success

The Audience Arc: A Balancing Act for Success

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

Master the balancing act of needs using the Audience Arc

In today’s dynamic business landscape, navigating an “audience arc” is crucial for driving high-impact initiatives. This arc applies to any scenario where you need to engage different levels of your organization. Regardless of your situation, there are three core entities to consider as your craft solutions for your customers:

  • The Enterprise: The overarching goals and vision of the organization.
  • The Team: The collective effort and expertise of your department or project group.
  • The Individuals: The unique perspectives and motivations of each person involved.

Now, here’s a powerful framework that can elevate your success:

The Balancing Act: Decisiveness with Context Meets Collaboration for Innovation

Part 1: Decisiveness/Smart Risk-Taking vs. Organizational Navigation/Collaboration

Effective leadership requires a delicate balance. On one hand, you need to be decisive and willing to take calculated risks. However, it’s equally important to navigate the organizational landscape effectively. Collaborative decision-making that considers various viewpoints can lead to stronger results and increased buy-in.

Part 2: Honoring the Past While Embracing the Future

Balancing Tradition with Innovation:

  • Past: Respect What’s Been Done Before: Building on past successes and learning from previous experiences is crucial. Ask yourself, “Has someone already tackled this challenge? Can we leverage their efforts?”
  • Future: Embrace Innovation and Learning: Don’t be afraid to break new ground and experiment. Every situation presents opportunities to learn and push the boundaries.

Conclusion: Mastering the Audience Arc

By understanding the audience arc, consistently creating delicate balance between decisiveness and collaboration, tradition and innovation, you can navigate your way to success in any situation. Winning strategies require considering all three entities – the enterprise, the team, and the individuals. Remember, it’s all about finding the sweet spot between calculated risks and well-coordinated execution. So go forth, analyze, diagnose, plan, and lead your team to high-impact success!

What’s your key to success?

/ Susan Hendrich / 1 Comment

Create change with a 3-word mantra…

Change gurus often borrow from Hindu tradition to tell us that in order to create change in our lives, we need a mantra. 

According to Wikipedia, a mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of “creating transformation.”

By adopting a mantra, we can focus our mind and heart toward a single, simple message of change. With all the busyness and business that crowd our world each day, having the focus of a targeted mantra can help us to filter out the “noise” and stay connected to a goal. A plan. A dream.

What’s your mantra?

Using just three words, describe the key to your next success.

Here are a few examples:

  • Try something new
  • Always be yourself
  • Do what’s right
  • Finish the book

Your turn:

Choose three words to adopt as your next goal for success, add those words below in a “comment,” then make a plan to execute on  your mantra.

Focus on the Next Right Thing

/ Susan Hendrich / 3 Comments

The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time…

In his Harvard Business Review blog post, Tony Schwartz shares The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time, asking: 

Why is it that between 25% and 50% of people report feeling overwhelmed or burned out at work?

It’s not just the number of hours we’re working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time.

What we’ve lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It’s like an itch we can’t resist scratching, even though scratching invariably makes it worse.

Multitasking saps individuals and organizations of effectiveness AND energy. And it is a vicious cycle, tied up with task prioritization, deadlines, work overload, work-life balance, and many other familiar topics around human performance. Doing one thing at a time can be the secret both to personal effectiveness and successful project management.

What’s Wrong with Multi-Tasking?

The downfall of multi-tasking comes from task switching. I am not particularly interested in aspects of walking and chewing gum, or driving while talking on the phone. Multitasking in the business context means working on multiple tasks “at once.” Or as we know, having a big pile of work and being forced to SWITCH between them without ever getting them done. Throw on top of it the problem of interruptions and too-many-meetings, and you get a great ball of nothing-gets-done.

So How Do I Get This Magic Going?

Here are three behaviors Schwartz says will help you set your boundaries:

1. Do the most important thing first in the morning, preferably without interruption, for 60 to 90 minutes, with a clear start and stop time. If possible, work in a private space during this period, or with sound-reducing earphones. Finally, resist every impulse to distraction, knowing that you have a designated stopping point. The more absorbed you can get, the more productive you’ll be. When you’re done, take at least a few minutes to renew.

2. Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically. If you don’t, you’ll constantly succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. Also, find a different environment in which to do this activity — preferably one that’s relaxed and conducive to open-ended thinking.

3. Take real and regular vacations. Real means that when you’re off, you’re truly disconnecting from work. Regular means several times a year if possible, even if some are only two or three days added to a weekend. The research strongly suggests that you’ll be far healthier if you take all of your vacation time, and more productive overall.

According to Schwartz,

A single principle lies at the heart of all these suggestions. When you’re engaged at work, fully engage, for defined periods of time. When you’re renewing, truly renew. Make waves. Stop living your life in the gray zone.

Here’s to living in black and white…and may the force of singular focus be with you!