If you are like many executives in today’s fast-paced, digitally interconnected world, you receive some overwhelming number of email each day.  In 2004 it was estimated that the average worker sent 34 and received 99.  In 2009 researches estimated that the average size of a persons inbox was nearly 3000 messages!

A few tips on managing that out of control beast:

Prioritize / Filter
–  Color-code contacts – Outlook and other programs allow you to add colors or categories to your contact lists.  When email comes in from those contacts, the subject line is the color of their “category”.  I keep family one color, customers another, and vendors another.  This allows me to quickly prioritize in what order to respond and allows me to visually sort through the messages.
–  Use multiple accounts – Use a separate account for those things that might be optional, or lower priority like subscriptions to news sites, social media, blog feeds or even online purchases.  Visit those when you have time for lower-priority tasks and reserve your primary address for those important messages

Touch them once
If you can, respond to the message, forward to someone else (delegate the task) and don’t come back to the message.  Once you have responded, get it out of the Inbox.  If you need to keep it, set up folders in the system to allow you to archive and find it later.  If you don’t need to archive, use the delete button.  Never look back at the message again.   Keeping your inbox small will allow you to see everything in front of you that you still need to deal with and will feel much less overwhelming than the 3,000 items which are lurking there now.

Schedule Email time
Schedule time in your day to “DO EMAIL”.  Having your email program running in the background means that every time a message comes in, you are prone to be distracted from whatever else you are working on.  Find a routine that fits: Once an hour, Three times a day, whatever works for your email volume and your daily schedule.

I would love to hear any additional tips you might have for managing your inbox!

Authored by: Zack Clark, MBA

Zack is a Senior Consultant and one of the founding partners at Five Degrees Consulting. This is a blog we share between several of the Consultants at Five Degrees, guest authors and colleagues. We work with companies large and small on People and Organization strategies. Our work specializes in organizational development, leadership effectiveness and executive development. With a focus on working with leaders at all levels to create an intentional corporate culture, we help organizations increase employee engagement, energize working teams, develop critical leadership competencies and enhance strategic communications for more information about our services, please connect with us.

Well, you should be ashamed of yourself then.  Certainly there are people who know and like you, and people you know and  like.  That’s a network.  The question is, if they needed something could they call on you?  Would they know why they should?  If you needed something would the people in your “network” take your call and be willing to help?

4.5 keys to having a successful network (#4 is really long):

1. Be authentic – I think I might say this in every blog topic I write.  Be the real you.  Don’t try to play a role you are unfit to play.  Learn the value you have to others, learn how to authentically communicate what you do, who you are and the value in knowing you.
2. Cultivate relationships before you need them – A professional or peer network is only as good as the relationships.  Waiting to build the relationship until you need to ask someone for guidance, advice, a job or anything when they havent heard from you for years, or don’t even know who you are could prove challenging.  Set a goal to ‘ping’ valuable network contacts every so-often to keep the relationship alive.  My best advice – keep it about them, not about you. Always use a pay-it-forward approach and offer help / assistance.  They will then ‘owe you’ when you most need it.
3. Know your value – what are you good at, what do you know? Who do you know?  How can you help.  Get clear about that.  A fun exercise is to keep track for a month what types of things people ask you for.  What are you best known for?  Keep a list.  If it is different that what you want to be known for, think about your personal brand.
4. Use technology – LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter – whatever.  Use technology to keep in touch.

I personally use LinkedIn for business, Facebook for friends.  That line is blurring slightly, as I really like some of the people I do business with, and would consider them friends and welcome them to see under the hood of my personal life. Define your own boundaries there.

Make sure your online profile that you use for professional networking matches the brand you want the world to see, then use the technology to congratulate people on new jobs or other updates you read online.

Build your own online network by searching for people you worked with in the past and present – think as high up the chain as possible, and to people who reported to your direct reports, vendors, partners, clients.  Stay in touch.  The world of business is small – you never know who you might cross paths with again in the future.

When you are inviting someone to connect, I suggest writing a personal message.  LinkedIn has their standard “I’d like to add you to my professional network” text.  I like to use something a little more personal.  ”it was great meeting you at _____.  I enjoyed your talk on______.  I would love to keep in touch via LinkedIn..”  or something similar.

After accepting someone’s invitation to connect, respond with a “thanks for reaching out” message.  Start building your online rapport and relationship the moment you hit ‘accept’.

Having an established professional network can be incredibly valuable.  It is not about the # of connections or friends you have, but the quality of the relationships.

Authored by: Zack Clark, MBA

Zack is a Senior Consultant and one of the founding partners at Five Degrees Consulting. This is a blog we share between several of the Consultants at Five Degrees, guest authors and colleagues. We work with companies large and small on People and Organization strategies. Our work specializes in organizational development, leadership effectiveness and executive development. With a focus on working with leaders at all levels to create an intentional corporate culture, we help organizations increase employee engagement, energize working teams, develop critical leadership competencies and enhance strategic communications for more information about our services, please connect with us.

Perhaps the most important piece of communication that every leader needs to perfect on their rise to the top is the ability to deliver an effective presentation.

Too often today presentations tend to be boring, meetings drone on seemingly not to have a point, and many presenters read their PowerPoint slides to us (I could have read it on my own…).  And while we are talking about PowerPoint – these presentations tend to have too many slides, with too many distracting images, movement or too many words.

This afternoon I am flying out to deliver one of my favorite workshops that we teach – “Delivering Dynamic Presentations”.  In this two-day workshop we teach both experienced and inexperienced presenters a variety of skills. Among them:
What’s Your Point:  Perhaps the most commonly missed preparation point that presenters make.  Essentially it boils down to answering the questions:  What should the audience be thinking, feeling or doing as a result of this presentation.  (two side notes:  a. Who is the audience, and why are they there, and b. what if every meeting organizer thought about their “point” before they sent the Outlook invite…)

Managing and Harnessing pre-presentation jitters:  Every time you present you are playing a role.  We work with presenters on calming their nerves and using that energy to show up as their ‘branded’ self.  Playing the ‘real you’ and targeting energy, movement and language to the audience.

Presentation Outline:  Our overall outline and structure we teach is simple, and one that matches several other models.  Start by getting the audience’s attention in a relevant, respectful and reasonable manner, Make your points and sub-points with clarity, summarize, ask for questions and wrap up in control.  Leaving the presentation in control helps the presenter ensure their points were heard.  Another mistake presenters made is to conclude, ask for questions and leave the stage.  If the last question unraveled the presenter’s main point they just lost.

Visual Aids:  Technology can and does fail.  Many presentations rely too much on slides.  Presentations should be about the speaker, and the message the speaker has; slides should provide visual illustrations and help make the point.
Giving a great presentation can earn credibility and position the speaker for both additional speaking engagements and open them to further career growth.  Giving a bad presentation can be an anchor, and can (and probably does) slowly drive the audience away from listening to you.   Start giving great presentations by a. defining your point, practicing in advance, using slides as a visual, not a crutch.

Authored by: Zack Clark, MBA

Zack is a Senior Consultant and one of the founding partners at Five Degrees Consulting. This is a blog we share between several of the Consultants at Five Degrees, guest authors and colleagues. We work with companies large and small on People and Organization strategies. Our work specializes in organizational development, leadership effectiveness and executive development. With a focus on working with leaders at all levels to create an intentional corporate culture, we help organizations increase employee engagement, energize working teams, develop critical leadership competencies and enhance strategic communications for more information about our services, please connect with us.

Are your meetings a drag? A friend of mine recently described his weekly staff meeting like this:

“I dread it. It’s the worst hour of my week. It’s my personal slow death.”

Over the years, I’ve heard the same sentiment echoed across the working planet. How is it that something so routine as a weekly meeting be so painful?

When I probe for more understanding, a few common themes pop up:

• The meeting appears to have no purpose other than the fact that it was scheduled.
• The agenda has too many items and no decisions are made.
• One or several people dominate the discussions.
• People are unprepared for their part of the agenda.
• The facilitator doesn’t keep the meeting on track.
• The meeting started late or went over the designated time.
• Communication is one-way; discussion is neither encouraged or the group dynamics don’t allow it.
• All business or no business: There is either no time for interpersonal connection between meeting participants, or there’s too much “chit chat” and not enough focus on the agenda items.

The most common complaint: “It was a waste of my time.”

Meetings don’t have to be boring or waste time. The purpose of a meeting, actually, is to save time by collaborating and sharing information while the key players are all in the same place. But it does require preparation and planning.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you plan meetings. You might remember them with “SIT”– Structure, Involvement & Time:

Structure:
Meetings should be well planned and the focus and outcomes articulated prior to the gathering. An agenda can be circulated for input if it’s appropriate. Agenda items might be best framed as questions to prompt decisions at the meeting. Instead of agenda item “Kitchen”, say, “What rules or agreements do we need to keep the kitchen clean?”

The facilitator needs to take charge of the agenda, the meeting flow, the group dynamics and the action steps for follow up. Wimpy facilitators allow the group to run amok and don’t accomplish the meeting’s objectives.

Involvement:
The purpose of a meeting is most often to have all the involved parties in one place to discuss ideas and make decisions. If the communication is one-way, it could just as easily be accomplished through email or memo. Allowing time for group members to weigh in on topics is important, not only for their experience in the meeting, but also for their follow-up commitments to the decisions made.

It’s important for the meeting facilitator to manage the dominant speakers as well. Setting groundrules up front often helps; inviting team members who are less vocal to share their ideas and opinions provides space for them to speak up…and may help to quiet down the big mouths. But don’t force anyone to talk or put them on the spot. You’ll get less of what you want from them after that. For some people, speaking up in a meeting is more intimidating than making a presentation to a group. In front of a group, they have time to prepare and think through their message. In a meeting, they may have to think on their feet, and not everyone is good at it.

Time:
Start on time and end on time. For late arrivals, don’t start the meeting over to catch them up—it’s their job to get whatever they missed. If agenda items appear to be taking longer than planned, schedule a follow-up discussion for a later time, or invite the group to weigh in on what agenda items are priority for the meeting and move the remaining topics to a future meeting or other communication format.

Flexibility is important to meeting management, but too much flexibility on the part of the facilitator makes it feel like there is no direction or purpose for the meeting, and thus, “a waste of my time”. Use phrases such as, “I’m aware of the time,” or “We’ll need to continue this next week”, or “While all these are important ideas, we need to move to a decision now.”

Meetings should be carefully planned and managed in the same way you might prepare for an important message. Think about this question:

“What do I want my team member to walk away knowing, feeling, and doing after this meeting?

Try it—“S.I.T.” for your next meeting.

Oh, I almost forgot–Humor. Remember, people will not long remember the details of what you said, but they will always remember how they felt, which comes from their perceived meeting takeaways. Sprinkle in a little humor whenever you can. When people laugh together, they often feel more connected and open, two of the most important factors in engaging and involving them. But don’t use humor at someone’s expense, or tell inappropriate jokes for effect. You’ll lose more than you gain.

SIT while you plan your next meeting. You can add the “H” for humor in wherever you like.

Authored by: Merrilee Buchanan, LCSW


Merrilee is a Senior Consultant and one of the founding partners at Five Degrees Consulting. This is a blog we share between several of the Consultants at Five Degrees, guest authors and colleagues. We work with companies large and small on People and Organization strategies. Our work specializes in organizational development, leadership effectiveness and executive development. With a focus on working with leaders at all levels to create an intentional corporate culture, we help organizations increase employee engagement, energize working teams, develop critical leadership competencies and enhance strategic communications for more information about our services, please connect with us.