Catalyst

Voicemail (depending on your viewpoint) is either the bane of existence or a wonderful tool to increase productivity. The latter is true… if you know how to leave a good message.

I receive several phone messages each week, many by salespeople. As I slog through the swamp of messages, some are easy to answer and others just get the trashcan. The ones that get a quick “delete” have the following characteristics

• The caller speaks too fast or without clarity. You understand about every third word so nothing gets through.
• The return number is spewed out like the BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. You can’t make out the number and have to listen to it several times just to get it. Usually the person leaving their number only says it once, making it doubly difficult.
• The message sounds like, “This is Bob. Call me.” Even if you know Bob, you probably don’t know what Bob wants or needs. He doesn’t give his number so I can’t return his call unless I want to search for Bob’s number (hoping I get the right one.)

As I’ve handled my voicemail over the years, a few things will make your message easy to return.

• Identify yourself with first name and last name. I may not know right off which “Bob” or “Karen” this is (I know several).
• Give me a thumbnail idea of what you need. Many times, people need information. I may or may not know but could find out. If I am aware of what information is needed, I can get you complete information. If not, it will take a second phone call (both a delay and a waste of time.)
• Give your return number clearly. When you speak on a phone, slow down (especially if you are on a cell phone). When giving your number, speak distinctly, pausing between each digit. Then at the end, say, “that number again is…” and repeat it. That allow me to correct any confusion about the number.

If you really want to get an answer, make it easy for me (and people like me) to answer your call. If it is not easy, the odds are the phone won’t ring.

My wife and I are in the middle of what we considered an impossible project.

Friday comes every seven days–and that’s a good thing.

Fridays are the end of the work week for most. (If it not yours, please adjust this post to fit your situation.) It launches us into rest, relaxation, and family time.

But not everyone likes Fridays. The specter of anxiety hangs as a pall over many Fridays. Jobs are not complete. Tasks procrastinated all week smell like dead fish. So some fill a briefcase and see if they can get to it over the weekend.

One of my goals each week is to get to Friday “clean.” It doesn’t always happen as I get last minute things on Thursday night or Friday. But the goal is to “clear the decks” so I can indeed re-create over Saturday.

I have learned that to have a great Friday afternoon experience, I have to do several things.

I have to plan my week. I need a blueprint of what is coming toward me. What’s on my calendar that needs attention? Is my task list reasonable? What tasks do I do on which day? These questions (usually on Sunday night or Monday morning) are my compass and sextant for the week’s journey. In a sense, Friday starts on Monday.

I work diligently to get work done in a timely manner. Procrastination is like a neck massage. It feels better to let it woo you into the sense of “it will get done. Just relax.” Yet tasks postponed muscle themselves into the times I really don’t want to work. My aim is to have it done by Friday morning. I cannot do a week’s worth of work in 4 hours. It takes a week.

I do a quick sweep on Friday. Friday morning is time for last minute checks. If I’ve done my work through the week, Friday becomes a calm day. I make a few last phone calls that have come in, clean up my email inbox, empty my voicemail on my phone. I feel confident that nothing is left hanging.

I enjoy Saturday. While I have plenty of household tasks to do on Saturday, they are enjoyable because my mind doesn’t flit toward the unfinished. I can let things “settle to earth.”

Friday afternoon should feel like Atlas taking your world onto his shoulders. If it’s not like that for you, examine your life and time. Where’s the leak? No one should come to Friday dreading the end of the week.

Enjoy the Friday afternoon experience.

The class of 2010 has now sat through hours of names read listening for their own. Students sweated bullets over finals (and sometimes standardized tests). Textbooks were closed, accounted for, and stored in the sauna of a dust-disturbed storeroom.

The moving of the tassel on the mortarboard signals the completion of school. It says, “you’re through, finished, completed. School (with its accompanying learning) is over.

Perhaps you need to rethink the tassel and just not bother because it’s a false alarm. Learning of a different kind is just beginning.

Mark Twain observed, “If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you cannot learn any other way.” It’s a different kind–and longer–education.

The Greeks practices “praxis,” a philosophy that called for taking what you know and putting into action. How do we find the “praxis” of our lives today?

Find mentors. We grow when we have someone bigger, faster, smarter, and wiser than we are. The tragedy of young lives is they surround themselves with friends with the same level of ignorance and disdain the sage counsel of experience. Make sure your circle includes someone who can teach you something new.

Ask questions of others. Ask them other others. Too many times, we want to appear smart, so we nod in agreement when our mind is nothing more than a fuzzball. Stop and ask, “tell me more about that. I’m not sure I completely understand.”

Reflect on experience. Ask three critical questions to  improve anything.

• What happened?
• Why did it happen? (What did leader, speaker, teacher do to get the result that took place?)
• What would I have done differently?

Keep learning in the right tense. As a minister, I hear people say, “I already learned that in the Bible.” They think learning is a past-tense experience. Once you read it, know it, can feed it back, you don’t need to learn it again. Learning is really a present-tense experience. When you read the Bible, it’s not what you learned but what you are learning.

Let the schoolbooks back in storage. Take your mind out of storage and learn something. The great failure of many lives is that they live by what they learned rather than by what they are learning.

Have you heard of:

• The kidneys thieves urban legend?
• Jared of Subway fame?
• The commercial of “this is your brain on drugs?”

If so, you’ve got something “stuck” in your brain. What made it stick?

Chip and Dan Heath wanted to know the reason so they studied “sticky” messages. The result is an excellent probe into communication in their book Made to Stick: Why Some Messages Survive and Some Die.

The book details six traits of “stickable”messages. Messages that are made to stick are

Simple

Unexpected

Concrete

Credible

Emotional.

The Heaths illustrate their results with actual examples of memorable and forgettable messages that compel the reader to confront his own communication style. Many use language and style that not only obscures the meaning but makes the message so forgettable that it goes in one ear and out the other. (I had college classes that left me at the speed of dull.)

One example particular caught my attention. It was about a man who ran the mess hall of a unit in Iraq. His was not just a steel spoon dishing out barely-edible meals. He dressed his staff in chef’s hats, put table clothes on tables, and took time to serve good food. He did all of this with the same exact supplies as any other Army unit. What made the difference was one sticky idea. He told those under his charge, “We don’t fix meals. We build morale.” That simple, concrete, dramatic message transformed a forgettable experience into something about which soldiers raved.

To enhance the learning experience, the Heaths include some thinking sections where the reader gets to check the “stickiness” quotient and how to improve the same message.

I found the book particularly useful. As a church leader, I deliver more than an average share of messages. Some take the shape of a sermon. Others are dimmed-light devotionals. Others are proposals about programs and problems to meetings. Since reading Made to Stick I have changed my approach to communication. I craft each one against the six-fold measure of the Made to Stick. My work found a new energy and anticipation.

If I had my way, I throw away most speech texts and using this book in their place. It would provide high polish to dull communications (whether letters, speeches, or ads).

The next time you make a presentation, when the final syllable is spoken ask, “What stuck?”

Made to Stick:  Why Some Ideas Survive and Some Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Random House, 2007. 304 pages.

What’s on your “to do” list for today?

I like to listen to comedy. A favorite comic is a woman named Jeanne Robertson. She has a wonderful skit on the “to do” list. On her to-do list is a daily, repeated item that reads “Find the Humor.” She refuses to check it off as complete until she has found something humorous.

She relates an instance when looking for laughing made a difference. While waiting in an airport line, she had her humor radar scanning in high gear. People in the line were agitated, irritated, and surly. Then it dawned on her. She was so intent on finding the humor that she had forgotten to get mad.

Every circumstance has hidden giggles, chuckles,  and snickers. If you can find them, life takes on the joy it was intended to have.

How do you find the humor in life?

Hang about humorous people. They have an outlook on life that will rub off as you spend time with them. I have friends whose stories make me turn life on its head so I can see a different perspective.

Laugh at yourself. Someone has noticed, “you might as well laugh at yourself since others are doing it secretly.” One of the lessons of maturity is not to take life too seriously.

Reflect humorously. Recently, I fell out of the shower door (while taking a shower). While I won’t go into all the details, I wasn’t hurt. The only thing that was damage was my ego. (For self-protection, I won’t go into any further detail.) But my wife’s sides hurt from laughing all day long. The more I think about it, the funnier the scene gets.

Take Jeanne Robertson’s advice. Make sure you put “find the humor” on your to-do list today.

PowerPoint walked into the communication room like an 800-pound gorilla demanding its own way. It has become so ubiquitous that many people cannot speak, teach, or present without leaning on the electronic crutch.

The common PowerPoint presentation is a gray blob of words thrown on a page. Bullet points click off with monotonous precision. I have worked with communicators who can do nothing more than read off the screen what their audiences can read for themselves.

It has reached a melting point in one arena that demands extreme clarity-the United States Military. One military commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier General H. R. McMaster has now banned his commanders from using PowerPoint as a result of the slide shown above.
In a recent interview, McMaster said, “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”

Instead of throwing away PowerPoint, it is vital to use it properly. Here’s what I have learned.

Have a message before you touch the screen. If you cannot speak without the projector on, you will do worse with it on. Outline. Think. Revise. Get the message clear before clicking the PowerPoint icon.

Understand that people can listen or read–but they cannot do both at once. Too many presenters are “screen-readers.” They fill their screens with words which then get parroted back to the audience. STOP IT! If you want people to read it, print it out, pass out the pages and go home.

Use pictures and speak to the pictures. People think in pictures. They will see the picture quickly and then are ready to listen to explanation, the facts, or the opinion. See then say is the best avenue to follow.

I am thankful for PowerPoint but have grown irritated at how lazy it has made communicators. It’s not about slides, but ideas. Get clear and be clear in your presentations.

The email read, “We need to meet about…” The issue was neither new nor urgent. Other things are pressing that must rise to the top of the schedule. In fact, the issue had laid on the table for at least 2 years without any action by the leaders in charge.

Would you meet? I chose not to meet…at least not yet.

Meetings are the bane of most people for good reasons.

• Many are unorganized without agenda or purpose.
• Many are too long (usually a function of the first problem).
• Most have people who don’t need to attend.
• Many are nothing but “let’s talk it out” sessions that don’t accomplish anything.

I decided I would not meet with those requesting the meeting until one condition was met. They needed think ahead  and bring solutions to the table, not just the problem. Then, we can refine the proposal.

It has been said that any idiot can find a problem. It takes a real genius to solve one. I’d rather a group start with something to finish than trying to find the starting line.

Before agreeing to meet, ask questions of those requesting a meeting.

• What is this meeting about?
• What do you hope to accomplish?
• Do you have a concrete proposal? (Can I see it ahead of time?)
• How long have you had this problem? (Many times, people are just trying to clear their decks.)
• What do you need from me in this process? (I don’t want to leave the meeting with the monkey on my back.)

Second, ask yourself some questions.

• Does this fit with my responsibilities?
• Does this fit with current priorities? (If we did not meet, would it really make any difference?)
• What will suffer if I meet about this issue?

I go to many meetings, but they must meet one basic criterion–do you have solutions to bring to the table? If not I will not meet until…

A seer warned Julius Caesar to “beware the Ides of March.” On March 15th, he was assassinated. For Americans, it is adapted to “beware April 15th.” That’s the day tax returns are due.

The tax season is also a favorite scamming season for cyber-criminals.

Emails, purportedly from the Internal Revenue Service, advise you to click on a link to claim a tax refund due to you. When you click the link, it takes you to a website asking for social security numbers, names, home addresses, and bank account numbers (so the money can be deposited in the account). It probably also has an IRS logo to make it look genuine. The email address even reads “irs.gov.”

Don’t click on this link.

The IRS does not use email. They do not contact you electronically or even over the phone. All communication from the IRS will come through the Postal Service. (Misuse of the postal service is the federal offense of mail fraud.)

This scam is especially aimed at the trusting, the electronic novice, and those who are older. What should you do if you receive such an email?

First, don’t click on any links. That opens the trap door to your private information vault.

Second, contact the Internal Revenue Service. If you think money is due you, call them (1-800-829-1040) and talk to someone directly. In addition, forward the email to the email fraud division of the IRS. They will investigate.

Pay what is due the government, use what is yours to use, but do not let the criminals continue their electronic crime spree.

Life is a collision of urgencies grabbing you by the collar demanding your attention. After a while, in boxes are stuffed and to-do lists that resemble a train derailment leave your nerves on their last fray.

It’s time to get some rest.

Recently, I took some time off to see my daughter and son-in-law in North Carolina. We could fly but chose to drive. The mountain scenery is a break from the flat-land terrain of Dallas, Texas. More important, it provides me and my wife time to talk without interruption.

In Genesis 1, it said that on the seventh day of creation, God rested. The strange word in Hebrew means “to settle to earth.” Like the leaf that has expended its energy of summer, fall brings a time to snap free of a branch and fall to earth. The tree then regenerates for the next season.

Too many times, we don’t take the time to let is all “settle.” Rest and vacations allows us to see what remains and if it is important.

What does it take to let is all “settle?”

Get unplugged. In a digital society, the smart phone is our short leash. Just because it rings or because a text message comes in does not mean it is urgent. While I do check email and provide 1 minute answers once a day on breaks, I don’t indulge the nag of technology. Whatever happens (outside of a family emergency) can wait or can be handled by my assistant.

Have fun. One thing vacations do for me is gives me a chance to read books that tend to get shuffled to the bottom of my deck. I read biographies, novels, and magazines. Your fun my be white-water rafting or playing cards. Whatever it is, take time just to let the muscles of your face flip into smile.

Have adventures. Different things recharge the mind when drained by the daily drill. On this last trip we had to take a different route due to a rock slide in the mountains. It meant we had to pay attention to routes and look at different places that I never knew existed. Go to museums, baseball games, and out of the way places. The diversion shakes loose the cobwebs.

Get perspective. The adage about the forest and the trees is true. We get caught up in the immediate that we don’t see the important. Rest times provide the time to examine what’s most important, what can be jettisoned, and what should be treasured. Without the time, we get spiritual myopia.

Someone has said that what makes music enjoyable is not the notes, but the pauses between the notes. Take time to listen to the pauses.

What do you need to do to let life settle?