Focus

We all have a finite amount of focus.  We may think of focus as something you do, but I think it is something you have.  You either have focus for something, or you don't.  And focusing on something is like contracting a muscle.  It uses energy and wears on you.  And the longer you focus on something, the more tired you get and the harder it is to keep focusing.  I notice this when I drive on long road trips.  After 4 hours or so, its hard to keep focusing on the road and traffic.  I need a break.  The same is true when it comes to your work.  After hours of focus, getting into what Cal Newport calls "Deep Work," you get tired and need to recharge your focus.  There was a great experiment in 1998 called the "Chocolate and Radish" experiment where the Psychologist, Roy Baumeister, discovered the modern concept of willpower.  That it is a like a muscle and becomes exhausted.  Be sure to listen to the episode to find out more about this experiment.  But I believe the same is true with focus.  It is finite.  It will become exhausted over time. This is why its important to take breaks to recharge your "focus battery."  Below are some tips to help you focus.

Prepare to focus - Just like anything you're working on, you need to have a plan.  Plan to focus on whatever it is you need to work on.  I use outlook for that purpose. I schedule time for focusing.  If you look at my outlook calendar, you would think I'm slammed with meetings, but only about 1/2 of those things are actual meetings.  The rest are times I've allotted for focused deep work.  When I schedule my focus, it is easier to get into the mindset necessary to hunker down and focus.

Remove distractions - When its time to focus, turn off outlook, close slack, shut your door, turn off the ringer to your phone and put your cell phone in airplane mode. This may sound extreme, but its necessary for me.  I'm super easily distracted.  For more tips on beating distractions check out episode 3. If you like music, turn on music (but not with words, words can lead to you singing and causing more distractions.  Grab your coffee, use the restroom, make sure the temperature is good. Basically you are removing any excuse for you to get up and do something else.

Take breaks - Like we said above, your focus can be like a battery and it needs to be charged.  We've learned that going outside and taking walks can help recharge this battery like a Tesla Supercharger.  So take a stroll outside for a few minutes, then come back and start again.  One technique that I've found effective is the Pomodoro technique.  There are different variations of this, but what I do is turn off everything for 25 minutes of uninterrupted focus, then take 5 minutes to check email, slack, texts, etc.  Get up refill the coffee if needed, take a restroom break, walk around a bit, and repeat the 25 minutes of focus.  I've found that 5 minutes is all I usually need to recharge my focus battery.

If you have more tips on improving focus, please tweet them to me @johnrouda.

I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to iTunes and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again!

Today I'm going to do something totally different.  I'm going to do a blitz week.  5 episodes in 5 days.  These will be on the topic of managing your F.A.T.E.  The acronym F.A.T.E stands for your finite resources, your Focus, Assets, Time and Energy. I first heard about this from Toddy Henry, host of The Accidental Creative. I highly recommend you check out his podcast and his books. I interviewed him a while back about his book, Louder than Words, Click Here to listen to that conversation.

In this episode I'll set the stage for what's time come.  I'm breaking these four finite resources into their own shows so that you can go back and re-listen to the ones that you need the most work on managing.  These are also perfect shows to share with those around you that might could use a boost in one of those areas as well.  Stay tuned, we'll dive into managing your focus tomorrow.

Focus - Remove distractions, pomodoro technique, batch email and slack, setup creative and brainstorming times on your calendar.  Use deep work.

Assets - Manage your assets.  Your team, your money, your resources, your systems, your software, etc.

Time - Time management will be a longer podcast or training class at some point in the future, but here are some of the basics that I talk about when dealing with time management plus a bonus with the video of Randy Pausch's time management talk (He's my CSCI hero).

Energy - exercise, coffee, take breaks, work on things you love, Velocity & Inertia.  Find your best time to work.

I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to iTunes and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again!

It's easy to stop a train that's not moving...But its hard to stop one that has already started.

Velocity

is defined as the speed of something in a given direction. 

Have you ever started on a project, task, program, or something and got into the "flow" state?  What is flow you ask?  Flow is being in the Zone.  If you've played or watched basketball you're familiar with this term.  It's that state where Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Steph Curry or Lebron James get into where it seems as though they cannot miss.  Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (notice I didn't try to pronounce that on the podcast) coined the term "flow" in 1975 as a feeling of full engagement, energized focus and complete enjoyment.

I get into a flow state sometimes when I'm teaching or speaking.  Its like the words just come out of mouth and knowledge pours out of my brain. And when the talk is over, I have little to no idea what I just said.  You can get into a flow state doing about anything.  I've been there playing basketball when I was younger and more athletic; I've been there speaking and teaching; I've been there recording podcasts.  When you're in that state, time seems to slow way down for some reason. The bad part about getting into a flow state or having good velocity while working on a problem is when it get's interrupted.  Its like you're on train that comes to an abrupt halt.  Things going flying around in your brain and it takes a good bit of time to sort out where everything goes so you can get started again. The size and length of the interruption can determine the time it takes to get moving again.  I like to imagine that the work you're doing is a big locomotive.  It takes time to get started and to get stopped. If you stop fast, it means you crashed.  So why is that?  Well, physics tells us its because of Inertia.

Inertia

is defined as a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged; or a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force.

The bigger the locomotive you're on, the greater the inertia.  The greater the tendency is to keep doing what you're doing.  I fall back on my running examples when I talk about this stuff... so if you're not a runner or don't play one on tv, sorry.  When I'm training for a race or running on a consistent basis, its easy to keep running. My brain wants to keep running.  I want to remain in that pattern of behavior.  Its inertia.  The same is true when you're working on projects and tasks. When you're seeing results, making progress, and building a habit of positivity, its easy to keep going due to inertia.  At least I attribute it to inertia, even though in physics they say inertia only affects physical items.  I believe it effects emotional and behavioral items as well. So once you get started, things get easy. So how do you get started?

How to get started

There are lots of blogs, motivational speeches, and podcasts to help you out with this question, but my take on it is probably a bit simpler.  Before writing this, I Googled "How to start"  and I found dozens blogs about "10 simple tips to start something new" and lots of click bait like that.  But here's my take on it. Use physics.  In physics, its hard to move a large object, but its easy to move a smaller one. So start small... very small. If you want to start being a better leader, and doing some of the things I talk about in this podcast, start small. If you want to start a habit of running, start small.  Get some running shoes... step 1 complete, check that off the list.  Go for a walk in the shoes... step 2 complete, check that off the list. Run down to the end of the driveway, step 3 check that off the list, etc.

You first day of running could be just that.  Down to the end of the driveway and back. Start seriously small, but build a habit of consistency.  People trust consistency.

The Power of a Field Trip

One way to inspire creativity and to motivate yourself or your team is to take a field trip. This will work if wherever you work for a nonprofit organization or a traditional office. Take a field trip. I’m going to tell you two stories to prove how beneficial field trips of any size can be. 

Small Field Trips

My team took a little field trip a couple of years ago. We rode around with some technicians in their trucks. We wanted to see how they were using our products. We created a way for them to look at trouble tickets on their mobile phones. The close button was located at the bottom of the ticket, beneath all the notes, and they had to scroll all the way down to get to it. We thought that it worked well since they could work on the ticket, look at the notes, and then close it. But it just wasn’t working for them for some reason…

We found out that the technicians would read the notes going down, work on the ticket, then go straight to the next one and do the same thing. At the end of the day, they would have to close the tickets. That meant right before they got to go home and relax with their families, they had to scroll, scroll, scroll, close ticket, scroll, scroll, scroll…. on and on. They’d only spend 5 minutes or so on each ticket, but multiply that times ten to twelve tickets per day over a hundred technicians. That’s real time! That’s not time that the company could get back. That’s time that we could give back to the employees so that they could get home quicker. That’s what a little field trip can do to inspire you. So we made a 30 second change and moved the button... giving our guys time with their friends and families.

Big Field Trips

The next story involves a little more impact. Doug Dietz designs MRI machines. Have you ever had an MRI? I tore my ACL and had to get one. They’re not fun. They are loud, smell sterile, and are covered in warning stickers. Not to mention, they look terrifying. Almost like you're going into a barrel of a gun. It’s not a great experience. Doug designed an MRI machine and he wanted to watch it in action; to see if he could make any improvements. He was so excited. That is, until the first pediatric patient came. She walked down the hall crying. She wasn’t afraid of her diagnosis, but she was afraid of the machine.

She came into the room that was painted beige, on gray, on beige and covered in warning stickers. She saw a machine that had a huge hole in it and smelled the room’s sterile hospital smell and she lost it. Her parents lost it. Doug lost it. He left broken, but also inspired to fix this.

He brought in a team of children to help him get that creative spark. He turned a scary machine into something from a fairy tale.

Doug turned a machine that looks like this…

Into one that looks like this

Just a little bit of paint and some aromatherapy, and everything changed. Kids would walk down that hospital hall filled with bright, white walls and lights, into an adventure land. When they saw the machines, their fears would settle a little bit. Their parents also benefited. They would come in and smell that relaxing beach smell and smile.

Before that, their biggest fear was how to get their kid through the procedure. Now they were relieved to see that their kid wasn’t scared anymore. Children would see their parents smile and calm down even more. Prior to Doug’s changes, 80% of pediatric patients had to be sedated to go through an MRI. Now that number has dropped to less than 20%. That’s the impact you can get from a field trip.

https://vimeo.com/39861611

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jajduxPD6H4

 

I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to iTunes and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again!

When we react to situations, we're on defense.  You rarely score on defense.  Its much easier to score when you're on offense.  On offense, you're responding to the situation, not reacting.  There is a difference.  Responses are thought-out, planned and not usually emotionally driven.  Reactions are usually hap-hazardous, emotionally driven, and not thought through.  Mistakes often happen when we react instead of respond.  In this episode I talk about the need to respond instead of react, what happens when we overreact to situations, and some ways to avoid stress so that we learn to respond and not react.

 

What Happens When We Overreact

A couple of weeks ago I talked about building trust with your team. Overreacting to situations is one sure-fire way to make them trust you less.  If you can't keep your cool, people want follow you when times get tough.  When you overreact to situations you allow the situation to overtake you.  You stop looking through a practical, logical lens and begin looking at the world through a panicked lens. Your cortisol levels increase in your body, and you being to hyper focus on situations, probably the wrong situations.  Remember when I spoke about the biology of leadership, cortisol is the stress chemical.  It does good things when we're in danger, but it comes at a cost.  It slows down our metabolism, and weakens our immune system.  Its only supposed to be in us for a brief period of time, when it persist, and we overreact, it causes serious health issues.

We tend to make bad decisions when we overreact. The first thing that comes to our mind we move forward with it.  Its hard to think things through when we're trying to stay on top of a tense situation.  Overreaction makes tense situations more tense.

 

Why Do We Get Stressed Out at Work?

The Unexpected Happens.  Sometimes we're confronted with events that we didn't see coming and we're not sure what to do.  When that happens, we might panic and get stressed.

Fear. We're all afraid of something.  I've done 2 episodes on fear and anxiety and being brave in the past.  Take a listen to them to learn how to battle against your fears.

Overwhelmed. If you've been in Technology for any amount of time, you've felt overwhelmed.  We all get overwhelmed from time to time.  When I get overwhelmed, I get stressed.  honestly, I don't know anyone that doesn't get stressed when they are overwhelmed.

Competition. At the workplace, we are sometimes compared and contrasted against our peers.  This creates competition.  Sometimes competition is a good thing. It can inspire and encourage innovation.  But it also leads to stress.

Non-Work Situations. Things that happen outside of work, can creep into our office life. People say you should separate work and home, and I agree, but its super hard to do... no, its impossible to completely do.  You are You.  Whether you are at work or at home, you are still you.  You carry your life with you everywhere you go.  Now, that doesn't mean you should bring your drama into work, but understand that things that happen outside of work, can influence your stress levels at work and vice versa. Remember somethings are more important than work.

 

Ten Ways to Stay Calm at Work

Understand the big picture. Many times things that are big to us, are small outside of our perspective.  Think about the big picture.  Unless your an emergency response person, in the military, or in the medical arena, no one is going to die due to the thing you are currently working on. I regularly tell my team "relax, no one's going to die."  I think about my kids.  My son will panic and pitch a fit over not being able to get his straw into his juice box sometimes.  To him, that is the biggest problem in the world right now.  To me, that's silly, just ask for help.  Work can be the same way sometimes.  We're just like my son, trying to get that straw into a juice box.  Getting stressed out over something that is small i...

This is a special treat for all the listeners to A Geek Leader Podcast.  My guest today is David Neal. Like me, he's from the south and I'm sure you couldn't tell that by either of our accents.  He's a well known keynote speaker, software developer, Microsoft MVP, and technical leader. He's a father of 5 sons (that's right FIVE!!!) and an amazing artist who sketches all of his keynote presentation slides.

I've met David several times at conferences in the Southeast and most recently at CodeStock 2018.  After hearing David's Leadership Guide for the Reluctant Leader talk (see the video below), I had to get him on the show, and lucky for us, he agreed.

 

Visit David's website at reverentgeek.com

Check him out his social pages:

https://instagram.com/reverentgeek

https://twitter.com/reverentgeek

https://github.com/reverentgeek

https://speakerdeck.com/reverentgeek

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidneal

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EWiSJj0q_0

Your team doesn't just "trust" you because of your title.  When I started at my most recent position where I head up the IT group at a mid-sized company just south of Charlotte, NC, I wasn't granted full trust of my team.  Just like, when you get a new boss, you don't fully trust them. You can't tell them just anything at first.  You have to learn how they react to things, how they accept feedback, etc.  As a leader, we must remember that trust works both ways, and people don't automatically trust you because you're their manager.  You must earn that trust.

 

Building Trust with Your Team is Critical

A leader must provide the vision and direction for their team.  Then the team pours in their focus, assets, time and energy (FATE - from Todd Henry) into the project. Many times the team has no idea what is just around the corner and what might come of the work they are putting in.  They trust the leader to guide them.  If they don't trust you, will they really put in the hard work?

You must build trust over time and ensure that your team trust you and that you can trust your team.  If you don't trust each other, it makes working with each other very difficult.  You'll always be watching your back, spending time verifying petty things that you should need to do.  When I have members of my team that don't trust each other, I find it difficult to watch them work together.  Their work doesn't flow, it doesn't jive, it doesn't move in an efficient way. It's just meh.  But when a team trust each other, their work has an artistic type of efficiency that is beautiful to watch. If you want to build the best team you can, then trust is critical.

Trust is Dynamic

It takes a longtime to build trust, but you can wash it away in an instant. Trust can also vary based on a person's mood, how they are feeling that day, and what situations they may have encountered that day. Trust is fluid and dynamic, its not a constant.  Trust varies from situation to situation and from circumstance to circumstance.  My team trust me to make a good technical decision on purchasing software or equipment, but they don't trust me to tell them how to go sky diving.  Trust is fluid and dynamic.  If you understand that you must build your trust in different areas at different times and at different paces, you will do a better job of mastering trust with your team.

For example, when I started my new position, it wasn't long before I built up trust on my technical knowledge of Active Directory and server infrastructure. It took longer for me to build trust about my direct reports skill sets.  At first people were afraid to let me in on what exactly they were good at and what they weren't.  They didn't know how I would judge them.  I had to earn that trust by being vulnerable myself.  Showing them the areas I wasn't good at and letting them know that I understood that everyone is good, maybe even great, at somethings, and not good, or even downright terrible at others. And that it is fine.  It took time to communicate that I don't expect perfection, just a strive for perfection.  And that I don't want to focus on your weaknesses, but rather, focus on your strengths.

Make your Actions Match your Words

If you say you're going to do something, do it.  But more than that, if you say its "not okay" for someone on your team to do something, then you better be sure that you're not doing that thing.  For example.  If you're a boss who is strict on employees coming in on time, then you better make sure you're never late.  If you tell your team that its important to show up to meetings on time, then you better not be late to meetings either.  If you are, then your actions aren't matching your words.  I know this may seem petty, but it actually matters when it comes to building trust.  Our brain does a good job of figuring out in the background what matches and what doesn't.  They say the easiest way to spot a counterfeit $20 bill is to put it on a table next to s...

Being an IT leader you get lots of opportunities to work with vendors.  Sometimes you welcome the calls, most of the times you don't.  This episode I'll go over some tips to help you work with vendors and make the best choice when deciding which vendor go with.  Vendor management is an important aspect of leading a technology team.

Vendors at conferences or trade shows

They usually are giving way gifts in exchange for a scan of your badge. Remember nothing is ever free.  If they scan your badge, you can bet they will email you and most likely call you.  Think about the value of that fidget spinner vs your time when you go to get your badge scanned.  My rule is, if you're not at least somewhat interested in the product, don't even approach the table.  The swag may look enticing, but you'll just be wasting your time and the vendor's time.   Stay away unless its legitimately a product you're interested in.

Cold call vendors

What to do when vendors cold call you?  That's tough, I usually don't answer the phone if I don't know who is calling me, but every now and again one gets through.  For starters, don't be rude, but also don't be too open either.  Be brief and have them get to the point. If its a service or product that you 100% know you aren't interested in and will not be interested in anytime soon, then politely say "no thank you, we're not interested, please remove me from you call list."  Now, if they don't take no for an answer, I usually say it again, and then say "goodbye" and hang up.  Try to always be as nice as possible, but don't continue a conversation that's going no where.

If you might be interested in the product or service, but not right now, tell them.  Say, "hey, I can't talk now, and I'm not ready to move on anything right now, but feel free to call me back in XXX months and maybe things will be better for us to talk."  I usually go with 4 months as a standard.  This gets you off the phone, and doesn't burn any bridges incase this is a service or product you might be interested in in the future.

If you are interested in the product and have time to take the call, then do so.  Talk it out, ask questions, but never commit to anything more than another call. Schedule the next call on your terms, and ask for information you can read or research prior to that next call.  I usually don't ask for references at this point, I wait until its time for a quote or SOW before I ask for references.  Its best not to get ahead of yourself.  Before the next call, be sure you have researched the company, product/service and checked for reviews and complaints.

When you call vendors

If you cold call a vendor, the vendor should feel like they've won the lottery.  But honestly, they rarely act that way. Be mindful of their time.  Don't expect to get all of the information you're looking for on that call.  The initial call is to make a request, and expect to get the information on a followup call/email/meeting, etc.  If you're looking for a product such as a software suite or cloud solution, ask to schedule a demo.  Feel free to ask about pricing, but understand that they are only giving you their first offer at this point.  Discounts could be in the works when you get to the negotiation stages. Don't show your hand too much on these calls, I never tell what my max budget is or even what range I'm looking to spend until I've seen a demo.

Be sure you've done some research prior to calling, don't expect to get 100% of the info on the call.  Its a better use of your time and the vendors if you've read about them, written down some questions and have a couple of dates/times in mind for follow up meetings and calls. Do your homework before sending that email or picking up the phone. It will save an enormous about of time.

Deciding between vendors

This is the point where you should probably make a note to listen to the "Art of Negotiation" show once you've finished this episode.

I recently gave a talk on Employee Engagement for millennials.  Here are my thoughts on the subject:

Engagement Stats

https://www.themuse.com/advice/10-shocking-stats-about-employee-engagement

70% of employees not engaged at work

89% of companies think employees leave for more $$$ but only 12% actually do

43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least 1 time per week but only 13% of disengaged employees receive weekly feedback

75% of people voluntarily leaving their job, don't quit their job, they quit their bosses.

Why people quit their job

They hate their boss

Their work doesn't matter

Adding Purpose

Add purpose doesn't always have to be the big "P" Purpose, like saving the rainforest. It could just be the little "p" purpose, like why we do what we do.  This is another example of how Simon Sinek's "Start with Why" is so important in leadership.

Ignoring Boss

If a boss ignores an employee… they are 40% more likely to “actively disengage” from work and their company.  To "actively disengage" you aren't just not engaged... you are actively  looking for non-work related things to do.  Like gossip, blogging, searching for other jobs, etc.  These activities are not only be bad for the employee performance, but also the performance and attitudes of those around this employee.

Critical Boss

A Critical boss causes 22% increase in actively disengagement… that means, being critical is better than ignoring. At least critical bosses are paying attention, right?

A Praising Boss 

A Boss that praises 1 out of 10 successes usually has less than 1% of employees will actively disengage. So this means you only have to recognize and compliment 1 out of 10 great things your team members do... its not that hard.

Motivation and Management

Management is old school.  Management was creating in the 1850's as a way of gaining compliance in the workforce.  It works great for compliance, not so great for engagement.  If we want engagement, we need Leadership, not Management. 

If/Then doesn't work

4 reason if then don’t work

Engagement is intrinsic and IF/THEN is 100% extrinsic

It puts individuals against one another in a competition, instead of working as a team

It causes some folks to rationalize their ethics, leading to cheating and cutting corners

It lacks emotional growth

FACT - Money is a motivator

Pay people fairly and enough to take Money off the table. Happiness is far more important than small raises.

Dan Pink described motivation the best I've heard it in his book Drive.

Autonomy

Freedom in your job.  Maybe its where you work, how you work, what you work on, or who you work with.

Mastery

Getting better at things that matter. This could be training, personal growth, business growth, learning something important.  Getting a certification, or going or speaking at a conference. Also empowering (i hate that term) employees to do more, to stretch their role.

Purpose

Working on something that matters.  Making sure their job matters in the big picture. To hear more about purpose, check out my TedX Talk.

(must listen to get the real value out of this episode)

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If you've every flown on an airplane then you've heard the flight attendant say:

In the event of the cabin loose pressure, an oxygen mask will automatically appear in front of you. To start the flow of oxygen, pull the mask towards you. Place it firmly over your nose and mouth, secure the elastic band behind your head, and breathe normally. Although the bag does not inflate, oxygen is flowing to the mask. If you are traveling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your mask on first, and then assist the other person.

That last statement may seem odd to anyone that has children.  I've got 3 kids and as a father, my natural tendency is to help my kids first.  But the instructions clearly state not to do that. Ever thought about why? Well let's think about it.  What happens if you run out of oxygen?  If you're out, then you can't help others.  You have to take care of your own need for oxygen first, then you can assist others.

The same is true when you're leading a team. You have to put your oxygen mask on first.  Make sure you're healthy enough to lead the team.  If you run out of oxygen trying to save others, then its likely you both will perish. So as a leader, how do we put on our oxygen mask to ensure that we're taken care of?

This is a super vague question with dozens of possible answers. I'm going to hit the highlights here.  For details on these 7 things, please listen to this episode:

Take care of yourself physically - physical health goes along way with mental energy

Take care of yourself mentally - take time to work on your mind, learn something new, not related to work

Make time for Deep Work - Block off large blocks to time to immerse yourself on a single task or problem

Make time for brainstorming - Many times the solutions to our largest problems come in the blank spaces, or the margins of our busy schedule.  Block time on your calendar for brainstorming.  I like to take a walk around the lake outside my office to think.

Make room for growth - prune less valuable work relentlessly

Empower others - Your team will never grow if you don't give them the opportunity. Delegate like a champ.

Disconnect from time to time - When you're off work, you're off work.  Take time off, without your phone, laptop or iPad.  Disconnect and let your brain recover.

 

I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to iTunes and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even 1 sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again!