Maximum Productivity – Commercial Awareness

This is a course to enable you to manage multiple priorities and achieve maximum productivity. It will help you to:

hit targets
meet deadlines
work efficiently and eliminate mistakes, procrastination and perfectionism
gain trust and confidence

in ALL areas of your job by

having an integrated, systematic approach that encompasses and prioritizes everything you do – appropriately
developing effective habits
communicating assertively and persuasively
utilising all sources of power
overcoming resistance, conflict and obstacles
coping with the unexpected, change and crises
recognising one’s own strengths and weaknesses
avoiding pressure and stress

Maximum Productivity Outline

Understanding Your Preferences

You are unique. You have different strengths, weaknesses and drivers from your colleagues. So it would be foolish to believe that there is a single approach to achieving maximum productivity that works for everyone. The foundation of success in any area is understanding ourselves and finding an approach that is comfortable – because experience suggests that if a system is hard work, then, no matter how much sense it makes, we simply won’t use it.

questionnaires to identify your thinking styles and your internal drivers
understanding the implications – what approach will work best for you

Planning for Success

The pace and urgency of modern business often means that managers jump from one task to another, reacting to whatever pressure is greatest at the time. The result is a vicious circle where one crisis follows another. To break free of this circle, you need to take a broad view of what you are trying to achieve, identify your key result areas and then create a plan. Easy! Yet so many plans fail. Our workshop will show you foolproof approaches for developing practical plans that identify goals, actions, priorities, risks and the resources that you will need.

understanding the big picture
identifying key result areas
targets – hard (numbers) and soft or qualitative – difficult to measure but often more important than the things you can attach a number to
visible / action mapping – the most practical tool in getting control of your objectives
systems thinking – understanding the links between your priorities and how your actions have implications and often unintended consequences. Indispensable if you want to achieve synergy (2+2=5) and avoid one step forward in project A causing two steps backward in project B
essential project management techniques – dependencies, milestones, timelines

Triage

There are hundreds of tips for being more effective. Each is good in its own right but they operate in isolation. It’s too easy for things to slip through the net. Success – and peace of mind – depends on you being able to encompass everything; to be sure that nothing is missing and that you are doing precisely what you should be doing at any time. At the core of our system is the Getting Things Done (GTD) approach.

Urgent / Important Matrix – Covey; how to ensure that Quadrant 2 activities get done
Freeing your mind – letting the system take strain
Collecting – getting things into the system
Processing – the 5D approach – taking control of everything, from strategic imperatives through to simple filing tasks
Review and Evaluation – learning
Running the system – how to integrate it so that it becomes part of your every day life
Technology – integrating without Outlook and other software
Online resources – useful websites to help keep you on-track

Developing an Effective Personal Approach

A system can only go so far. It needs to be supported by attitudes, beliefs and habits. In this session you will explore your personal preferences (based on the questionnaires completed at the beginning) and the principles that underpin the success of effective people.

how your internal state can impact on your performance
Covey’s 7 Habits, especially
- pro-action and the circle of influence
- beginning with the end in mind – prioritising priorities
- how to put first things first
- how to increase the size of your comfort zone
building habits – cue, routine, award / ‘tiny’ habits
breaking bad habits
overcoming procrastination and perfectionism
deciding between multiple priorities – 7 approaches
techniques for making tough decisions

Achieving With and Through Others

Your priorities are linked to, dependent on or the same as the priorities of others. In the modern organisation, maintaining maximum productivity depends on your how well you persuade, negotiate, delegate, assert, manage conflict and use every type of power available to you.

assertiveness – how to set expectations and say “No”
understanding others’ real requirements – achieving empathy
recognising how others see us affects the way they treat us – how to create the right perception
sources of power – hierarchy is the last resort
establishing credibility and gaining trust
influencing and persuading others
- Cialdini’s 6 principles
- winning hearts and minds
- questionnaire to identify your preferred approach to influencing
negotiation tactics
delegating – downwards, sideways and upwards (!)
how to manage multiple bosses

Overcoming Resistance and Obstacles

The complexity of most organisations means that there will inevitably be people working with conflicting objectives and priorities. This session will show you how to manage and overcome the resistance and obstacles that you will face.

why people resist and leading them to acceptance
managing difficult people – aggressive, passive, inefficient, know-it-alls etc
how to give feedback without creating offence
general efficiency: meetings, email, dealing with interruptions
creative thinking to overcome obstacles
handling the unexpected – how will your system cope
overcoming barriers within yourself
- negative thoughts
- locus of control; developing resilience and a “hardy” personality

Coping with Pressure and Avoiding Stress

Pressure and stress appear to go hand-in-hand with multiple priorities. But that needn’t be the case if you understand the causes and recognise the symptoms of success – and how to relax.

what is stress
are you at risk and recognising the symptoms
Yerkes-Dodson curve
reframing
the mind-body link
self-talk – the pitfalls

Your Personal Action Plan

Creating a practical implementation plan, tailored to your personality, abilities and priorities.

Approach

Participatory and involving with an emphasis on the practical application of skills and knowledge. Workshops, combining group discussion, case studies, video, what-if scenarios, the application of models and tools and presentations, can be supported with online learning and coaching to ensure the transfer of insights and skills to the workplace.