Repetition is the Mother of all learning

on 24 March 0 Comment

repetitio mater studiorum

In the pursuit of trying to learn as much as possible, at times I hardly learn anything. And it’s because I fail to repeat and practice. Is it silly or a waste of time to listen to a good podcast* over and over? Or for that matter reread books? No! What is a waste of time is to only listen to or read it once and then forget all the good points that made me go “Aha! I need to remember and practice that.”

So many light bulb moments, so little time and I end up in the twilight zone. This post is to help me focus, select a few light bulbs to screw in my head, and let those shine brightly.

 

*This podcast is currently on repeat – https://hbr.org/podcast/2024/03/the-essentials-executive-presence

 

quote-repetition-is-not-repetition-the-same-action-makes-you-feel-something-completely-different-pina-bausch-69-82-73
Repetition is not repetition…The same action makes you feel something completely different by the end.
Pina Bausch – German dancer and choreographer

Smile, look at the camera!

on 13 January 0 Comment

This is one of the best interview strategy videos I’ve seen and had to share. The fact that it’s from 2013 just shows how timeless the guidance is, and how in touch it was with the tips on Skype interviews. One of the best 5 minutes you can spend.

How to Ace an Interview: 5 Tips from a Harvard Career Advisor (youtube.com)

Linda Spencer talks about this 5 interview tips:

  1. Do your research.
  2. Practice your responses.
  3. Make a good first impression.
  4. Prepare for different types of interviews.
  5. Determine next steps and follow through on them.

You don’t have to be looking for a new role to do this. In fact, the practice and preparation takes time so that when it is time for an interview, you’ll come across natural and confident in conversation. It can also be applied in your day-to-day interactions, when meeting new teams, vendors, or introducing yourself and initiatives in a presentation.

And just like learning a new language, it is so critical to practice out loud, mistakes and all. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), most people can’t hear the voices in your head. Talk to yourself in the car, in front of the mirror, or while out walking. If you can find people to listen and give feedback even better! In fact, a colleague and I just did this for some upcoming training presentations, and the dry run and feedback will make the actual sessions that much better. I realized that I need some time to warm up and have better notes handy to keep myself on track, the type of commentary you give yourself after a presentation where you wished you could do it over. So do some dress rehearsals prior, and let the actual interview or presentation be the “do over”. If you don’t have another warm body to listen to you, record yourself on your phone or virtual meeting app, turn on the virtual speaker coach function, and then watch yourself back as painful as it can be at first.

And for myself, I realize my body physically reacts at times to these situations and causes dry mouth. So if you’re like me, make sure to counteract this beforehand with some dry mouth aids. How’s that for an interview or presentation tip! 🙂

The Es(Ease) of Change

on 10 January 0 Comment

Just read Adam Grant’s Think Again. Changing your mind is ok when presented with new information!

Speaking of change, you may be familiar with Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Leading Change  or Prosci’s ADKAR model. Now I present to you the 5Es courtesy of yours truly. Do we really another model? Well, yes, because our corporate template has a 5-section summary. 8 steps were too many and I am not too keen on the word adkar. So today was born the 5Es. And hopefully after implementing change with this model, you’ll be saying “Eeeeeeeee!!!!!” with glee and not with dejection.

Let’s get it to it!

  1. Enlighten
  2. Enlist
  3. Enable
  4. Energize
  5. Elevate

BONUS E: Engage everyone by communicating constantly throughout.

 

ENLIGHTEN – Bring awareness to the driving reasons for the change.

ENLIST – People need to participate in various teams and roles as defined by the strategy.

ENABLE – Train or have barriers removed in order to implement the change.

ENERGIZE – Keep people motivated, celebrate all wins, big and small.

ELEVATE – Once the ball is rolling, don’t plateau, keep building on the change and making it even better.

ENGAGE – Communicate, communicate, communicate at all stages.

 

And while the classic model is a step model, I prefer to think of this as more of a spiral (an upward one!) or a spring. As new people join, as the organization changes, we’ll need to revisit a few Es as it warrants.

So make change Easy on your people with these Eeeees….

Morph, Subtract, Text Highlight Colors, Closed Captions, Background Music

on 30 December 0 Comment

What’s the connection behind the title words? These are my favorite PowerPoint discoveries as of late. Such a geek yes.

MORPH – the easiest way to impress your viewers when you are using constant elements throughout your presentation. Use Morph to animate your transitions.
[Transitions – Morph – Apply to All]

SUBTRACT – who knew this feature existed, certainly not I! Sometimes when I have an image, I want to hide parts of it and would draw a white shape on top of it and group it. There is a better way. Rather than leaving the shape on top of the image –
1. Select the main image (order matters)
2. Then select the shape on top of the portion you want removed (Shift+Click)
3. Go to [Shape Format – Merge Shapes – Subtract] et voila!

The reason this is better is because that part is now transparent and there can be other layers beneath, and you can use it with text too!

TEXT HIGHLIGHT COLORS – I always thought I was limited for colors when highlighting text. Turns out if you select a custom color for any element (text, shape, outline) before going to Text Highlight Color, the custom color will show up as Recent Colors!

CLOSED CAPTIONS – Do you have a video embedded in your presentation? Let’s make it viewer-friendly and add closed captions. PowerPoint takes a format called Web VTT. One of the ways to generate this is to upload your video to your One Drive, open in Stream and then generate the transcript. Download the VTT format. In PowerPoint, right click on the video and Insert Captions. You can also edit the transcript by opening the VTT file in a text editor such as Notepad. And because it’s just a text file [file name.language abbr.vtt], you can also upload multiple files for different languages.

BACKGROUND MUSIC – Want to generate a video [Record – Export to Video] through PowerPoint? By using Animation and Transitions and your design creativity, you can generate some nice custom videos out of PowerPoint. Plus you can upload audio to play throughout. [Insert Audio – Playback – Play in Background]. This is also a way to play some hold music as people join your meeting or during breaks.

Want more ideas? Here are some peeps to follow –

https://www.youtube.com/@KevinStratvert

https://www.instagram.com/fastppt_/

Up the Organization : Reports

on 12 November 0 Comment

So many reports, so little time.

Thanks to someone posting a YouTube link which referenced the book/manual Up the Organization by Robert Townsend, here are some quotes on reports –

  • What are you going to do with that report?
  • What would you do if you didn’t have it?
  • Never automate a manual function without a long enough period of dual operation.
  • If the reports aren’t useful, they shouldn’t be prepared. (Duh, but guess what)
  • Observe what action was taken, consider the opposite course, and then work back, when necessary, to what really makes sense.

p.s. Is there a song on making reports?

meme of lumberg and tps reports
yeah…

Do your KPIs matter? AIM better!

on 10 October 0 Comment

So yeah I ended the last post pretty abruptly… let me expand it on it some more.

KPIs  Key Performance Indicators

Should they be the same year after year? Are the goals the same year after year?  Sure there are probably some overarching goals like make more sales. But what do sales numbers really mean as far as action items? What’s more impactful is tracking the metrics that support the strategies defined for the year with specific action. Knowing that sales is up or down is okay, but how do you know what to do about it? If you’ve built well-thought out action plans leading up to your strategy, for example – let’s sell more mattresses to people who haven’t replaced their mattress in over 10 years, then the metrics should be specific to that strategy. Get data on that target, create action items on how to sell to them, and then track those specific action items against the forecast. Don’t forget about context to easily see which path you are heading.

Another example – I would like to lose weight. I can weigh myself every day (eegads!), but that won’t help me. What will help is to write down that I am going to go swim every week day for 30 minutes, and track that. Hopefully that is a sound strategy and it can lead to dropping a few pounds. Then I can see clearly whether or not I am meeting the actions that will support my overarching goal, eventually impacting my original intention.

And you know I love acronyms, so here it is – AIM – Action Item Metrics

Create your charts with AIM and hit those targets. 🎯

Remember AIM!
1234…6