Posts Tagged ‘getting results’

If you are reading this blog post, I am guessing that you know that you need to keep growing but are short on time. To help you, here are 6 ways to develop in 6 weeks to get better results.

Week 1: Take stock

Before you can start to improve anything, you need to be clear on where you are right now. So take 5 minutes each day to reflect on the following 3 questions:

• What do you do well?
• What could you do better?
• What do you need to develop most?

Week 2: Get feedback

If you completed Week 1, you should have your own self-assessment to hand. This week, find 10 people and ask them to give you feedback on the following questions:

• What do you do well?
• What could you do better?
• What do you need to develop most?

Week 3: Do a time audit

Almost without exception, people tell me they struggle to get things done. So to move forward you need to do your own personal time audit so that you can see where you invest your time. Do this for each hour of your working day for the next week.

Week 4: Get clarity on your key results

What does your boss judge your success on? If you think you know, check it out with your boss. If you don’t know, ask your boss.

Week 5: Develop your change plan

By now, you probably know what needs developing, have clarity on your priorities and know whether your time is being invested on your priorities. Use this to develop a plan of what changes you need to make and when.

Week 6+: Implement plan, reflect, refine

Start implementing your change plan, reflect on what is working, what needs tweaking and adjusting and what you need to stop doing.

Truth is, the secret to getting better results is to get insight, make change and keep refining until you get more of the results that you want.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

If you are a leader, your the ultimate measure of your success is what you deliver.  Yes there are other factors that contribute to how you are rated as a leader but at the end of the day it is results that count.  If you are in any doubt about this, just pick up the business section of any good quality newspaper or sector publication and chances are you will come across:

1. Some leader who is under pressure to deliver a certain result.

2. Some leader who has been removed because the results delivered were not good enough.

With all of this focus on results, it is important that as a leader you use your biggest limiting factor wisely.  So what is the biggest limiting factor?  In my experience it is time.  There are always many options open to you on how you could use the time available but the amount you are allocated in a day, week, month or year is fixed.  Contrast with a constraint like the amount of budget you have available.  You can make a case for more financial resource and if your case is compelling enough, you have a good chance of securing additional resource.

So if time is a major constraint, you need to know when your own personal prime time is.  It will be different for different people.  Some people are at their best first thing in the morning, while for others burning the midnight oil is best.  When you know your personal prime time you:

1. Can schedule the most important tasks for the times when your performance is optimal.

2. Avoid wasting optimal performance time on anytime tasks.  You know things like e-mails, routine phone calls or texts.

3. Deliver better results, because you focus your attention on the things that have greatest impact on the results you deliver.

Bottom Line – Your personal productivity greatly influences your results.  So what steps are you going to take to do the most important things in your personal prime performance time?