Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Be Respectful of Others’ Time

Around the middle of last year, I attended an internationally recognized Internet business conference.  I was writing the Reinvent column for the Wall Street Journal at the time, so one of my goals was to interview the top thinkers present.

I set up the interviews way in advance, and before I knew it, between conference sessions, networking meetings, and interviews, my 2.5 days of conference time were completely booked up.  Things proceeded pretty smoothly until my last morning at the event, when I was stood up by three interviewees in a row.  One had woken up late and couldn’t get her act together.  The second was stuck in another meeting.  The last had simply forgotten about our interview altogether.

If I’d known these meetings were not going to take place, I could have gotten on a plane home to my husband and two year old son a full half day earlier.  But instead, I was stranded in an overcrowded press room, waiting for hours while I anxiously checked my Smartphone.

I’ll grant that the three interviewees in question were high profile individuals with a lot of success to their names, but that didn’t make it okay that none cared that they had inconvenienced me and wasted my time, none were terribly apologetic, and none circled back with me later to make amends.  And I kept thinking that if they were willing to stand up a reporter who was going to profile them in the WSJ, who else had they blown off that day?

This scenario occurred a while ago, and you can see that it still irks me.  The negative impression this behavior made was substantial and long-lasting.

The message is that your time is not more important than someone else’s.  If you make a commitment to meet with someone, no matter how busy or preoccupied you are it is not appropriate to abruptly cancel or leave them hanging.  And if something happens that is beyond your control, don’t just shrug your shoulders.  Be humble and sincere in your apology and do whatever it takes to make it up to them.  They’ll remember it, trust me.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

Going to Work Sick? You're Not Alone

It's going to take more than a cold or a flu to get between most Americans and their jobs this cold and flu season, according to a recent survey by Halls and Kelton Research.  The national telephone survey found that most working Americans won’t sacrifice a sick day this year for most cold and flu symptoms, including a cough, sore throat, body aches and sinus headache.  In fact, nearly half of Americans (44 percent) would consider going to work with a fever, and nearly a third of Americans (32 percent) said they would show up to work no matter how sick they get this season.   

The survey revealed that one in five Americans (19 percent) feel pressure by their boss or supervisor to head into work when they’re sick.  One in three (31 percent) Americans said they wouldn’t get paid for taking off on a sick day, and one in 10 (11 percent) said they would likely fall behind on their bills by taking a sick day.  Additionally, more than 10 percent of Americans thought they would not likely receive their next pay raise or promotion, or worse, would lose their job for calling out sick.

When it comes to being prepared this cold and flu season, there are many preventative measures that can be taken in an environment with people who may be sick, including:

• Wash Your Hands Often – Wash your hands frequently with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds – that’s roughly the time it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice.  Remember, when soap and water are not available, an alcohol-based hand sanitizer is a good alternative.
• Disinfect Common Surfaces – Germs can live for hours, and in some cases weeks, on common surfaces.  Use a disinfectant regularly to wipe and clean doorknobs, phones, remote controls, toys, computer keyboards, and any other items that are shared at home or at the office.
• Practice Good Health Habits – Encourage your family to eat right and exercise.  Diets rich in fruits and vegetables provide a loaded source of immune boosting nutrients.  Exercising, whether you’re walking or playing outdoor games, builds up immune cells in the body and can help you feel more energetic and healthier while increasing your immunity to certain illnesses.
• Drink Plenty of Fluids – Hydrate your body by drinking 8-10 glasses of water a day to help flush out the system, and to keep your throat moist.

Do You Treat Your Vendors Like Human Beings?

What is your relationship with your vendors?  How comfortable would you be if the roles were suddenly switched, and your vendors were now your clients?   Are you squirming just a little bit?  Then your vendor treatment could probably use some work.

The truth is that even the most decent people tend to get caught up in the power trip associated with being “the client.”  This is especially true of individuals who work for prestigious firms or Fortune 500 companies with big budgets.  They get into the mindset that vendors should regularly bend over backwards, servicing to an often unreasonable extent because the vendors should feel lucky to have their business.

Bad client conduct includes things like skimping vendors on agreed-upon payments or expenses, expecting 24/7 availability from them while you are as responsive – or unresponsive – as you want, and using intimidation tactics to get your way.  It can also involve irritating behavior that’s more subtle, such as refusing to cut a vendor slack with respect to your incredibly confusing accounting process, or simply shrugging your shoulders and saying something to the effect: “I’m sorry you had to eat 40 hours of unbillable time, but that’s your cost for working with us.”

This business world of ours is a fickle one, and you never know when you might really need your vendors.  After all, you hired them because they are the best at what they do, and this means that at some point they’re likely to hold some measure of power over you.  So, forget for a moment that you’re the one with the purse-strings and treat your vendors like the colleagues who work in the department down the hall, or better yet, like your managers.  You’ll establish an environment of mutual trust and respect that will lead to unbreakable workplace ties.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

 

Beat Inertia and Start Your New Project Today!

As busy managers, we’re often so overwhelmed by a mountain of daily tasks that we never get around to starting the projects that will propel our careers and benefit the organization in the long-term.

David Allen, the author of “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity,” believes that many people are paralyzed by inertia as a result of current negative circumstances like the bad economy or a chaotic workplace.  He advocates recognizing that being self-starter is a set of behaviors that you can adopt.

These behaviors include getting your ideas out of your head and onto paper.  By freeing your mind of everything that needs to be done for your project, you can concentrate on performing the tasks necessary to launch it.

Allen’s project model involves five key stages: defining the purpose of the project, determining what success will look like, brainstorming, organizing, and allocating resources/taking action.

Be systematic about your project by delegating required tasks so that each member of your team is personally accountable for something, and by having frequent status meetings to flag problems and incorporate new developments.  A variety of project management tools are available to make managing workflow easier.

If you’re working on your own, you can place a checklist and timeline in your personal calendar.  Just be wary of implementing too many fancy organizational systems in exchange for doing real work on your project.

You may want to launch a new initiative but are having trouble thinking of an initial task to get you moving in the right direction.  Allen says to start with the basics, which could be as simple as making an insights folder in which you put interesting articles you cut out of magazines or read online.   It’s not a bad thing to hold off on the biggest decisions until your thinking has matured.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

 

What Do You Want to Be Known For?

My friend Tim Ferriss just released his new book, The 4-Hour Body.  It contains lots of tantalizing body hacking strategies from losing 20 pounds in a month without exercise to reversing permanent injuries. 

More intriguing than the book itself is how Tim intends to keep it on the bestseller lists for the better part of this year.  As my other buddy Jonathan Fields put it on his Tribal Author blog, instead of trying to appeal to as many people as possible, Tim created an ultra-slick, James Cameron worthy book trailer that “makes a bee-line for the hearts and souls of most rabid, hyperbolic, youth and performance driven part of the market, knowing that there were more than enough of them to push the book onto the New York Times list.”

People wonder why everything Tim Ferriss does turns to gold, and here’s the reason:  he knows his audience better than himself.  He has slowly but carefully cultivated a loyal legion of fans on his blog by providing advice of a very specific nature: think extreme breath-holding and round-the-world plane tickets.  After years of using the blog to analyze what his audience wants, Tim now serves it up in The 4-Hour Body.  And it’s working.

The point is, Tim doesn’t try to be all things to all people, and neither should you.  As you progress in your career, do you have a solid understanding of your strengths, where you add the most value, and the people who most appreciate what you bring to the table?  Can you articulate what you want to be known for in your organization and your field besides pleasing people in the senior ranks?  It’s only with these insights that you will be in a position to actively drive your career forward.