Procrastination and JDI!

Getting better information makes for more correct decisions. Yet fear of 'getting it wrong' sometimes means that we use collating information and all sorts of other seemingly completely valid tactics as a good excuse for being slow to decide.

In a management role procrastination can seriously hold back progress and demotivate individuals and teams who, full of innovation and drive to move forward, get frustrated and confused when action is held up.

There are a number of steps that will help procrastinating manager.

1. Firstly, recognise it is a good and reasonable defence mechanism, which relates to things which might have occurred in past. A hurried decision which might have had an unsatisfactory and upsetting result.

   It is part of your character and maybe just a little too strong a behaviour for those who are around you. It can often be a great asset if you are surrounded by 'gung-ho' types who just go for things - there is value in caution and it is all relative!

2. Secondly. Get Real! Many of 'Fear' writings, such as 'Feel Fear and Do it Anyway' by Susan Jeffers and 'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living' by Dale Carnegie, extol virtues of realistically assessing potential downsides. Often, asking yourself 'What is worst that could possibly happen here?', gets you able to see how unlikely your decision is to be life-threatening. So have a think and be realistic - then do it!
   
   

Effective Meetings Begin With a Real Agenda

Everyone knows that an agenda is key to an effective meeting. But an agenda that consists of a list of nouns, such as budget, software, and picnic, is useless. Here’s how to prepare a real agenda that puts you in control of meeting.

1) Goal. Every real agenda begins with a goal that describes result wanted at end of meeting, such as: find a way to reduce travel costs by 10%. Ideally, this goal should be stated so clearly that someone else could use it to design a meeting that achieved result.

2) Outcome. This describes benefit of achieving goal, and thus tells why you are holding meeting. For example, benefit of reducing travel costs might be that you will keep spending within budget.

3) Activities. This provides a blueprint (or set of instructions) for meeting. Ideally, this contains descriptions of group activities that will help you and participants achieve your goal for meeting. Support this list with an estimated time budget for each activity.