Hugh's Blog

I had my laptop ‘wiped and reloaded’ last week in an attempt to finally deal with many nagging perfomance issues. What seemed like a relatively small routine turned out to be far more traumatic than I expected! All the little applications and bookmarks and tools that I was familiar with and relied on were suddenly gone. It seemed that everything I set out to do was handicapped because I didn’t have the usual tools to get the job done.
So, for the past week I have been dilegently finding, reloading and working to get up to speed. And what I’ve repeatedly noticed is how easy it is to get sucked into the void of links, offers, fixes and cool applications.
It seems that once I find the product or link I was looking for there was a rabbit path grabbing my attention wanting to chew up more of my time. This happened when I went to load itunes, java, or my anit virus software. Something that should have taken only a few minutes was stretching into 15 while I investigated some offer that was promising to fix some other problem I didn’t know I had.
Research by Professor Joseph Ferrari of DePaul University in Chicago reported recently that procrastination at work has huge economic implications (learn more…). Ferrari warns that chronic procrastination is serious stuff once you extrapolate it out to a larger population and our economy. 
He estimates that 15 to 20 per cent of people are chronic procrastinators. ‘We now have data on 4,000 people, and it doesn’t seem to matter what age you are, or your sex or background.’
Ferrari’s research even looked at seemingly innocuous distractions, like the beep an incoming email leading to a a 0.5% drop in domestic GDP, costing the US ecomomy $70b a year!
How much time in your day is lost to chasing on-line links, reading unnecessary articles or emails, watching that neat little YouTube clip or playing with some new routine promises to organize your pictures, notes, thoughts, bank book, or underwear?
Here’s some quick math: 20 minutes a day in ‘the void’ adds up to two weeks a year. That’s two weeks you could have spend taking a healthy walking-break, working on your Boulders, reading something that really advances your work, supporting a colleague, or how about clearing the clutter off your desk.
I think the old adage “On their deathbed nobody says they wished they had spent more time at work.” will be rewritten as “On their deathbed nobody says they wished they had downloaded the latest app!”

Tags: culver

We are in for an interesting ride in the Canadian and world market. Just open any newspaper and you get assaulted with grim foretelling of our economic, trade, and labour future. So, what is a business leader to do to get beyond survival and actually thrive in the coming months and, possibly, years?

No question, having a game plan for business growth is essential. Every leader needs to have their organization behind a solid plan for building sales, strengthening administration and operations and ramping up customer service a notch. Having clear direction gives people on your team confidence and focuses energy. But, what about delivering on real, daily leadership success?

In 18 years, working with hundreds of high performing organizations and leaders of all stripes, I have learnt that it is the small things that we do that makes the biggest difference. Paying attention to people and their needs, keeping promises, staying focused and catching staff doing good work all will pay huge dividends. You staff will love you, your customers will get great service and you will create the kind of climate new staff are looking for.

It’s almost counter intuitive: when we pay attention to the small details of relationships, our work, our customers, and our health, we always get the big payoff we desire.

Westjet has built a legacy of extraordinary customer service over its 12 year rein of low-cost airline service. And this remarkable Calgary based company continues to win awards for how they treat their staff and their customers. Last year, based on a survey of over 500 Canadian CEO’s, they were again awarded the title of “Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Culture” by Waterstone Human Capital. As a company they continue to impress me with their focus on the small stuff.

In the week leading up to Christmas, Westjet again proved that the small stuff is what counts. During some of the worst, continual snow storms to hit Canadian cities, roads and airports, Westjet shelled out some $2 million for meal vouchers, accommodation and transfers for customers that were stranded at airports waiting for their flights – even though they had no obligation to do so! They also sent each of their 6,300 employees a travel credit to recognize their extra effort given in over the holiday mayhem.

Ken McKenzie, WestJet’s Executive Vice-President, Operations, commented, “This week was WestJet’s finest hour, despite the delays and cancellations. We provided for our guests in their time of need and truly demonstrated WestJet’s caring attitude. This was an unprecedented situation and we responded in an unprecedented way.”

In the words of author and radio personality Pau Harvey, “In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.” There will always be unforeseen disasters, up economies and down economies, and changes in market conditions. And there will always be leaders that maintain a focus on the small stuff: taking care of people, keeping promises and attending to the details that people notice. And those leaders will always enjoy long-term success.

What is the small stuff for you?

Tags: culver

The whole New Years resolutions tradition is getting a bit old. I still see the same statistics every year: about one in 10 people actually keep their resolutions. Yet, we keep on making them. One study on resolutions found that 52 percent of people were convinced that they would succeed, but only 12 percent did. This means that 48 percent of us make resolutions without any hope of keeping them.
Yet this tradition has been with us since the time of the Romans – making promises for the coming year. It seems that we love the delusion of the promises we make to ourselves. We fantasize about looking as good as Christian Bale or Halle Berry or earning as much as Warren Buffett. Somehow this delusion, even as a brief one, seems to be a comfortable habit (even though our track record is dismal). Take heart it may not be all your fault.
It turns out, as you might expect, that our appetite for novelty decreases as we age and the tried and true of our lives becomes more attractive than change. Personality researchers Paul Costa and Robert R. McCrae of the National Institutes of Health confirmed that people tend to be more open to new experiences during their teens and early 20’s, reported Scientific American Mind. “Clear age trends are observable, says psychologist Peter Borkenau of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany. “People tend to become more reliable and agreeable with age, but their openness to novelty drops at the same time.”
So, if we are less pliable to new direction as we age, and yet we love the resolution tradition what should we do to better ourselves. I suggest start with truly appreciating what you have already. Rather than searching for the next ‘thing’ to own, or change in your body, looks, house, partner or car, how about simply paying more attention to what you have already.
As the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus put it: “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you have now was once among the things only hoped for.” Goals are great (I know, I’m hopeless without them), and they need to be driven by the ability to savour in the results.
One of my resolutions for this year (Yup, I still make them) is to meditate on what I am thankful for. This is an easy one: my health, family, my wife Kirsten, children, friends, my work. The list is pretty well endless and it feels wonderful to pause and focus on simply being thankful. No hidden agenda, no power of attraction, secret, nada…just thankful.
Don’t get me wrong: I still have goals, but I want to balance what I want with want I am happy about. And I’m going to start today by being thankful that you took the time to read this. Thanks!

Tags: culver