Russell Martin and Associates Learning Flash July 2007
Happy Independence Day! In this issue, let’s think
about ways to experience independence from whatever
hampers our own goals. For a little virtual fun, click
in the area above the Statue of Liberty and make your
own fireworks happen.
Click here: Lady Liberty Fireworks
In
this issue:
·
Welcome to New RMA Staff
·
Welcome New Customers
·
10
Steps to Successful Project Management
·
The
Pigs Have a Workshop
·
NEW:
RMA Learn-inars
·
Hurricane Katrina: Help in New Orleans Continues
·
Independence from Mediocrity: Happy 25th Birthday to
In Search of Excellence
·
Celebrate Leadership Success
·
RMA
Leadership Academy Retreat 8/29-31 in Indy
·
The
Seven Traps of Leadership for Women
·
Free
from Litigation: Managerial Mayhem
·
Independence from Angry Customers
·
Independence from Risk Aversion
·
July
Contest: 4th of July Contest
·
Pipe
Cleaner Dance
·
Sleep In, It’s Summer
·
Work
Vacation Woes
·
Airport Fun for Vacation Time
·
Independence from Tightness
·
Prioritization and Balance: It is Possible
Welcome to New RMA Staff
RMA
is proud to introduce our two summer interns: Betsy
Ballentine, a senior this year at DePauw University, and
Chris Dixon, a senior at Wabash College. Both have been
amazing in their ability to jump right in and get things
done. Also, welcome back Leah Colville. Leah will be
doing business development with us and rejoins us after
being one of our learning facilitators’ years ago. With
our growth this year, Margie and I are thrilled to have
Leah who knows our business and our customers so well.
Welcome New Customers
We
would also like to recognize some new clients in 2007.
·
ACS,
Inc.
·
Aramark Uniform Services
·
CIK
·
Indiana Community Action Association
·
Iron
Mountain
·
Marion County Clerk
10
Steps to Successful Project Management
Do
you need a project management book for people who
consider project management part of their job, not their
entire job? The book is finally here! Thanks to all of
you who have preordered the book, and to those of you
who are flooding us with orders. Join me this month at
the IIBA meeting on Tuesday, July 10 at 6:30 PM at Duke
Realty in Indianapolis.
Click here for more information.
No
time to play games? Hmmm… perhaps you need a book on
project management? You can order the book at
http://russellmartinandassociates.stores.yahoo.net/bookbylourus.html.
The
Pigs Have a Workshop
Interested in doing the
10 Steps to Successful Project Management workshop?
Contact Margie at
mbrown@russellmartin.com. This 1 day workshop
(available as a keynote, live or online) will jumpstart
your employee’s ability to deliver successful projects.
NEW:
RMA Learn-inars
Look
for an email from RMA in the next couple weeks with a
complete listing of the webinars RMA will offer for the
remainder of 2007.
Hurricane Katrina: Help in New Orleans Continues
Through the gracious help of the attendees and the other
vendors at the recent Career College Association
convention in New Orleans, we were able to gather over
twelve containers full of school supplies, books, bags
and other supplies. The director was extremely excited
to get the supplies, and at my request, shared another
need that she has below. Please send contributions
directly to her:
”Your thoughtfulness is most appreciated. We've
contracted with the Baptist Retreat Center in St.
Francisville, LA. This facility will be able to house
and feed staff and residents in the case of another
hurricane. However, in our very first Advance
Evacuation Team meeting held yesterday, I learned there
are certain essentials we don't have and the retreat
center does not provide. For example, the sleeping
quarters have bunk beds. For our residents with small
infants, there are no portable cribs. Bunk beds would
be an unsafe means of bedding small ones.
Since you asked me to let you know when we have specific
needs, I figured I'd take advantage of this opportunity!
Although I'm not sure if you'd only want to help in the
area of education, I will state my request. We will
need 10 - 15 portable cribs. What we are looking for
specifically is ease of transportation - we'll have lots
of other essentials to transport to our evacuation site,
so having something that folds, stores, and carries
easily is essential. Financial help for the purpose of
purchasing these cribs would be greatly appreciated.
Should you or someone you know wish to help in this
regard, please let me know. “
Monica A. Chanel, Human Resources/Development Specialist
Covenant House New Orleans, Telephone: 504-584-1126,
Facsimile: 504-584-1124
If
you donate, let us know and we will reward you with
fabulous merchandise!!!
Independence from Mediocrity: Happy 25th Birthday to
In Search of Excellence
While being hopelessly lost in New York this week, I
accidentally ended up in Yonkers at Stu Leonard’s. I
had to stop and check it out since I had heard about it
in Tom Peters’ famous book. In celebration, here are
some Tom nuggets:
“In
order to lead effectively toward excellence, you must
know yourself. We pursue preservation, but the old
order is doomed. We value permanence, but “permanence”
is the last refuge of those with shriveled imaginations.
We practice change, but “change” is not enough! In the
real world, there’s no relief from the tension between
conservation and change, order and freedom. Does that
mean we’re cursed to live in a world of dreary gray? No!
The alternative to black/white is not gray but
Technicolor! Let a hundred colors bloom!”
“The
key is value innovation, the pursuit of superior
customer value and lower cost. This perspective leads
you to expand your definition of customers and to focus
in on what they ultimately want. If your offering is
nothing more than an imitation or incremental
improvement over your competition, you’ll only be
treading water in a red ocean. But if you can
distinguish yourself and deliver superior value, your
competition becomes irrelevant. You will be in an
uncontested blue ocean of compelling opportunities and
uncontested market space.” Taken from the article
Leadership Excellence (ISSN 8756-2308), published
monthly by Executive Excellence Publishing, 1806 North
1120 West, Provo, UT 84604.
Would you like to gain a little independence by spending
time knowing yourself and building value innovation?
Contact Margie at
mbrown@russellmartin.com to find out ways to grow
your leadership.
Celebrate Leadership Success
Congratulations to our readers!
Mike
Hineline (Leadership Academy alum) – a new leadership
position at One America
Jay
Peterson – a new leadership position at Target
Share your success with us and we’ll congratulate you!
RMA
Leadership Academy Retreat August 29-31, 207 in Indy
We
are excited to announce that our August leadership
academy will be held at the Indianapolis Children’s
Museum. This interactive museum is ranked #1 in the
country, and will be the perfect place for up and coming
leaders to explore their careers. Beside local leaders,
this workshop will be jointly facilitated by Lou Russell
and leadership/coaching expert Susan Mosey.
Click here to register now. For more information,
click here or contact
Margie Brown
at
mbrown@russellmartin.com.
The
Seven Traps of Leadership for Women
Here’s a summary of an article written by Dede Henley in
the last Leadership Excellence journal published
by Executive Excellence Publishing. Let me know what
you think. Are women leaders different? Are their
strengths and weaknesses different than their male
counterparts? Email me your thoughts at
lou@russellmartin.com .
1.
Being one of the boys. As though we had been invited
into the boys’ clubhouse, we believed that if we wanted
to stay, we had better lie low, fit in, and get along.
When we adopt a masculine style of dress and of relating
to and managing others, we disconnect from our true
expression and natural way of being. Our feminine
circumspect view, our relational perspective, and our
highly intuitive and creative input are silenced.
2.
Playing the martyr: “I’ll do it myself.” Women excel at
many things. We can juggle many tasks and multi-task. We
can get just about any job done, no matter how tedious
or onerous. The challenge that goes with our competence
is the facility with which we become martyrs, feeling
overworked and underappreciated. To end our martyrdom
and claim our sovereignty, we need to ask directly for
what we want and need; give up the right to be right;
make room for people to say no; and trust that others
can make powerful choices for themselves.
3.
Having no voice and no choice. Women lose power when we
see ourselves as victims without choice. In truth, only
one kind of complaining makes a difference: complaining
for action or speaking out—taking your complaint to
someone who can do something about it. Retain your
power.
4.
Waiting for rescue. Years ago, I realized I was waiting
for the perfect job, client, partner, and office to
appear. I now realize that there are no shortcuts.
Waiting for rescue is another way of abdicating your
power and sovereignty. Take one positive action, and
then another. Create the life you’ve been waiting for.
5.
Peace at any price. Preserving the peace at any price is
another way in which we sacrifice sovereignty. We may go
out of our way to please others, withhold honest
feedback, or try to make things okay that really aren’t.
6.
Hurry, hurry, hurry! We are addicted to speed. We want
everything now. We can do just about anything in a
hurry, and we’re increasingly impatient. In our headlong
race toward our goals, we often rush past inspiration
and creativity.
7.
Self-protection. You relinquish the privilege of
leadership when you take leave of your true source of
power and influence, abandon your followers in the name
of self-protection, and become more concerned about
staying safe than about providing clear direction and
grounding for others..
Dede
Henley is CEO of The Dede Henley Group, and author of
The Secret of Sovereignty: Women Choosing Leadership
www.dedehenley.com .
Free
from Litigation: Managerial Mayhem
HR
Specialist unveiled its list of the 12 most common
mistakes made by managers that can result in litigation.
To keep you on your toes, here are some to remember:
·
Sloppy documentation. Managers should speak and write
(even in e-mail) as if a jury will examine their
comments some day.
·
Not
knowing their company's policies and procedures. When
managers admit ignorance in court, juries typically view
that as purposeful, not forgetful.
·
Giving inflated appraisals during performance reviews.
If a manager later cites "poor performance" for an
employee's termination, overly positive appraisals can
create a credibility gap.
·
"Papering" an employee's file. Courts will see through a
rush of disciplinary actions cited in the days before a
termination.
·
Interview errors (e.g., questions about age, race,
religion, political affiliation). Hiring managers should
stay away from any question that doesn't relate to
gauging how well the person would perform the job.
·
Being rude or mean-spirited. No matter how great your
legal defense, you'll face an uphill battle in court if
your manager comes across as rude or insensitive.
From
Inside Training Newsletter [vnueditor@email.trainingmag.com]
Did you know Russell Martin & Associates has written
custom programs to teach managers a legal and effective
process for managing staff? Contact Margie at
mbrown@russellmartin.com.
Independence from Angry Customers
You
are engaged in developing, preparing and executing your
organization’s customer self service strategy. This
means ensuring the best experience for your customers
while meeting the top and bottom line expectations for
your business. Turn this business imperative into an
action plan by attending Shared Insights Customer Self
Service Conference, August 21-23 in San Diego, where I
will be speaking and doing a workshop.
Key
issues to be addressed:
·
With
the demand for a seamless multi channel customer
experience, how can you possibly manage your operation
and keep your costs in check?
·
Can
you create cross and up sell opportunities from the
additional touch points you offer your customers?
·
Can
you prove to your CEO that the ROI for customer self
service is there, given the complexity of integrating
the technology?
Join
me at this one of a kind conference designed to help you
start, fix and revamp your strategy!
For more information visit the event website. Want
a sneak preview of Lou’s presentation and workshop.
Click here to listen.
Independence from Risk Aversion
Managers are reluctant to encourage risk-taking by their
workers, according to a nationwide telephone survey of
690 employed Americans conducted for Princeton, NJ-based
consultancy BlessingWhite. Just 26 percent of
respondents say they often are asked by an employer to
seek new solutions, and 41 percent report they are never
encouraged to take risks. If you’d like your staff to
feel more empowered, consider hiring one of our expert
facilitators to help grow this capacity by contacting
Margie at
mbrown@russellmartin.com .
4th
of July Contest
Imagine that it’s 1776, and you are with the founding
fathers building the project plan for American
independence from England. Imagine that you have all
the technology available today. Now, create a
PR/Marketing tagline for the founding fathers to use in
their TV and web spots. The winner will win fabulous
patriotic merchandise!
Congratulations to last month’s 10 Steps Trivia Contest:
David Davenport, Vincent McGevna, Dan Brandon – AG
Financial, Heidi Pelrine – ProHealth Care, Jay Peterson
– GMAC ResCap
Pipe
Cleaner Dance
For
all of you budding artists who have entertained our
facilitators with your elegant pipe cleaner sculptures
in our classes,
check out a web site that you can actually make them
dance!
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB),
responding to complaints that internal-controls reviews
mandated by the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) are too
costly, voted to bring more efficiency to audits by
scaling back the number of tests and amount of
documentation needed to satisfy such reviews. PCAOB
approved an auditing standard, sending it to the
Securities and Exchange Commission for final approval.
The standard aims to focus auditors on the biggest
risks, removing requirements that auditors had
interpreted as limiting their ability to use the work of
others or knowledge gained in prior years’ audits. SOX
requires company management to evaluate internal
controls over financial reporting, subject to review by
outside auditors. The internal-controls audits became
unnecessarily expensive as auditors brought a level of
detail to their reviews that weren’t needed.
RMA has developed web and live workshops to teach and
track compliance for multiple customers. Need to
tighten up your adherence? Contact Margie at
mbrown@russellmartin.com
.
Sleep In, It’s Summer
And
then use these real yet lame excuses form a recent
training newsletter to get off the hook.
·
Called in "sad."
·
Super-glued eye thinking it was contact lens solution.
·
Accidentally put diesel fuel in the car.
·
Mistakenly flushed keys down the toilet.
·
Detained by the FBI.
·
Thought it was Sunday.
·
Clock ran backward.
·
Ran
into chickens that fell from a chicken truck that turned
over in the road.
Work
Vacation Woes
Vacationing executives may be spending more time looking
at laptops than landmarks, a new survey from The
Creative Group suggests. Nearly half, or 47 percent, of
the 250 advertising and marketing executives surveyed
say they check in at least twice daily while away from
the office; only 13 percent of respondents say they
never attend to business matters when taking time off.
I believe that good leaders are more able to go on
vacation because they have empowered their staff. If
you find your staff needs you every day, consider
leadership training. Contact Margie at
mbrown@russellmartin.com.
Airport Fun for Vacation Time
Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of
humor. Here are some actual maintenance complaints
submitted by pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions
recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.
P:
Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.
P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.
P: Something loose in cockpit
S: Something tightened in cockpit
P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.
P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces 200 feet per
minute descent
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.
P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.
P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.
P: Friction locks causes throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what friction locks are for.
P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.
P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.
P: Aircraft handles funny.
S:
Aircraft warned to: straighten up, fly right, and be
serious.
P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.
P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat
installed.
And
the best one for last..................
P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like
a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget.
Independence from Tightness
‘Many systems related to motion - especially the human
ones - function more productively when they are relaxed
rather than when they are inappropriately stressed and
tight. But for most people tension accrues much more
automatically than relaxation does. Not many people
experience decreasing pressure as their day goes on - it
tends to mount progressively all by itself. When moving
parts are too constrained, without flexibility, things
can break, or at least ossify over time. Patterns in our
behavior were created for a purpose, but they don't
normally extinguish themselves when that purpose has
been fulfilled. We must consciously unplug ourselves
from those forms the moment they don't serve us, and
direct our attention to activities that relieve strain.
To let go of tensions that are no longer necessary takes
focused concentration. It's a dynamic, not passive,
process. From David Allen
www.davidallenco.com .
Prioritization and Balance: It is Possible
This
is from an email conversation I had with Dr. Edward
Hoffman from NASA where part of his job is to help with
the free ASK online magazine, a knowledge management
tool for project management:
“For
myself, I have forced myself to pay attention to what is
most important in how I spend my time. I realized that
some of my stress, and sense of overload was raised by
the fact that I did not force myself to prioritize my
NASA tasks running APPEL, my schedule, and where and how
I spend my time with people. So I have done a much
better job focusing my attention on priorities that I
need to address. For the NASA teams we now offer both
behavioral coaching (to address the real life pressures
of balance and project overload) and subject matter
expert practitioners to better help our workforce
address the requirements of running a complex project.
We also conduct 5 - 8 minute team performance
assessments to baseline how the team is working and flag
any team and individual issues impacting performance and
health. So in short form we have tried to do the
following:
1.
Focus on the Project Team
a.
Brief Project Team Assessments to raise any developing
trends
b.
Team
workshops to actively address these issues
c.
Coaching and Mentoring available to individuals and
teams
d.
Re-assessment of Team Performance for tracking over time
2.
Personally I have availed myself of our coaches and have
found this a tremendous help to better focus my energies
and areas of attention, mindset and behaviors.
The
world has gotten so complex that building and
maintaining a healthy and adaptive system is an
essential requirement for success.
Lou Russell, President
Russell Martin & Associates
info@russellmartin.com
