Harvey Schachter's popular Monday Morning Manager has expanded online. Readers can now start their week by logging on to find a few key tips that will help them through the work week.
Mr. Schachter, a veteran journalist who lives in Battersea, Ont., has a unique vantage point on developments in the world of leadership, management, succession planning and more, writing not only the Monday package but also contributing the Managing Books column. He writes and consults for a variety of publications and organizations.
He is the co-author of Employee Ownership: The New Source of Competitive Advantage and editor of Memos To The Prime Minister: What Canada Could Be in The 21st Century; he also assisting in the writing of The Three Pillars of Public Service Management, and Getting Clients, Keeping Clients: The Essential Guide For Tomorrow's Financial Advisor. A former editor of the Kingston Whig Standard, he has won National Newspaper Awards for editorials and political columns.
Join him for a discussion on life at the office, Wednesday at 1 p.m.
Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.
Cathryn Motherwell, deputy editor, Report on Business: Hi Harvey,
Thanks very much for joining us today for a discussion about … well, everything that affects us in our work lives. I know you've written extensively about leadership, succession, meetings, email and more. What do you think are the key challenges for those of us who are cubicle-bound and trying the make the most of the tools at our fingertips?
Harvey Schachter: The key challenge we all face is keeping up -- and organizing ourselves so that we can accomplish everything before us.
Breaking that down, you need a few handy, trusty sources for keeping up with the latest information on everything from strategy to how to use your word processing software more effectively. I see Monday Morning Manager and Managing Books, the Wednesday column in Careers, as helping there, but you probably also need some other trusted sources. Open yourself to new ideas. The mythology is that its same old, same old, and a lot is. But it is surprising how much new there is out there -- new insights on being more effective and new ideas on strategy and execution.
You also need tool for organizing yourself that work for you in your situation. One of the most common bits of advice for example is to apply the 80-20 rule, and concentrate only on the 20 per cent of stuff that delivers the most value. That may be fine if you are CEO of The Royal Bank, but it may not apply lower down in the ranks of that bank or if you are a one-man consulting firm and have nobody else to turn the other 20 per cent to. You have to do all 100 -- or most of it.
That being said, you should to my mind know the priorities for each day that will deliver the biggest return but also the many other things that simply must be done for your part in the operation to fulfill its duty and not have you piss off colleagues or customers. Then you have to figure out how best to achieve it, every day (and get home in time to have a life).
Simple, eh?
Cathryn Motherwell: There is also the danger of any tool kit -- which is that we can become far too regimented. It seems to me that we are having to be far more flexible in how we find solutions to the challenges we face at work. Do you have any tips on how we can be more adaptable and open to new ideas?
