life living on a huge yacht cruising the
Mediterranean, with no money worries and surrounded by
beautiful women who worship me." The genie granted him
his wish and sent him off to the Mediterranean.
Last, but not least, it was the project manager's turn.
"And what would your wish be?" asked the genie. "I want
them both back after lunch," replied the project
manager.
Need
help with your projects? Our project managers would do
this. Contact Margie at
mbrown@russellmartin.com .
Coffee, Tea and Me: Where’s Lou in April
3/30 – 4/6 Spring Break begins – Phoenix /
Grand Canyon
4/16 Free “Accelerated Learning”
Elluminate webinar (see below)
4/23-27 New Jersey Project Management and
Leadership Coaching
The
rest of the time I’ll be here in Indy – let’s have a
no-fat latte!
Blog Update: We’re All In This Together
The Women’s
Leadership Conference
One
of our Indy friends, Deb Taylor, invited me to moderate
a women in leadership panel for a great 5/16 conference
she has put together as an outgrowth of her successful
Women’s Mentoring Program. As she began to recruit and
work with our mentors and mentees, she learned that
there was a tremendous amount of learning that women
could obtain from each other. This year the theme is
“Moving Forward”. For more information, check out
www.cpsolutions.net.
Can You Have Negative Numbers? Women In IT (or Not)
http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1540,2106559,00.asp
Last
year, when overall IT employment reached a record of
nearly 3.47 million positions, women held 26.2 percent
of the jobs, according to the Department of Labor's
Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number is down 7.7
percent from 2000, when 984,000 women filled these eight
IT occupation categories. Seven years ago women
accounted for 28.9 percent of the 3.41 million IT
positions. Employment figures for women have not fallen
in a straight line since 2000. For example, the number
of women in the industry rose by 35,000 in 2003 after
the economy stabilized following the dot-com fallout,
but the next year there was a 43,000 decline.
Coincidentally, The European Commission has called on
the business sector to focus more on women if it wants
to avoid an IT skills shortage in the next few years.
According to the EC, Europe is likely to have a
shortfall of 300,000 qualified IT workers by 2010.
http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2185446/industry-lacks-feminine-touch
Eight Deadly Sins of Leadership
Do
you make any of these critical mistakes as a leader?
www.profilesinternational.com
1.
Assume your employees know the company's objectives
and purpose.
Better yet, assume since you talked about it once, it
never has to be brought up again.
2.
Hiring in haphazard manner.
Best case scenario – 14 percent of the time you will
get a good employee. Worst case scenario – most of the
time you will get a less-than-stellar worker and
worse, you might get sued.
3.
Assuming that your people are trained.
Failing to develop your people’s talents through
appropriate training is a massive waste of resources.
How important are they REALLY?
4.
Failing to measure and adapt.
If you can’t measure it – don’t do it.
5.
Failing to provide enough feedback, positive and
constructive.
In
a recent study by Salary.com, of 2,000 employees and
330 HR professionals, two thirds of companies believe
their performance reviews are effective, but only 39
percent of employees agree.
6.
Assuming that you are doing a good job and that your
customers are happy.
7.
Not marketing, just selling.
Public Relations, Research and Advertising are
critical strategies.
8.
Treating employees as a commodity.
Need
help? Attend our IT Leadership Alchemy workshop 5/1-3
in Indianapolis, or contact Margie for our in-house
workshops
mbrown@russellmartin.com
Go Green for Seven Minutes
From my brilliant niece Teresa Russell:
We are making a worldwide unity proposal to all the
inhabitants of this world… Let us extinguish all power
use on April 7 of 2007 at 7:53 PM (19: 53 hrs.) only for
a short 7 minutes, each country in its own time zone. In
that time, we will be united in love and peace. This
would produce a worldwide awareness of the damage we are
doing to earth. If you like, do not even use candles.
Just walk around the house and turn everything off. Use
this short time to have fun with your family or
friends.
Strategy Execution or Black Hole
Only 3 percent of executives say their companies are
very successful at executing corporate strategies,
according to a global survey of 1,526 managers and human
resource experts commissioned by American Management
Association (AMA), and conducted by the Human Resource
Institute. Sixty-two percent of respondents say their
organizations are only moderately successful—or worse—at
strategy execution. How far has your organization pushed
your 2007 strategy as we enter Q2? If you need help,
talk to one of our strategic planning experts at RMA by
contacting Margie at
mbrown@russellmartin.com. Would you invest two days
to get your strategy on track?
2007 Spring Webinar Series with Lou Russell
There is still one session left in my Spring webinar
series that is focused on project management, student
retention, leadership, and accelerated teaching
techniques. “Teach Less To Learn More: Accelerated
Learning” will take place on April 16 at 2 PM
EDT
(GMT –4 hours). Need help figuring out how to retain
students or adapt employees to change? It’s free –
REGISTER NOW!
If you couldn’t attend the first three sessions, “The
Unexpected Project Manager,” “Retention is Reasonable,”
and “Leadership Alchemy: Pervasive Performance,” you
can access the interactive recordings.
ACCESS RECORDINGS NOW!
The
Lucky Irish and This Month’s Contest
Here
are my favorite answers (although all were blarney!!) to
last month’s contest from Alan Selig. Thanks, Alan for
racht
gáire!
A
leprechaun is really an Irish: Shoemaker, Magician,
Thief, Midget
All of the above, except you have to catch him and force
him for the shoemaker part.
The
color of green for
Ireland symbolizes: Hope, Nature, Life, Jealousy
Nature and Life, like the color Green, are just a little
different in Ireland than anywhere else in the world.
Why
do leprechauns wear green? Loves the color, camouflage,
meant good luck,
means Ireland
They wear green because it is the perfect color to go
with red hair.
Where do leprechauns bury their pot of gold?
They made me promise not to tell and there are few
things in this world that are worse than a leprechaun on
the wrong end of a broken promise. So I'm not saying.
T/F:
This is an Irish blessing – “God is good, but never
dance in a small boat”
Close, but the actual blessing is "God is good, but
never dance sober in a small boat", because (the Irish
believe) if you're sober then what happens is important,
but if you're drunk then wet or dry is all the same.
April has come in like a lamb, at least some days this
week, so here’s a little puzzle about the lovable little
creatures. As always, send your answers to
cmason@russellmartin.com and win fabulous April
merchandise!!
The Lion and Lamb,
Crystal Eastman
That Little Extra Word
The words you choose make an impact not only by their
meaning, but by their sound. This is called “diction,”
and it can affect your writing voice, especially in
emails. For example, letters with precise, crisp
sounds—t, p, d, or hard g—create a no-nonsense tone:
take back, track down, take up. Soft sounds—m,
n, l, or s—convey a gentler mood: renounce, pursue,
espouse.
Check your diction to make sure it’s consistent with the
voice you intend for your message.
Lou Russell
President/CEO
www.russellmartin.com
|
