Tag Archives: effectiveness

TNF #118: Curiosity and effectiveness

Welcome Professionals…

…I am currently spending my New Year’s holidays in a ski ressort in Austria. Today, we had heavy snow fall, about half a meter of fresh snow. I was sitting in a ski hut, waiting for the sky to clear up when I got into a conversation with a man sitting next to me.

It turned out he was a top management consultant! He had been a partner at Deloitte and was now working in a boutique consultancy focussing on digital advisory. Before we knew that we were both consultants, we quickly figured out that we had a common base of understanding.

The encounter showed once again the common mindset of top management consulting professionals. Above all it is curiosity and a strong urge to use time effectively. This is what I like a lot about our profession.

I wish everybody a good start into 2018 with a lot of curious encounters

Malte

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TNF #114: Clutter on my mind

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Welcome Professionals…

…I had almost forgotten how good it feels. For months I had known that it is time for this. My wife does it regularly, but I tend to shy away from it.

I am talking about throwing stuff away. Getting rid of things that are not in use. Many of us – myself included – hold on to these things because they could be of use in a future situation.

What if I put on wheight? Then I might need the old pants which don’t fit me today. What if it is very bad weather day? Maybe then I want to wear the old shabby suit. What if we will all return to Blackberry technology one day…..- this is what is holding me back from removing clutter.

When I finally did remove non-used items in my home office and my wardrobe rigorously, it really made me happy. This is actually a finding that the famous author Gretchen Rubin talks a lot about in her bestseller “Happiness Project”.

Since the objective of this blog is to make top management consultants more successful and not just happier, let me point towards another overservation. What I also felt was more clarity of thought. It felt like removing some clutter in my environment also cleared up some structures in my head.

It is a no brainer that removing clutter helps to stay organized and by that means will enhance effectiveness. On top of that, there is a psychological effect. Letting go of physical clutter will enhance to let go of cluttered thoughts. Creating structure in our environment will enhance structured thinking.

Try it, next time you are stuck, clean up a cupboard or a drawer!

Malte

TNF #112: Idle time for the brain

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Welcome Professionals…

…I definitely find myself guilty of this. I am not giving enough idle time to my brain as I should. In order to increase productivity and make the most out of my time, I am tempted to schedule out my full day with conversations, problem solving time, writing and so on. I even use commuting time or workouts for listening to audio books or taking online skills training. This is generally very rewarding because of a feeling of high efficiency. However, it can turn out to be highly ineffective when the balance of idle time gets lost.

I have discovered that my best creative ideas happen in idle time. I find solutions to problems that have been bugging me for days at times when I am not actively thinking about a solution. I make decisions or new plans when I let my mind wander without any clear directions.

While – thanks to our smartphone – it is difficult for anybody to shut of distractions these days, it is especially challenging in top management consulting. Huge amount of information and data to process with tight deadlines, excessive meeting time, solutions to be found for pressing problems, and on top of all this: deprevation of sleep.

Even more so, it is important that we as top management consultants make our minds wander from time to time. The job requires creativity, intuition and judgment – traits which will increase enourmously by taking some deliberate idle time exercise.

When did you recently have one of these idle times:

taking a walk or a slow run without listening to music or other distractions
looking out of the window, gazing at the landscape while on a train ride
standing and watching people pass-by while waiting for a client appointment

Enjoy these times for the sake of higher effectiveness!

Malte

TNF #106: Buffet of opportunities

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Welcome Professionals…

…I am currently spending a week of vacation in a hotel with an all-inclusive offer on food and drinks. The supercharged buffets inspired me to write this week’s blog post. In this hotel you can eat and drink all around the clock. Since everything is paid for already, you just have to reach out for something and have it right away. Besides the three main meals in the restaurants, you get access to a host of snack bars which are spread across the hotel and pools. Before I even realized it, I found myself overeating on fastfood, softdrinks and ice cream.

I discovered that it takes quite a lot of will-power to go to the lunch buffet and just have a salad and some grilled fish despite of all the fragrant temptations. It takes a long term target (health), some core principles (skip sugar and fast carbs) and a mid-term plan (eat light to be mobile enough for the tennis match in the afternoon) to make wise food choices. This has quite some parallels to our business life it occurred to me.

In business we have a host of opportunities to fill our day. Before we know it, our day will be spent with checking emails and sitting in ineffective meetings. Emails and meetings are the sugar and fast carbs of business. For the short term, they make us feel busy, but there is a great risk of missing our long-term target if we indulge in them. Our days will be crammed with ballast and we will feel reactive and unflexible.

Only a clear long-term target, some derived key principles and a mid-term plan will enable us to withstand the distracting temptations and focus on deep work. I personally have made good experience with re-visiting my long-term targets once a month in a planning session and putting the mid-term plan into my calendar. My key principles are always with me in on a notes page in my briefcase. I shared them with my assistant so that she can operate in line with them when booking my time.

What is your sugar in your business day? How do you stay focused on your business targets and away from the temptations? Let me know.

Malte

TNF #098: Not making excuses

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Welcome Professionals…

… I just had a little car accident an hour ago. I was driving home from a client. When I was standing at a traffic light, wondering which topic I could use for my next TNF post, someone bumped into my car. Not a severe crash, it just made a few scratches. No big deal, it was more the surprise that hit me.

Let me just say so much: Don’t text and drive!

Once we had exchanged contact information and I was on the road again, I had the immediate thought: “Tonight I am going to skip the TNF post!” My mind was automatically making excuses: “I had an accident, I should now take a rest, maybe sit in the garden, enjoying the fine weather. Perhaps I suffer from a whiplash injury…”

What a nonsense! One of the typical attempts of my brain to save power and get some idle time. If your brain is somehow like mine, it will easily find the most creative excuses for skipping or postponing a chore. We must be aware of this fact and be alert that most of these immediate thoughts that keep us from pursuing a plan are just flimsy excuses trying to talk us out of something that takes attention and energy. It is the powersave mode that comes up.

With this awareness, we can push the nasty excuses aside and do what we intend to do. Like writing this post. Here it is.

Drive safely,

Malte

TNF #089: Handicap II

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Welcome Professionals…

…Another week has passed and I still cannot use my right hand. I have to wear a cast for six weeks in total. As announced last week, I will give you a report on my efforts to stay productive.

Having a broken bone is a bummer, but I promised myself I will stay positive and focus on good things to learn. Over the course of the week, I already made some significant productivity gains. I actually made some improvements that I might keep even when the cast is gone.

Here is a list of my productivity adjustments:

Left-hand writing comes out with some readable lines after practicing a bit, but it is still much too slow
Left-hand typing works for a few words, but is also much too slow for longer text
Using the Apple Siri function for a few tasks like making a call, setting a reminder, putting appointments to the calendar and so on is very useful and quick, once I understood which syntax to use
The online dictating function of Siri works much better than the off-line enhanced dictation function and improves over time the more I use it
Setting up shortcuts in the text replacement function of iPhone and MacBook is something that I should have done before
I managed to use my MacBook as the input source for the Microsoft-based computer system in my office, allowing me to dictate text right into word files and also into our CRM system, which is actually much quicker than my 10 finger writing before

There are even some positive side effects, which are quite remarkable:

The inability to take notes during conversations has me focusing much more on my counterpart in both personal meetings as well as in phone calls. It seems I have a much stronger presence in these conversations now.
Dictating a summary after a conversation enables me to focus on the real key lines that are worth memorizing. Though I have to admit that I would prefer to be able to take at least some notes during the conversation, especially on 90 minutes interviews.
Using the dictation function requires me to articulate myself very clearly and precisely and get rid of all these “ers” and “uhs” during verbal expression

I am actually quite surprised what good can come out out of a stupid situation like this. I will keep you posted about for the learnings.

Wishing you a productive week,

Malte

TNF #088: Handicap

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Welcome Professionals…

…Today I’m writing with handicap. Last Sunday, I broke the ring finger of my right-hand in a stupid accident. Of course, this brings some challenges to my work.

I’m a right-handed person. And now I’m not able to use my right hand at all. This is a real bummer to my productivity. When I was 16, I took a machine writing class. I’m actually very quick in blindly using 10 fingers for typing. During interviews on the phone I used to take notes simultaneously within our CRM system. All of this doesn’t work anymore.

I am now looking for better ways instead of doing everything left-handed. I am actively experimenting with various new tools and adjusted processes to overcome my handicap.

I am really curious to know: What are your experiences with this? Have you ever been in a situation where you couldn’t use one of your hands? What did you do to stay productive?

BTW: This text is written by using the dictating function on my MacBook. I will let you know about my improvements over the course of the next weeks.

Waving with my left hand,

Malte

TNF #084: Small pain

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Welcome Professionals…

…I was at the dentist today. One of my inlays was broken and I decided to have it replaced as protection from potential further tooth decay. This preventive maintenance is costly, time consuming, and not really pleasant. As I was laying on the dentist chair, I thought about the analogies to our consulting profession.

What we would all agree to as a wise decision in dental care also applies to business. Accepting the smaller pain today in order to avoid the bigger pain in the future. Thinking through the various decisions within my 15+ years as a top management consultant, I can come up with many examples for the smaller pain:

admitting a mistake
asking an embarrassing question
changing staffing after a few days on the project
giving pushback on targets set by client/superior
scheduling a weekend shift before an important presentation

All these highly unpopular and sometimes painful actions have the potential to avoid a bigger and even more painful failure in the future. However, I sometimes had the idea that I might get away without any pain. I might get lucky, I thought. Well, very unlikely to get lucky on caries for the next 50 years with a broken inlay. Why not apply this wisdom to everyday business?

Welcome small pain!

Malte

TNF #070: Online communication

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Welcome Professionals…

…Would you agree that online communications tools make our work more efficient? Some people are in serious doubt about that. But let’s assume that it is true. It is much quicker and – when done correctly – even more precise to send an email instead of having a conversation in person or over the phone. Beyond email, specialized online collaboration tools have profound advantages. They clearly have their mark in business communication.

However, relying completely on online communication is a dangerous mistake. Whether we want our co-workers to perform a certain task or a client to choose working with us – we need to build trustful relationships in order to get the job done. Only these relationships will be a high enough motivation in the long-term to achieve outstanding results. Sure, there are hierarchical structures that should legitimate a certain taks request. Also, a clear logic and rationale certainly help. But in the end, the relationship between the two parties makes the difference.

Online communication is inappropriate for building relationships. Everybody reads messages in their own head, adding the tonality and emotion to it on their own behalf. It does not matter how many emoticons we add – an online message will never reach a sufficient level of personal interaction that will build a trustful relationship. We need to interact with real persons in order to build a connection.

That having said, this is a plea for connecting with co-workers, suppliers and clients in person. Walking over to someones desk, taking the time to get somebody on the phone live, and even making a dedicated visit may take some extra effort. The difference is huge. In fact, relying solely on online communication will not work.

So, instead of sending the next email, walk over to the desk of your team member. It’s worth it and I personally think it is also more fun.

Wishing you a good social time

Malte