But time is just an input. It’s not a deliverable. It has the advantage of being easy to measure, but time in front of our computer, on the phone or in a meeting isn’t an output. It doesn’t move the organization forward.

Equally, most of us don’t even take all the vacation we’re due. We triage our email at weekends and during vacation. That’s because we implicitly realize the contract is not for our time, but the results. Personally, we’re motivated to deliver results irrespective of the time requirements.

Forward-thinking organizations are now adopting a more relaxed attitude to office hours. It doesn’t matter when you come in or how long you stay, as long as you get the work done. This makes sense – the company wants the objectives of the role, and if the employee can deliver them quickly, then great.

Some firms, like Netflix, are taking this a stage further – doing away with vacation allowances, PTO, and public holiday schedules entirely. Let’s face it, you’re not going to keep your job if you don’t deliver. And in an age where leaders, such as politicians, routinely cut their holidays short, it’s clear the focus is on the output not the allowance.

There are many facets to working in an environment devoid of time demands. We need to adjust to the working habits of others, to establish norms where schedules can reliably overlap for collaboration, to measure the outputs of each role, to feel comfortable with people leaving early even. For some this actually increases stress, while others will no doubt take advantage of the ambiguity.

This approach should make us more productive and more in control. It should be a win-win for the staff and the organization.

In practice, that might not be the case. How do you feel about this? About managing your team without time requirements? About measuring their output? Is this for all levels, all roles and all cultures? Will it work if it isn’t?

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I write about digital communications and personal performance. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter at @morganm or subscribe to this blog here.

I’ve heard this phrase from more people than I care to remember. Usually it’s in justification of doing something they know will have negative consequences to those around them. It’s a cliche which perhaps confers a sense of acceptability about their behavior. You’ve got to ‘look after number one’ haven’t you? Everybody does… don’t they?

Well no they don’t. And the sad truth is that I’m sure they probably know it, and the cliche is cold comfort. It’s a rare circumstance where personal gain can be achieved over a sustained period by doing a disservice to others. Sure, there might be a short-term advantage in putting oneself first. You might get that promotion if you claim all the praise, or take the days off when your team needs you most. But it’s unlikely to last – memories are long for such self-centered discourtesies, and it’s these that impact reputations.

There is more to life than a better title or a bigger paycheck. The strength of our relationships is more valuable than both I would warrant. Nothing destroys those relationships faster than looking after number one. It’s time to rewrite that misleading maxim:

“At the end of the day, what’s best for me, is what’s best for us.”

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I write about digital communications and personal performance. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter at @morganm or subscribe to this blog here.

New toys please – no matter how many they have, kids always want new toys. It doesn’t matter that the old ones still work fine, or that they really aren’t old in any sense of the word. They just want something new. As consultants we need to remember that. It doesn’t matter what skills, methodologies or techniques you have, you always need to show your client something new. Prove you’ve learned a new trick, show them that there is much more to your talent than they knew. No client wants an advisor who has gone stale, become predictable or who can’t demonstrate a delta with their own knowledge. It doesn’t matter that your skillset and approach is working – they’ve seen that before. So what new tricks have you shown your client lately?

Ask questions – kids are curious. They ask an insane number of questions as they try to piece together the way the world works. As we grow to adulthood, we start to think we’ve got it figured out. But it’s essential as a consultant to keep an inquiring mind. Ask questions about your client’s business, about your profession, about your industry, your competitors, your team, your career, everything. Find out what’s going on and replay that to your client for their views. Synthesise what you learn and keep updating your understanding. Clients want a consultant who is engaged, not just in their business but their industry, society and the world in general. That’s how you keep perspective and stay creative.

Show emotions – kids truly wear their hearts on their sleeves and it’s massively engaging. But consultants often behave as if it’s a weakness to show emotion. The trick is to show the right emotion, not none whatsoever. People who are engaged in their work aren’t just intellectually engaged, they are emotional about it too. Show that to your client. Laugh, get excited, be nervous, even angry at times. This is how you create a personal relationship, not just a professional one.

Can you think of other lessons that children have taught you, which you apply to your professional career? If so, please share them in the comments.

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I write about digital communications and personal performance. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter at @morganm or subscribe to this blog here.

During economic hard times, there is often an increase in unethical behavior and sharp practice. It’s rarely illegal but it’s certainly dubious or petty. For instance, terms in contracts get ignored, verbal agreements aren’t honored, payments aren’t made. There’s usually an ambient level of this nonsense in business. People think they can cut corners to success. As a business leader, you learn to live with it.

In 2008, I noticed an increase in unethical practice. Perhaps people justify it to themselves when jobs are on the line. When there’s a lot of bad behavior going on, it’s easier to excuse ourselves right? Take a look at the riots in London for proof. Just as in 2008, over the last few months, I’ve seen a gradual increase in the BS factor involved in daily commercial operations. It’s petty stuff like wriggling out of notice periods, re-trading agreements, and being deliberately misleading.

It’s easy to tell stories to ourselves to justify these actions and to salve our conscience. For example, a verbal agreement isn’t binding so you have the right to renegotiate. But the effect is the same to the other party. So in times of hardship, it’s important to listen to your moral compass – the quiet voice inside which tells you what’s right and what’s wrong. That voice can get drowned out by the din of economic difficulty. Ultimately though, the old adage ‘what goes around, comes around’ is often proven to be true. Markets have a way of correcting this behavior over time. The rest of us, can take comfort in that if the economy declines and ethics become a victim once more.

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I write about digital communications and personal performance. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter at @morganm or subscribe to this blog here.

The jury is out on whether it’s a good idea or not, but there are some areas of agreement. Let’s start with the pros and cons:

Pros

• Makes the manager seem more ‘human’ and fosters a more personal relationship.
• Helps the manager learn more about their employees – what’s going on in their lives, what makes them tick, the skills they have.
• Opens a new channel of communication which is less formal.
• Helps keep in touch with alumni who leave the business.
• It’s entertaining.

Cons

• The employee may feel their manager is stalking them – some things are private.
• The manager may learn something they’d rather not know about a team mate.
• The manager may be opening themselves to some form of discrimination charge if they find certain information.
• Some managers feel being friends impairs their ability to manage effectively.
• The manager might share something inappropriate about themselves.

In terms of rules of the road and advice:

• It’s not ok for the manager to initiate the Friend Request – this might put people in an uncomfortable position of having to accept.
• It is ok for the employee to initiate the request – which the manager can then choose to accept or not.
• The manager should either accept all Requests or none, otherwise it smacks of favoritism.
• Managers should consider using Google+ or LinkedIn for professional social relationships – it’s ok to initiate those.
• Employees who have been Friended can make judicious use of the Permissions, Filters and Lists features of Facebook.
• You probably shouldn’t unfriend your boss.
• Review your company’s social media policy – there may be some guidelines in there to cover the situation.

It takes four to six weeks for routines to change and fix. You’ve probably found that when starting a new fitness program, diet or taking up a new activity. Equally, our routines can erode in the same period of time. So a brief hiatus means we quickly become ‘de-programed.’ Perhaps you’ve also noticed that with your fitness regime or diet too – annoying huh?

The problem with routines is they quickly become boring and repetitive. Running the same track, eating the same things – I guess blogging about the same topics too. The challenge then is to keep it interesting by mixing it up a bit. Keep the time allocation as part of the routine but change-up the content of the activity to keep it fresh. Push that new weight, achieve that personal best, cook that new recipe. One way to do this might be to alter each of them every month – work on a specific part of your body, cook a certain style for four weeks, then swap.

Anyway, all sage advice coming from someone who fell off the blogging wagon for six months. Let’s see if I can get back into the groove. Meantime, thanks for your patience.

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I write about digital communications and personal performance. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter at @morganm or subscribe to this blog here.

Trust
Trust is organic. It cannot be made, but has to grow slowly day by day, year by year. Trust is built through successful collaboration, shared experiences, alignment and joint risk-taking. If you don’t trust a member of your team, they shouldn’t be part of your organization. They will burn cycles, create politics, let you down and cause tension. Just like anything organic, trust needs to be nurtured and it can suddenly be broken. Trust can be slowly eroded over time through a pattern of bad experiences or it can snap in a painful instant. Once that happens, the only solution is to part company and quickly. An organization is not a marriage – it cannot tolerate the years it takes to rebuild broken trust. Trust is the foundation in which any relationship must be based.

You can’t teach trust but you can nurture it. And you can act when it’s broken.

Judgment
Let’s face it, some people just have terrible judgment. Time and again they make the wrong call. You need people in your team who will consistently make the right decision. And by right I mean a True North decision, not one backed by false, after-the-fact logic. We each have a moral compass, which may be rooted in a specific religion or not. Some people make poor decisions since they have not taken the time to tune into that moral compass, or they have let it become demagnetized making them behave anti-socially.

Good judgment is not the same as never making a mistake. We all do that. It’s about doing what is right at those crucial times when an easier but less ethical path lies ahead. It’s about having the correct radar to sense when to act or to stop a particular activity we feel is wrong. And it’s about have the courage to act on that sensation even when we don’t know what the outcome might be. Often in those situations it seems the outcome is likely to be negative (at least short-term).

You can’t teach people good judgment. But you can recognize it when you see it.

Integrity
Integrity isn’t just about being honest, although that is important. It’s about acting in accordance with our principles. It’s about being a whole person (ie integral), one which is well-rounded, mature and considered. People who act with integrity are consistent, reliable, and grounded. You may have met people who give you an uncomfortable vibe. There is an aspect of their personality which somehow seems at odds with the rest of them. It may be sub-conscious that they have a particular characteristic which is misaligned. Or it may be deliberate, which is worse. We don’t expect vicars to be deviants for instance. They lack integrity since they don’t live by their principles.

You can’t train integrity. But you know when it’s absent.

Humility
It’s important we take pride in our work. That is an internal recognition for accomplishments and meeting of personal goals. Humility is the act of being able to validate our own performance and not to be reliant on external praise. Of course recognition is a wonderful thing, but it shouldn’t be our goal. Humble people don’t need that validation from others. In fact, they are happy for the team to take recognition. Humility is about service to others.

The opposite is arrogance. You don’t want prideful, self-promoting people on your team since they destroy team dynamics. They claim the accomplishments of others, their immature lust for recognition belittles the efforts those around them. Eventually the team will either stop trying or leave. The paradox of humility is that in pursuing goals which may yield no external recognition beyond our own self-accomplishment, and in letting others take credit, bigger milestones are often met and more praise is given.

You can’t give people humility. But you can praise the humble.

There are many characteristics which are important to be successful. In my view, the cornerstones are trust, judgment, integrity and humility. Do you agree?

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I write about digital communications and personal performance. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter at @morganm or subscribe to this blog here.

• You don’t have to worry since nothing is your fault.
• You can complain since you didn’t design the system.
• You can ignore obvious issues since someone else will sort them out.
• Your bubble will never burst since you take no risks.
• You can say “I told you so”.
• You can maintain the comfortable status quo.
• You can remember when everything was so much better.
• You’ll always be innocent.
• You’ll be the victim in this whole thing.

The mantle of being powerless is comfortable. But you shouldn’t put it on because it makes you invisible. You risk nothing, learn nothing, achieve nothing, and don’t progress. Taking authority is the antithesis:

• You have to think through all the contingencies since it’s on your head.
• You didn’t design the system, but you can sure fix it.
• It’s not your job, but you’ll resolve this issue anyway.
• You might fail, but you’ll learn something if you do.
• People will tell you they told you so.
• Change will be constant – it’s survival of the most flexible.
• Tomorrow will be better than today.
• It’ll always be your fault. Get used to it.
• You’ll have to turn the other cheek, a lot.

Authority is a burden. But you must seize it with both hands, and embrace it. If not, others will and you’ll be invisible.

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I write about digital communications and personal performance. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter at @morganm or subscribe to this blog here.

The problem is that To Do lists don’t always provide a strong link to the end goal. The tasks are not a goal in themselves, just a path towards it. But people can become focused on the path and not the destination goal. This creates a ‘Check box’ mentality where team members work away at their tasks, divorced from changing situations or differences in priority. The need for the task may have changed or the logical next step may have altered, but they carry on regardless.

To Do lists also erode responsibility. Let me explain why. We have a goal to attain, so we break the project down into discrete tasks. Some of those rely on interaction with other people outside the project team. Perhaps we need some information or approval on some material. The To Do list mentality can’t handle third party interactions well. Asking for the information is a task, which gets checked off. The To Do ball is now in someone else’s court. Now suppose nothing comes back, but that’s ok since we have a tickler To Do reminding us to chase, which we do. Again, the ball is back in their court and we can sleep tight. Except the clock is ticking, and the project is not progressing. The To Do list doesn’t create a work around in this scenario. It causes project myopia.

Unless we take a step back and review all our project goals, then compare them to our To Do list, we’ll fall foul of this project myopia. We take responsibility for the task, not the goal. Make sure your To Do list is your servant, and you’re not its slave.

The same could be said of traditional marketing. While it may not be physically addictive, it could be commercially fatal. Certainly professionally fatal. There is plenty of evidence demonstrating the power of digital communications and social media. Most marketers know this. They also have the first-hand experience of the diminishing returns from traditional techniques. And yet, once again, changing their behavior just seems too hard.

This is why many organizations seem to be waiting for the digital revolution to come. They know intellectually it’s going to impact them. But perhaps tomorrow, not today. A day which never seems to arrive – until it’s too late. By then their competitor has seized the initiative and dominated them in digital. Until they get the wake-up call that their competitor is first in search, has higher and more qualified web traffic, gets better conversions, which lead to improved sales, lower costs and higher margins.

But by then it’s too late. They’ve been outmaneuvered. They weren’t bold or willing to change, so when the market shifted they were left behind. It was easier to continue as they were. After all, it could never happen to them. Could it?