When Was The Last Time You’ve Done This One Thing At Work?

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” 

– Cisero

I’ve worked in the education industry for more than a decade and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about education it is this: it is hard to be a teacher. Teachers are not only responsible for having all of their students of different levels and backgrounds learn grade-level content but are also responsible for teaching the students life’s basics. In other words, teachers have a huge responsibility to turn little kids into adults that will one day be our future.

Yes, it’s hard to be a teacher for all these things I just mentioned, but to top things off, teachers hardly get a “thank you.” Year after year they work their butt off and it’s random or rare if a student tells the teacher, “thank you for teaching me,” or if a parent tells the teacher “thank you for helping my son.”

Saying Thank You

As we approach a day away from Thanksgiving, it is time to reflect. Although many of us might not be school teachers, we interact with our co-workers, executives, clients or vendors on a frequent basis. When was the last time you’ve said thank you to your boss for believing in you, or thank you to your ace for all her hard work?

At times, we like to get creative and send an e-card or even write a thank you card for someone. However, the simple words of “thank you” coming out of your mouth are much more powerful. It shows care, gratitude and it comes from the soul. How long has it been since you have actually said thank you?

The Thank You Challenge

I challenge you today to take some time to thank people in your office or in your branch. Ask them if they have a minute and give them a sincere thank you for their accomplishments. Think of at least three accomplishments you can thank them for. If you want to continue challenging yourself, don’t forget the other people that matter – those at home, your family.

Don't forget to share this blog so you can encourage others: family, co-workers, friends. Give them something to get motivated! You never know what they might be going through. A few words of encouragement can go a long way.  

5 Things To Be Thankful For At Work

“Be grateful for what you have and stop complaining - it bores everyone else, does you no good, and doesn't solve any problems.” 

– Zig Ziglar

About a month ago I met with a friend and we had a long conversation about our jobs. My friend, disappointed, complained about the job he’s been doing for almost 10 years and described the work he does as “terrible.”

“My boss is a jerk,” my friend exclaimed,”and they work us like crazy.” He summarized the rest of his conversation with the words “it sucks.”

I looked at my friend and asked him if there was anything he liked about the job. He pondered a bit and came up with a few things he liked about his job. I followed up with a second question: is it really that bad?

I feel as though many people like to play the ‘victim’ at times and would rather prove why their job is worse than someone else’s. My perspective is quite different because I’ve been homeless, jobless and broke all at once so I cherish certain things that others might not (Read How I Survived With $11 In My Pocket). Here are at least five things to be thankful for at work:

Be thankful you have a job – Is not having a job really much better than having the job you currently have? Be thankful you are currently employed and receive a pay check every month. Some people might not have that privilege.

Be thankful you have work – It is one thing to have a job and another thing to have plenty of work to do. Having a lot of work, or a lot of business, is good. It provides you with stability.

Be thankful for the people you work with – Sometimes the job requires long hours and you might see your co-workers more than you might see your wife. Be thankful for the comraderies, joy and experience you share with your team.  

Be thankful you’re learning – I can almost guarantee that the person you were when you first started working wherever you are is no longer the person you are now. You’ve grown professionally and will continue to learn. Be thankful for that opportunity.

Be thankful for the challenges – When your day becomes more challenging, you become stronger. Without challenges there is no effort, no growth and no strength. Be thankful that you have been challenged physically and/or mentally and you are a smarter, stronger person.

There are other things to be thankful for. Make sure to show your gratitude at work this week and reflect on the positive things your job has to offer. 

Don't forget to share this blog so you can encourage others: family, co-workers, friends. Give them something to get motivated! You never know what they might be going through. A few words of encouragement can go a long way. 

The Most Important Element Managers Forget When Training Employees

“Objectives are not fate; they are direction. They are not commands; they are commitments. They do not determine the future; they are means to mobilize the resources and energies of the business for the making of the future.” 

– Peter Drucker

Recently, I’ve been working with a group in the LA area that wanted to reassess the way they train their employees, particularly their management team. I asked what types of training do they give their employees and the response was “we train them on what they are supposed to do.” I asked to see any materials that they use, any slides, modules or outline but none was present. I also asked the organization if they believe their trainings were effective and they responded with mixed results. I finally asked why they felt they needed additional training from me. The company just thought more training meant more sales.

Depending on where you work, there might be a negative or positive feeling when you hear the word “training” or “company training.” For some companies the word “training” is non-existent. Many times, we are asked to train other people either because we’ve done a good job at work or we might be seen as an expert within our company. Training is not easy though (Read Still Re-Training Your Employees? Is It A People Problem Or A TrainingProblem?). There are different learning styles the trainees have and different methods of teaching from the facilitator. There is one element though that most companies or managers forget to consider when training their employees.

What are your objectives?

Most trainers are not trained to train. If you are put in a position to train and have no training experience (or even if you do) you should focus on this one key area: the objectives of your training. Brainstorming the objectives will force you to think about what you’re trying to get out of your own training. These are some questions you should be asking yourself:

What should the trainee(s) be able to do, say, make, create, develop, use or see after the trainee(s) is done with my training?

Have you ever wondered why most trainings begin with the objectives and the objectives typically begin with “by the end of this training you will…?” Put some thought into the things you want to accomplish after the trainee(s) walk out of your training at the end.

Is your training content aligned to your objectives?

Telling someone what to do is not a training. Showing someone what to do is not a training either. Everything you do in a training must be correlated with your objectives. Your goal as a trainer is to meet those objectives and have the trainee(s) accomplish those objectives as well

How many objectives do you have?

If you develop a training program for your staff and have 15 objectives for your training, do you think the training will be a long training or a short training? Most likely it will be a long training and with long trainings people forget most of the content. Stick to 5 objectives but heavily focus on mastering those objectives. If you need to cover more objectives then you should consider splitting the training module so that it is not one long training.

If you want to put your brain to work and implement some of these ideas, think about training a group of people to make a sandwich. If your goal is to make every single trainee make the exact sandwich every single time, what objectives would you develop? How can you make your content correlate with your objectives? Will your objectives include the understanding of ingredients, speed, and quality control? Focus on your objectives and you will have more consistent results with your staff. 

Don't forget to share this blog so you can encourage others: family, co-workers, friends. Give them something to get motivated! You never know what they might be going through. A few words of encouragement can go a long way. 

Still Re-Training Your Employees? Is It A People Problem Or A Training Problem?

“Nothing will work unless you do” – John Wooden

So you trained this person at least six times on how to complete this report and it’s still not the way you want it? I didn’t say this out loud as I was really trying to listen to the issues one of the manager was having with her team. Apparently, she feels that she spends most of her time re-training people on things they should already know. I’ve heard these comments from managers before though. There is re-training on how to make proper phone calls, servicing customers, updating systems or using technology.

Throughout my career I had the opportunity to develop training programs, develop staff members and work on professional development with different groups. Currently, as part of the Leadership Build group, I have the blessing to lead corporate trainings for different companies in multiple industries and I hear the same comments from different managers from different organizations working in different industries. After hearing out the managers I typically ask this question: do you think this is a people problem or a training problem? Can you guess what the typical response is?

Most managers believe they did all they could to train a person or a group of people properly. They claim that they already “told” their team multiple times how to do it. Some might even claim that they specifically “showed” the group how to do something. However, many times, the problem isn’t the group being trained. How do I know this? I was one of those managers. Before giving any consultation, I always dig deeper to find out the root cause of this particular issue.

How Effective Is The Trainer?

Most managers are not trainers. Most managers are also not teachers. Most managers have never been taught how to train or how to teach. This doesn’t mean that there might be some managers that successfully train their team or lead their team, but it is very difficult to find a manager that can manage multiple tasks, lead a group of people, train them, coach them, meet all targets, be empathetic, meet all deadlines and think outside the box to improve a process. We are asking for a lot in managers.

Most of the companies I have worked with do not have a process to effectively evaluate the trainer. Most managers or trainers are left to figure out how to train their employees. Therefore, most managers might put a few powerpoint slides together, or decide to just stand in front of a room and talk. Talking is not training. An effective trainer facilitates the entire process, checking for understanding and has specific goals to achieve during the training. Did the trainer communicate well? Did the trainer show, taught, explained or discussed the content of the training? Was the trainer prepared? Did the trainer give specific examples? Many times, we don’t ask these questions to really understand how effective our trainers might be.

How Effective Is The Training Program?

Similarly, most internal training programs are not evaluated. Many companies do their own training and cross their fingers afterwards, expecting employees to perform per expectations. This might work in certain instances, but many companies I have consulted with struggle as their company grows. The tiny training given at the early stage of the company’s lifespan might have worked, but as the company and industry grow or change, the training requires more structure, standardization and quality. Recycling trainings year after year might not work at this point. These were three characteristics not thought of during the early stages of the company’s training.

Therefore, it is important to ask the efficacy of the training program. Notice that I included “program” after the word training. Most sports teams and successful corporations have a training academy or training program. Training is not a one-time thing. Is there follow up after the training? Was the training adaptive? Was there a reason the training was done in-person as opposed to online? Are we seeing results immediately following the training? Was everyone trained? Are there any learning gaps that might need to filled?

In the end, if you can positively answer all my questions throughout this article regarding your training and you know your trainer and the training program is effective (since you have seen positive results in the majority of the people trained), then maybe we can look at the people problem. Just remember: a heavy focus on developing your people will pay off.

Don't forget to share this blog so you can encourage others: family, co-workers, friends. Give them something to get motivated! You never know what they might be going through. A few words of encouragement can go a long way. 

3 Steps To Creating Your Own ‘Mini-Me’ At Work

"Mini-Me, if anything should happen to you, I don't know what I would do...I'd probably move on, get another replica but there would be a 10 minute period there where I would just be inconsolable."

- Dr. Evil 

I remember the first time I watched the Austin Powers movie. It was a hilarious, original film with extremely memorable quotes and characters. If you were to ask me to recite quotes from the movie, I would butcher the phrases, but there was one character that stood out to me above all – Mini-Me.

Mini-Me is supposed to be a smaller replica of the movie’s villain, Dr. Evil. Mini-Me acts, talks and moves like Dr. Evil. He’s supposed to be Dr. Evil’s mini-clone. Do you ever wish you could split yourself in half or that you could clone yourself at work? Perhaps you feel you don’t have as many hours in a day to complete your work. Or you might feel like you have too many projects on your lap. Wouldn’t you want a Mini-You? Here are three steps to guide you on creating your own Mini-Me.

Identify Your Mini-Me

The true reason why we would want to split ourselves in half is because we want someone to do the work exactly as we would do it. We don’t believe there is anyone else out there who could do a better job so we would need another “me” to execute. In order to build your Mini-Me, you need to first identify someone that you can take under your wing who is as good (or better) than you. Are you managing someone who is extremely talented? Is there anyone that you trust or you can depend on? Who can become your Mini-Me? In my opinion, there is one characteristic I would look in a person above any other characteristics: is the person teachable and coachable? You might have the smartest, talented, competent person in your department, but if that person is not coachable, you will struggle.

Learn How To Teach

You might have a person you identified as talented and teachable, but if you don’t know how to coach, train or teach that person properly, you will have difficulty building that person up to your standards. Most people want to create a Mini-Me, but they don’t know how to properly teach their Mini-Me. Telling someone how to do an expense report is not teaching. Telling someone to figure out how to do your job is not teaching. Although you might have those shining stars that could probably figure things out on their own, if you truly want to have things done just the way you would do them, you’ll have to roll up your sleeves. You’ll have to do a better job in training and showing the way so that your Mini-Me understands what you look at, what you see as perfection and what is the bar.

Invest Time In Your Mini-Me

Investing time in others is probably the most difficult part of any manager’s role. It’s difficult because many managers can’t seem to find the time to invest in others. However, the secret to developing a successful Mini-Me, is the prioritization of the time you spend with your Mini-Me. You want to spend more of your time teaching, training, coaching, observing, correcting, giving feedback to your Mini-Me, and less time doing tasks that won’t contribute to the development of your Mini-Me. Eventually, you want your Mini-Me to be able to do those tasks that keep you from spending time with him/her.

Perhaps your Mini-Me won’t walk like you, talk like you or act like you, but at least he/she will do the work exactly as you would. Then, if you’re successful at building your first Mini-Me, you might end up having multiple Mini-Yous.

Don't forget to share this blog so you can encourage others: family, co-workers, friends. Give them something to get motivated! You never know what they might be going through. A few words of encouragement can go a long way. 

5 Time Management Lessons From Julie Morgenstern That Helped My Career

"Pull away even though it feels like career suicide. Go home. Rest, sleep, recharge, have fun with your kids, play with the dog and watch how much more effective you will be."

- Julie Morgenstern

"Wait a minute," my colleagues asked as I was preparing the room for a time management training my boss asked me to do for the team. "You're telling me that you do all this work, managing people and programs and you play in a band, play soccer and you still have time to go out on dates with your girlfriend?"

"That's right," I said as I prepared my introduction on how I became a super-efficient manager, according to my boss. "But you forgot to mention that I also teach music to little kids on certain days."

"What? Really?" My colleague exclaimed. "I don't even have time to sleep! How do you do it?"

"Well," I looked at the time to see if I would be ready to present 30 minutes before my scheduled time, "I listened to Julie Morgenstern."

There are a few books that changed my life completely but there are two main books that I felt helped me get recognized a bit more at work and eventually helped me with my career. The books weren't about leadership or about business. The books were about time management. The books helped me become extremely effective, efficient and productive and pushed me to prioritize my balance between my life and work. 

Julie Morgenstern wrote two important books that helped me in my career; Time Management From the Inside Out and Never Check E-mail In The Morning. The books were actually recommended by a Franklin Covey instructor many years before. I always thought my time management was decent, but those two book changed the way I did things at work and at home. Later, I was the one asked to do time management trainings to teach others what I was doing with my time. Here are five of the lessons I learned from Julie Morgenstern's time management books that helped me with my time management, work-life balance and eventually with my career.

Never check e-mail in the morning

This lesson was not only the title of one of Julie Morgenstern's book but also the hardest lesson for me to master. It was common practice at our company to always check emails in the morning and to answer emails within 24 hours. According to Julie Morgenstern, some people are the most productive in the mornings and if you spend your time doing simple, unproductive tasks you are going to waste all that energy and brain power. I decided to try it and I found myself getting much more work done in my first three to four hours in the office than I did the rest of the day. I began to check emails after lunch. 

Does it go in your calendar or is it a simple task?

Yesterday, I wrote a blog about to-do lists (Read 3 Reasons Why Your To-Do List Is Not Effective). The interesting thing I learned from one of Julie Morgenstern's book is that there is a difference between putting something in your calendar and putting something in your to-do list. Something in your to-do list has no time, but if you write down the time it will take you to complete your tasks right next to that thing, you'll start to notice how much (or little) time  you actually have to complete your entire list. I put a projected time frame of completion on all my items on the list I had and began to add up the time. Most of the time, I realized that I could complete my entire week's work in only a few days. Therefore, instead of putting bigger tasks on my to-do list I put them on my calendar and planned to spend the time I projected working on finishing up those bigger tasks or projects. 

Time everything

I eventually got in the habit of timing everything I did, from checking email, conducting meetings, doing my reports, etc. I got so good at knowing how productive I was that later I developed a strategy to know what will automatically go in my calendar. For those tasks that were quick to complete (less than 10 minutes) I would keep them on my to-do list, but for those items that took me more than 10 minutes, they automatically went to my calendar. I later competed against myself to see if I could complete certain projects faster than the last time I did them and with more accuracy. 

Don't rely on memory

I always believed I had a bad memory so this wasn't much of an issue for me. However, most people that have a great memory always want to have their to-do list in their head and things will start slipping away with more responsibilities and with more complex projects. Julie Morgenstern's books got me in the habit of writing everything down, and I mean everything. If I'm speaking to someone and they ask me to call them, I quickly send an email to myself so I don't forget. This includes the most simple tasks you can imagine such as checking the mail, call the internet company or to tell someone they're doing a good job.

Don't sync your email to your phone

At one point at work, I thought we were all competing to see who would reply to emails quicker. Some people even bragged about their respond time. To me, having my email synced to my phone created a few problems: (1) it slowed down my phone because I was getting to many emails (most of them were just emails I was CC'd on); (2) I was constantly interrupting myself with checking my phone; and (3) it took over my entire days. I decided to keep my calendar synced but to disactivate my email notifications. Now, I only use my phone at work to make phone calls. I haven't checked emails using my phone in about 4 years - never had a problem. 

Now, I conduct time management trainings to other companies as well, teaching them the lessons learned from Julie Morgenstern's book but also helping them put things into perspective a bit more. Time is precious and most of us might feel like we're scrambling for time, but time is always on our side - we just need to learn how to use it. 

Don't forget to share this blog so you can encourage others: family, co-workers, friends. Give them something to get motivated! You never know what they might be going through. A few words of encouragement can go a long way.

3 Reasons Why Your To-Do List Is Not Effective

"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

- John Wooden

I started working for an education company in 2008 and as a new manager I was ready to learn everything that was given to me. The first physical thing I was given was a composition book. One of my colleagues at the time gave it to me and told me that the notebook will help me manage my time. I used that composition book to write down all the tasks and projects I had to complete. That to-do list was a life saver.

As time progressed and I received additional responsibilities, my to-do list got longer and longer. What worked for me my first year was not working for me the following year. When I became a Senior Program Manager, my to-do list was in trouble. It seemed as though every year I had to adapt a new way of doing things because the old was wasn't working. After reading a few books and articles I adjusted the way I managed my time which later helped me balance life and work. However, my notebook with my to-do list became extinct.

Although to-do list are great for chores and a few other simple tasks in our lives, they are not the most effective way to manage our projects, time or even to-do things. Here are three reasons why a to-do list is not effective.

There is no time associated with your list

Your to-do list might consist of 10 different things you have to get done. However, how long will it take you to finish all 10 things? Those 10 things can take you an hour to complete or 3 days depending on what they are. Each line item on your list has a time associated with its completion. This is why to-do lists aren't effective when managing our time - because there is no time on a list, it's just a list of words. Practice timing yourself with each tasks and projecting how long each item will actually take you. There might be some items on your list that might actually belong in your calendar. 

Some items in your list are too broad

When I used my to-do list, I would just write things down so I wouldn't forget. Therefore, I would write down something like 'Finish marketing budget.' Many items in our to-do list are too vague and need to be broken down into smaller tasks. This could also be a reason why are time management is off - the smaller tasks of a bigger task can take up more of our time. Get in the habit of breaking down the projects or tasks into smaller tasks, even if they sound too simple. For example, if you need to complete your marketing budget, you might have to review quarterly expenses, itemize certain expenses, figure out how much certain things will cost, etc. 

You are not prioritizing the things on your list

During the time I used my to-do list, I found out that the biggest problem I had was prioritizing. This is because my to-do list had no system to differentiate between the most important things and the things that could wait. Therefore, when things were more pressing, I always thought I was 'fighting fires' but most of the time this was because I wasn't prioritizing the right things. There are different ways to prioritize the things you need to do. You can add due dates, add a number system where 1 is a high priority and 5 is a lower priority item or highlight the most pressing things.

All-in I would suggest using a different method of managing your projects and tasks that require you to leverage your calendar a bit more. As I later found out in my career, time management is the first step to achieving a stronger work-life balance. 

Don't forget to share this blog so you can encourage others: family, co-workers, friends. Give them something to get motivated! You never know what they might be going through. A few words of encouragement can go a long way.

The 3 Lessons I Learned From Having An Affair

"Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life."

- Unknown

For quite a few days I sneaked into my apartment trying not to make any noise. I would tell myself that this would be the last time but I've been telling myself the same thing for a few months already. I was left with guilt, remorse and I didn't know how to change my situation.

I had a bad habit of texting or calling my significant other to tell her that I would be home by 8pm but I never made it by that time. I would get home close to midnight. Things needed to change quickly or I knew I would lose the ones close to me. 

If you clicked on the header of this blog because you thought I was going to make some gossipy confessions, I'm sorry to disappoint you. The affair I felt I was having was not with someone else but with my job. Time to time I hear other people I meet that they too have spent countless hours working and haven't been able to figure out how to balance their work and their life. In a way, I'm glad I experienced this early in my career so that I can learn from it. These are the three lessons I learned from having an affair with my job:

The definition of work-life balance

Before my 'affair' I thought work-life balance meant that I should work 40 hours a week and the rest is for my own leisure. Shortly after, I began to ponder about what work-life balance really meant to me. It turns out, it means something different to everyone. To some who love what they do, working 60 hours a week and spending weekends with family works well. For others, the hours they work is insignificant - it's more about how they feel, striving for a happy, emotional balance between their work and their life. I really had to sit down and write out my thoughts about what work-life balance meant to me and what I was trying to achieve in the first place. 

It's not your company's fault - it's your fault

When work gets busy and the 'affair' occurs, we convince ourselves that the 'busy season' will soon be over. Next thing we know, just like in my story, the busy season continues and seems to be endless. It's very common for frustration to kick in and the first thing we do when we're stressed and cranky is blame others. Many times, we blame our habit of overworking (or as we like to call it 'being overworked') on our boss or our company. I did the same thing as well, as did others that worked with me. However, complaining and blaming the company did not help our situation. What did help? Looking in the mirror. I found out that my time management was poor, my organization could be stronger and my priorities in life were never established. I worked on improving myself and setting my priorities right and better prepared myself for the next heavy season.

Help is always near

The worst thing I did, which lead to the biggest lesson I learned, was not asking for help. I'm the type of person that feels can take on a lot of responsibilities and I feel there is nothing I can't do. However, when things got rough and the load got heavier, I didn't say a thing. After speaking with my supervisor, I was able to get assistance, learned how to delegate better and was able to make it home sooner. At first, I didn't want any help because I didn't want them to go through what I was going through and I also didn't want my team or boss to think that I was incompetent to do the work. My supervisor also recommended some readings so I researched a few books that helped me with my time management. There is always help.

Perhaps I exaggerated a bit by calling what I went through an 'affair' but if you asked my girlfriend at the time, she'd probably say that I left her for my job. The reality is, many of us struggle with finding the right balance between work and life and I hope to cover this topic in the next few blogs. I hope you learn from my mistakes. 

Don't forget to share this blog so you can encourage others: family, co-workers, friends. Give them something to get motivated! You never know what they might be going through. A few words of encouragement can go a long way.