It is said we are now living in the greatest time for growth and opportunity. Businesses and organizations now have the ability to be more innovative and creative in the products and services they offer their clients. Looking at the “newer” businesses that emerged over the last 5 years, we see products and service tailored to meet customer’s needs. Along with this, the rapid growth of social media has enabled businesses and organizations to build relationships with their customers, allowing them to tap into a wealth of consumer knowledge that they never had access to before.
However, even with this new industrial technology revolution driving our world, many professionals find themselves buried under emails, running from one meeting to another, and having 60 hours of work to do on their desk at any given time. When they finally get to go home, many employees are just happy it’s the end of the day. In fact, technologies in most businesses and organizations “manage” people, and not the other way around.
In order for any organization to become high performing, it first needs to manage technology. If creating a high-level performing culture is your goal, there are some things you can start doing immediately.
1) Block time for email.
You may have heard this one before, but it’s worth repeating, since most of us struggle to do this. Set time aside in the morning, noon and afternoon to check and respond to email. This might be hard to do at first, but if you do this, you are eliminating the constant distraction of checking emails every 10 minutes and being constantly unfocused. You might even be surprised how fast your quality of work improves along with your turnaround time for getting things done.
2) Reduce the surfing.
I have not known too many people whose job it was to surf the net throughout their already busy day. Sure, there are times when you need to go online and look something up or conduct some research. However, when you are surfing just for the sake of surfing, it may be because you are trying to avoid a task that is not too thrilling or exciting. This type of distraction has a twofold impact on performance: it reduces your focus on what you are doing, and it greatly reduces your motivation.
3) Check your smartphone at the door.
It is amazing how many people are always checking their smartphones during meetings or while on a conference call, thinking they might miss some important email or text message, when in fact they are missing key information that is being presented or talked about during these meetings.
Do you ever wonder why there are so many follow-up emails after meetings? People in fact have now become so distracted during meetings, they are actually causing more emails to end up in their inbox, as they need more clarification on what was actually said during those meetings.
The smart use of technology is a key factor for any high-performing organization or business with goals to be innovative, efficient and profitable. Organizations and businesses who have learned to manage the use of technology strategically are already well on their way to creating high-performing cultures.
Turn Your Knowledge into Action
1) Determine a way people and teams in your organization can manage the use of technology better in order to improve performance.
2) Take one action this week to ensure technology is not managing you.
NEXT STEP
If you would like to learn more about how I can assist your organization in elevating their performance, please contact me at 416-429-1247 or email at paul@actusperformance.com.
All the best in achieving your highest performance.
Paul
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net