Leadership

Productivity secret: The 40-hour work week

/ Susan Hendrich / 3 Comments

How many hours per week do you work?

In her compelling essay, Why We Have to Go Back to a 40-Hour Work Week to Keep Our Sanity, AlterNet’s Sara Robinson lays out decades of research backing the 40-hour work week wisdom and discusses how a down economy and the “passion” of Silicon Valley helped us lose sight of these well-documented facts. She ultimately calls for the return of the 40-hour work week—not just as a route to better health, sanity, and productivity for all, but also as a way to create jobs, arguing that “[f]or every four Americans working a 50-hour week, every week, there’s one American who should have a full-time job, but doesn’t.” Robinson’s conclusion says it all:

For the good of our bodies, our families, our communities, the profitability of American companies, and the future of the country, this insanity has to stop. Working long days and weeks has been incontrovertibly proven to be the stupidest, most expensive way there is to get work done. Our bosses are depleting resources from of the human capital pool without replenishing them. They are taking time, energy, and resources that rightfully belong to us, and are part of our national common wealth.

Your turn: If you do work over 40 hours per week, why do you do so?

http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/

Special thanks to my colleague, Kathryn Burke-Howe, from Performance Development Group for referring me to this story.

Device-agnostic Clouds Will Replace the PC

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

Photo: Karen Ka Ying Wong/Flickr

 

The Clouds Roll In…

Will the personal cloud reign supreme over the personal computer in your digital life?

Chances are, the answer is yes, according to research firm Gartner, which believes the personal cloud will replace the PC as the center of our digital lives by 2014.

“Major trends in client computing have shifted the market away from a focus on personal computers to a broader device perspective that includes smartphones, tablets and other consumer devices,” Steve Kleynhans, says research vice president at Gartner. “Emerging cloud services will become the glue that connects the web of devices that users choose to access during the different aspects of their daily life.”

This will require enterprises to “fundamentally rethink how they deliver applications and services to users.”

Smart businesses and executives will treat cloud computing as a strategy to improve their company.

Gartner says a number of factors are converging to create a perfect personal cloud storm by 2014. Just some of the reasons include:

  • Users are more technologically-savvy and have very different expectations of technology.
  • The internet and social media have empowered and emboldened users.
  • The rise of powerful, affordable mobile devices changes the equation for users.
  • Users have become innovators.

Through the democratization of technology, users of all types and status within organizations can now have similar technology available to them.

The advent of the cloud for servicing individual users opens a whole new level of opportunity. Every user can now have a scalable and nearly infinite set of resources available for whatever they need to do….

“The combination of these megatrends, coupled with advances in new enabling technologies, is ushering in the era of the personal cloud,” Gartner’s Kleynhans said. “In this new world, the specifics of devices will become less important for the organization to worry about. Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub. Rather, the personal cloud will take on that role. Access to the cloud and the content stored or shared in the cloud will be managed and secured, rather than solely focusing on the device itself.”

Jon Udell, blogger for Cloudline, writes:

The cloud platform has become a real option for companies needing managed, pay-as-you-use IT capacity…I see signs of the personal cloud in services like Dropbox, Evernote, and Flickr. You can use them for free, or you can pay for higher capacity and enhanced customer service. But the personal cloud also arises from a way of thinking about, and using, any of the services the web provides.

Your turn: Will you abandon your your personal computer and move the personal cloud to the center of your digital life?

Success and Leadership Twitter Style, by Tom Peters

/ Susan Hendrich / 2 Comments

Leadership and Success in 140 characters or less…

You may have seen Tom Peters views on Leadership and Success in 140 characters posted on Twitter:

Success in 140 characters: “Attack EVERY project you do with Reckless ENTHUSIASM and a Passionate Commitment to EXCELLENCE!”

Can’t you just hear the passion in his voice behind this simple credo?

Leadership in 140 characters: Energy. Enthusiasm. Passion. “People first” in her bone marrow. Curiosity. Integrity. “Ready. Fire. Aim.” Sense of humor. A good accountant.

Now it’s your turn. How would you tweet the secrets to leadership and success in 140 characters or less?

For more from Tom Peters check out his great site, www.tompeters.com

Are you in tune with introverts?

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

Why you should tune in to the introverts in your world…

Being social and outgoing are prized above all else in our culture. So, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be an introvert. In this compelling and passionate talk, author Susan Cain argues that introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated.

Now, think of someone on your team or in your world who’s an introvert and tell me, how can you encourage and celebrate them more?

For small change, Vide Poche

/ Susan Hendrich / 1 Comment

Making room for small change can lead to big benefits…

Consider a Vide Poche.

One of my favorite interior design websites, apartmenttherapy.com, gave me the idea:

French for empty pockets, the vide poche is simply a small bowl or container kept in a convenient location to empty your pockets into when you walk through the door. Having somewhere to put your keys, loose change and wallet when you take off your coat helps minimize clutter and reduces the chance that you will be scrambling around looking for your keys next time you are late running out the door.

Here are four easy ways you can use a vide poche for increased effectiveness:

  1. Add vide poche to your leadership approach: Leave room for silence in your coaching sessions. Empty spaces in the conversation allow powerful introspection to take place. Resist the urge to fill in spaces with witty advice or riveting questions.
  2. Add vide poche to your instructional design approach: Create activities that encourage learners to reflect, not just produce the correct answer.
  3. Add vide poche to your graphic design approach: Remember the power of white space. It gives content room to breathe and have more impact. Enough said!
  4. Add vide poche to your home routine: Place an empty shoebox-sized container near your garbage can. When you bring in the stack of mail from your mailbox, place junk mail directly in the garbage and place bills or other actionable pieces into the shoebox for later addressing.

How can you use a vide poche to make space for increased success and life satisfaction?