How the Japanese Word 'Ikigai' Can Help Your Business Be More Successful
The key to a successful business is finding the right product/service for the right people. But it’s also about doing things you love and are also good at. This article talks about the Japanese concept of “ikigai” and how you can create a company that has passion and purpose. Use it with your teams to hone your focus and success.
The key to a successful business is finding the right product/service for the right people. But it’s also about doing things you love and are also good at. This article talks about the Japanese concept of “ikigai” and how you can create a company that has passion and purpose. Use it with your teams to hone your focus and success.
Download:
Eckfeldt.com - article - How the Japanese Word 'Ikigai' Can Help Your Business Be More Successful (PDF - 86 KB)
Copyright © 2020 Eckfeldt & Associates
Running Virtual Daily Huddles
Your daily huddle help keep a team aligned and coordinated. This is key for a high-growth company where everyone is moving quickly and things are changing rapidly. However, they are easy to get wrong. With many companies leveraging remote workers and distributed teams, it’s even more challenging. This webinar walks through how to run a good huddle in a virtual format.
Your daily huddle help keep a team aligned and coordinated. This is key for a high-growth company where everyone is moving quickly and things are changing rapidly. However, they are easy to get wrong. With many companies leveraging remote workers and distributed teams, it’s even more challenging. This webinar walks through how to run a good huddle in a virtual format.
Presented: March 26th. 2020 4:00pm-5:00pm EDT, by Bruce Eckfeldt
Downloads:
Presentation slides (505 KB)
Additional references:
Bad Meetings Suck, But These 5 Types of Good Meetings Can Save Your Company
Published on Inc.com by Bruce Eckfeldt
3 Common Problems and 1 Simple Trick to Fix Your Daily Huddle
Published on Inc.com by Bruce Eckfeldt
Struggling to End Your Daily Team Meeting on Time? Try These 5 Simple Strategies
Published on Inc.com by Bruce Eckfeldt
Advanced Zoom Facilitation Techniques
With companies working with more remote workers and distributed teams, online meeting tools are becoming more important. This webinar goes through several of the advanced Zoom features that allow you to run a more effective online meeting. We cover setting up and starting a meeting, using tools like annotations and breakout rooms, and how to record and save meetings.
With companies working with more remote workers and distributed teams, online meeting tools are becoming more important. This webinar goes through several of the advanced Zoom features that allow you to run a more effective online meeting. We cover setting up and starting a meeting, using tools like annotations and breakout rooms, and how to record and save meetings.
Presented: March 19th. 2020 4:00pm-5:00pm EDT, by Bruce Eckfeldt
Downloads: Presentation slides (893 KB)
Additional references:
There were a few questions at the end of the webinar. I’ve found the following answers to each of them and posted them below. Thanks, everyone for attending!
Can you pre-assign who is in which breakout group before the meeting?
The answer is yes. You can do this via meeting options and you can also upload a CSV file. Seem that some options might need an enterprise account, however. The CSV file looks the trick if you want to create multiple meetings and have the same breakout groups each time (i.e. the classroom example that someone gave).
Here is more on this from the Zoom site:
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360032752671
Can you host multiple meetings at the same time?
The answer is no. If you try to do this you’ll get booted out of one meeting when you open the second. I would have separate hosts for each meeting, each with their own Zoom account.
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206122046-Can-I-Host-Concurrent-Meetings-
Running Effective Virtual Meetings
Remote workers and distributed teams are becoming more of the norm for many companies. Having run hundreds of virtual meetings with leadership teams and departments doing strategy and planning work, I’ve come up with several key techniques that will keep everyone engaged and productive using an online format.
Remote workers and distributed teams are becoming more of the norm for many companies. Having run hundreds of virtual meetings with leadership teams and departments doing strategy and planning work, I’ve come up with several key techniques that will keep everyone engaged and productive using an online format.
Presented: March 16th. 2020 4:00pm-5:00pm EDT, by Bruce Eckfeldt
Downloads: Presentation slides (893 KB)
Additional references:
Virtual Teams Are Becoming the New Norm. Here's How to Make Yours Work
Virtual teams are becoming more frequent. Here's how to make sure yours is highly productive
Published on Inc.com, by Bruce Eckfeldt
Virtual Meetings Are Here to Stay. Here's How to Make Yours Better
Virtual meetings can be challenging to run. Try these seven techniques to make them worth every minute.
Published on Inc.com, by Bruce Eckfeldt
Mapping out your key processes
Mapping out your key processes is key to proper execution. Check out this video and worksheet to see how you can visualize how information and materials move through your business.
Getting your key processes working well is key to successful execution. This worksheet is the first step to visualizing how information and materials move through your company. To learn more, watch the video and download the worksheet below.
PDF of the worksheet:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=138BF_YMVaqJuqZsv9jLaFFSX8zoQC02O
Article from Inc.com on process design:
Questions or comments? Email us at playbook@eckfeldt.com.
Increasing your situational awareness with a SWOT-TR analysis
Strategy is about positioning yourself successfully in the market to differentiate yourself from your competition. To do this, you need to know what’s happening in the market and what your competitors are doing.
Strategy is about positioning yourself successfully in the market to differentiate yourself from your competition. To do this, you need to know what’s happening in the market and what your competitors are doing.
This video gives an overview of the SWOT-TR (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and trends, risks) worksheet. Here is a quick summary of each section.
Strengths - Internal capabilities that will help you win in the market
Weaknesses - Internal attributes that a competitor could exploit
Opportunities - External market/industry characteristics you can exploit for success
Threats - External market/industry characteristics that make it harder for you to compete
Trends - Bigger picture changes in the economy, society, culture that could impact your success
Risks - Events or changes that could occur (but not guaranteed to) which would impact your success
Here is the link to the SWOT-TR worksheet PDF.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aMaD8foTkqO0911FuF-g-XvGkgVcw-bi
In addition, here are some articles and resources that explain these in more detail and give examples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/every-business-needs-a-good-swot-analysis-1794147
Creating your ideal week using a Defensible Calendar
Productivity starts with having a plan. Use this template to design your ideal week so that you can maximize your energy, productivity, and enjoyment.
Productivity starts with having a plan. Use this template to design your ideal week so that you can maximize your energy, productivity, and enjoyment.
Here is an article I wrote for Inc.com on this subject as well:
You Can Become Highly Productive If You Start Keeping a 'Defensible Calendar' - High performance executives are masters of their priorities and schedule; here's how they do it.
https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/keeping-this-kind-of-calendar-can-help-you-become-.html
Making sure all of your bases are covered: Functional Accountability
If you've seen the sketch Who's On First, you'll know the purpose of this exercise. We can have the best team of players in the world, but if it's not clear who is accountable for what we won't be successful.
If you've seen the sketch Who's On First?, you'll know the purpose of this exercise. We can have the best team of players in the world, but if it's not clear who is accountable for what, we won't be successful. Watch the video to learn how to implement this tool and spark the discussions you need to have to get alignment and clarity on your teams accountability.
Decision Making Rights
Making good decision is critical to proper execution. Use these five rights to help define who is involved how and when. Try to push people out of the center and into the edges to improve efficiency. And don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Making good decision is critical to proper execution. Use these five rights to help define who is involved how and when. Try to push people out of the center and into the edges to improve efficiency. And don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Watch the video to learn more.
Love, Loathe, Long, and Lust
The People decision is all about getting the right people in the right seats doing the right things. Here is an exercise that will help make sure everyone is doing things they want to be doing, that give them energy, and that will increase overall employee engagement. Watch the video to get descriptions of each section and how to run this on your own.
The People decision is all about getting the right people in the right seats doing the right things. Here is an exercise that will help make sure everyone is doing things they want to be doing, that give them energy, and that will increase overall employee engagement. Watch the video to get descriptions of each section and how to run this on your own.
Keeping score on your priorities/OKRs during your quarterly 13-week race
Here's a simple tool for keeping score of Priorities/OKRs during your quarterly. Think of it as a 13-week race. While crazy weeks come up and you may miss a few commitments, this tool helps make sure one bad week doesn't turn into three.
Here's a simple tool for keeping score of Priorities/OKRs during your quarterly. Think of it as a 13-week race. While crazy weeks come up and you may miss a few commitments, this tool helps make sure one bad week doesn't turn into three. By tracking weekly commitments and follow through you can catch issues before they become problems and take corrective action quickly.
Developing your quarterly priorities and OKRs
Setting good quarterly priorities and creating an actionable implementation plan is the key to turning your strategic ideas into tangible reality. It's where the rubber meets the road and you get the traction need for momentum.
Setting good quarterly priorities and creating an actionable implementation plan is the key to turning your strategic ideas into tangible reality. It's where the rubber meets the road and you get the traction need for momentum. We like the Objective-Key Result model developed by Intel and Google. It dovetails your strategic goals with your task plan in a nice, seamless way.
In this video we discuss the goals of quarterly planning, how OKRs work, and explain how to use the templates below, and an example.
Here is the link to download the editable template:
eckfeldt.com - coaching worksheet - quarterly objectives - editable
Here is the link to the example discussed in the video:
eckfeldt.com - coaching worksheet - quarterly objectives - example 1
For more information on OKRs, check out the issue of Better, Faster, where we covered OKRs and has several great links on the topic.
Developing your talent with a personal quarterly planning
Developing your existing talent is a one of the best ways improve your organizational performance. But without a regular, structured process, that development will be slow and lack alignment with your goals.
Developing your existing talent is a one of the best ways improve your organizational performance. But without a regular, structured process, that development will be slow and lack alignment with your goals.
The Personal Quarterly Plan is used by managers to develop their direct reports. It sets 90-day goals based on annual/long-term objectives and help drive the weekly one-on-one meeting.
Download the template:
Interviewing Using Core Values and Top Grading
Most companies don't hire well. The pressure of filling open seats, the tendency to see the things you want to see in a candidate, and candidates desire to say whatever they need to say to get the job all work against you when interviewing.
Most companies don't hire well. The pressure of filling open seats, the tendency to see the things you want to see in a candidate, and candidates desire to say whatever they need to say to get the job all work against you when interviewing. This template will give you some basic best practices in interviewing using Core Values (and Anti-Values) and the Topgrading work history and TORC (threat of reference check) process.
For the template, click on the following link:
http://bit.ly/eck-interviewworksheet
If you have questions, email us at playbook@eckfeldt.com or visit http://www.eckfeldt.com/consultation to schedule a free 30 min call to discuss your questions or review your growth strategy.
Creating a Role Scorecard That Has Some Teeth
Getting roles right is key to performance management. Role Scorecards can help make sure everyone knows what is expected of them and of others. This video walks you through the basics of creating a Role Scorecard and shows a practical example for a typical role.
Getting roles right is key to performance management. Role Scorecards can help make sure everyone knows what is expected of them and of others. This video walks you through the basics of creating a Role Scorecard and shows a practical example for a typical role.
For the template, click on the following link:
http://bit.ly/eck-rolescorecard
If you have questions, email us at playbook@eckfeldt.com or visit http://www.eckfeldt.com/consultation to schedule a free 30 min call to discuss your questions or review your growth strategy.