Turning Off Work
“Working hard for something we don't care about is called stress: Working hard for something we love is called passion.”
―Simon Sinek
It doesn’t come as any surprise that in today’s world working seven days a week is more common than it used to be. The reason I say seven days a week is that with the way mobile technology has changed the workplace, it is much too easy to see that text from the boss—he had a great thought at 10:30 pm Saturday—or check your email to see if that deal went through. That means that your “time off” is rarely off. Getting ahead often requires a Sunday evening of review of the upcoming weeks’ work rather than attending that family bbq.Seeing The Forest For The Trees
I have a horticultural background. In nature you find ecosystems (nothing lives alone by itself). In those ecosystems you find things that are not closely connected in time or space can affect each other. Change one thing, you affect something else. The same is true in business. I was asked to coach a new executive at a troubled company. Six months earlier he implemented initiatives designed to cut costs as sales were starting to decline. In an attempt to get ahead of the curve, he looked at ‘excess’ inventory, deciding to cut there first. Two months passes. Production began to experience unexpected delays, salesmen had to make excuses. A couple months later, corners were cut to met quotas, service call ran higher and customers complained about delays. Sales dropped again. Each time they ‘fixed’ an issue with a ‘good decision’, another issue cropped up—each worse than the one before.