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Building a LEAN Team: Key Strategies for Optimal Productivity

If you fell short of your Productivity Improvements in your organization in 2023, do not repeat the same approach!

If you were wildly successful in achieving your productivity results, high five and I’m right there with you! However, I do ask you if you think the efforts are sustainable? I see leaders claim victory one year to only fall into the abyss of waste and destabilization because they’ve not secured a solid foundation for apparent improvements. Might it have been brute force but with little adoption,lack of forums to remove barriers or even assure the legacy of good work is ingrained in future generations of personnel?

While you ponder these thoughts, let me share with you as building blocks to shore up good work and enable you to sustain the results. If you did not do any of these things, there is no shame in going back and revisiting these foundational elements. The only shame is to not do this and watch great work crumble.

I’m an expert in this area as I helped build a Lean Organization that started out at $500k / year cost savings to sustainably yielding $5MM annually. It was brute force in the beginning to build the capability, buy-in and enable results. It is often a tactical implementation without strategic vision and I’m here to share with you wisdom that is invaluable:

To sustain the gains of a Lean Initiative, we must build Lean Teams.

While investing in a well-being regiment including a good diet, weight training, cardio and a positive mindset is all important in building a lean body, building Lean Teams takes the same investment. A sound body and a sound mind will sustainably give you good results and longevity.

START HERE:

Build a Servant Leadership Culture: Every conversation should start with how is this going to help the people doing the work? It should never start with what are going to do to achieve $100,000 in cost savings. It should start with what do we need to do to help the people to eliminate waste and make their job easier? What is the investment needed and what do we think the ROI will be. When we start with service, the results will follow. When we start with the results, you will fail to serve.

Make Small Sustainable changes. Despite good intentions and excellent training on Lean Methodology, only 20% will truly retain the knowledge. Develop an implementation timeline that enables understanding and WIFM (what’s in it for me) and develop confidence and capability first by measuring organizational maturity. Only when we achieve each maturity level, do we progress to the next level. Let the organization dictate the timeline vs. pushing through an artificial one based on results. Lack of adoption will destabilize the organization.

Lean Communications (efficiency & kindness) : learn discipline in how we communicate in an efficient and kind manner will yield faster responses when time is critical. It’s important to teach this to our people else, the waste of excessive emails and meetings will take over any speed you were hoping for.

Misunderstandings need to be met head on: Any initiative needs a forum to identify risks and escalate barriers. Without this pressure relief valve, frustration will simmer below the surface and blindside you when you don’t get the expected result. Also challenge yourself to ask the hard question: do your people feel safe enough to escalate issues. This speaks to your culture and a bigger issue than any Lean Initiative.

Showcasing achievements builds pride and anchors the work – while it’s often built into Lean Initiatives to parade the results to senior leadership like a royal event, we lose sight of what is important. Showcasing value is not for the leadership, but it’s for the people. The outcome is to instill a sense of pride for an accomplishment such that they’re encouraged to repeat the effort and be an advocate to amplify the Lean Initiative for future generations.

When we invest in building a Lean Team, not only do we get short term results; we achieve long term health and well being in the organization to sustain productivity improvements.

So there you have it, the key to optimizing 2024 productivity improvements.

I’m here to listen and perhaps we can have a conversation about how I can get you off on the right foot for 2024 improvements.

If this episode or this year has been valuable, follow me into 2024.

If you are a CEO who would love a partner to help you with a business challenge, be your #2 or help develop the team of tomorrow, let us partner in 2024.

To hear more about This topic please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 1/5/24

Be well-Deb

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Three things you need to do to create your personal forecast for a winning year

I want to congratulate you on an absolutely amazing year! You met all your target objectives, got a promotion and you found balance in both your work and personal life! Congratulations!

I know I’ve had a great year for me and I’m sharing with you a festive moment with my husband Dan who has seen me through the ups and downs and hopefully a lot more ups!

If this is you, I’m so grateful for your good fortune and I’d love for you to share with me what went well. It’s important to celebrate your “High Five” with others!

If you’re looking around the room for who might I be speaking to, again, I’m speaking to you! This could have been a year to celebrate, but instead things just happened. You didn’t meet your objectives, you have uncertainty about the future and you’re not sure how to get back on track. I hope this is only a few of you, but if this is you, I’m here to impart a few things to get you on the right track. If it was helpful, might you share if this advice worked and perhaps we can connect!

Here are three things you need to do to set your personal forecast for a winning year:

  • Reflect on what went well and what would you Continue?
  • What would you Start doing to enhance what is working well?
  • What would you Change that could detract from what is going well?

While this is the same framework I use for giving or soliciting feedback; it is rooted in receiving external validation from others. I want you to look inside and ask yourself these questions; there is great power in creating self awareness and what will you do with this information.

As always, to help you to make this actionable, I’ll go first with some of my self feedback:

  • Continue: Leveraging my voice, investing in myself and my reach and well being- it’s been a winning combination and I will continue it this year. My clients and audience have confirmed these have served them well when we engage with each other.
  • Start: Video Strategy to reach all demographics where they’re at in the way they want to consume information. I write on LI and my website, I have a podcast that gets into your ear. I am now moving the podcast content into the YouTube. This will hopefully reach more of you and provide the value you want in visual form.
  • Change: Limit how much I work and focus only on the needle movers. Move away from distractions and it might even mean disappointing a few people. Forgive me in advance as I’m now laser focused on the most important things.

I really want you to succeed with this process, so I’m going to provide you an example that could be relevant to your situation:

  • Continue: I will continue to build up new skills / certifications to build my technical capability in my role. I will invest in my future
  • Start: I will practice telling stories when trying to communicate a message or a proposal. My technical skills are sound. Now I want to be influential through story-telling.
  • Change: I will not worry about trying to pull people along who are not on board with my initiatives. It wastes my time and energy. Instead, I’ll create a dashboard showing progress across all teams and where others are not performing it will be visible and they’ll have to change based on the visual pressure they will receive. Let the collective pull them along vs. myself carrying the burden.

So there you have it, three simple steps you can take to create and forecast a winning 2024.

I’m here to listen and perhaps we can have a conversation and unlock your future!

If this article or this year of connection has been valuable, follow me into 2024.

If you are a CEO who would love a partner to help you with a business challenge, be your #2 or help develop the team of tomorrow, let us partner in 2024.

To hear more about This topic please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 12/29/23.

Be well

-Deb

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How to Craft Your Success Story

After you’ve taken inventory of your own self assessment, what stories can you tell others about the value you bring? This is the time to build up your arsenal of stories for your next role within the company or that next opportunity.

Resumes are boring and hardly articulate your value!

In a fast paced environment, hiring people need a quick way to put you in the yes/maybe/no pile to identify talent.

Assuming you’ve had some expert support to put in keywords to land you in the Yes pile, the challenge becomes how to articulate your value.

So many of you have come across my doorstep and shared with me your accomplishments, but few know how to articulate your value and even better in the context of storytelling.

The outcome of your pursuit will die at “Tell me about yourself” unless you’ve honed this skill.

I’m vested in your success as you reflect on your 2023 accomplishments and craft a message in pursuit of a new role, promotion or job so stick with me for a few more minutes.

Examples of data-based storytelling:

“I was able to impact $100,000 savings to the bottom line.”

Every other resume says that, but you are not your resume. You need to stand out. For every accomplishment like the $100,000 cost savings you need to learn to follow the Hero’s journey to tell the story and draw people into your value.

Value is created by knowing how to message what you did and the impact with the storytelling being the way to connect with humanity.

Here is an example of bad, better and best for implementing a new initiative that you successful led:

  • Bad: I was responsible for implementing a $100,000 cost savings initiative in 6 months.
  • Better: I was responsible for implementing a $100,000 savings initiative by leveraging good change management, engaging with others and ensuring stakeholders were informed and leveraged during the 6 month event.
  • Best: I was challenged with a $100,000 cost savings initiative in 6 months. Knowing it was a challenging task, I had to spend some time reflecting on how I would make this easy to adopt and maximize sustainable impact. I remember going to one plant manager who was often an early adopter. I tried a new way to message the initiative and how to customize it to his needs. He looked at my proposal and said he loved how I visually represented it so he could buy into it. We later tweaked the proposal based on his input and we moved forward. When I spoke about it at the next leadership meeting, he was quick  to share the value of the approach for which others then jumped in and spawned discussion. Had I not done this, I would have delivered the initiative with either crickets responding and hope I’d get compliance or possibly deflection and why we could not have done that. Through finding early adopters and collaborating together, I found the path forward to get the result and impact needed.

Do you see the difference? It takes practice, but this is what sets you apart and positions you for that next role, position or project.

If this was helpful, let me know, or if someone could benefit from this DIY lesson, please share it with them!

If you need some help, I’m here for you.

I’m here to listen and perhaps we can have a conversation and unlock your future!

To hear more about This topic please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 12/15/23.

Be well

-Deb

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Empower Your Year-End Review: Mastering the Art of Gathering Data to Reflect on Your Achievement

December is a time of closure and take stock in what you’ve accomplished this year. The “year end” review is simply a data point for someone else to say if you have accomplished the objectives or not. However, I’d like to say that it does not define you. You are in control of your destiny and the year end review is simply information for which you have choices to continue in what you are doing or take inventory of your capability and passion and YOU DECIDE what 2024 looks like.

This past year I’ve been giving you tips for how to manage your career, and give you the essential skills needed to be seen, heard, respected and get a “seat at the table”. While I qualify it as the C-Suite, it doesn’t have to be. Some of you say you don’t aspire to that, and that’s your decision. But what is clear to all who I’ve spoken to is you want to do purposeful work, have an impact and have joy at work and at home. 

You are why I am here today whether you’re in the C-Suite or aspiring; I’m here to help you struggle less and spend more time doing the things you want to do.

My year end review…

I’m ending this year with what I would call a strong performance review having had 3 Drop In CEO clients, 3 coaching clients, continued with the podcast, launched a video strategy, managed the Drop In Collective, had a few paid speaking gigs and I’ve almost replaced my corporate earnings. I would rate myself as a target performance and I’m happy with that. 

However, that does not define me. I have started to feel joy in what I’m doing.  I’ve made choices to stop doing certain thanks such as stepping down as my curling  Secretary and WFFC President as well as delaying writing my book. Some people would feel those are failures, but I call them wins. I had the courage and leadership to walk away or delay certain things that were causing me stress.

Now it’s your turn…

So turning back to you as the “CEO of your domain”; it’s a mindset whether you are a CEO / President / founder of a company or the CEO of your department, now is the time to take inventory of your accomplishments and decide what you are going to do next.

To my CEO friends: I ask, what type of year was this for you? Did you survive another year of burnout and only meeting targets? Did you have crisis after crisis and applaud you and the team for the hours of hard work and sacrifice? Or are you at a point of stable operations, but need to do something different to grow, expand or be sustainable? Do you have the right people on your team or do you need someone external like myself who can extend your leadership capacity and capability so you don’t burn out in the next year? I’m speaking to you now because in 2024, I am dedicated to you to provide solutions to real issues I’ve faced and want to support you and be your partner.

To my leaders who may be stuck and who may not have had a support system, this past year’s podcast solos have been dedicated to you to give you the essential skills you need to navigate your challenges. To those who said it was helpful, I am grateful. For those of you who are still stuck; please know I’m here for you.

Follow me into 2024 as I speak to the leaders who are in the C-Suite positions or CEO’s and start to adopt the mindset, behaviors and practices to further elevate your leadership. Think about listening again to all the solo’s from 2023 to revisit what we’ve talked about. Please know that in 2024 I will distill down all these lessons for you into a single resource called The Secrets of the C-Suite so you have an invaluable resource as you move to higher and higher impact. Take it with you or share it with someone. Stay tuned so you can get your copy in 2024.

As I bring this to a close, I leave you with a few questions to ponder:

As you reflect on 2023, did you survive or thrive?

Did you feel fulfilled or fell short of job satisfaction?

Do you want to thrive in 2024 and do you have the support you need?

I’m that support and follow me into 2024 where we can grow together.

I’m here to listen and perhaps we can have a conversation and unlock your future!

To hear more about This topic please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 12/8/23. 

Until we meet, I wish you well and much success!

-Deb

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The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Empathetic Communication

Summer is beginning to wind down, but I’m still receiving plenty of “out of office” notifications, and honestly I couldn’t be happier. I’m seeing more people prioritize their time and as a culture, I know we’re shifting to a more fulfilling way to work and live. 

It’s because of that shift that I wanted to take a moment to discuss communication and how we can be more intentional about the way we share information. Over the past few weeks I’ve shared ways to create boundaries around your own time and email habits, but today I wanted to give you a few pointers on how you can communicate in a way that allows your team to uphold those same boundaries you’re trying to implement for yourself, while still being productive. 

At the end of the day, it’s up to you as the leader to set the standard of how and when you communicate with your team. I’m hoping that these insights will give you some direction when making plans for upcoming projects.

Here are some key takeaways for creating empathetic communication habits:

  • The Power of Lean Communication: Get straight to the point in your subject lines, use concise language, and include a clear call to action. This approach not only grabs attention but also shows your commitment to helping others.
  • Start with Gratitude: Even if the previous communication wasn’t respectful, take the high road. Thank the other person for any information they provided. This sets a positive tone and fosters better results.
  • Clear Call to Action: Make it easy for others to respond and help you. Specify what you need, offer assistance, and set up a meeting to walk them through the details.
  • Respect Others’ Time: Keep emails short and to the point, with no more than five sentences. Include attachments for additional details and close with a respectful salutation.

By following this framework, you’ll not only be seen as an empathetic leader but also enjoy higher response rates. I encourage you to try these tips and see the difference they make.

If you are aspiring to the C-Suite, and tired of the hustle, are you ready to change how you work and implement these tips? 

If you are a business owner or C-Suite leader, are you ready to invest in your people and help them be successful? Their success is your success! 

Now is the time for you to collect your thoughts and take action. I want you to succeed and this framework can enable you to do it yourself. 

However, if you need more help, I’m here for you as the Drop In CEO, CEO whisperer or as a sounding board. 

To hear more about my story about framework, please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 7/28/23. 

Maybe you simply need a support system to apply these new insights. I find leaders need a place to talk through the challenges and that’s why I created The Drop In CEO Collective, a forum for C-Suite leaders of today and tomorrow. To learn more about our next event you can visit our page and register. 

Would you rather have a quick 1-2-1 to discuss your specific challenge? Could The Drop In CEO be your support system? Direct Message me on LI or contact me via my website and let’s have a conversation. Until then, I wish you much success. 

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Mastering the Art of Unplugging

This year, I’m embracing simplicity, and I’ve got three pillars to guide me: investing in myself, expanding my reach to help more of you, and prioritizing my well-being. I’m happy to report that my recent annual physical showed that these efforts are paying off!

One of the biggest challenges of prioritizing well-being can be the challenge of disconnecting from work, especially when on vacation. I’ve been there, constantly checking emails, and I know it’s a struggle. But I’ve learned that most emails can wait, and it’s all about discipline and time blocking. I’ve also learned the hard way that strategic work should be a priority. After a wake-up call in the form of a negative performance review, I took a course on understanding what’s important versus urgent and developed new strategies.

Here are a few of my top tips for prioritizing and managing time in the summer:

  • Take stock of your current workload and prepare your backup for your time away. It’s never too early to make sure your replacement has all of the information they need to be successful.
  • Prepare for your vacation by reaching out to your customers and internal stakeholders beforehand. Introduce them to your backup to ensure business continuity and peace of mind for everyone involved.
  • Try turning off your phone in the middle of the day. It’s a game-changer. You’ll be able to focus on creating lasting memories with your loved ones and leave a positive impression on those around you.

Remember, it’s not about being on top of your email, but about creating meaningful experiences. What legacy do you want to leave behind?

If you are aspiring to the C-Suite, and tired of the hustle, are you ready to change how you work and implement these tips? 

If you are a business owner or C-Suite leader, are you ready to invest in your people and help them be successful? Their success is your success! 

Now is the time for you to collect your thoughts and take action. I want you to succeed and this framework can enable you to do it yourself. 

However, if you need more help, I’m here for you as the Drop In CEO, CEO whisperer or as a sounding board. 

To hear more about my story about framework, please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 7/21/23. 

Maybe you simply need a support system to apply these new insights. I find leaders need a place to talk through the challenges and that’s why I created The Drop In CEO Collective, a forum for C-Suite leaders of today and tomorrow. To learn more about our next event you can visit our page and register. 

Would you rather have a quick 1-2-1 to discuss your specific challenge? Could The Drop In CEO be your support system? Direct Message me on LI or contact me via my website and let’s have a conversation. Until then, I wish you much success. 

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Strategies for Staying Focused While Everyone’s on Vacation

As we all know, summer brings with it a whole new set of challenges when it comes to getting things done. The sun is shining, the beach is calling, and it feels like everyone and their dog is on vacation. It’s no wonder our productivity takes a hit during this time of year.

For example, I am having a challenge with a client, this client and trying to schedule a kickoff meeting. I’ve been met with vacations and all kinds of scheduling issues. In the end, the Project Lead agreed to push it off an entire month when we knew everyone was back from vacation. While it didn’t meet my own self-imposed sense of urgency, it was more important for the entire team to be present and rested. After all, the greater calling is to have people present and engaged. Starting something in haste just to check it off your list is not the true purpose. Your purpose is to guide others. And sometimes the timing may be different than when you planned it. You have to accept this. 

You cannot always be in control, but you can be in control of your discipline and patience with the process. When you start later, you’ll have the opportunity to show your skills and your leadership because you were patient with when to start the process. Leaders need discipline to know that timing is everything and sometimes the greater need for your people is patience.

Here’s a simple framework for practicing patience as a leader during the summer months:

Step 1: Accept the Situation

First things first, let’s acknowledge the reality of the situation. It’s summer, people are out enjoying their time off, and that means things might move a bit slower. Instead of fighting against it, embrace it. Accept that things may take longer than usual and use this as an opportunity to practice patience and flexibility.

Step 2: Take an Inventory of Your Goals

Now that we’ve accepted the summer slowdown, it’s time to reassess our goals. Take a moment to reflect on what you want to achieve during this period and prioritize your tasks accordingly. Maybe there are some projects that can be put on hold until things pick up again, or perhaps you can focus on those independent tasks that have been lingering on your to-do list.

Step 3: Get Back on Track

Okay, so we’ve accepted the situation and reevaluated our goals. Now it’s time to get back on track. Look at your schedule and identify those pockets of time where you can really make progress. Maybe it’s early mornings or late evenings when the distractions are minimal. Whatever it is, carve out that dedicated time for focused work and make the most of it.

Step 4: Catch Up on Independent Work

Summer is the perfect time to tackle those solo projects that require your undivided attention. With fewer interruptions and distractions, you can finally dive deep into that research, write that article, or revamp your website. Use this time to power through those tasks that don’t necessarily require the input or availability of others.

Step 5: Embrace the Personal

Last but certainly not least, don’t forget to embrace the personal side of summer. Take advantage of those longer evenings and sunny weekends to recharge your batteries and indulge in activities you enjoy.

If you are aspiring to the C-Suite, and tired of the hustle, are you ready to change how you work and implement these tips? 

If you are a business owner or C-Suite leader, are you ready to invest in your people and help them be successful? Their success is your success! 

Now is the time for you to collect your thoughts and take action. I want you to succeed and this framework can enable you to do it yourself. 

However, if you need more help, I’m here for you as the Drop In CEO, CEO whisperer or as a sounding board. 

To hear more about my story about framework, please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 7/7/23. 

Maybe you simply need a support system to apply these new insights. I find leaders need a place to talk through the challenges and that’s why I created The Drop In CEO Collective, a forum for C-Suite leaders of today and tomorrow. To learn more about our next event you can visit our page and register. 

Would you rather have a quick 1-2-1 to discuss your specific challenge? Could The Drop In CEO be your support system? Direct Message me on LI or contact me via my website and let’s have a conversation. Until then, I wish you much success. 

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Why is Mid-Year Evaluation Important for Your Goals?

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of achieving your goals? Do you feel like you’re off course and struggling to find your way back? When we hit the halfway point in the year, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by how much we still have to accomplish by the end of the year. Taking a moment to reflect and refocus is critical for avoiding burnout and optimizing our actions for better results. 

One of the ways we do this is by focusing on how closely our actions align with our purpose (one of the seven points of the CEO’s Compass.) Recently I sat down and tracked all of the business connections and opportunities I was creating and realized that only about 5% were truly aligned to the work I wanted to do. While other opportunities might be good financially or appealing to my creative side, they weren’t getting me closer to my ultimate goal. Understanding that allowed me to make decisions to utilize my time in ways that more closely aligned with my purpose, and while I can say no with confidence, I can also say YES to the right opportunities faster. 

Making fast, aligned decisions is easy when you run it through the first 5 points of the CEO’s Compass:

  • Purpose: Are your current actions aligned with your true purpose?
  • People: Do you have the right people with the right skills in place to lead them to success?
  • Performance: Performance is human centric. Are you utilizing the people around you (yourself, your team, and your community) in a way that gets you to your goal?
  • Process: Is your current process streamlined to get you where you need to go, or is there room for improvement?
  • Platform: Are you using the right tools for this process? How can technology help you?

Ask yourself these questions. Invest in yourself. If you already have your clearly defined actions and you are on track, Kudos to you. But if you found that people around you are not on track, consider sharing this article with them. Maybe talk to them about the CEO’s Compass – a tremendous resource that might get you unstuck from where you happen to be.

If you are aspiring to the C-Suite, and tired of the hustle, are you ready to change how you work and implement these tips? 

If you are a business owner or C-Suite leader, are you ready to invest in your people and help them be successful? Their success is your success! 

Now is the time for you to collect your thoughts and take action. I want you to succeed and this framework can enable you to do it yourself. 

However, if you need more help, I’m here for you as the Drop In CEO, CEO whisperer or as a sounding board. 

To hear more about my story about framework, please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 6/30/23. 

Maybe you simply need a support system to apply these new insights. I find leaders need a place to talk through the challenges and that’s why I created The Drop In CEO Collective, a forum for C-Suite leaders of today and tomorrow. To learn more about our next event you can visit our page and register. 

Would you rather have a quick 1-2-1 to discuss your specific challenge? Could The Drop In CEO be your support system? Direct Message me on LI or contact me via my website and let’s have a conversation. Until then, I wish you much success. 

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The Most Practical Framework for Assessing Your Career Goals

So often, we hustle and try to get the work done. We cover for people that are on vacation. We’re so busy trying to keep all the balls moving that we forget that we as leaders need time to pause and reflect. Are you feeling overwhelmed and unsure of your next steps in your career or business? Sometimes the most important thing you can do to move forward is taking breaks and zooming out to gain clarity and focus.

The hard truth is that if you fail to take breaks, circumstances may provide one for you. I never used to own up to this. I have been let go from jobs a handful of times, and I can tell you the time off was life changing for me. When I got away from the work at hand, I gained so much clarity. Each time I had to dust off my resume or pause to think about my guiding principles for the new opportunity that I was seeking, I gained so much insight. When you’re in a job and you’re zoomed in all the time, you don’t take the time to assess where you’re going. If you need to slow down or speed up or change course, it’s best to do it intentionally before life does it for you.  

I remember being let go from a job that I probably shouldn’t have taken to begin with, but the money was good. I soon realized that I would not pursue that line of work in the future because it did not feed my soul. And quite frankly, I was miserable. These breaks are so important, yet fail to take them intentionally. We would rather wait for life happens to us and reflect when we’re in crisis.

If you want to be intentional about your next break, I’ve created a simple framework to make the most of your time:

  • Ask your boss for feedback: Ask what you can start doing, stop doing, and change in order to be more successful in your current position.
  • Give actionable feedback: When sharing your observations with your team, make sure there are tangible outcomes for them to pursue. 
  • Identify your actions: Listen to feedback and choose 1 or 2 actions you can take in the next quarter and focus solely on those things.
  • Make those actions a habit: Once you’ve gone to all the effort of making a change, hold yourself accountable to make that change a habit for long-term success. Deb shares her personal experiences and provides a framework for setting intentions, assessing progress, and making changes. By focusing on one or two changes at a time, you can celebrate your progress and stay on course towards your goals.

In a world that values hustle and constant productivity, it’s easy to forget the importance of taking breaks and gaining clarity. It’s essential for leaders to reflect on their actions and make changes when necessary. So take a deep breath and zoom out. Your career or business will thank you for it.

If you are aspiring to the C-Suite, and tired of the hustle, are you ready to change how you work and implement these tips? 

If you are a business owner or C-Suite leader, are you ready to invest in your people and help them be successful? Their success is your success! 

Now is the time for you to collect your thoughts and take action. I want you to succeed and this framework can enable you to do it yourself. 

However, if you need more help, I’m here for you as the Drop In CEO, CEO whisperer or as a sounding board. 

To hear more about my story about framework, please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 6/23/23. 

Maybe you simply need a support system to apply these new insights. I find leaders need a place to talk through the challenges and that’s why I created The Drop In CEO Collective, a forum for C-Suite leaders of today and tomorrow. To learn more about our next event you can visit our page and register. 

Would you rather have a quick 1-2-1 to discuss your specific challenge? Could The Drop In CEO be your support system? Direct Message me on LI or contact me via my website and let’s have a conversation. Until then, I wish you much success. 

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How Setting Personal Boundaries can Lead to Success

I love working with CEO’s, C-Suite Leaders and leaders of tomorrow, because they’re so talented; but sometimes they hit a barrier and need my help. My heart hurts when I see them struggle and it validates the work I’m meant to do; to help them navigate challenges with confidence. One trend I have noticed is their inability to set personal boundaries to ensure their success.  

For me, as you can see I’m a prolific content creator and I produce 1 guest and 1 solo episode a month. However, I have some vacation time and a few client projects that need to get done and I can’t also be doing my usual networking and podcasting through the summer. So I’ve built an inventory of interviews and closed down my calendar for a month in June /July when I won’t be recording. I’ve also limited my calendar to allow only a few networking meetings. Setting boundaries gives me some breathing room to not feel stressed, manage my client work and also enjoy my summer. Setting boundaries feels uncomfortable to me at times, but at the same time, I have a sense of calm and peace of mind that I’m in control

How do we turn this into a framework that can work for you? 

  • Inventory the things that can be delayed / don’t have to be done for the next month or reduce the number of activities.
  • Set your schedule when you will start work, end work and force yourself to shut down your computer. For me, I start early, but I have my schedule such that most days I am done at 5. I close my laptop and know I’ve run out of energy to be most effective. I discipline myself to stop and know I’ll have twice as much energy the next morning to get those things done.
  • Time block when you will do administrative work, interactive work with colleagues/meetings, creative time – I know this is not always possible, but unless you plan your work, how will you ever get to a point where you feel like you’re in control?
  • If urgent matters come your way – pause and assess (delay) how urgent it is, or could it be delayed a few hours until you finish your creative or collaborative work uninterrupted. Sometimes people simply want to be acknowledged and know they will get your undivided attention when you are ready.
  • Take 20 minutes at whatever point in the day you feel like you start to wander and get off track. I’ve taken a late lunch between 2-3 and sat outside for 20 minutes. It’s very calming to my nerves. I told you I’m in personal wellness and when I go, go, go, my heart rate remains in the 70’s all day. When I pause for 20 minutes it goes back down into the high 50’s and it’s almost like I’ve had a nap. I come back to my work and the batteries are charged. 20 minutes for yourself won’t negatively impact your day. Go now, and take 20 for yourself!

By the way, I’m not perfect!  I’m continually honing this skill. If I fall off the wagon I realize that tomorrow’s another day to be successful and learn how to set boundaries.

So there you have it! It’s not a difficult concept, but sometimes difficult for leaders to enforce self discipline. People are watching your behaviors. Failure to change will have a ripple effect in your organization leaving everyone stressed and in less than optimal health. 

Now is the time for you to collect your thoughts and take action. I want you to succeed and this framework can enable you to do it yourself. 

However, if you need more help, I’m here for you as the Drop In CEO, CEO whisperer or as a sounding board. 

To hear more about my story about framework,  please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 6/8/23. 

Maybe you simply need a support system to apply these new insights. I find leaders need a place to talk through the challenges and that’s why I created The Drop In CEO Collective, a forum for C-Suite leaders of today and tomorrow. To learn more about our next event on June 13th you can visit our page and register. 

Would you rather have a quick 1-2-1 to discuss your specific challenge? Could The Drop In CEO be your support system? Direct Message me on LI or contact me via my website and let’s have a conversation. Until then, I wish you much success. 

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