The Productivity Guru

Yes, this post will be primarily a copy of a Harvard Business Review (HBR) article.  The article is the point of this blog. Over my decades in consulting, one of the major requirements in our niche was to insure that our clients received the savings we had forecast that they would achieve in a mutually agreeable manner.  In the very beginning, when I started back in 1974, computers were not easily available or accessible as they had to be huge room-size machines and many clients did not even have them.  So we used adding machines with paper tape to the shortly thereafter personal hand held-calculators.  Personal computers starting with the very first Apple or Radio Shack model proved far superior but had minimal calculating capacity.  None were perfect and because of this limitation, a straight line average over a years period was typically used to compare history to current and prove savings had been achieved. ...

 Do you procrastinate?  I know I do it more often than I would like to admit.  We all have a tendency to procrastinate.  Very recently, I saw this photo in a LinkedIn post.   To be legally clear, this is a billboard type advertisement by Nike. They are very famous for their "Just Do It" slogan.   Now they have two and they have combined both into an even more powerful expression. The definition of "procrastinate" from the Oxford dictionary is: "to delay or postpone action; put off doing something."  It is like the old colloquialism "Manana."  Mañana is tomorrow in Spanish.  We all do it to one degree or another.   From a business perspective, to procrastinate is a terrible situation if you or a great many people in a company or organization do it.  If it occurs too often or too much, then what does it do:  it has the probability to DELAY MOST EVERYTHING.  Is that what you really want?  No, I doubt it.  It very we...

  Recently I have been doing a great deal of research for a Zoom Class that I am doing relative to the CEO role.  Having reviewed literally hundreds of articles, I came up with the following list of Skills and Attributes that all CEO's should theoretically have.  This list came from me and the authors of the various articles I have read.  The compiled list of 23 traits or skills, in no particular order, are: 1)    Active Listening 2)    Empathy 3)    The ability to share messages and make complex ideas understandable to everyone (storytelling). 4)    Strategic Thinking Skills 5)    Creativity 6)    The ability to inspire and convince others. 7)    Flexibility 8)    The ability to turn information into action. 9)    Project planning 10)  System development 11)  The ability to assess an employee's strengths and weaknesses. 12) ...