Stop Email Overload

Do you have thousands of messages in your inbox, and receive hundreds more every day? Welcome to the club. Instead of being overwhelmed by email, take these steps to regain control:

Turn off the spigot.
to irrelevant e-newsletters and turn off Facebook or Twitter notifications. Consider whether colleagues are copying you on too many emails. If so, ask to only be updated with final decisions.

Keep a clean inbox.
It’s easier to handle incoming messages without clutter staring back at you. Create a new folder called “Old Inbox” and put all your messages in there. Then when new email comes in, sort it right away.

Take an occasional break.
Disconnect from all things digital once in a while. Take an email sabbatical next time you go on vacation.

 

Turn Adversaries into Allies

Anyone who has faced rivals at work — bosses who take all the credit, team members who undermine things — knows how difficult it is to ignore them. Instead, turn your adversaries into collaborators by following these three steps:

Redirect.
Try to channel your rival’s negative emotions away from you by bringing up something you have in common, or talking about the source of the tension in a favorable light.

Reciprocate.
Give up something of value to your rival — help complete a project or divulge important information — so you are poised to ask for something in return.

Reason.
Explain that not working together cooperatively could mean lost opportunities. Most people are highly motivated to avoid a loss.

 

Stop Getting Bad Advice

People love to give advice. While it’s useful to hear what others think, sometimes they give off-target or foolish guidance. Here are a few ways to increase your odds of getting good input:

Target your requests.
Don’t ask whoever is available. Create a list of people who have access to relevant resources, information, and experience on your problem and approach them first.

Frame your question.
Figure out what you need before asking for input. Know what information would be useful to hear and help explore gaps in your thinking.

Redirect the conversation.
If the person offering advice jumps to erroneous conclusions, redirect them. Most people will not be offended when politely refocused.

 

3 Tips for Creating a Realistic Budget

If you have to put together an annual budget for your department, your compensation may depend on your ability to stick to it. Here are three tips for creating a manageable budget:

Stay goal-oriented.
If you aim to increase sales, make that your overriding concern. Don’t let other issues sidetrack you.

Don’t do it alone.
Include your team members in developing the budget — they may have knowledge about certain line items that you don’t.

Question your assumptions.
A budget should take current data, add assumptions, and create projections. Be careful about the assumptions you make and question how likely they are to come true. When you present the budget, you’ll need to be prepared to defend them.

 

Respond Thoughtfully to Online Customer Feedback

Whether you’re a small company or a Fortune 500, customer feedback matters. But it can be tough to navigate online feedback. Which reviews are valuable and which are unreliable? Consider the following when dealing with the negative ones:

Seek a solution.
Post a response and offer a way to turn the situation around. Always extend an olive branch if you can.

Don’t treat all comments equally. Anonymous reviews should never receive the same attention as authored comments.

Invite comments.
If you’re open to hearing input, you’re more likely to hear positive things. Create forums for discussions about products or services, allow customers to post video testimonials, and keep social media lines open.

 

Build a Better Business Case

When building a business case, many managers pick an early solution and fail to explore additional possibilities. Others fail to consider the status quo as an alternative. To avoid these traps, bring together the people who will be affected by the outcome of your proposal — these may be customers, frontline workers, or managers in other departments. Ask them to brainstorm alternatives. To generate as many ideas as possible, record everything without judgment or discussing pros and cons. Once you have a full list, move on to assessing which are feasible.

 

Use Pulse Meetings to Track Projects

As a project manager, you need to actively monitor progress to keep your team on the right path. One way to do that is to hold short pulse meetings where team members share brief status updates on their activities. These can be held face-to-face or virtually. Limit the meetings to 10 minutes and discuss only the tasks started or finished since the last. If the team identifies any problems or risks, don’t try to solve them then and there. Schedule a separate working session with the appropriate people to resolve the issue. Hold pulse meetings on a weekly basis unless your project is in crisis mode. Then, you’ll need to take the pulse more often.

 

Know When to Give Up on Your Goals

Setting goals and sticking to them is important. But you should also occasionally reevaluate your goals. Quitting isn’t fun, but sometimes it’s necessary. Here are two warning signs that it might be time to abandon your goal:

Your goals have adverse consequences.
If you’ve committed to going to the gym every morning but find that you’re too tired to be productive the rest of the day, something needs to give. In these cases, adjust the goal itself or at least how you go about achieving it.

Your goals impede other objectives.
Most people have several goals — getting healthy, spending time with family, making more sales calls, etc. If one of your goals is preventing you from reaching another one, decide which is more important.

 

Use the Power of Pause When Speaking

Whenever effective public speakers end a sentence or phrase, they usually pause. This gives listeners time to absorb their words. Nervous presenters often do the opposite: The stress of being in front of an audience causes them to speak faster and faster, rushing past the pauses. Whether you’re speaking to a large group of strangers or a small room full of colleagues, give your audience a moment to take in your information. Create a pause by dropping your voice at the ends of your phrases instead of raising it, which avoids the dreaded “Valley Girl” effect. Concentrate on dropping your voice and you’ll not only sound more authoritative, but you’ll add those essential pauses.

 

How to Reach Your Enemy

Having enemies in the workplace is often destructive. Ideally you should try to work with your rival instead of against him. But if your collaborative efforts fail, try one of these strategies instead:

Find a common ally.
Seek a third party whom your enemy trusts. A common ally may convince him of the benefits of working with you.

Wait for the right time. Sometimes people need time and space before they can see your side. Put off communication until the right opportunity presents itself.

Recognize when to go elsewhere. The effort of converting a rival is sometimes so great that you’re better off focusing your energy on another relationship.