"Why can't my employees make decisions? Why do they always have to come to me?"

Busy clients ask me these questions frequently. Are their employees unwilling, incapable or simply indecisive? For the answers, along with tips for dramatically improving employee decision making, read the article on my website:

If you are like most people:

• There are only 24 hours in your day
• Your To-Do list specializes in remaining Undone, and
• Others in your company suffer these same afflictions

Getting the important things finished and off the list is one problem. Adding, adding, adding, is quite another.

Think about a Stop-Doing list instead. Your goal should be to align company resources behind activities that create value for which customers are willing to pay, and to eliminate or minimize all other activity.

Stop:

• Fire-fighting - find time to do it right the first time
• Wasting energy on employees who just don't fit
• Micromanaging - if you can't delegate successfully, solve that problem rather than duplicating effort and undermining your employees
• Looking backward - look back only to learn and leverage with laser focus, not general intent
• Watching your competition so closely - if behind, you'll only catch up; if ahead, you'll trip while looking over your shoulder
• Writing reports no one will read
• Filing things you will never retrieve
• Doing things just because you always have
• Worrying or whining about things you can't control
• Reading email that you never needed to receive
• Speaking when angry - it just creates more problems you will have to solve
• Leaping to solutions - find the real cause and eliminate it rather than accepting the first idea that sounds promising
• Doing things you should be delegating
• Signing your approval when you are adding no value, just a signature
• Making decisions for others
• Over-thinking decisions of little consequence

Need help finding the things you can stop doing? Know what you'd like to stop, but can't figure out how? Give us a call today at 413-527-3737

The path to an ill-defined goal is always steep and circuitous.

Best regards,

Ann Latham

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© 2008 Ann Latham. All rights reserved.