Greg's Right FIT Newsletter #151

Quick notes to help you get more done in less time. . . next week. 

In this issue: 

- Techniques for FIT
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Techniques for FIT

• Need to have a big week? Instead of getting up early each day, schedule go-to-sleep-alarms Sunday-Thursday. Set them an hour before your normal bedtime and stick to it. As you enter the end of the week, you'll be energized. I swear. 

• When you agree to a task, before starting the work double check what you assume they're looking for. Often, you can save hours of work by clarifying the expected output. What seems necessary to you may not be necessary for them. 

• The nature of solving problems is bringing performance back up to standards, or being as good as you used to be. To be more than you used to be, and get more that you used to get, you need to go beyond just solving problems by innovating and being willing to make changes. 

• Take notes. Especially in meetings. Even if it's just a quick drawing of arrows and circles with a label or two. It will save you hours of work over the month. The research backs me up. Read: "The act of drawing something has a 'massive'benefit for memory compared with writing it down"

Being Human - Millennials and your future

Millennials and Building for the Future

An excerpt from "TheHumanBeing's Guide to Business Growth."

What modern book would be complete without touching on the generational divide between millennials and their managers? As the parent of millennials and part of generation X with strong memories of hearing, “the problem with your generation,” I can offer a few insights based in work with clients.

First, if you notice the differences, you can find the similarities. The idea that this giant, digitally native, socially connected, debt burdened, group has completely different priorities than you is not true. When solving problems, one of our exercises is Kepner-Tregoe’s “is/is not” box where we define what something is by giving equal thought to what it is not. We used a version of it with our fast decision playing field for planning. It looks like this Figure.

Let’s apply is/is not logic to millennials in four parts. Most young adults don’t have money and historically have not had money. Most young adults communicate with their peers in different ways than with adults. Most young adults are interested in figuring out where they fit in the world and less concerned with preserving what they have gained. Your company, your strategic vision of the future depends on the next generation contributing their talents to your customers in a way that produces value to be shared. I have yet to meet a millennial that doesn’t understand that. Focus on what you have in common, not on the differences.

Second, young adults want to. . .Want to read more? Click here.

Random Stuff

"If anything, the Bacardi saved his life. . ."

Seeing this is newsletter #151, I am reminded of Bacardi.

In case you've never experienced it, rum is a terrible invention that pops into my life every once in a while and results in outcomes like karaoke gone wrong and birthday party mishaps. The latter happened to be a dear grandmother's birthday where I spent way too much time with a member of the Bacardi family.

Family member, in this case, isn't some euphemism for a bottle of booze. I was literally behind the bar for a number of hours with a beautiful Cuban woman. She is an honorary member of my wife's extended family, and that day she came to town with a lot of rum. So I did my part to dispose of it. 

The next morning, as we slowly gathered under hats and behind sunglasses for breakfast, we find out that one of the relatives spent the night in the hospital. It turns out he is diabetic and between cups of rum and multiple sheet cake slices, he had issues that required medical attention, but thankfully will be all right. 

When it is suggested that rum was the culprit, Susie sits up, straightens her Lilly Pulitzer yellow coat, shakes her perfectly coifed head, and says, "No. If anything the rum saved his life." 

Newsletter 151 is dedicated to the memory of that delightful woman and her cursed box of birthday rum. Good stuff. 

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