Loud Thinking

Posts Tagged ‘My Views’

3 Simplifying Tips to Increase Productivity

All organizations are slowed down by unnecessary behaviors that choke productivity. These practices can help you clear some of it away:

Pick up the phone. An email chain can be a useful reference, but it frequently takes more time to write an email than to have a conversation. Conversations can get your questions answered immediately and prevent future back-and-forth messages.

Encourage streamlining. Ask your employees: What meetings can we eliminate? What reports can we stop doing? What steps in a process can be removed? Let your team know that their suggestions won’t be taken as complaints but as creative ideas for improving productivity.

Stop reviewing low-impact work. It’s wise to thoroughly review documents being sent to potential clients, but not all work products are mission-critical. Tell your team that it’s their responsibility to ensure their own quality control — and that you trust them to do a great job.

Adapted by HBR from “To Simplify, First Clear the Underbrush,” by Ron Ashkenas and Lisa Bodell.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

Abraham Lincoln

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

Abraham Lincoln

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.

Abraham Lincoln

Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.

Abraham Lincoln

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

Abraham Lincoln

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Abraham Lincoln

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Abraham Lincoln

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Abraham Lincoln