Tag: Personal Effectiveness

Speeding up our own assembly line

  |   Work/Life Balance

Henry Ford invented the moving industrial assembly line. It probably only took a week or so before he or someone else tried speeding up the line to increase production. In 1972, the General Motors Assembly Division used that tactic in the Lordstown Ohio assembly plant. The idea was to increase production above the 55  »  Read More

Lessons from Singing in the Choir

  |   Performance Management

Even though my father was a Pastor, I never sang in the choir when I was young. Choir practice always seemed to conflict with basketball practice or work. So I had to wait until I was an adult to learn the lessons that choir singing has to teach. The fact is that pretty much anyone can sing in a church choir, regardless  »  Read More

Take your time

  |   Personal Effectiveness

When I was a boy, I always wanted to rush through my homework to get to something I thought was more interesting. My mother was forever reminding me to “Take your time. Do it right.” That’s still good advice. There are lots of things you can do in the cracks in your day. You can check email, sign letters  »  Read More

So what?

  |   Personal Effectiveness

Bud was one of the great bosses I studied. He also became a friend, so I tried to spend a day with him whenever I was in his town. Bud was one of those people that other people asked for advice. He tried to make it easy for them. Unless something important took him away, he always ate lunch at the same time and at the same  »  Read More

Productivity and Me

  |   Productivity

I read Ben Franklin’s Autobiography for the first time when I was in my late teens. That’s when I started a practice that he followed: reviewing my performance every day. Franklin wrote the autobiography when he was older and he took some time to reflect on what he learned from a lifetime of evaluating  »  Read More