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Book Recommendation: Strategic Planning

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Erica Olsen. Strategic planning kit for dummies.

If you’re a decision-maker in an organization and you’re serious about strategic planning, I highly recommend this book by Erica Olson as a very thorough but practical reference. It will give you more than you need, but it is very clearly structured so that you easily focus on whatever aspects are relevant to you. It also includes a DVD with worksheets, templates, and videos.

Book Cover Strategic Planning Erica Olson

Why does strategic planning matter?

Strategic planning offers a systematic process to figure out where you’re going – as a business or as any kind of organization.

Erica Olsen reports that CEOs of the Inc. 500 spend 50-90 percent of their time on strategy and business development. Why? Probably because they realize how much it pays off. According to her research, the firms with a high commitment to strategic planning had higher sales volumes as well as net incomes than those with  lower commitment.

A good strategic plan informs not only your current obvious decisions, but will help you look for decision opportunities that you might otherwise miss. In other words, it helps the decision-makers be proactive, rather than reacting to problems.

Where a team is involved, the process of developing a strategic plan, and more importantly the culture of continued strategic planning, builds commitment and empowers group members to make their own decisions on a daily basis.

If you’re interested in a brief overview of the process, I’ve written an outline that will walk you through the classic steps of a strategic planning session. You can access it  here (link at the bottom of the page). You can use it as a very simple cheat sheet in preparation for a team session, or, if you don’t have a team, you can go through the questions by yourself.

 

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

 


Book Recommendation: Nudge

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Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

This book offers very well-researched insights into how “choice architecture” can successfully nudge people toward making the best decisions for themselves, such as choosing healthier food, exercising more, saving more money, etc. Nudges consist simply of changing the way choices are presented, without changing or restricting the options or adding any incentives.

The book is especially interesting for people who care about the promotion of human welfare in public policies, but the knowledge can also be help us change our own environment to help us make healthier long-term decisions.

As a very useful practical addition, Dilip Soman, Min Zhao, and Nina Mazar have published a free online-report called “A Practitioner’s Guide to Nudging”, presenting a number of short case studies, and giving the choice architect guidelines on how to develop nudges.

by Ursina Teuscher


Book Recommendation: Stumbling on Happiness

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Health Decisions, Intuition

Daniel T. Gilbert. Stumbling on Happiness.

This is my pick for the season: an entertaining and well-researched book about our failures to predict what will make us happy or unhappy in the future, and about how these misconceptions affect our decisions.

 


Video: A Dialogue About Procrastination

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Coaching Practice, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

A conversation about procrastination with Joseph Rhinewine, PhD, from Portland Mindfulness Therapy:

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Coaching Online or in Person — Does the Setting Matter?

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Coaching Practice

What the research says about online coaching:

At this point, there is quite a bit of research on this question, for example showing that coaching over the phone or through online channels can be very effective, that adequate rapport can be established between a counselor and client, and that some clients prefer the reduced stigma and easier access offered by online mental health services.

For more in depth discussion, this handbook addresses many practical aspects of online counseling, such as technological, ethical, legal and multicultural issues, treatment strategies, and testing and assessment:

Kraus, R., Stricker, G., & Speyer, C. (Eds.). (2010). Online counseling: A handbook for mental health professionals. Academic Press.

My own experience with online coaching:

While I do enjoy in-person meetings with clients, I often find that phone sessions can be even more focused and efficient. What I really like from the coach/counselor perspective is my freedom to take notes (writing, drawing graphs and charts to clarify my own thoughts while listening) without needing to worry about maintaining eye contact. Of course the client may do the same, which can also help. For me, video usually doesn’t add anything to the rapport or even simply the enjoyment of the session, however some clients feel differently, in which case video sessions can be a great option.

To sum up, phone or video coaching is a excellent alternative for those who care mostly about focus and efficiency, and less about the feel-good factor of the sessions. Of course, it’s also a great choice for anybody who is looking for a specialist they may not find locally. In my case, I have been very happy to work with people who did not find any coaches or counselors in their hometown with a similar background and focus on decision making or goal achievement.

If you have done any online coaching or counseling, either as a client or professional, I would love to hear about your experience.

by Ursina Teuscher

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Featured Video: Inbox Zero

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

Merlin Mann is advocating a lean process to deal with our flood of emails and become more productive: http://inboxzero.com/video.

The talk itself is 1/2 hour (~2:30-32:30), the rest is intro and Q&A.

The basic idea is to keep your Inbox empty and not spend time re-reading and re-considering emails without responding.

What I like about it is that you can apply the Inbox Zero principle to other tasks: get each new task out of your mind immediately by either getting it done right away, scheduling it, or deciding not to do it. In other words, get a system that helps you NOT think about any other tasks than the one you’re working on right now. This will reduce decision fatigue and help you focus.

“That Zero? It’s not how many messages are in your inbox – it’s how much of your own brain is in that inbox.”

— Merlin Mann

 


Book Recommendation: “Decisive” by Chip and Dan Heath (2013)

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Career Development, Creative Thinking, Financial Decisions, Health Decisions, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development

Chip and Dan Heath (2013). Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work. New York: Crown Business.

Book Cover: "Decisive" by Dan and Chip Heath

I was impressed with this new book by the Heath brothers, a very helpful guide to decision making. It does not offer any formal tools to evaluate options, but a process with powerful ideas that are easy to apply to any personal or business decision.

They call their approach the WRAP process, an acronym standing for (1) Widen your options, (2) Reality test your assumptions, (3) Attain some distance, and (4) Prepare to be wrong.

Here’s a sample of some ideas that I’m finding very effective with clients as well as for my own decisions:

For widening your options, they propose the “Vanishing Options Test”: what would you do if the current alternatives disappeared? This question forces us to think creatively, oftentimes bringing better solutions to mind than the ones that seemed most obvious at first.

Also, consider opportunity costs: if I didn’t do this, what else could I do with the same resources?

Always think AND, not OR. Can you follow multiple paths at once?

For attaining some distance, they suggest the simple but powerful question: “What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?”

For preparing to be wrong, they introduce the idea of a “tripwire”: set a date or trigger for revisiting the decision. This will not only prevent you from getting stuck on a bad track, but it will give you a certain period where you will have the permission and peace of mind to fully commit to your current action plan, without tormenting yourself about whether this was a good decision or not.

Chip and Dan Heath also offer a great resources page on their website, with free cheat sheets and worksheets summarizing their process.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

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Book Recommendation: Two Very Different Books about Happiness

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Gretchen Rubin. The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.

Russ Harris (Author), Steven Hayes (Foreword). The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living.

On first sight, the two books appear to be on two opposite sides of the happiness controversy – should we pursue it or not? Should we strive to be happy, or is happiness only achievable as an indirect (and not guaranteed) consequence, or side-effect, of focusing on other worthwhile pursuits?
After reading both books, I find their opinions smart and differentiated enough to agree with both. Whether the authors would agree with each other, I don’t know…

Gretchen Rubin’s book is a delightfully honest, refreshing and funny report about a year-long “happiness project”. Although it is very easy to read, it also contains a lot of research and is packed with creative insights.

The “Happiness Trap” is starting from a very different place – it challenges the very assumption that we should strive for happiness. In Russ Harris’ view, trying to find happiness ends up making us miserable and lies at the bottom of many addictions, depressions, and anxieties.
Instead, his advice is to live in line with our values. Happiness may follow if we do that, or it may not, but that’s not the point.

I highly recommend both books, although “The Happiness Trap” may be more useful for people who struggle with depression or anxiety. People already living fulfilling lives in great mental health (to the extent that they exist :)) will get more entertainment and education out of Rubin’s “Happiness Project”.

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Procrastination and Self-Compassion

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

It’s not surprising that procrastination can lead to considerable stress, exacerbated by feelings of guilt and failure. A recent study found that procrastinators were indeed less self-compassionate than others, and that those who showed least self-compassion experienced the most stress as a result of procrastination.
The author, Dr. Fuschia Sirois, suggests that this lack of self-compassion might not just be a consequence of procrastinating, but that it might set the stage for procrastination to become more chronic in nature. Namely, the self-blame could lead people to over-identify with procrastinating and to ruminate about the unattained goal, rather than to focus on a new goal.

Or, in other words, being more self-compassionate after we fail may help us get over it more quickly, move on, get a fresh start and get new things done.

Happy New Day!

Sirois, F. M. (2013). Procrastination and Stress: Exploring the Role of Self-compassion. Self and Identity, 12, doi:10.1080/15298868.2013.763404.


Seth Godin: Do You Ship?

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Creative Thinking, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

Seth Godin makes the case that having great ideas is not difficult. “Shipping” them – actually getting them done and out – is the hard part, and the important part.

Shipping is not just hard because it takes a lot of work, but also because it’s scary. It’s our shipped stuff that will be judged, and – as opposed to our brilliant ideas – the finished product will never be perfect.

I can relate to that very well, because almost everything that I ever accomplished in my life required me to get out of my comfort zone – not only the big projects, but even the daily little shippings, like sending emails, or posting stuff to this very blog.

So how can we do it?

  1. Commit to delivering on time. For bigger projects, set your own deadlines earlier than the date you really want to be finished, and set deadlines for steps along the way.
  2. Get into a routine. Protect regular time in your schedule to work on the important stuff. I find early mornings best for not getting interrupted or distracted.
  3. Once the shipping date gets closer: embrace the fear. Being aware that shipping is scary is the first step in overcoming our excuses. Also, notice that fear and excitement can feel very similar to our bodies. Oftentimes, when we experience fear, we would have just as much reason for excitement. (“I have this opportunity to give a talk in front of 200 people! How exciting!!” “I’m ready to ship now! Wohooo!!”)

What do you want to ship? When is your deadline, and what will be your best scheduling routine? And what’s your fear, and your excitement?

 


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