tick, tick says the clock

“There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always time to do the most important thing”
-Brian Tracy
For those of us living in the city that never sleeps like “LAGOZ” you would agree with me that one of the most difficult resource to manage on a daily basis is your time. Personally it often seems to get out my control considering some factors such as the daily traffics on your way to and from work, however overtime I’ve been able to come up with coping strategies to help manage the day to day demands of work, personal live and other commitments.
It is important however to note that your PRIORITY (what is most important to you in life) will actually determine how you allocate and manage time as a resource,. For some it is their work that takes first position on their priority list, for others it is their family, personal development, having fun and the list goes on. Little wonder someone would rather spend three hours or more watching a movie series and another person would rather invest that time preparing for a professional examination. I guess it’s all about priority! However here are few tips you can adapt to your individual life/lifestyle to help you achieve more within the limit of 24hours allocated to us all by God.
• Get your life, home, work space organized: A whole lot of time we waste unredeemable time looking for items and documents which could easily be located if we have designated place for keeping such which makes it easy to locate when needed.
• Work with a “To Do List”: A “to do list” is an outline of activities you would like to achieve within a specific time; this could be daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. This list helps you to keep focused on your priority and it’s important to tick off accomplished activities and carry over unaccomplished one’s to the next day.
• Learn to say no: We live in a part of the world where people and activities are constantly making demand of a share of your time (this usually range from the important to the unimportant ones….the urgent to the not urgent). It is important when committing your time to critically weigh it on the above scale. This on the other hand will lead you to say NO to those unimportant and not urgent activities. This could be very difficult especially for an African who is obligated to attend almost all family functions ranging from wedding, burial, birthday, and housewarming ceremonies.
• Delegate when possible: This strategy is applicable in business and at the home-front especially if you are fortunate to have a nanny or capable hands to support you. This enables you to turn over tasks to them hence freeing yourself of time to do more important things.
• Relax and celebrate yourself: life is not all about work and achieving goals, so learn to create time for relaxation either watching a movie, playing with your children, going out to a nice restaurant, having a warm bath……you can get creative with this in your own way. Just make sure you enjoy and get rejuvenated.

Have a lovely weekend!!!

Building a high performance team

It is amazing how much organization can achieve when leaders and managers learn to adopt simple strategies such as employee participation in decision making which not only help build a motivated workforce, a positive workplace culture and ultimately a high performance organization. I understand that sometimes involving employees in the decision making process can be a bit time consuming and strenuous but I also believe that on the short and long term the result is enormous.
To make the most of this strategy, it is important for managers to create an atmosphere of “openness and honesty” in the workplace and this can be encouraged through
ü Getting to know employees and listening for their problems, ideas and aspirations,
ü Regular meetings where everyone is free to express their opinions on work related issues.
ü Discussions between individuals and groups directly with their managers.
ü Third party channels such as suggestion box, union representatives.
ü Regular communications such as newsletters, website, intra-net
ü Work teams/ joint consultative committees to address specific organizational challenges.

Feedback
It is important to note that all ideas raised by your teams and individuals within the organization cannot be implemented, hence recognize and appreciate their ideas and possibly explain why you may not be able to implement such ideas in specific situations.
Responsive action and feedback on outcomes of ideas should be given from time to time because this would encourage employees to put forward ideas and suggestions in the future and also create a sense of ownership within the organization.

Delegate
Delegation is one way secure leaders encourage employee participation in decision making, this has to do with encouraging your people to take responsibility for doing their jobs without much interference from the manager. The implication of this is that employees gain new skills, experiences and also develop their leadership potentials.
Although all organizations differ in size and vision but on underlying factor still remains that leaders and managers should value their people’s views and opinions and learn to engage the principle of employee participation to improve organization’s performance.