JANUARY 2008 LEARNING FLASH

January 2008: Happy New Year from Russell Martin & Associates and L+EARN 

Epiphany is celebrated this time of year and that’s the theme of this month’s newsletter.  There are different ways of celebrating the Christian feast Epiphany, and many refer to the visit of the Magi to baby Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem (see below).  Epiphany can also mean a feeling; a realization of the essence of something – the illumination of truth.  Both definitions emphasize gifts – whether the gifts from the Magi or illumination, which is how I like to think of learning.                                            

In this issue you will experience the Gift of…

·         Learning

·         More Time

·         Democracy

·         Leadership

·         Celebration

·         Winning

·         Laughter

·         Prophecy

·         Project Sponsorship

·         Helping Others

·         Better Conversations

·         Good News

The Gift of Learning

The Scoop on the Magi

Here are some interesting Wikipedia ‘facts’ about the Three Kings:

·         The best known Magi are the "Wise Men from the East"

·         Marco Polo claimed to have seen their graves in what is today the district of Saveh, near Tehran, Iran.

·         In English, the term may refer to a shaman, sorcerer or wizard; it is the origin of the words magic and magician.

Public Schedule

Attend the following learning opportunities coming up in January:              

Find out more and register at www.russellmartin.com/publicofferings.htm                           

Easy Reading

Grow your abilities this year by reading one of my books:

The Accelerated Learning Fieldbook        Learn how to Lecture as a Last Resort

Project Management for Trainers             Learn how to streamline training projects

IT Leadership Alchemy                           Grow as an IT Leader

Leadership Training                                Teach leadership using this course in a book

Training Triage                                       Implement a training solution in 24 hours

10 Steps to Successful Project Mgmt      Practice quick, practical project management

Buy your copy (signed!) at www.russellmartin.com

Pfeiffer Annual

I use these great books full of tips from smart people to help me when I develop business and learning strategies all year.  Get your own copy at www.pfeiffer.com. There is one book for training ideas and one for consulting – check out my contribution title in the consulting journal!

Lou’s Facebook   www.facebook.com     

Join my list of friends!  I am posting pictures of many of my adventures, and you might be out there!  Yes, my children are a bit embarrassed that I have a Facebook but that’s half the fun!

The Gift of More Time

Since the dawn of Stephen Covey, we’ve known how to get more time, we just don’t do it.  It’s the start of the year – why not work on it again?  Instead of chasing after fires and just-in-time projects, why not invest a little time now in getting organized.  Consider:

1. Figuring out how you want to spend your time at work and assigning percentages to this work.  For example:  Time with staff: 30%, Time with customers: 40%, Development work: 30%.

2. List the projects on your list right now. Prioritize these projects – are they really taking you toward the businesses goals or just things that are nice to have?

3.  Map your project priorities to your time percentages: do things line up?

4. Break down your projects into task lists with dates and put it all in a spreadsheet. 

5. Block project time on your calendar (you block everything else!).  As much as possible, attempt to work uninterrupted on one thing as long as possible. 

6. Keep a scribble sheet next to you to write down things you want to remember to do so you won’t get unfocused.

7. Begin every day with five minutes to prioritize your activities that day.

The Three Pigs struggled with a lack of time.  To hear the story of how they improved their lives (based on my book 10 Steps to Successful Project Management) download my podcast titled Project Management & the Three Pigs at www.itunes.com.

For more information about how you can invest a half day with one of our project gurus to help your entire team be more productive contact Margie Brown at mbrown@russellmartin.com.

The Gift of Democracy

Register to Vote

Don’t wait too long to register: www.declareyourself.com  If you’ve never voted absentee before, look into it… it’s much simpler.

Choose Well

If you haven’t already done this, check out this link which makes you prioritize the current issues and maps that to a presidential candidate for 2008 <http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460>  

This will help you avoid the sinking cynicism that is so easy to fall into with all the noise, well illustrated in this excerpt from a poem titled “The Politician” by Ogden Nash, one of my father’s favorite philosophers:

Some politicians are Republicans, some Democratic,

And their feud is dramatic,

But except for the name

             They are identically the same.

The Gift of Leadership

It’s been on your to-do list forever, but you just never have time to work on your own leadership or help your up and coming managers to grow into leadership.  Think about the choice – what is the cost of not having adequate leadership?    See if any of these challenges exist for you:

1. Do your teams understand not only the project they are working on it but WHY the project is important to the business?

2. Do your teams communicate well internally and with other areas of the business?

3. Does everyone on your team have a career plan?

4. Do you find that work you have delegated often ends up back in your lap?

5. Are you frustrated by the lack of creative thought and agility in your organization?

We have been growing high potential, mid level Fortune 500 leaders for five years.  Attend our public workshop in Indianapolis later this month (see above) or bring it in for your teams.  The workshop includes ongoing executive coaching, C-level guest speakers, 360 assessments and behavioral assessments.  Most importantly it provides you with tools to think about your own leadership and techniques to translate that thought into immediate action.   Reserve your dates now by contacting Margie at mbrown@russellmartin.com for more information. 

The Gift of Celebration

Happy Birthday to us!  This year, Russell Martin & Associates celebrates 20 years in the business of growing people through fun, fast, flexible and measurable learning.  Since our customers are all over the country (and world!), we have decided to have parties as I speak across the country.  Here’s the schedule for the first quarter of the year – please register by emailing Carol at cmason@russellmartin.com and we will send you more information as the dates arrive:

The Gift of Winning

Good job with the last contest! We got a lot of very nice comments about the new format of our newsletter.  We love hearing from you.  Want to win AGAIN?  Play one or both of these contests:

Contest 1:  There is a song about Epiphany  featured in a current popular movie.  What movie is it?

Contest 2:  How many words can you discover using the letters in Epiphany?  Send us your list to cmason@russellmartin.com for fabulous merchandise!

The Gift of Laughter

Jeff Foxworthy has also defined how to know if someone is from New England…

• If you can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you live in New England.

• If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance, and they don't work there, you live in New England.

• If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you live in New England.

• You measure distance in hours.

• The speed limit on the highway is 55mph -- you're going 80 and everybody is passing you!

• Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

• You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.

• You actually understand these jokes, and forward them to all your New England friends!

The Gift of Prophecy

If you could build a dashboard on your desk that would help you say at a quick glance the status of all the initiatives your team is working on, what would it look like?  Are you given the date for most of your team’s projects before they even start?  RMA has developed a dashboard for your current projects which includes:

·         A dashboard to track initiatives

·         A TETRIS board to graphically display project capacity

Intrigued?  I’d love to tell you about it.  Contact me at lou@russellmartin.com. 

The Gift of Project Sponsorship

We are currently developing a kit for project managers to give to their project stakeholders to set the expectation early for the role they will play on their project going forward.  I am looking for people to give me feedback on this product and try it out.  If you are interested, please email me at lou@russellmartin.com.

The Gift of Helping Others

Buy One, Get One Laptops

Last month, many of you checked out the buy one, get one laptop offer (we have ways of watching you, hee, hee).  I ordered one, but it won’t be in until late January.  If anyone else has already received one, I’d love to know what you think.  Email me at lou@russellmartin.com.

Recruiting Students to College

There is nothing more important than getting a college degree to be successful.   Through our subsidiary L+EARN (www.lplusearn.com ), our college customers are using our products and services to improve recruitment, teaching and placement.  Here are some examples:

The High School Recruitment ‘Presentation-in-a-Box’

Use our kit to entertain and teach high school students or use during an open house.  This simulation teaches players the importance of project management as they compete to construct a rocket ship from a blueprint.  The kit includes supplies for 4 teams of players, presentation notes, and peripheral handouts (digitally) that can be customized with your college information.  

GameShow Prep

Use online or projected game shows to teach content or review materials.  This fun, easy to use software makes learning easy.  This software is excellent for teaching basic literacy skills especially English as a second language.  The games include Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Tic Tac To, Millionaire and Family Feud –like games.   You can author your games or we can author them for you. Contact Leah Colville at lcolville@lplusearn.com for more information.

The Gift of Better Conversations

2007 Banished Words

Lake Superior State University’s 2008 list of banished words or phrases: perfect storm, Webinar (oh-oh), waterboarding, organic, wordsmith, authored, post 9/11, surge, give back, ‘blank’ is the new ‘blank’, Black Friday, random, sweet, decimate, emotional, pop, it is what it is

Writing for Sales

Solid business writing is built upon strong claims that have four characteristics: they are precise and clear, use sound logic, are ethically responsible, and are supported with solid evidence. Use three types of claims to make your writing strong:

• A claim of truth argues about what is correct and deals with facts. Example: All RMA services come with an unconditional money-back guarantee if not completely happy with us.

• A claim of value argues about what has worth and is based on a known standard. Example: Applying RMA project management techniques will improve your project throughput.

• A claim of policy argues that something should be done. Example: Invest in growing your leaders through the RMA Leadership Academy to improve your business success.

Taken from www.upwritepress.com  .

The Gift of Good News

Check out the site www.happynews.com.  You can get GOOD NEWS any time you want.  Also, I liked http://www.doonenicething.com/   Do one nice thing on Mondays.

Lou Russell, President

Russell Martin & Associates

info@russellmartin.com