Managing Pressure to Achieve Excellence

Motivational Speaker for International Conferences / Seminars. Top Team Briefings. Stress Management Training. Nationwide Employee Counselling team. High Performance Executive Coaching. Post Trauma Support & Management. Workplace Bullying.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Motivational Speaker says - Efficient v. Effective is the difference between doing the job right and doing the right job!

In my role as a motivational speaker at business conferences and seminars, I have often have to point out that ‘efficient’ and ‘effective’ may sound similar, but they are in fact quite different forms of time management.

For example, the supervisor of a dozen building sites in London’s western suburbs had worked out a logical routine for beating the rush-hour, in order to spend less time in his car and more time on-site.

He visited each site in sequence, in a particular orbit that would allow him to ‘reverse commute’, heading out of town in the morning and back into town in the evening.

This was efficient. But it was not effective - because it ignored the priority-status of the sites with the problems needing most urgent attention.

In other words, he had done the job right, but not the right job.

Distinguishing between Efficient and Effective is an important branch of Time Management - one of the major specialities on which motivational speaker Carole Spiers regularly addresses blue-chip corporate clients. It is a difference that bulks-up big in all workplace contexts.

For example, it marks the difference between the old-style secretary and the new-style PA. The secretary had to be efficient - arriving punctually, typing neatly, passing on messages correctly. But she did not have to be effective - making decisions, forecasting outcomes, thinking round corners in a semi-executive role, as today’s PA increasingly must.

Efficient v. Effective is also the test of how we handle our two kinds of working time - Control Time, where you control the duration of the job, and Response Time, where you react to interruptions which control you.

Two managers are working separately on a major report, which requires deep concentration and cannot be written in periods of less than half-an-hour. Meanwhile both are also having to allow time for dialogue with the rest of the department.

Manager A puts in half-an-hour on the report, then his concentration starts to slip, so he decides to take a break by ‘doing the rounds’ in a part-social, part-business atmosphere. One colleague needs a problem sorted, and this takes half-an-hour - longer than expected. It is at least an hour before the manager is back at his desk. Ten minutes later, the boss rings to fix a meeting for sometime that day. “How about now?” says the manager, and goes off to meet him.

Manager B faces an identical situation, but handles it differently. She starts by ringing up one of her department, to say she’ll be doing the rounds in half-an-hour - knowing that she’ll need a break by then. At the appointed time, she conducts her tour, and sure enough one team-member has a problem that needs fixing. “Come and see me in half-an-hour, when I’ll be ready for another break” she says. The colleague arrives by appointment, and they duly fix the problem, which also takes half-an-hour. Ten minutes later, the boss rings her too, to fix a meeting for today. “How about half-an-hour’s time?”, she says, and returns to another focused session on her report.

The difference between these two scenarios is that Manager A has only spent the first half-hour in Control Time, while Manager B has managed to arrange three half-hour sessions in Control Time. So limiting your availability is a key factor in achieving effectiveness.

How to stop your time managing you…

Time Management has a lot to do with showing Time who’s boss.
In fact, your time will automatically try to manage you - unless you prevent it.

· The Interruption factor
The average manager gets interrupted every 8 minutes. It’s something you can’t schedule - but there are practical ways to cut the chat.

· How Meetings squander time
Everything from latecomers to attention-seekers or just an unclear agenda. Make sure it’s necessary, then keep it brisk and businesslike.

· Logging the time-waster elements
List everything that tends to hold you up - desk clutter, drop-in visitors, long-winded talk, confusion of roles, false alarms - and tackle them.

You can find out about these and many other aspects of Time Management in a major training toolkit: ‘Hurry Hurry! – Every Second Counts’. The true and false dynamics of urgency at work’, available right here on my website - www.carolespiers.com

Suitable for all levels of management and employees, this toolkit comes with Powerpoint sildes for easy presentation, as well as a workbook that can be copied in any number. It has proved equally popular in many different kinds of organisation, at seminars and training sessions, and also with my general audiences as a motivational speaker.

Click here to see full details and buy… See a useful improvement in your time management soon.
http://www.carolespiers.com/productdetail.cfm?ProductID=24

Motivational Speaker Carole Spiers occupies a special niche as an expert in Personal Development. She brings together the separate cultures of individual empowerment and executive management - proving to corporate business that empowered employees improve performance and output. Carole’s keynote presentations have educated and inspired audiences all over the world. She is also a high profile broadcaster, journalist and President of the London Chapter of the Professional Speakers Association.


Our publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. To sign up for our FREE success quotations http://tinyurl.co.uk/yhgv, or for more information email info@carolespiers.com to telephone +44 (0) 29 8954 1593 www.carolespiers.com

Motivational Speaker says - Efficient v. Effective is

In my role as a motivational speaker at business conferences and seminars, I have often have to point out that ‘efficient’ and ‘effective’ may sound similar, but they are in fact quite different forms of time management.

For example, the supervisor of a dozen building sites in London’s western suburbs had worked out a logical routine for beating the rush-hour, in order to spend less time in his car and more time on-site.

He visited each site in sequence, in a particular orbit that would allow him to ‘reverse commute’, heading out of town in the morning and back into town in the evening.

This was efficient. But it was not effective - because it ignored the priority-status of the sites with the problems needing most urgent attention.

In other words, he had done the job right, but not the right job.

Distinguishing between Efficient and Effective is an important branch of Time Management - one of the major specialities on which motivational speaker Carole Spiers regularly addresses blue-chip corporate clients. It is a difference that bulks-up big in all workplace contexts.

For example, it marks the difference between the old-style secretary and the new-style PA. The secretary had to be efficient - arriving punctually, typing neatly, passing on messages correctly. But she did not have to be effective - making decisions, forecasting outcomes, thinking round corners in a semi-executive role, as today’s PA increasingly must.

Efficient v. Effective is also the test of how we handle our two kinds of working time - Control Time, where you control the duration of the job, and Response Time, where you react to interruptions which control you.

Two managers are working separately on a major report, which requires deep concentration and cannot be written in periods of less than half-an-hour. Meanwhile both are also having to allow time for dialogue with the rest of the department.

Manager A puts in half-an-hour on the report, then his concentration starts to slip, so he decides to take a break by ‘doing the rounds’ in a part-social, part-business atmosphere. One colleague needs a problem sorted, and this takes half-an-hour - longer than expected. It is at least an hour before the manager is back at his desk. Ten minutes later, the boss rings to fix a meeting for sometime that day. “How about now?” says the manager, and goes off to meet him.

Manager B faces an identical situation, but handles it differently. She starts by ringing up one of her department, to say she’ll be doing the rounds in half-an-hour - knowing that she’ll need a break by then. At the appointed time, she conducts her tour, and sure enough one team-member has a problem that needs fixing. “Come and see me in half-an-hour, when I’ll be ready for another break” she says. The colleague arrives by appointment, and they duly fix the problem, which also takes half-an-hour. Ten minutes later, the boss rings her too, to fix a meeting for today. “How about half-an-hour’s time?”, she says, and returns to another focused session on her report.

The difference between these two scenarios is that Manager A has only spent the first half-hour in Control Time, while Manager B has managed to arrange three half-hour sessions in Control Time. So limiting your availability is a key factor in achieving effectiveness.

How to stop your time managing you…

Time Management has a lot to do with showing Time who’s boss.
In fact, your time will automatically try to manage you - unless you prevent it.

· The Interruption factor
The average manager gets interrupted every 8 minutes. It’s something you can’t schedule - but there are practical ways to cut the chat.

· How Meetings squander time
Everything from latecomers to attention-seekers or just an unclear agenda. Make sure it’s necessary, then keep it brisk and businesslike.

· Logging the time-waster elements
List everything that tends to hold you up - desk clutter, drop-in visitors, long-winded talk, confusion of roles, false alarms - and tackle them.

You can find out about these and many other aspects of Time Management in a major training toolkit: ‘Hurry Hurry! – Every Second Counts’. The true and false dynamics of urgency at work’, available right here on my website - www.carolespiers.com

Suitable for all levels of management and employees, this toolkit comes with Powerpoint sildes for easy presentation, as well as a workbook that can be copied in any number. It has proved equally popular in many different kinds of organisation, at seminars and training sessions, and also with my general audiences as a motivational speaker.

Click here to see full details and buy… See a useful improvement in your time management soon.
http://www.carolespiers.com/productdetail.cfm?ProductID=24

Motivational Speaker Carole Spiers occupies a special niche as an expert in Personal Development. She brings together the separate cultures of individual empowerment and executive management - proving to corporate business that empowered employees improve performance and output. Carole’s keynote presentations have educated and inspired audiences all over the world. She is also a high profile broadcaster, journalist and President of the London Chapter of the Professional Speakers Association.


Our publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. To sign up for our FREE success quotations http://tinyurl.co.uk/yhgv, or for more information email info@carolespiers.com to telephone +44 (0) 29 8954 1593 www.carolespiers.com