en-us Copyright 2006-2009 Transformance Business Consulting Are you frustrated with missed deadlines? Are you irritated with team conflict? Is an unpredictable workload keeping you at the office later than you would like? Do you keep losing your best employees? Is your growth moving at a snail's pace? Is your team stuck, stagnant, or moving in circles? Transformance Business Consulting resolves these and other commonly reported business challenges allowing your company to achieve unprecedented, lasting shifts in productivity, success, and fun. http://gotransformance.com Responsibility technically is the "ability to respond." Simple - but how does that help us in the workplace? There are many - even infinite - solutions to any problem you may face at work. Yet, we stop trying to solve the problem after failing 1 or 2 times. We quickly move from "being able to respond" (or responsible), to "not being able to respond" (or irresponsible). Taking on "being 100% responsible" means that you take on being able to respond - not matter what. In essence BEING UNSTOPPABLE. When you get stopped, you find another way. And when you get stopped again, you find another way. And so on... until you successfully respond to the problem or challenge at hand. You are being responsible no matter what. Try it out. The next problem or challenging situation you face at work, keep going until you solve it - no matter what. Pay attention to the experience of power and focus that comes from that. Then imagine your entire company culture operating from a place of "being 100% responsible." http://gotransformance.com/tips1 http://gotransformance.com/tips1 Thu, 08 Mar 2012 23:06:02 PST Recent science is proving that living a life of gratitude is good for you. A daily dose of gratitude promotes health, happiness, and positive social relationships, according to studies conducted by leading psychologists at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and University of Miami. Dr. Robert A. Emmons published his findings in the bestselling book, Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. Try on having your team members say 3 things that they are grateful for each day - and watch their level of happiness and performance grow! http://gotransformance.com/tips1 http://gotransformance.com/tips1 Tue, 06 Mar 2012 01:21:39 PST Goal setting is common place in high performance work environments. What is not common place is working to ensure that each person contributing to the meeting of the goal is enrolled in the goal. Imagine someone saying to you - "Here is our goal, now work really hard to meet it by the deadline and make sure you do high quality work." And, now imagine you were totally uninspired by the goal. What would your quality and speed of work be like? Pretty low right? So imagine you create this new set of shiny goals for the coming quarter - and you are totally excited to share it with the managers and employees. You give them the goals - GIVE them the goals, without checking in to see if they are enrolled in the fulfillment of them. Big mistake, because those that are not enrolled are going to be pushing a rock up a very long hill to meet the goal. So the key is to ensure that all participants on a project are enrolled in producing the result. This can be done by simply "reframing" the goal in a way the speaks to the employees' interests. Try checking in next time you set a goal to see if all the participants are enrolled. And if not, practice reframing the goal until each participant is enrolled. http://gotransformance.com/tips1 http://gotransformance.com/tips1 Sat, 17 Dec 2011 06:39:42 PST "Ask yourself - Is there anything I am doing right now, that - knowing what I now know, I would not get into again if I were starting again today. If the answer is yes - ask yourself 'how do I get out out of this situation, and how fast.'" - From Focal Point by Brian Tracy (in Philosopher's Notes). So, how about it? Is there anything you are doing right now, that knowing what you know now, that if you were starting again today, you would not get into? It takes consciousness to look for these things. Courage to acknowledge them. And commitment to act upon and shift them so you stop "getting into it" as soon as possible. Try it out. Find one thing that you know you should not be getting into, and shift out of doing that as fast as you can. http://gotransformance.com/tips1 http://gotransformance.com/tips1 Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:00:39 PST More often than not, when we are listening to someone talk, we are nodding our head, making judgements and assessments about what they are saying, figuring out what we are going to say in response. Essentially, when we are listening, we are usually waiting for the other person to STOP TALKING so we can chime in. All the while, pretending that we are totally present and listening - really listening. Take on practicing listening. When you are in a conversation with someone at work, practice letting go of the "inner dialog" (the conversation going on in your own head) as you are listening to the other person. Keep bringing your undivided attention back to the person that is talking. When they are finished talking - ask them "Is there anything else that you would like to tell me about that...?" They will most likely fall on the floor (get the paramedics ready) because no one ever asks people if they have more to say before they chime in. When they are finished talking, practice saying something like, "Let me make sure I heard you correctly... What you said is... Is that right?" This is called 'recreating.' You are recreating what they said. This in of itself is an amazing practice (more on this later). With this Powerful Listening Technique, people will feel heard and understood by you (one of the greatest gifts you can give them). This ultimately paves the way for a more powerful, effective working relationship. Try it out! http://gotransformance.com/tips1 http://gotransformance.com/tips1 Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:01:02 PST More often than not, when we are listening to someone talk, we are nodding our head, making judgements and assessments about what they are saying, figuring out what we are going to say in response. Essentially, when we are listening, we are usually waiting for the other person to STOP TALKING so we can chime in. All the while, pretending that we are totally present and listening - really listening. Take on practicing listening. When you are in a conversation with someone at work, practice letting go of the "inner dialog" (the conversation going on in your own head) as you are listening to the other person. Keep bringing your undivided attention back to the person that is talking. When they are finished talking - ask them "Is there anything else that you would like to tell me about that...?" They will most likely fall on the floor (get the paramedics ready) because no one ever asks people if they have more to say before they chime in. When they are finished talking, practice saying something like, "Let me make sure I heard you correctly... What you said is... Is that right?" This is called 'recreating.' You are recreating what they said. This in of itself is an amazing practice (more on this later). With this Powerful Listening Technique, people will feel heard and understood by you (one of the greatest gifts you can give them). This ultimately paves the way for a more powerful, effective working relationship. Try it out! http://gotransformance.com/tips2 http://gotransformance.com/tips2 Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:00:21 PST This skill of "listening, so someone feels gotten..." is something you can practice with co-workers, even with your wife. All you have to do is just listen... simple, but not easy! To practice, listen to someone. Notice your desire to react to what they are saying - to agree, to disagree, to want to sympathize with, to laugh about, to get upset by. Practice listening and not reacting, but simply being a set of ears for what they are saying to fall into. This does not mean be a zombie with a stone face. Just be there present, with your heart, and listen. Remember you are simply providing them the ability to hear themselves - to get all that junk that is clogged up out so it can be observed and dealt with. If you have something to share about what they are saying, practice waiting until they are really done saying what they wanted to say. You may even ask "Is there anything else you would like to say?" Then once they are really done getting it all out - you can ask "May I share something I see...?" By asking for their permission - they are able to hear what you have to say, rather than it feeling imposed up on them. http://gotransformance.com/tips2 http://gotransformance.com/tips2 Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:21:44 PST Destructive emotions in the realm of business and producing results stem from a lack of clarity. If you find yourself stressed out, confused, upset... it is generally because you are unclear about something that is critical to taking your next step. What usually happens is that we are derailed by the emotion. We let the upset, anxiety etc. take hold of us and stop us in our tracks. If you move beyond being totally derailed by the emotion, and you use the emotion as an indicator that something is unclear, you then can look for where something is not clear. In getting clarity for yourself around that issue, you have caused a transformation in yourself. http://gotransformance.com/tips2 http://gotransformance.com/tips2 Sat, 03 Apr 2010 02:21:25 PST With any large (or transformative) growth phase there is a certain level of discomfort that one must handle in order to transform into the next level of being. Recall a time when you underwent a major growth or transformation in any area of life. During - painful. After - a completely new world. Now, while some level of discomfort is part of transformation - how you handle that discomfort is key. If you recognize discomfort as a part of your transformation, you can embrace it - let it in. If you resist discomfort as an inconvenience - then at best you suffer a lot and you transform. More often than not, however, your suffering is so great, that you do not allow yourself to go through the entire transformational process. The tip is then: With transformation comes discomfort. Embrace that discomfort as your access to a whole new world. http://gotransformance.com/tips2 http://gotransformance.com/tips2 Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:03:07 PST If you are human, you most likely have experienced the frustration of not being able to figure something out or something taking longer than expected to finish. Do you attempt to resolve the situation by working harder, concentrating with more intensity, or simply beating yourself up for not being smarter? Perhaps you have noticed that these ways of remedying the situation generally don't work. We have a tip that will rock your world - Take A Break. When you notice your frustration level rising, step away from what you are doing for 5 minutes, and you will be amazed by what happens when you return. Your head will be clear, your computer will be on its way to completing whatever task it was churning on, solutions that were not there for you before are now presenting themselves. Take A Break - work on the yard, listen to a favorite song, do some yoga, get a cup of tea. The point is to let go of your obsession with completing the task or figuring out a solution. The body and mind are naturally brilliant. Let them go to work without being stymied by your frustration. http://gotransformance.com/tips2 http://gotransformance.com/tips2 Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:47:03 PST After spending nearly a week with little sleep working on a proposal for a new business idea - and THEN having someone look at what I had produced... I was reminded of something super important in the realm of productivity. Work and Get Feedback - Work and Get Feedback. Working on your own for days on end (or even hours on end for smaller projects) is generally not the most effective way to produce the intended result. We get focused on things that don't really matter. We get frustrated that we can't word something exactly right. Then after all of that time, effort, and even frustration - we have someone look over what we produced. INEFFICIENT! What is far more effective is to set a mini deadline for yourself that may seem like half the time you need to produce the result you are after - and meet with someone that is educated enough in what you are doing to provide you feedback. This provides three major things: (1) you have a deadline - you are forced to complete something in a specified amount of time. (2) working with others produces a far superior result than working by yourself - after all, you are trying to communicate something to another through what you are doing, so it just makes sense to have someone else see if what you are working on communicates powerfully. (3) although we may think we know it all, we only have a certain set of experiences in our life time - and to integrate another's experience into what you are producing expands the color, the texture, the range of audience it will resonate with. So - Work and Get Feedback, Work and Get Feedback. Don't just work! http://gotransformance.com/tips3 http://gotransformance.com/tips3 Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:55:47 PST Do you have lots of things on your plate around the holiday season? Are you finding it difficult to move forward on those important December tasks? This simple tip will help you keep moving forward and allow you to still have time to take care of all those holiday tasks. Create the top 3-5 things you want to accomplish during December. Then each week create the top 3 things you need to do to move toward completing those goals. Then each day, create the top 3 things you need to move forward during the week. Keep it simple, keep it clear, and write it down! http://gotransformance.com/tips3 http://gotransformance.com/tips3 Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:00:00 PST Are you having trouble getting started? It's likely that you are in some way 'confronted' with what you have ahead of you. Whether it be you are not sure how to do the task because it is a new challenge, it is something that you are not enthusiastic about doing because it is tedious or going to take a lot of energy, or you are just not in a 'getting things done' mindset - this simple tip can help you get kick-started. START with something SIMPLE that you ENJOY doing. It is that easy. This will get you into work mode, into your optimal work zone, and from there what seemed confronting, will most likely shift into something you want to get started on. Start with what is easy, and be open to moving into those things that you find confronting. Simple! http://gotransformance.com/tips3 http://gotransformance.com/tips3 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 PST Stress around company finances is with many of us entrepreneurs in today's economy. Even if it is proving difficult to make your numbers the stress you experience as a result IS under your control. My wife, always the optimist, reminds me regularly that a positive attitude in this climate is far more powerful than a negative one. Catch yourself when the stress comes and ask yourself "What am I grateful for?". Think of 3 things: whether it be your beautiful children, your amazing friends, or even that delicious sandwich you had for lunch and tell someone. And... keep in mind that if you have a roof over your head, food in the refrigerator, and a bed to sleep in, you are better off than 83% of the people on the planet. Stay positive, stay present to what you do have, and move forward powerfully with what you know to do. http://gotransformance.com/tips3 http://gotransformance.com/tips3 Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 PST Each night, write out the top 3 goals you plan to accomplish for the next day. This will allow you to focus your efforts and move toward your weekly and monthly goals with velocity. Also, your brain is at work solving problems while you sleep. By thinking about what you are out to accomplish tomorrow, you could come up with a simple solution in your dreams. http://gotransformance.com/tips3 http://gotransformance.com/tips3 Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:00 PST Did you know that it takes 20 minutes to get into your optimal work zone, and just a small distraction such as a phone call, a co-worker asking you a question, or an email from a friend to pull you out? Watch this video on becoming a Distraction Destroyer, and learn how to minimize distractions during your day, and optimize the amount of work you produce - allowing you to meet those important deadlines while still leading a balanced life. http://gotransformance.com/tips4 http://gotransformance.com/tips4 Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:00:00 PST