Executive Education
How to increase your effectiveness
A conference and a one-day course
for managers
Professor Patrick M. Georges, MD
Executive Education
Why it’s important?
• The business fight is tough and competitors are numerous
• To reach your goals, to increase your effectiveness, your results is possible if you reorganize yourself, if you apply some work organization rules
• To increase your intelligence, genetic is too late, education is too late, you are left with discipline
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How to increase your effectiveness ?
• We will give you an insight into management sciences and cognitive sciences
• We will review some practical recommendations to improve your personal and your team effectiveness
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About the speaker
• Professor in management– Collège des Ingénieurs, Paris
• Medicine doctor, senior neurosurgeon– University of Brussels
• Author of management books– Amazon.com
• Small businesses owner– Passion Investments SA Geneva
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A list of recommendations
• In personal management– How to enhance your intelligence and reduce your
stress– How to manage your time, your workspace, your
information better
• In relationship, network and team management– How to enhance your leadership– How to organize your network and your team
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The two-step method
1. Review the list or recommendations. Select those fitting your objectives
2. Plan their implementation, starting from your objectives and priorities
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The limitations
• A long list of good practices– Be highly selective
• A mechanistic approach– Adapt these simplistic practices to your situation
• A focus on profit and performance– Do not forget the bright side of business
• A flexible credibility– Do not trust teachers, apply and check
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At the end you will be able to
• Reorganize your day, your desk, your tasks, your priorities, your communication, your information, your network, your team…
• …in order to be more effective, to enhance your leadership, to get more results…without stress.
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PART I
Personal Management
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Personal management
1. How to enhance your intelligence2. How to manage your health3. How to manage your time and tasks4. How to manage your information5. How to manage your work space6. How to manage your objectives7. How to manage your career
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How to enhance your intelligence ?
The brain’s rules
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What’s cognitive ergonomics ?
An introduction to human intelligence for managers
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The functional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
Patrick M. Georges The NEURO project
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The volumes are measurable
Patrick M. Georges The NEURO project
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Some practical recommendations from brain sciences
Memory, intelligence and mindset
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How to enhance your intelligence
How to enhance your memory when reading• Read aloud important information• Get 1-minute breaks every 10 minutes reading
How to test your intelligence as a manager• Short term memory test• Attention span test• Stress resistance test
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How to improve your decisions
Slow down • Sleep on your mails• Shift from spoken communication to written
communication
Take into account your natural decisions flaws• We use automatic intelligence rules• We are bad statisticians
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How to improve your decisions
Sleep before deciding• “Night brings good counsel”: it’s your grandmother’s advice with
scientific backup.
Never sign a contract in front of the salesperson• Your intelligence is not at its best in these circumstances
Your intelligence is not at its best in meetings• Don’t decide anything important while in a meeting. There are too
many voices, too many faces, and too many distractions for your brain to cope with.
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Being a manager. A mindset
Five brain learned good practices
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The main reason for human anxiety is thinking without acting
When our neurons work, they produce an anxiety drug that is burned by our muscular contractions
If you think more than you act, this acetylcholine anxiety drug will accumulate in your blood
Take more actions on your intentions
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The brain is slower than life
It can cope with only one fifth of the information it receive
You will never finish your day. Your life is a draft with no occasion to make it square
Learn to live slightly disappointed
Start your day with what’s important
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The reality is never good or bad. All your worries come from your mind
We work with two brains. The rational brain and the emotional brain
The average life is quite predictable. No emotions are needed
When feeling emotional, note down the facts. You will come back to reality
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No happiness exists outside the second or the eternity
Our prefrontal simulation system can cope with two units of time only: the second or the eternity.
See what’s to be done, do it, that’s it.
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We are happy when we desire no more than what we possess
Our dopamine system give us pleasure when we want better things. Thus keeping us permanently from full satisfaction.
Reduce your ambitions, accept what you get.
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What’s personal management training ?
1-day seminar to increase personal effectiveness
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Increase your resistance
against tiredness
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How to eat
Eat like a king at breakfast, like a prince at lunch, and like a pauper at dinner.• Cereals in the morning. Light lunch
Drink very little alcohol.
• Eat olives before drinking wine or beer
Eat dark chocolate
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How to sleep
Always go to bed and get up at the same time. • Practice this even on the weekend
Get to know your ideal sleep schedule• Your gene clock sets it.
Keep cool before going to sleep• No strenuous exercise, heavy meals or coffee less than two hours before
going to sleep
Put a notepad by your bedside. • Write down your to-do list, your intentions, and your worries, and you
will sleep better
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How to resist
tiredness better
Start your day with the most demanding tasks: decisions, studies and writing
End it with the most exciting tasks: meetings, visitors and mail reading
First work alone, then work with others
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How to increase your stress resistance
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Why its important ?
Stress decreases your intelligence dramatically
Details seem more important than they really are when you are under stress
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Watch your early stress signs
Do you have mood swings or sleeping problems? Be careful, you are in the red zone. Slow down
Medical staging
• Stage I Quick mood variations• Stage II Change in sleep pattern• Stage III Stress-related diseases
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Add a strong third pillar to your life
Test you safety : present yourself without speaking of your job and family
Add a third “personal development” pillar to your life. Exist outside of others and money at least 20 percent of your time.
Increase your time spent at personal development activities
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Act on triggers
Match each intention with a decision. • Do something about every red light that
comes on in your head.
Eliminate more• Fifty percent of the messages you get are of
no interest to you
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One “zeitgeber” a day keeps the doctor away
Take a special break every afternoon. Keep a moment for yourself every day without fail
Your choice.Nap, pray, meditation, reading, tea time
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How to cope with stress
Select a job compatible with your stress resistance
Stress comes from uncertainty. Being well organized reduces uncertainty
Don’t actively manage more than three direct reports. Your stress is proportional to the number of people you manage yourself
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Renounce and concentrate
Only think about what you see. See what needs to be done and do it. That’s all
Concentrating is the best way to increase intelligence. Do one thing at a time, and finish what you start
Concentrate on your current priority task only. Renounce to projects, ambitions, objectives
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How to reorganize your work space
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How to organize your desk and office better
Clear your desk before leaving. You’ll work much better tomorrow at an empty desk
Protect yourself from voices. They are very distracting to your concentration
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Protect your intelligence
Protect yourself if you need to do important work. Keep out all voices, faces, and interruptions. Open space offices are intelligence killers
Close your door from time to time. You can’t always be both liked and respected
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Protect your intelligence
Work back to back, not face to face, with your colleagues
Use your voice mail regularly• If you are a decision maker, get protection from interruptions at least
30 percent of the time
Protect yourself from interruptions two hours a day• One interruption is twenty minutes of lost time for you
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Collect random incoming messages
Read and listen to messages when you decide to, not when they arrive
Read messages during the time you have set aside, unless you are a fireman.
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Handling distractions
Silence your cell phone
Let voice mail pick up your call
Turn off e-mail notification
Put up a “Do not disturb” sign on your door
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Slow down
Use your voice mail more often. • You will be more intelligent if you have more
time between questions and answers
Answer important questions off-line• Less than three seconds between question
and answer guarantees errors.
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Reorganize your desk
Organize your Mission Control screen per desks / objectives
Always be only one-click away from your current 10 hottest files, 10 hottest contacts and 10 hottest links
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Display your activities and results on a front panel facing your desk• The six figures that pilot your professional life
Hang a whiteboard in front of your desk
• Display the deviances from your six targets. If it’s in your line of sight, it’s important.
How to organize your office better
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How to plan your day and list your tasks
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First make your day
Don’t begin your day by reading your mail.
• Your goals have priority over those of other people
No meetings before 11:00 a.m.
• Your morning intelligence is powerful but easily disturbed by others
Choose a “concern of the day” when you get up in the morning• Decide to complete one important thing before evening
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Your lists of tasks
Your to-do list• Calculate your productivity by checking off the items on your
to-do list
Your main list• Ideas, tasks to do or not
Your log-book• Fill out your logbook every Saturday morning. Write down all
the important things you accomplished during the week
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Your decision list
To decide before tonight
To decide before the end of the week
Decided
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Your lists of tasks
Don’t drive without a voice recorder.
• Don’t clutter your memory with intentions; it only remembers the stress
Start with the most important tasks, and leave on time. • You will never be done anyway.
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Start with demanding tasks, finish with exiting tasks
Only one or two mail reading session per day, only one hour, get your mailbox empty at the end
Always finish your day by preparing the first task for next day
How to organize your time better
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Your day reorganized
3 hours for 3 important issues, files, projects, decision
1 hour for your to do list
1 hour for urgent matters
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Your quarter reorganized
Set objectives by week and by quarter, never by month or by year
One personal objective per day, one team objective per week, one business objective per quarter
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Reorganize your information
Categorize your information better and test your access to the right
information
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What are the good practices?
In addition to classification by subject, classify by key word, by contact, by type of document, by type of information, by objective…
Respect the rule of proximity: the more useful, the closer. In the distance or in clicks
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What are the good practices?
Arrange for quick access to the current most important 10 people, most important 20 documents, and most important 30 addresses
Empty the folder “To file” at the end of the day.
Empty the folder “To read” at the end of the week.
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What are the good practices?
Get rid of most paper documents
Create a master file listing the clear titles of all your files
Place a file on your desk only if you are currently working on it
One mission, one desk.
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Reorganize your personal finances
To get rid of financial worries as soon as possible
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What are the good practices
Set up a budget with planned income and spending and stick to it
Spend less on brands and status symbols. You do not need them at your level.
Save 15 % of your income for future objectives
Limit your debt to productive investments
Your fixed expenses should be no more than 75 % of your income
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What are the good practices?
Control your variable expenses by setting a limit on how much you can spend per category: restaurants, books, gifts…
Secure three sources of income: work, real estate and sales / trading
Delay spendings, purchases and payments… for one week or for later than usual.
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Build wealth
Set clear, quarterly financial goals• Saving goals, spending goals, asset goals
Spend later
Limit your debt to investments
Be your own bank and insurance• Reduce premium and interest paid
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Always consider the two ways to be rich : have a lot of money or
have few needs
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Your personal strategy
Your goals, your three-year plan, your six-figure scoreboard, your key
project and your career management
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Your three pillars goals
Reorganize your priorities
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The foundation of your time management
Professional life• Safety goals as money and power
Relation life: family and friends• Relationship goals
Personal development• Serenity and quality of life goals
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Write out your three-year plan
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How to set your objectives and priorities
Get a business plan model and adapt it to you as a one-person company
Write down your six, quarterly, measurable, personal and professional, objectives on one page.
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How to select your six figures
Decide what your perfect day will be like five years from now• Assets, revenues, job, location…
Decide what will be written on your tombstone
• 20 words, 20 minutes
Decide what will be written on the first page of your biography
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Make a clear choice
A career based on effective, cost conscious, operations• Are you a natural effective person ?
A career based on high flexibility, high customer-orientation• Are you a natural sales person ?
A career based on high innovation• Are you a natural creative person ?
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Visualize your six figures
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What are your six figures
You cannot improve what you cannot measure
On display, in front of your desk
Measurable quarterly
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The six-figure manager
Select the six numbers you will use to pilot your performance
Three numbers are generally chosen for you by your work environment. The other three are your choice
Set your own climb rate. Want what you have plus 5 to 15 percent
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Your ten commandments
Write your own ten commandments
It’s the only way to quickly and effectively sort through the excessive amounts of information you receive
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Your personal objectives
Post your objectives and your results in front of your desk!• You can only improve what you can measure
Give yourself a measurable goal every three months. • What you can measure is done
Choose a Personal Project every quarter. • Do something personal, different, and risky every quarter
Define yourself. • Properly balance your goals and limits among the four sectors (wealth, fame,
power, and happiness) and the twenty-four success indicators described in the values scoreboard.
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Your main KPIs
Time Facing Customer• Spend more time with your customers
Sales From New• Acquire new competencies
Gain From Processing• Process your activities
Key Project Status• Focus on one key project
Return on your Critical Resource• Measure the return per hour of your time
People Responsibility Levels• Give more to your best capacities
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Focus on one key project
Organize your activities as a project
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Your Key Personal Project
Give that project a clear objective, a
target problem solved
Divide it into weekly steps, each with a
tangible output, an end product
Plan in your day calendar one, two or three hours for that project, first thing in
the morning
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Your Key Personal Project
Record all deadlines in your calendar
Delegate tasks to co-workers with an
accepted deadline for a precise deliverable
Display the timeline chart on the wall
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Plan your career ahead
Keep moving, don’t be a sitting duck
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Stay a moving target
Continually put yourself on the job market•Your employers will be less
and less faithful to you, so always be ready to move on
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Internal or external growth?
Target upgrading your job every three years .By external growth, changing from one
company / business to another, or By internal growth within the same company.
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How to plan your internal growth?
List the names of the three decision makers who may increase your
chances of getting your target job
Initiate contacts with them. Attend the same meetings, conferences, projects, elevators… and fire your
elevator speech, a 30-second marketing summary of yourself as a
desirable services provider.
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How to plan your external growth?
Post your resume permanently on specialized web sites to check
your potential on the job market
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Update your resume quarterly
Add some new work experiences, learned competencies, projects participation, certifications,
seminar attendances, publications and presentations, software or tools mastering,…
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Apply to all desired jobs
No matter what are your chances. Ask recruiters what you should improve to get to that position next time it will be open again
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Lunch with head hunters twice a year
Learn what training / competencies are most valued on the job market.
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How to draft your personal growth plan ?
Post your CV permanently on Step Stone or Monster• One job offer a month to check your value on the job market
Invest 5 % of your revenues in yourself• Education, equipments, assistance
Get to manage a profit center, internal or external• Create and sell
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PART II
Relationship Management
You are ready now, start to get connected
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Relationship management
1. How to enhance your leadership and communicate better
2. How to brand and market yourself
3. How to build and maintain your networks
4. How to manage a team
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How to enhance your leadership
Executive Education Be a king
Never show signs of stress• Followers look for certainty
Upgrade your dress and standing code• Upgrade your watch and your shoes• Stand and sit right• Eat and speak slowly
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Be a king
Never explain, never complain
Increase your visibility, decrease your accessibility
Increase your similarity, decrease your familiarity
• Look like others, don’t be like others
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Effective communication
Don’t smile if you don’t feel like smiling. • You can always spot a fake smile
Start your presentations with the conclusion.• Your audience only has a minute for you
Apply the written presentation rules• Turn your titles into questions
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Delegate everything but the principles
Have principles and delegate.
• It’s difficult to act and think at the same time, especially when there’s too much to do
Keep the projects for you.
• Delegate the processes to your number 2
Do things that will make people respect you rather than like you.• You can’t be liked by everyone all the time
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Decide
Don’t spend EUR1,000 to make a EUR100 decision. Decide without knowing everything
Don’t try to control everything, you won’t be able to
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How to brand and market yourself
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Work your e-leadership
Check and improve regularly your image and reputation on the Internet
Work your Google index, internal and external
• Check yourself on 123 people
Manage your presence: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter
• Add your social media links to your email signature
Get your own web site and blog to control your e-reputation
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Market yourself
Prepare your elevator pitch
Draft your personal marketing plan as a one-person company
Brand yourself
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How to draft your personal marketing plan
Describe yourself as a service producer
Analyze the needs of your internal customers
Select the distribution channels of your services to your customers
Sell your products to more customers or sell your customers more products
Generate regularly new capacities, competencies
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How to build your network
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Working LinkedIn
Your profile• For coworkers. Will you like to work with such a person?• For head hunters and hiring managers. Will you hire such a person?
Your network• Coworkers• Professionals in the same field• Prospects for your profile
Your messages• Give valuable information, share documents
Your blog• Have a blog on your rarest competency
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Your blog
External or internal on your company’s intranet
Let people know your rarest competency, what’s special with you. Be the number one for something.
News you gather on
• A special customer• A special competitor• A very special technology
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What’s team effectiveness training ?
1-day team seminar to increase the team cohesion
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How to organize your team better
Bond your team by setting out its mission on a single page.• Write your mission down first
Practice the open agenda. • Get automatic access to your main collaborators’ schedules.
Do not accept a team as you receive it. • First list the competencies you need to reach your objectives
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Organize better meetings
Spend a little less time in meetings every year• Calculate every meeting’s cost-benefit ratio
Have your team meetings on Friday afternoons• It’s better to provide objectives before a rest day than
before a workday
Organize three meetings to build your team• The breakfast meeting, the weekly meeting, the quarterly
meeting
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Respect the team mailing conventions
Fill in the subject line with team files names
Only one subject per mail
For action or for information
Feedback within 24 hours
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Build a joint scoreboard
Give your team a measurable objective every week. • That which is measured is done
Create real team spirit by building a team scoreboard. • Your team doesn’t know your scoreboard, and you don’t know theirs.
Dedicate a meeting room to team decision making. • Set up a real management room where all team scoreboards are hung up
on the walls.
Make a list of the 12 questions that preoccupy you the most.• Formalize your informational needs and review them every three months
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Practice the TCI exercise
Note down the list your six KPIs ranked by order of priority• The name of the indicator and the value to
reach at a date
Ask your coworkers to guess what’s on your note
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Define the team local processes
List the 20 most frequent problems / demands /situations
For each of them, write the instructions to team members on how to face them in a standardized way
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PART III
Increase your effectiveness.Practically. The exercises.
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What’s the rationale for this course ?
You underestimate yourself. You should do better• It’s a duty for the gifted
You can do better• By setting clear objectives : your six figures
To reach those higher objectives • First reorganize yourself, then your network, then your business
When you will be wealthier• Pay back the society, give back to the less gifted
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What are the three steps to reach your objectives?
Get ready• Reorganize your agenda
Get connected• Enhance your leadership
Get business• Apply the 24 golden rules to organize a business
that works
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What’s intelligence ?
Your capacity to reach the highest objectives• Your objectives and career planning
Using a minimum of your resources• Your time, equipments, information, money and others
Overcoming obstacles• Your competitors and your environment
With quick moves• Your projects
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What should you do?
Decide on your quarterly
scoreboard
•Decision making and intelligence
•Work place organization
•Time and tasks management
•Physical and mental health
Select a few rules to apply to reach those
targets
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Don’t forget
•Try by yourself
Do not trust teachers•We
are not in your shoes
Adapt the good practices to your situation
•Business is not that simplistic
Do not take that literally
•Social and ethical values
Do not forget the bright side of business
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Conclusions
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Credibility rating
Three stars recommendation• Statistically validated publications
Two stars advice recommendation• Peer review validated publications
One star recommendation• Experts opinion
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A too vast catalog of good practices
Nobody apply them all
Be highly selective
Do not change a wining method
Performance is a personal choice
Warning
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Warning
A « black or white » presentation
A too mechanistic approach
A provocative, exaggerated presentation
Several exceptions and limits to those good practices
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Conclusion
Do not forget the bright side of business: intuition, humanity, emotions,…
Forget that course, forgive the teacher and follow your heart