The ezPalm Blog

A prosperous business depends on effective people management skills. You may succeed in learning these techniques. It can be a plus to have a intuitive affinity for communicating with people, but there are some skills you can do to make the process simpler.

Relationship Building: Start by memorizing staff’s names. Engage in conversation; get eye contact during a conversation. Show respect, also listen to everything the other individual has to say, regardless of whether you are in agreement with them. The development of listening skills is one of the best things you may do to develop your talent management skills. Be sure to show an interest in what they can give to the team. Show integrity: Keeping your word is crucial. If your word is not kept, it will ruin trust, and if they can’t trust you people will not offer their best. Each time you make a commitment or give a promise, you are squandering your time and effort if you don’t follow through. The truth is, if you can’t be depended upon, your team will not be there when you really need them.

Feedback is essential: It’s a two-way street. Maintaining an open mind regarding other people’s ideas is an important skill in effective talent management. Being approachable and open proves that other people’s views are important to you, and they will value your thoughts. Encouraging discussion also encourages growth of fresh ways of thinking, ways of achieving the goals of the team, and develops the team dynamic. By giving the team some input, the outcome becomes important to every team member. Communication is fundamental: Communication is fundamental to managing individuals with skill. Be accessible, use listening skills, encourage staff to share ideas, and encourage each of your team members to express their views. Staff should be encouraged to communicate with each other as well as with you. The sharing of thoughts is imperative in the creative process, and through listening to each other, you can discover any problems swiftly, and corrections may be applied before matters get out of hand.

Some time and effort is needed, but the rewards far outweigh the effort necessary. By encouraging a good team dynamic and taking heed of your team’s suggestions, a flourishing business will be yours.

One of the greatest obstacles to progress can often be our awareness of past failures. If we tried something a couple of years ago and fell flat on our faces (and especially if we were ridiculed or derided as a result) we tend to be reluctant to rock the boat again. When we believe that history will repeat itself, we become paralysed by fear.

Mentoring managers through a process that I sometimes refer to as “directed introspection” in order to expose attitudes and prejudices can often produce startling results. Knowing where we are starting from does not in and of itself guarantee that we will arrive at our desired destination (on time and within budget) but not knowing weights the odds heavily against us. I believe that if we want to go somewhere we must first know who we are and where we are. When we know the starting point, personally and professionally, in regard to ourselves, our people and our company we are more likely to have a clear picture of where we want to go, how to get there and what must change.

I believe that as many people as possible in an organization should be involved in the process of creating statements of Vision, Mission, Purpose, Values, and Goals. When people have had a hand in the creation, buy in to do what ever is necessary to get results is almost automatic. When these guiding principles are understood by everyone from the “Ivory Tower” all the way to the Shop Floor everyone knows where we are going, why we are going there and what we have to do to get there. They also know the down side of not going there and of not participating in the process. Is not the search for heaven made more intense by the awareness of hell? In addition, when everyone understands his or her WIIFM, (What’s In It For Me) getting results is like picking low hanging fruit.

Vision must be followed by a plan

Strategic planning can be an arduous (but exhilarating) process. Often a three day retreat with an outside facilitator is the only way to get the concentrated focus, the brainstorming, necessary to initiate the process. We must examine all aspects or the organization, physical and human resources, management skills and needs, culture, attitudes, market place, industry, supplier relations, customer relations, government regulations, labour agreements, etc., etc. We have to remember that Rome was not built in a day. If we are looking for instant gratification we will surely be disappointed.

When we have suspended our doubts and fears, set aside our memories of past failure, forgotten our prejudices, examined our strengths and planned to enhance them, seen in our minds eye the potential within ourselves and our organization, created a vision in which we believe, we will become advocates for our organization and evangelists for the realization of that vision.

Once we are over the initial hurdle we will be driven by the power of our vision for the future.
A clearly articulated vision coupled to a specific plan of action for its attainment (including target dates for each step), and a firm commitment to that action, is an unstoppable combination. YES, it will require perseverance, dedication and hard work; and YES, it will be extremely satisfying!

Effecting organizational and personal change is never a cake walk but learning the basics of how to set goals and create plans with specific, time sensitive action steps for their achievement can be learned in only a few hours. When coupled to powerful statements of Vision, Mission, Purpose, and Values, and a well-organized coaching, mentoring and measurement process, the pain is minimal while the results are huge!

Len McNally C.I.M. President of The Leadership Centre

Len McNally is President and founder (in 1996) of The Leadership Centre, dedicated to leadership development, management team building and change management through executive and corporate coaching - from the top floor to the shop floor. With more than thirty years experience in sales, marketing and business development Len has for many years been an avid student of psychology, behavior and motivation. He still reads three to four books a month and has writen several book reviews for Amazon.com. He can be reached at (519) 759-1127 or email: the.leadership.centre@sympatico.ca. Other articles may be seen at: http://www.tlc-leadership.com

If you’re ready to kick your career or business up to the next level, then make it a goal to become a powerful presenter. People view savvy communicators as being more capable, intelligent, and knowledgeable than those individuals who have difficulty in communicating their ideas. You can quickly gain the status of an expert in your field when you are able to present your ideas effectively.

Although many things go into giving a successful talk, I’d like to focus on one area that is very easy to apply - using body movements and gestures. When you use body movements and gestures appropriately, your presentation takes on a certain sense of aliveness that is often hard to accomplish when you use words alone.

Harness the Power of Gestures

Gestures include your posture, the movement of your eyes, hands, face, arms and head, as well as your entire body. They help to support or reinforce a particular thought or emotion. If our gestures support our statements, we are communicating with a second sense. People tend to understand and remember messages better when more than one sense is reached.

Winston Churchill was a master at using gestures to powerfully bring home his point. During World War II, Churchill rallied the citizens of Great Britain to continue their fight against overwhelming odds. He often visited the neighborhoods of London, which had been devastated by bombs and walked through them with his fingers held up in the sign of a “V”. This victory sign accompanied his famous message, “Never give in. Never, never, never give in.” This gesture so powerfully communicated Churchill’s message that soon people gained greater resolve to continue fighting whenever they saw the victory sign.

Another reason that using appropriate gestures is so critical to your presentation is that communication does not just consist of words. Less than 10% of the words we use in speaking gets through to others. On the other hand, over 55% of our body language is communicated to others very clearly. Whether you are trying to sell your product or service to a client or you are trying to persuade a group of people to change their behavior, it is critical that your words and gestures match. Many people have sabotaged their messages because their words were saying one thing, while their bodies were saying the exact opposite.

Can you think of a time when someone told you that he would be able to do something while his head was shaking no? Which did you believe, the words or the gesture? When your body movements are congruent with your words, your message will have a very powerful impact on your audience.

Make the Most Out of Movements

People will begin to make judgments about you as soon as you stand up. The time to begin using effective body movements is when you walk to your position in front of a group. Stand up tall and walk with a strong posture. Let your body communicate that you have something important to say and the audience needs to hear it. If your posture is slouched, they will feel that you aren’t convinced about your message and they will begin doubting you before you have uttered a single word.

When you get to the front, take a deep breath, calmly look at your entire audience and smile. One of the biggest mistakes presenters make is to begin talking as soon as they get up to the front, or even worse, as they are walking there. When you take time to look at your audience before you speak, you begin to establish that critical connection with them. You also give the audience sufficient time to focus on you and what you are about to say.

Look directly at the faces of your audience members, not over their heads. Eye contact is one of the most important aspects of speaking. An easy way to get over stage fright is to look at the faces of individual audience members and just talk to that one person instead of the entire audience. Rotate the people you talk to - someone on the left, someone towards the middle, a person on the right, someone in the front, etc. This will help you maintain rapport with the entire group, while allowing you to feel at ease.

A further advantage of maintaining good eye contact is that it will help you gauge how your message is coming across to the group. If you are trying to explain something and members of the audience give you blank stares, then you need to adjust your words so they can better understand you.

Use Conversational Gestures

Like Winston Churchill, you should strive to incorporate gestures into your talk. People naturally use gestures in conversations. They are not on the spot, so they easily move their arms and hands and make facial expressions to illustrate the points they are trying to make. However, an amazing thing happens when people stand up in front of a group to speak. They suddenly think, “Oh no! What am I going to do with these things attached to my shoulders?” and they either don’t move them at all or they move them awkwardly. Gestures should be a natural extension of who we are. Presenters should strive to be themselves. They should be as spontaneous with their movements as if they were talking to their family or friends.

Practice Makes Natural

A good way to be comfortable with gestures is to know your speech well. Several of the most outstanding speakers offer the same piece of advice: “The key to effectively using gestures is to know your material so well, to be so well prepared, that your gestures will flow naturally.” Practice your speech and know it well so that you can enjoy sharing your message with others.

Become a master at using your body to support your words. Have fun with gestures, be yourself, and you will certainly present your message with power and pizzazz.

About The Author

Della Menechella is a speaker, author, and trainer who inspires people to achieve greater success from the inside out. She is a contributing author to Thriving in the Midst of Change and the author of the videotape The Twelve Commandments of Goal Setting. She can be reached at della@dellamenechella.com. Subscribe to free Peak Performance Pointers e-zine - send blank e-mail to mailto:subscribe@dellamenechella.com.

Call it bad vibes, gut reaction, instant dislike, or hitting a
major hot button. Truth be told, there are just some people
we don’t like, don’t want to associate with, and want to avoid.
But, when they’re our co-workers, we can’t avoid them. We
may have to work closely with them, day after day, until we
successfully complete the job.

If you are stuck with your difficult person, it may be time to let
go, to change how you feel about and deal with your own
industrial strength difficult person.

Letting go doesn’t mean excusing bad behavior or denying
how we feel. It means detaching ourselves from feeling bad.
Letting go means not letting the other person determine
how you think and feel. You can detach by taking charge of
how you see them and yourself.

Ask yourself:

1. Who else has the same issues and problems with your
difficult person that you do? How is this third party like you?
Not like you?

2. Who doesn’t seem to have problems with your difficult
person? Again, ask yourself how they are like or not like you.
What do they do, how do they relate to your difficult person
that doesn’t seem to trigger the same feelings or problems
you have?

3. Who does your difficult person remind you of? They may
well have a different name, a different face, but their
behavior, attitude or style is familiar to you. Why? They
remind you of someone else, someone you don’t like.

Take a mental leap to the next level. Start thinking of the
larger issues. Is this a question of values, personality or
attitude that stands between you and your difficult person?
Or, are your differences in professional focus or training?
Does age or culture play a role? Or, do you still have
unfinished business with your difficult person, and are
letting it get in the way?

By identifying who else does or doesn’t have trouble with
your difficult person, you can see other ways other people
have of dealing with the person you find so troublesome.
You may well find an alternative you can use for yourself. Or
you may decide not to do what you see others do.

The objective of this exercise is not to change the other
person, or minimize their difficult behavior. Or even to
become buddies.

The objective is to see the other person and yourself more
clearly, and detach yourself from upsetting feelings.

By understanding the dynamics of how a difficult person
“makes” you feel, you can choose to take charge of your
feelings.

Copyright © 2005 Pat Wiklund. All rights in all media
reserved. This article may be reprinted so long as it is kept
intact with the copyright and by-line.

Pat Wiklund is known as the One-Person Business
turnaround specialist. She works with professional services
business ownership they can make more money and get
more personal satisfaction from their work. Start taking
charge of your business and your life with her TakingCharge
mini ecourse from her latest book, Taking Charge When
You’re Not in Control by sending a blank email to tcnic@1PersonBusiness.com

Pat@1PersonBusiness.com

Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. You can only see one thing clearly and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin. (Kathleen Norris)

If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done. (John Lubbock)

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them. (Denis Waitley)

We can be our own worst enemy at times.
How often can you see that it was you who actually got in your own way on the path to fulfilling a goal?

It was usually only a thought that got in the way! Something that you made up…so, you could make up something else.
A replacement thought that empowers you.

Write down as many of the discouraging thoughts that you can recall, from those times you actually stopped yourself.
Alongside each of these, record a replacement thought that really gives you some power.

What could you put in place so that you remember to replace your negative thoughts with an empowering thought?
An automatic pop up on your computer screen?
A colourful card sitting up on your desk or pasted to the front of your diary?

Most days we say some horrid things to ourselves and we aren’t even conscious that the tape is playing!

Consider also, the people with whom you surround yourself.
Are there people with whom you could spend more time?
Are there people with whom you could spend less time?

Lastly, when exploring your 2004 New Year resolutions - here are a few pointers to send you on your way:

Are your intented outcomes crystal clear to you and do you have them somewhere on display for yourself - in words or images?
Do you have powerful reasons for wanting to accomplishing your chosen goals?

Make a practice of writing down your 6 top priority goals, daily.
It is worth those extra 5 minutes each day - recreating your desire for reaching that next stepping stone.

Are your New Year resolutions feasible?
Are the deadlines too tight? Could your goals be broken down into bite sized chunks (i.e. milestones along the way).
You may easily become discouraged if your goals seems impossible to achieve. This can chip away at your confidence in going after what you want.
A strong belief in your goals is mandatory.

Have you put something in place to really celebrate each milestone victory, great or small?
This will expand your personal confidence. Reward the source of your results.

For further personal exploration:
A site with practical tools for creative dreamers is http://www.howmuchjoy.com
An extremely resourceful site to visit is http://www.ehappylife.com/custom/about.html

If the links (above) are not ‘live’, then simply cut and paste them into your browser.

©Thea Westra is an international life coach who resides in Perth, Western Australia. She is editor and publisher of a free, monthly newsletter at http://www.forwardsteps.com.au Thea also publishes a few blogs, visit here http://inspiration-daily.blogspot.com/ for directional links to each.

“I find it interesting that the very cape I tried to use to fly, became so heavy it kept me grounded.” –Brook Noel

One day I was racing around town, errand to errand, mission to mission. When I stopped at my house to grab a few papers, the phone rang. It was a dear friend, so I carved out ten minutes to tell him about the hectic pace I had been leading for the past twenty-four hours.

The night before there had been a full-Wisconsin blizzard and I had gone out to shake the snow off my old rosebush so the branches wouldn’t crack under the weight. While doing this, I heard a crackling sound. Looking up, I saw several sparks shooting out from a neighbor’s tree. A wire, weighted down with snow, was blowing against a fork in the old oak. Realizing this was probably a fire hazard I called the fire department. The fire department asked me to call the electric company. I did. The woman on the other end said there were emergencies left and right due to the storm.

“But what about my flaming tree?” I asked.

“Well, we can’t get to it until we fix the power outages. Would you mind just keeping an eye on it?”

“I guess not,” I replied before hanging up the phone.

So I made a makeshift bed near the window using a few sofa pillows and set up my “tree stakeout.” While I’m watching this thirty-foot tree crackle and spark, I realize if the tree were to crash down, it would go through our roof. Realizing this could be a disaster, I rushed upstairs to rescue my husband and daughter who were both sleeping soundly.

I shoved him, pushed him, and finally awoke him from his slumber to tell him the tale of the sparking-tree. My husband stared at me through his one half-opened eye. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to move downstairs and is more concerned with his sleep than his safety. Fortunately, after a little prodding, I persuaded him to join me in my tree-stakeout. I then rescued Samantha from her crib; she was about eight-months old at the time.

We took our perch and Andy made a longer makeshift bed for him to sleep on. Determined not to lose sight of the tree, I tried to stay awake. Despite my best citizen-watch attempt, I fell asleep. Samantha did too, tucked securely between my husband and me.

I awoke around two that morning. I glanced out the window. The tree was still there. Andy was still there. Samantha, however, was not. I shook Andy’s shoulder. “Where’s Sammy?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied, shaking himself awake.

So we began our search. Samantha had just begun the rolling phase and had rolled through three rooms and was on her way, full speed, to the kitchen. Nestling her in my arms, I resumed my place in our living-room-camp.

Samantha woke up two very short hours later with a scream like that of an elephant seal. Knowing this was probably one of her chronic ear infections, I bounced into action with my cooing and cuddling routine. I began to count the hours until the clinic would open. There were four hours between the clinic, and an antibiotic, and me.

After a sleepless, scream-filled, four hours had passed, and a quick shoveling of the snow to get the car out, I ran Samantha to the clinic. There, my suspicion of an ear infection was confirmed. Then it was off to the pharmacy. Then it was back to the house. That morning a call had come from the forestry service. They would be coming out to take a look at the tree and wanted to make sure I was home.

Then it was off to my computer desk where I balanced Samantha on one leg while finishing an advertising campaign with my one free hand. Of course, the campaign was due at the photographer’s that day. To deliver the campaign, I would have to drive 45 miles in a blizzard with a sick child, around the schedule of the forestry service.

In my rush to meet deadline, I forgot the ad as I hurried out of the house. So I had to-double back. As I pulled it off my desk, the phone rang. It was a dear friend asking how my day had gone. I informed him of my adventures with the tree, the forestry service, the clinic, and the campaign.

“It’s always something,” he said in a soft voice. Though I couldn’t see him, I knew he was smiling.

“What do you mean?” I had asked.

“Last week when I called it was training your cat, starting a new book, and accepting a new campaign. The week before that it was making homemade edible clay with Sammy, giving painting lessons, and starting a novel while re-wallpapering the kitchen. Why are you doing so much?”

“Well,” I paused. “I…um…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t do that much,” I said meekly.

“You’re going to go with that?” he questioned again. I remained silent. Then my dear friend said four words that were a gift: “Give up the cape.”

Shortly after that day, I began to-do just that. Instead of trying to accomplish everything and please everyone, I began to focus on what was important to me and my family. I began to accept that there will never be enough time to-do everything so we must do what is important. We must decide and take action on what matters.

Since I’ve discarded that cape, I’ve been much less restricted. I find it interesting that the very cape I tried to use to fly, became so heavy it kept me grounded. Instead of living up to the “shoulds” and “woulds” that bound my life, I live by the desire to create harmony within my family. It’s a great cape to outgrow.

Participating in soccer, cleaning, cooking, sewing, working, party-organizing, PTA, and church choir doesn’t make a person better than one who might only do three activities. Society has taught us that the more you have and the more you do, the more successful and fulfilled you will become. The odds are, in fact, that the person engaged in frequent activities is more likely to become haggard, frustrated, or burnt-out.

I think this is definitely an area where turning back to basics would do us good. Today, when making any decision, contemplate the thought that “less is more.”

Your Assignment

In what ways have you been trying to-do more than is realistically possible while still staying sane? Begin shedding the super-parent cape by stripping back unrealistic expectations. Try listing out all your responsibilities and expectations. Then imagine this list was not your own, but that of a dear friend. What advice would you give her for leading a more balanced life?

Brook Noel is the author of The Change Your Life Challenge: A 70 Day Life Makeover Program for Women. Her unique program has helped thousands of women “makeover” all aspects of their lives. Learn more at http://www.changeyourlifechallenge.com

The Industrial Age is behind us now. Machines can out produce even the most diligent worker. But no form of artificial intelligence can match the brilliance of the human mind. Thus, while machines can replace muscle, nothing can replace the brain. So, we in the Information Age must sharpen our skills to keep up with the rapid pace of knowledge.

Yet while multi-media presentations are becoming more ubiquitous, reading remains the primary way to learn. It remains an essential skill. The faster you can read, the more you learn. And, of course, the more you learn, the more you can earn.

Yet it isn’t enough just to process written information faster, you also have to be able to retain it.

Speed reading appears to be an answer to how you can read faster, understand what you read, and retain more of the information in long term memory.

Here are 7 ways you can start speed reading right now.

One, relax as you read. The more stressed you are, the less you can retain. A relaxed reader is an attentive reader.

Two, read with a purpose. Before reading isolate why you are reading, then select those parts of the text or book that gives you that information. Many books have low content because of the need to fill out a two-page theme to book length. Sometimes, too, even with a high content book, you may only be interested in a few chapters.

Three, weed out the nonessential. In line with identifying your purpose in reading something, use the table of contents to isolate
the essential chapters. Yesterday I wasted many hours of the day reading a book on concentration, only to discover that the chapters on techniques were profitable. The rest of the book was filler material. Now, I’m wiser.

Four, skip the structure. Many words exist in a sentence to hold the sentence together. Focus on key words. When you do a search on a search engine, you use key words to find what you want. Similarly, the human mind processes key words better than whole sentences. Usually more than 60% of any text is merely structure. By focusing on key words, you understand more.

Five, practice speed reading. Reading faster is a skill like any other. The more you practice, the better you get. Reading faster is more than an intellectual skill; it is also a motor skill, because you condition your eyes to move efficiently.

Six, condition your speed over time. Set a goal, and create a simple plan. Once you get to 200 words per minute, then aim for 250 words per minute, and so on. If you “train” consistently, you will actually be able to read a page a minute. A fit and conditioned runner can do a mile in 4 minutes…a page should be easier.

Seven, expand your vocabulary. The more words you know, the better your comprehension. Consequently, the less you pause to figure out what something means. Furthermore, the better your vocabulary, the higher your level of literacy, income, and social influence.

Reading faster does take some effort. However, your results will be worth it. As your knowledge expands, your income will soar and the quality of your life improves.

Alternatively, those who still have an industrial age mentality risk becoming obsolete. While we can’t slow the brisk pace of modern life, we can prevent the tragedy of falling behind.

Resource Box

Saleem Rana is a psychotherapist in Denver, Colorado. If you would like more information on how to read faster, and understand and remember more of what you read, you can find it at http://theempoweredsoul.com/SelfImprovementBooks/speedreading.html

Would you like to be sure that your personal goals are consistent with your business goals? (Yes) (No)

You might have certain personal goals that are, or become, divergent to your business goals.

For instance, let’s say that you set clear personal goals to compete in the Iron Man Triathlon in Hawaii. Obviously, to compete in an arduous event like this you not only have to train rigorously, but you also have to qualify by competing in a number of prior triathlons, placing high enough in these events to earn a bid fro the Iron Man in Hawaii.

At the same time, let’s say you are married with two kids, and you have set some very aggressive professional goals, which include starting your own business and making it profitable within a 2-3 year time horizon.

Given the fact that the average new entrepreneur puts in 60-70 hours per week and you have family responsibilities to consider, chances are you will experience major goal conflicts in your life when it comes to competing in triathlons. Something has to give.

Do you give up your sports goals, your business goals, or your family?

These are tough decisions.

They all boil down to making sure that your personal and professional goals are compatible.

The process of setting synchronous personal and business goals speaks to the importance of setting a clear and workable life strategy. The process of creating a life strategy includes the homogenization over time of personal and business goals. Unless you unify your goals there will be goal conflict, which fosters turmoil in your life.

For the best results, you need to start by creating a life strategy that makes sense to you in terms of satisfying all of your personal and professional aspirations, leaving quality time for your family, and fitting everything into a reasonable time schedule.

In general, people today work too hard, play too hard, and neglect their health and rest time. It is truly a challenge to fit everything in and lead a balanced life.

At the end of the day, at the end of a career, if all you have to show for all of your hard work and hectic schedule is a large net worth while your family never saw you, and your health suffered terribly because you drove yourself too hard, you have to ask yourself, ‘Was it really worth it?’ Take it from expert workaholics, balance your life, plan your life, and enjoy your life -you can take happiness and love with you, money you cannot.

Keep in mind, there are always trade-offs in this process of goal setting and life strategy building. It is important that you weigh all your options in order to make choices that support a healthy and happy life for you and your family.

Yes, it may take a change in mind-set, career, lifestyle, or even location to balance your life, still be productive, and achieve the goals that you want to achieve.

About The Author

Charles and Holly Egner are veteran entrepreneurs. They have trained, coached, and mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs. Their last entrepreneurial venture sold for just under $400 million in 1999. BuildOnYourDreams.com was founded to help aspiring entrepreneurs build the business of their dreams. Free Teleseminar and eCourse, visit http://www.BuildOnYourDreams.com today.

You might remember the earlier which I had quoted in which I mentioned the farmer, a jailbird and the couple in love. It might have been difficult to figure out the differences behind the same concept of time applied to three different instances. In order to clear that up, I would like to introduce you to two people. The first person is Ben and the second person is Bob. Please say hi to Ben and Bob. Ben and Bob say hi to you reader.

Right, now that you have said hi to one another let me proceed to tell you a little more about these two fine gentlemen. Ben lives in the city. He works as a Market Analyst for a firm called @$#& Oops! For privacy reasons, Ben has asked me not to reveal the name of his company. Well, I guess that that’s ok with us Ben. We aren’t too nosy are we? So getting on with Ben, Ben loves his job and he is one of the best in his field.

He has an office on the 56th floor of one of those skyscrapers down town. In fact, even if he takes an elevator, it would take him a good 2 minutes to reach his floor. I need not say that Ben has a very busy life. He does a lot of running around, he does market surveys, he doesn’t do it directly; he has people to do the dirty work for him. But still he does a lot of running around and he is on his toes all day long. No he is not a ballet dancer; that was just a figure of speech that I used to tell you how busy he is. So let’s take a closer look at Ben’s life without appearing nosy.

Ding-a-ling-a-ling! That’s bens alarm clock gone off at 6 in the morning and Ben is up already. Just look at him, though he is in his…well…underwear, he still looks as large as life and as right as rain. What makes a man all perked up than a good night’s sleep. There, Ben is already out of the bathroom and he has put on a track suit. At half past six, he is already in his car and heading for the gym.

I forgot to tell you that Ben is one hell of a looker and is very conscious about his trim body. And in order to keep it that way he works out in the gym every single day and that too for an hour. So that means at quarter to eight he is on his way back home. There is a fifteen minute drive from his apartment to the gym. At 8.15 he has had a shower and dressed and is going down the elevator holding his morning paper in his hand. His office is only a ten minute drive from his apartment but at this rush hour, the traffic just crawls. So Ben chooses to use his electric razor in the car while he is driving, dangerous though it may seem. Did you really think a man could have a shave and a shower in just 15 minutes? Well, think again. And so the traffic crawls on and Ben reaches his office at ten minutes to nine.

There is hardly time for him to grab a bite to eat, so what he does is that he runs to the cafeteria and gets a sandwich and coffee. The coffee he manages to gulp down but the sandwich remains in its wrapper as he notices an interesting article in the newspaper that was still tucked away under his arm. He reads it in the elevator on his way up and reaches his office just in time for his secretary to tell him that there is important meeting for him with the Board Members within half an hour. Ben suddenly realizes that the meeting is about some projects that he had done but the paper work was in no way complete.

There is something like a whirlwind in the office as Ben and his secretary strain themselves to get things done and finally just in the nick of time, Ben is able to walk into the Board room with the necessary documents with which Ben is in no way satisfied. It happens with most last minute jobs you know.

The meeting goes on till noon, you know how people love to talk, and Ben leaves the room with a lot of praises and even more new assignments. He has had one more coffee, but the sandwich that he had ordered is now fit for the waste bin. And mind you this is the third time this week that Ben missed breakfast. Just before noon Ben gets a seemingly endless number of calls from this agent and then that. Oh yes his secretary had been screening the calls, you should see the number of calls that she didn’t send his way.

At last by half past two Ben leaves his office and makes a beeline to the cafeteria. Just as he takes a big bite out of his monster burger, his cell phone beeps. He answers the call to find out that it is a call from a very important client whom he had been trying to fix an appointment with.

The client had agreed for an appointment which was to be had immediately. Out rushes Ben and into the waste bin goes his burger. The meeting turned out to better than he expected and a beaming Ben returns to his office and sits down to a host of pending paper work which keeps him occupied till seven in the evening. At half past seven he remembers his date with Kellie and though he rushes to the spot, he reaches there half an hour late and goes home without meeting Kellie and with an empty stomach and a weary body. So much for working out and being health conscious!

Now that you are acquainted with Ben I would like you to meet Bob. Bob lives in the country. He has a farm. It is not a very big farm; it is one of those medium sized farms from which you can get enough produce to make both ends meet. Bob is up at when the cock crows at five in the morning. As soon as he is up, he goes to his dairy and milks his three cows. I must add that Bob does not walk, he ambles. Having milked the cows he heads back to the farm and sits down with his morning paper. He chats leisurely with his wife who is going about her daily business. Around 8 he hops into his tractor and drives to the nearby dairy to deliver the milk. There he meets a couple of his friends and spends a good half hour exchanging news with them. He gets back to the farm at nine and has a relaxed breakfast.

When breakfast is over, he puts on his straw-hat and taking his dog along starts his daily excursion among his cornfields. His corn has a couple a weeks to go before harvest and now there is nothing much to do but walk around inspecting the rat traps. At eleven he is back at the farm and settles down to listen to his radio playing some old favorite tunes. He has lunch at 1 and then settles down in his favorite chair for a long afternoon siesta. In the evening he again goes to milk his cows, gives them some fresh feed and has one more walk around the farm.
After dinner by seven, by eight he is in bed and the lights are out.

Let’s admit it, Bobs life is so leisurely that we feel like screaming when we watch the pace at which he gets along. He is happy and contented and the only clock in his farm stopped ticking a few years ago. We cannot even draw a parallel line between the lives of bob and Ben. They are two worlds apart. The point I was trying to drive home is that it is our life style that decides how much time we have for each thing. The way we live and what we do decides how we spend our time and how much time we have to spend. We choose our life styles and that decides what we do with our time and that is why I said that we live in our own Time cages.

(Psst…I do not think there are many Bobs alive in the world today.)

So what kind of life do you live? We, that is most of us live in a world of aero planes, and jets, and fast cars and supercomputers and elevators and escalators, and electric trains and a thousand more contraptions and machines that are all intended to save time and do things faster.

Yeah, yeah we talk about convenience, but the fact is that all these machines were the result of man’s endeavor to get things done faster. And the result is that life moves so fast that we could get dizzy if we were to take a minute break and just look around at all the people whizzing around in the daily business called life.

Twenty four hours is hardly enough for us to finish a day’s work. And so what most working people do is that they start compromising on the other seemingly not so important thing like eating and getting eight hours sleep in the night. And so we have such a large number of people suffering from stress related diseases like ulcers, high blood pressure and heart problems.

We cannot do much about the life style that we have chosen. It’s is simply impossible that we suddenly decide to take a break, quit the job, go to the country and live like Bob on his farm. For one thing, there are not that many farms in the country and for a second thing, most of us would die like fishes out of water if we were to settle down in the country. After all, how many of us know how to milk a cow?

What does that mean, are we all doomed o suffer as ulcer patients and blood pressure patients? Far from it; if we are able to manage our time effectively we ca live a city life that is as enjoyable and comfortable as Bob’s life in the country. And that is the purpose of this book.

But that is not all. The main purpose of this book is to help you manage your time better so that you can become more productive and bring a lot of organizing into your life. You will be surprised to find out how much one can do provided one has the time for it and one can have the time only if ones time is organized and managed well.

So if you must build yourself a Time cage, go ahead and do so but make sure you make it big enough so that you have time for every thing and do not feel all cramped and cluttered in a single celled prison.

Mia LaCron is the founder of time-management-guide.info - http://www.time-management-guide.info - devoted to helping individuals manage their time powerfully and effectively.

INTERNAL PUBLIC RELATIONS: Never overlook an opportunity to do internal public relations about your department and its offerings. A training department must, first and foremost, be visible in the organization it serves. Larry Lottier, Manager, Education of Dana Corporation publishes a training department course catalog with faculty, course listings and course descriptions to publicize his department’s offerings. Gary Slobodian, Assistant Manager, Corporate Staff Development, of Great-West Life Assurance Company has found that getting training on the agenda at national sales meetings increases his department’s visibility.

ACHIEVING CREDIBILITY: Make sure your department has credibility within your organization. There are several ways to attain (and maintain) credibility. Your departmental plan of action must “… support what the organization is trying to do, be integrated into it,” says Susan Warshauer, whose upcoming book, Inside Training and Development, Creating Effective Programs, examines this. The trainings offered and the department’s overall philosophy must give tangible answers to the needs expressed by senior management. Understanding that business plan its goals, mission, ethics and company positioning is essential to the training department being seen as “one of us” by the rest of management. To have this kind of personal credibility with senior executives, a training manager must “speak the language of the suits.”

BENEFITS OF EXTERNAL RELATIONS: If you are considering using outside consultants to supplement your in-house training staff, consider some of the benefits of external people that our experts identified: –Breadth of experience, have been inside several other organizations, more objectivity, wider range of solutions. (James Hayes) –You can buy `being up to date’ with the latest technology; it costs to teach an internal person that. (Robin Grumman) –Sometimes outside eyes see more. (Sharon Burns) –Technical experts can fill needs we can’t do in house. (Mary Belle GrosJacques) –You don’t need to pay them benefits or keep them on staff. (Markus Zimmer).

DRAWBACKS OF EXTERNAL RELATIONS: If you are considering using outside consultants to supplement your in-house training staff, consider some of the drawbacks of external people that our experts identified: –They don’t know the culture. (Barbara L. Thornton) –May not be available the next time you need them. (Ken Wessel)

–You never know what you’re going to get; there is an element of risk that you may not need with a first time program. (Susan Warshauer) –An internal person is hooked into the performance appraisal system at the company, and external person needs more supervision, more of a manager’s time. (Sharon Burns).

Copyright AE Schwartz & Associates All rights reserved. For additional presentation materials and resources: ReadySetPresent and for a Free listing as a Trainer, Consultant, Speaker, Vendor/Organization: TrainingConsortium

CEO, A.E. Schwartz & Associates, Boston, MA., a comprehensive organization which offers over 40 skills based management training programs. Mr. Schwartz conducts over 150 programs annually for clients in industry, research, technology, government, Fortune 100/500 companies, and nonprofit organizations worldwide. He is often found at conferences as a key note presenter and/or facilitator. His style is fast-paced, participatory, practical, and humorous. He has authored over 65 books and products, and taught/lectured at over a dozen colleges and universities throughout the United States.