Loc’s Blog

Imagine by John Lennon

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

What is productive laziness

‘Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.’ Robert Heinlein (1907 – 1988)

By advocating being a ‘lazy’ project manager I do not intend that we should all do absolutely nothing. I am not saying we should all sit around drinking coffee, reading a good book and engaging in idle gossip whilst watching the project hours go by and the non-delivered project milestones disappear over the horizon. That would obviously be plain stupid and would result in an extremely short career in project management, in fact probably a very short career full stop!

Lazy does not mean Stupid. No I really mean that we should all adopt a more focused approach to project management and to exercise our efforts where it really matters, rather than rushing around like busy, busy bees involving ourselves in unimportant, non-critical activities that others can better address, or indeed that do not need addressing at all in some cases.

Science behind the laziness – being focused Read the rest of this entry »

How Does Change Happen?
by Jennifer Corriero

How does change happen?
This is perhaps one of those eternal questions
that carries both simplicity
and depths of complexity
juxtaposed in a tension
so bright and dark that
emotions explode and identities blur.

Is your belief defined by your role
or is your role defined by your belief?

How does change happen? Read the rest of this entry »

OK. Before you read my blog, you gotta read yesterday’s (Sunday, December 6, 2009) Dilbert comic strip. Or rather, Dogbert The CEO.  No further explanation needed.

If I asked you “what do you do” could you tell me in about 45 words or less (Dilbert took 49)? What would you tell me? Would I understand the services you could deliver to me and the benefits I might anticipate from working with you?

I’m not talking about what you sell or the technical aspects of what it does. Features and benefits are irrelevant – even for highly engineering services. I am talking about what YOU are all about and what your delivery of your skill set brings to the table. Because that’s what the communication interface is all about, be it sales or engineering. People aren’t buying standardized products or services. If they were, they should be dealing with robots or worse yet, customer service reps.  Instead, they are making decisions about whether incorporating you and your company’s skill set will make a difference to the competitive viability of their company. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember the days when we were all sent to time management courses? We were under the impression that all we had to do to be effective was better manage our time. Today, the message is managing your energy, not time is key to high performance and renewal.

The impact of the recession has resulted in most organizations expecting higher performance, but with fewer employees. The usual method – working harder and putting in more time – is no longer working. Many of us are exhausted, disenchanted and disengaged. And we are getting sick.

It is time to rethink work and how we do it.

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz wrote an excellent book: The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal. Although it was written in 2003, the concepts are still valid today – maybe even more so.

The central thesis is that performance, health and happiness are grounded in the skillful management of energy. The authors remind us that managing time efficiently is no guarantee that we will bring sufficient energy to whatever it is we are doing.

To be fully engaged – and I would say to have spirit at work – we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interest.

We know that energy diminishes with overuse. Too much energy expenditure and insufficient recovery leads to burnout and breakdown. The authors remind us that, “It is not the intensity of energy expenditure that produces burnout, impaired performance and physical breakdown, but rather the duration of expenditure without recovery.” We need to balance our energy expenditure with recovery time.

Here are a dozen tips to help you manage your energy: Read the rest of this entry »