Blog 005 – Principle 02 – Clarity is Paramount

Principle of Clarity

Lots to Do & So Little Time To Do It

Everyday we have so many things we have to do, and only a finite time to do it in. Most of us try and maximize the time that we have to get the most out of our day. When something happens in our day that is unexpected and adds to our list to do, we tend to get stressed. We now have more to do and still so little time to do it in.

We Are So Busy – Our Communication Needs to be Quick

In order to get as much done as we can, our communication becomes short, quick, and to the point. Once our communication is done, we then walk away to address another task in our list. Remember, we have lots to do and so little time to do it. The question is… how do we know if what was said was clearly understood? What’s the risk if we were not clearly understood?Continue reading

Blog 004 – The First Principle of Managing Made Simple

Blog 004 – The First Principle of Managing Made Simple

At the end of the last blog, there was an exercise for you to do. For those tasks where the results were not close to the expectations, the exercise was to ask “why” you chose the steps you did to get the results you were hoping for. Once you answered the “why”, you were to ask “why” the first “why” was the reason you based it on. Once you answered the second “why”, you were asked “why” you answered the second “why” that way.

The goal of the exercise was to dig deep to find out your reasoning, your rationale for why you made the decisions you did in trying define the steps to get to the results you were expecting. These reasons begin to show you what your principles are; what are the principles that make the foundation of your decisions. In some cases, you can drill down to the third “why” easily and defend your step(s). In other cases, you struggle to come up with an answer to even the first “why”. Many get stuck on the second “why”.

Managing anything is always based on fundamental principles. Some principles are well defined, detailed not only in “what” the principle is for and “how” the principle is to be used, but also “why” the principle is so important to you. Other principles are really not defined at all. So when we are asked to defend some of our actions based on these principles, we really don’t have anything to support the “why” of the principle. Continue reading