digital attitude

Disaster Project Management: Emergency Leadership

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

There is no greater pressure than life-or-death situations. Hurricane Harvey just left and, as I type this, Hurricane Irma is pounding and ripping up the eastern side of the US.  On top of that, with today being September 11, I cannot forget the incredible terror attacks on the Pentagon and Twin Towers, which changed my heart and my thoughts on what it means to lead in a disaster forever.

Aerial view of damage at the Pentagon 2 days after the attack in 2001 (Picture: Cedric H. Rudisill)

Emergency leadership requires a person to take immediate action. There isn’t a lot of time to figure out best practices or analyze the situation for an optimum solution. In an emergency, leaders must show confidence, take charge, communicate what needs to get done, and delegate with authority, all while appearing calmly to really know what to do (when they may not).  It is about making the best choices, at that time, for that situation and being able to communicate them clearly.

Leaders in a crisis are the people that are able to make decisions quickly for the benefit of everyone. They know that setting priorities (do this first, then this, then that) and making hard choices (ignore that and do this), can make all the difference between getting stuff done and things getting out of control.

Emergency leadership also requires a ‘steady hand at the helm.’ You need to put any extremes of emotion aside and focus on the tasks to be done. Your ability to stay calm under pressure gives the confidence to others to follow your example. The more you can rise above the clamor and chaos, the more you will be able to rally the teams needed and get people moving in the right direction.

Neighbors removing downed trees in Jacksonville, Florida. September 11, 2017 (Picture: Johnny Milano for The New York Times)

Stay calm, stay focused on the goal, and find a way to stay positive. As a Leader, your mental attitude goes a long way to demonstrate to others that together you can all get through this crisis.

There are always stressors and pressures in life, as in business. Hopefully, few of us will find ourselves having to lead others through high water and downed power lines.  But, by being prepared for the potential of Emergency Leadership one day, you can rise to the situation better equipped and more able to make order from chaos.

Disaster Project Management: 5 Important Steps

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

Lately, no matter where you turn, there are natural disasters, man-made chaos, and just plain craziness going on worldwide. No one can manage chaos. But what you can do is prepare yourself and others to handle complex and critical situations.

The Washington Post via Getty Images: Kingwood, Texas August 29, 2017

Hurricane Harvey and the South Asia floods showed us 2 examples of the need for leadership, preparation, and organization. Every person on the planet, and especially every project manager, should have a plan in place for how they are going to deal with critical situations.

Though you may have never experienced this type of chaos before, whether in business or in your personal life, everything you have ever learned has prepared you for this moment in time. Of course, a late product delivery is in no way a match to the enormity of 500-year flood, but the same management principles apply.

  1. Put competent people in critical positions. When the world is falling apart, you need to place people around you whom you trust, who can be honest and give you straightforward feedback. This is not the time for politics.
  2. Leverage your team.  Delegation is key. It would be great if your team knew the mission before hand so that everyone could pull together for the same goal (hence why local rescue teams stage emergency drills), but that is not always possible. So, level set your team as soon as you can. And make sure that you listen to your team and trust their capabilities. One person cannot handle disaster recovery alone.
  3. Efficiency is critical. Crash the schedule down to its critical path and make sure everything the team is focused on is relevant to the outcome. In times of urgency, even the smallest waste is a hindrance.
  4. Check your EGO at the door. Good leaders need good relationships – across teams, with other departments, agencies, companies, vendors. This is not a time for chest bounding. It is best if you develop relationships before you need them in a crisis, but if you can only do it now, be humble and you will get more cooperation from others.
  5. Be physically and mentally prepared.  As the leader, making sure that your body and mind are in the best shape, at all times, gives you the edge when difficult situations arise. We all handle situations better when we are rested and in tune with ourselves.

One thing is for certain, at some point you will be faced with a critical situation and you may never know when or where it came from. It is our job as project managers to mobilize and lead the way out of the trouble waters. These 5 steps are just the beginning, but if you get no further, at least you can get stable.

My prayers are with the victims of the most recent catastrophic events. May you have good managers leading you and a resilient attitude.

 

4 Things To Get A 25th Hour In Your Day

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

How many times have you said, “I just wish I had more time for …?” With global business buzzing by in nanoseconds and a world of information in your phone, having time to get everything done seems more and more elusive.

At one point in my life, I let time win. Between my more than full-time job, a second job teaching at night, family, pets, my two blogs, and other business activities, time owned me. There was never enough of it and I always felt defeated by it.  As the days/months/years were slipping past, I felt stressed and on the road to burnout.

That is when I started applying the same time management principals that I use on business projects to my life. In a project, getting stuff done isn’t about time, it is about planning and priorities. It’s about making choices.

If something is important to you, be honest, you find the time to do it.

If your kid is in a sports game, you find the time to be there. You put it on your calendar and you make it a priority.

If your favorite band is in town, you are there. You buy the tickets as soon as they come online, you put it on your calendar, you make it a priority.

People are able to find the time to do things that are important to them when they choose to make ‘that moment’ a priority. We are constantly making choices (though not always easy ones) about how we spend our precious time.  And true, there is never ENOUGH time in the day to do every single thing we have on our list, some things have to go because time is about making choices as to what is important to you.

Change the conversation in your head.

By changing how you speak about time you can change how you manage it. Start looking at time in terms of your priorities instead of the minutes that a task takes. Priorities are choices and choices are manageable.

According to Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman, words can literally change your brain. I challenge you to change the phrase “I don’t have time” to “it is not a priority to me.” (This idea came from an article titled “Are You As Busy As You Think” by Laura Vanderkam, The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2012)

Try these phrases out loud:

“I would love to help you write that proposal, but I can’t BECAUSE WINNING NEW BUSINESS IS NOT A PRIORITY TO ME.”

“I would really like to help you with that school project, but I can’t BECAUSE YOUR EDUCATION IS NOT A PRIORITY TO ME.”

“I would really like to go to the gym to work out, but I can’t BECAUSE MY HEALTH IS NOT A PRIORITY TO ME.”

If this is starting to feel a little uncomfortable, I understand. Changing your internal language in this way shows you what you make truly important in your life and sometimes that is hard to look at. This language shift shows you what you are willing to place on top of your limited time resource list and the result may surprise you.

Everything cannot be important at the same time, so your job is to determine what really is your priority so that you can action that time appropriately. (Note: I am NOT suggesting that you say this phrase, “because X is not my priority,” out loud to other people – that would be rude and may get you fired or divorced.)

Get Control of Your Time

1. Know where your time goes by keeping a time log.

The first step to managing anything is to understand what you are trying to manage. Do you know how you spend your 168 hours per week? (That is what we all get, no more, no less.)

  • Track – Over the next few days (a week would be great) track your time in 30-minute blocks (or as often as you can). How much time do you spend on business tasks (and what are they), eating, watching TV, Facebook, you get the idea? The more you track the better your ability to make wise time choices.
  • Be honest – If you Tweet 5 times a day at 5 minutes each time, that adds up. The more honest you can be with yourself, the better handle you will have on the positive and negative uses of your time. (No one is going to see this but you, so why not be real?)
  • Evaluate – Group your activities so that you can see those things that you are doing repeatedly or that are wasting your time. Time wasters are things like unnecessary social media activity, talky people who wander into your office, inefficient workflows, etc. I look at the ‘must-do’ vs the ‘want to do’ when I review my list.
  • Fix – Once you identify the time wasters, you can reduce and maybe even entirely get rid of them. (Tip: I set a timer for 15 minutes when I open Facebook otherwise I can get lost in cute puppies and high school classmates.)

2. Change how you speak about time

I challenge you for the next week to erase the phrase “I don’t have time” from your vocabulary. Replace it with “it’s not a priority.” Then after that week, move on to step 3.

3. Order your priorities

Take the time log from step 1 and put the activities into an order of importance for that day. Did you spend time on activities that got you to your business or personal goals? Did you get distracted or waste time doing a task someone else could have done? This is the hard part – what really was important to you in that day? If spending time with your family was important, then why were you wasting time on Snapchat? If you had a work deadline, what did you have to ‘not do’ to get it done and was the ‘not do’ something that was important to you? Again, priorities are about choices and making the best choices for you, in the day, with the time that you have.

4. Schedule your time to make more time.

Now you should be ready to schedule your future priorities into your daily calendar. Don’t just schedule work meetings. Make sure to include social media time, family time, doctor’s appointments, and the gym. Once you start ‘owning’ your schedule based on priorities, you will find that your time will become more manageable. (I schedule walking my 3 dogs for 45 minutes every day, 365 days a year. If I don’t they will make sure I know they are important by acting out.)

Whether you use Google, Outlook, or a paper DayTimer, make sure to carve out blocks in your day/week to accomplish what is important to you. If you don’t schedule things, then you can’t complain that you don’t have time for them – you did not give them any importance.

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Personal time management is not a once and done task. We all slip and get lost in time wasters every now and then, and our priorities are always changing. This is the time management process that works for me and helped me find the 25th hour in my day. Let me know what works for you… if you have the time.

5 Ways To Get Your MOOC On

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

People love acronyms and one of the newest one in the learning industry is MOOC.  What is a MOOC you ask?  Maybe this illustration can help:

MOOC_poster_mathplourde

Image: “MOOC poster mathplourde” by Mathieu Plourde

The internet is an incredible vehicle for teaching and learning.  Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs, became popular about two years ago when colleges and universities realized the potential of this creative way to reach a lot of students at once. A MOOC basically is a course online that is open to many people at the same time.. Originally they were free and no-credit courses, but that has been changing.  There are all kinds of courses now available on the internet, from Chemistry to Pottery, and most of the top educational organizations in the world are developing them.  Sooner or later, you probably will take a MOOC.

Online education can be a real win for many students, especially those that can’t get to a classroom, but (based on the statistics that I am seeing), this type of learning has its challenges. According to research done by Shanna Smith Jaggars, Assistant Director of Columbia University’s Community College Research Center, 32% of students failed or withdrew from for-credit online courses (compared with 19% for equivalent in-person courses) 1 and, according to educational researcher Katy Jordan, MOOCs have generated 50,000 enrollments on average but with a completion rate below 10%. 2  Reading those statistics got me to thinking about how to help students do better (and maybe want to complete the course).

Here are my five suggestions on how to be successful when taking a MOOC:

1.  Practice Good Time Management

Knowing how to manage your time is critical when it comes to online learning.  It is just to easy to do everything else before you sit down to do your course work.  Everyday physical demands, like work, family, and community obligations, can get in the way of virtual activities.  To better manage your time you need to:

  • Understand the syllabus of the class and when assignments are due. (I actually print it out and put it in the front of my notebook – and yes, I take notes).
  • Add assignment due dates to your everyday calendar.  You need to make sure you allow yourself enough time to get the work done.
  • Make a ‘to-do’ list daily and make sure some MOOC activity is in there, every day.

2. Manage Your Work Environment

womanatdeskYour physical space is a critical factor of success when working online. A good study environment without distractions is essential to any student’s success but especially an online student.

  • Build a quiet space. Make sure that you have a private and quiet space to get your work done.  If you have kids, they should be somewhere else and pets should be walked before you sit down to work.
  • Build a functional space.  Make sure that the lighting in your space is sufficient and that you pay attention to the ergonomics of your computer/chair/screen/keyboard for maximum comfort.
  • Turn off your phone.  Make sure that people know you are taking a class between the hours of X and Y, so they leave you alone.
  • Turn off the TV and avoid games.  Control temptations by removing them from your reach during study time.  You might even consider uninstalling computer games if you find yourself playing “solitaire” instead of studying.
  • Shut down your browser (except for the class, of course).  It is easy to get lost on the internet, so make sure that you have no tabs open other than the class.  You can check Facebook later, when you are not in school.

3. Commitment and Motivation

Like with all schooling, the motivation and commitment to attend to what needs to be done to succeed is important.  But with online classes it may be the biggest success factor of all.  Unlike a class room course where you are surrounded by your peers and an instructor that can give immediate support, online students must figure a lot of things out on their own.  You have to be your own technical guru, know when to ask questions and how, do your online classwork every day no matter what, and keep working through stumbling blocks that come up.

  • Be committed to the process and understand what you want from the course.  What is your MOTIVATION?  There are many reasons to take classes, make sure that you have the willingness to succeed.
  • Understand how the classroom software works, especially when it comes to asking questions and requesting help.
  • Log in every day and make progress on your course, even if it is just a bit.  Students that do the best in online learning are those that make daily progress.
  • Persevere through the technical and other challenges that the online learning environment may pose to you.  Just keep at it.

4. Communications Skills

32661230When you are learning in an online environment, your written communication skills and reading ability are extremely valuable. It is up to the student to communicate their needs in writing almost exclusively because in online classes you are rarely seen or heard.  Unlike a physical class, the virtual world does not allow for non-verbal cues to tell the teacher that you don’t understand something, it will be up to you to ask, in writing.  Also, make sure that you are ready for a great deal of screen reading, though there may be some hard copy books as well.

  • Understand how the teacher and staff want to be communicated with.  Usually, online instructors allow for multiple ways to reach them. There should be instructions in the beginning of any course detailing things like when to email, what the instructor and teaching assistant’s office hours are, how to join discussion groups, team chat rooms, etc. By following the instructions and using the tools provided by the course, you will have the easiest time communicating with the staff.
  • Use your best business like communication style.  Unless told otherwise, the informal style of text messages and chats is not very effective when working with teachers and staff online. The more you can write in full sentences in a courteous tone, the better received your communication will be.  Even if you are frustrated or angry about something, remember that the teachers and staff at the other end of your communication deserve to be treated as the professionals.

5. Technical Understanding

You don’t need to be a geek to take a MOOC, but you do need to know your way around your computer and the software that the course is given in.

  • Take the course orientation on how to use the learning system, if one is offered.
  • Make sure the equipment you are working on meets the hardware and software requirements stated by the course.  If it does not you will want to fix your technical issues before you ever get started.
  • Make sure you are familiar with a few of the standard tools used in MOOCs: word processing software, spreadsheets, browsers (specifically how to get to places on the internet and how to download information).

 Have you taken a MOOC yet?  What worked for you?

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Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

 

 

 

Lorian’s Social Connections

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

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Website: http://www.digitalattitudellc.com

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References

Image 1: “MOOC poster mathplourde” by Mathieu Plourde {(Mathplourde on Flickr) – http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathplourde/8620174342/sizes/l/in/photostream/. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MOOC_poster_mathplourde.jpg#mediaviewer/File:MOOC_poster_mathplourde.jpg

1. http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/presentation/moocs-unbundling-implications.html

2. http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html

3 Spring Training Tips For Business Coaches

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

Coaching-Cloud-Image

It is great to see all the coaches out there with the kids on the fields now that it is spring in the east.  All the little sweaty people running back and forth trying to build up stamina for the big game to come.  Drills and drills and laps and more drills. Practice, practice, practice.  It made me think about my role as a leader and how I coach other people to their personal best.

The word ‘coach’ brings to mind sports heros like, Knute Rockne and Vince Lombardi.  And, when I think of a sports coach, I think of someone who is focused on one thing: winning.  Even though the great coaches care about the players, everything they are doing is to drive the team to the win at the end of the game.  Vince Lombardi, Head Coach of the Green Bay Packers, said “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all-the-time thing.”  He accepted nothing less than first place and said that second place was the ‘first loser.’

Here is an example of the most driven coach in history:

I learned a great deal studying sports coaches, and one of those things is that organizational coaching is completely different.  The goal for organizational coaching is about the individual and what they learn through the process. “Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.” (John Whitmore, Coaching for Performance).  There is a lot to be learned from the sports analogy but in the workplace, coaching is about the relationship between me and the person I am coaching.  There are several things that are important from my side as the coach:

coaching-e13078629095151.  I must be fully engaged with the process and make sure that I am pushing my protege in such a way as to get them to be moving forward.  Too many times people wait until the other person brings them problems.  When I coach, I set up an agreement with the protege upfront and have defined things that s/he is working on.  This relationship is about challenging the other person to improve, to develop new skills or new capabilities.  The responsibility to figure out how to get them going sits with me.

2.  I must be an active listener and come prepared with the right questions to engage the protege.  Sometimes it is hard with all the distractions around, especially when 90% of my coaching is over the phone and on-line, but the other person deserves my undivided attention.  If I am not paying attention, then why am I doing this and who is it benefiting.  I make sure to block off sufficient time in my calendar to focus on the protege and the challenge.

3.  Coaching for me is also about providing guidance that the other person could not get on their own (or at least not easily). I am here to teach them to fish, not to fish for them.  My goal is to provide my protege with tools that they can use going forward that will enhance their abilities, help them make decisions and solve problems, so that over time, they can be self sustaining.

Do you Coach? Do you have a Coach?  If you could only give one piece of advice to your next protege, what would it be?

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Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDigitalAttitude

 

Free PDU’s @ International Project Management Day

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

I just got back from a great meeting with International Institute for Learning in New York City.  They are a global leader in training, coaching and customized course development.  On November 7, 2013 they will be holding a free full day event for INTERNATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT DAY.

iil

Register for free  (how easy is that!!!!)

You can earn free PDU’s if you are a PMI PMP –  but more importantly, there is an impressive group of really good speakers and sessions.

animationfinalSee you there.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDigitalAttitude

6 Ways Not To Get Your Résumé Rejected

/ Lorian Lipton / 2 Comments

Clipart Illustration of a Group Of Businessmen In Colorful Shirts, Carrying Briefcases And Holding Their Resumes Up At A Job InterviewThe days are over when you can just type up your resume, fill it with wonderful words about the great things you did in the past, and expect that you will sail into an interview.  Today we have to do things differently to even get it through to a human.

I have learned a great deal about resumes lately, so I thought I would share some stuff with you and I hope you will share some back with me:

1.  Target the content of your resume sections toward the position you want.  I know that you have probably heard this a ton of times, but it is becoming increasing important, in a tight job market, to ensure that you highlight the skills and experience that are relevant to the position requirements, so that the reader does not have to go fishing for them.  You need to really pay attention to detail here and pull out the stuff that will help the reviewer understand that you have what they need.  If you are applying for a programming position, for instance, you might want to give more space to the experience you gained writing code three years ago on a small project than to your most recent assignment, which may not be totally relevant, like say you were a research assistant.  Give the relevant stuff more room.

2. Write your summary last.  Make sure that everything in your resume works in support of the theme that you are trying to get across (If you want to get a job as a Web Designer – all info should focus on things that support that field).  Then in the summary, pull out the things that are really going to capture people’s attention and make them want to read more.  Sometimes, the summary is all you will get – make it worth it!

3.  Value, value, value.  Employers want to know what you did for someone else to help assess what you are going to do for them.  So instead of saying something like, “developed quality review process for XYZ company,” you might want to let them know that you, “developed quality checklists and analytics in Excel and rolled out 10 offices in 4 months, improving defect tracking by 80%.”  Results, results, results.  Don’t have any?  Pull out your old performance appraisals (hopefully you have some good ones in there) and see what you used for measurements on the job.  You need to talk in numbers, percentage, something quantitative.

4.  Keywords are key.  Your resume (your LinkedIn profile and almost everything these days) is being searched for keywords. The game is how many matches your resume generates in relation to the job you applied for or want. So make sure to look at the job description and have exact words, even exact phrases, in your resume, that match what the company asked for.  If the job you are applying for wants a Project Management Professional (PMP) with 5 years experience,  then make sure that is in there.  This is not about making up details, this is about showing your background in the most ‘matching’ way that you can.  The more words that match, the more likely you will pass the initial screening, and that ultimately improves the possibility of getting an interview.  If you don’t match the requirements, save yourself the pain and don’t apply.

5.  Grammar and spelling counts.  It just takes one typographical error to have your resume thrown out.  If you are not going to pay attention to this critical document, what are you going to do when you work for me?  Spellcheck, proofread, give it to your friends, don’t send it out until you have made sure you have it perfect.  You really don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

6.  Get rid of the irrelevant and the ridiculous. Are you still using your original AOL screen name for business contacts:  HotMammaJamma@AOL.com ?   I highly recommend you get yourself a professional handle and move onto a server that shows you are up with the current times.  Yourname@gmail.com might be a little bit more grown up, don’t you think?  And, what about your profile picture?  Are you showing your best side?  Do you know what a perspective employer is going to see on your Facebook ?  Make sure you know what you look like out there in cyberspace (and keep your private settings PRIVATE).

Oh, yes, and one more thing you don’t need: none business details.  Just hold them for the interview (maybe), but don’t waste space on the resume.

why-resumes-are-rejected

What tips have you learned about resumes in today’s world?

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Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

(All the Social Butterfly’s views are her own)

Related articles

OMG!! You Want Me to Open What?

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

Oh My Goodness!  Many Project Managers are cringing when I talk about their teams being more open and transparent and leveraging social technologies. Has everything we know about project communications changed?  I think I finally understand why they worry, but let me assure you, a good communications strategy is still a key to project success, you just need to tweak it a little.

Fear

I know that it may feel like trying to manage projects with transparent and open communications is the antithesis of everything that we were ever taught as project managers about communications.  Being open just feels risky (kind of like buying something off of Craig’s List and meeting the person in an abandon building).

The principles of social collaboration seem to challenge all the conventional ideas that we have as PMs for project communications. Traditional guidance on project communications tells us that one of it’s main principles, is identifying what information is to be shared, when it should be distributed, to whom, and how it should be prepared.  How do you control communications in the open?

Yes, social collaboration means that the team, and maybe even the client, might have access to the non-confidential information about the project that is being worked on.  But, there is a tremendous benefit to working project details out in the open.  This allows the team to participate, collaborate, and react in a just-in-time way.  As PMs we need to embrace the fast-moving business environment that we work in, harness the reality of the current technologies we deploy, and leverage the globalization of our project teams.

What Transparency Means

Our communications job as Project Leaders is to ensure the team and the stakeholders have current information (status) on what, where, and when.  Being transparent, in the project context, means having an open and honest dialogue on the current state of your project.  Many projects run behind and even fail, because teams don’t want to tell each other, or the customer, the truth about scope creep, schedule slippage, resource challenges.  But, that is the reality of the project and once the team can embrace being real, all the time, in real-time, magic happens.  Being transparent is not about getting positive or negative feedback on an item, it is about disseminating information quickly so that all players can digest it, discuss it,  and react to it.  Some examples of transparent communications are:
communications 2

  • Open planning sessions to discussion and gather new ideas
  • Show milestones so everyone knows where you are going and can comment on their parts
  • Open discussions about issues; ask the team to comment regardless of if they are part of that subteam or not (solutions come from many places)
  • Show schedule and dependencies and let others own their commitments instead of being bottle necked by the PMs weekly status round-up.
  • Open your status meetings and let the extended team comment. Status now becomes ubiquitous.  There is no longer a need for lengthy status reports because it is up-to-date all the time. (Gee, I love this as a PM because it sure makes my reporting easier.)

Business today is very agile and the old top-down communications models don’t always work anymore.  The new social technologies allow teams to provide a continuous loop of feedback and ideas at the speed never before possible.  This transparent feedback loop can help a project manager, or the executives of a company,  make quicker course corrections, which means better response time to customer requirements or industry changes.

Recently, I was moderating the webcast of a global panel on Social Project Management (with 4 speakers and over 700 participants) for IBM. With only 4 weeks to put it together, all the planning, scheduling details, resource needs, were coordinated through a Lotus Connections Community.  Everyone knew what was going on, what was needed, who needed what, when, and even, how we did after the event.  Though the panelists sat in different countries throughout the world, that caused no problems because everyone checked in and chimed it, at their convenience. Issues were handled immediately (like people dropping out, or equipment not arriving).  And, except for one conference call before the event (yes, I still hang on to some old school needs like making sure people are not robots – LOL), everything was discussed, resolved, and documented in our open space.  We had a 98% participation satisfaction rating.  I know this wasn’t a big project example, but I wanted to give you a flavor of how it works.

Just try it on a small subproject first.  Let me know how it goes.

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Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

Facebook: http://facebook.com/TheDigitalAttitude

(All the Social Butterfly’s views are her own)

Self-Doubt? Get Over It!

/ Lorian Lipton / 5 Comments

lipsLately I am feeling a little handcuffed by my self-doubt.  I know that I learned a lot of lessons over the years and have a lot to share, but I have this nagging voice in my head filling me with worry.  I am a successful person, but I have also had my share of failures.  What is it that makes the negative voice loud and the positive voice quiet now that I have been laid off?   Why is it that I keep thinking about all the things that could go wrong?

  • Will people actually buy services directly from me instead of a big corporation?
  • Will people respond well to what I write on the blogs?
  • How embarrassed will I be if I can’t get any clients?
  • What will I say to the critics that I know will come forward when I put my thoughts out on the internet?
  • Who do I think I am to advise people on their programs and business anyway?

The self-doubt tape keeps running through my head.  It is like a soft wave eroding my sandy beach of confidence.  I have always held myself to very high standards.  Is that the problem?  I know that there are always set-backs in any career, but for some reason, my self-confidence is being shaken by the negative messages.  Old tapes seem to be getting in the way of my focusing on the positive ones to help me move forward.

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What I realize is that most of my fears are related to what (I think) other people think, about me.  Though I have tried to change, I am very sensitive to what people feel (empathetic, I think they call it).  I am driven by my need for people’s approval.  (Read my post on Self Worth Starts With These 5 Steps).   And, I think this is getting in my way of reinventing myself.

Dr. Tom Muha, a practicing psychologist and writer in Annapolis, Maryland, says negative self-talk like this “exemplified how people keep themselves from making meaningful contributions.”  He goes on to say that people “allow a toxic combination of self-criticism and comparisons to others to prevent them from taking a risk and putting their creative offerings into the public eye.”  (The Capital Newspaper, Sunday, August 4, 2013)

Everything I am reading and finding on the internet says that I just have to jump in with both feet and give up this self-doubt.  You can’t win the game, if you never even play.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”     ―     Theodore Roosevelt

When I think about it, I have been in the game for years.  Why does the fact that the audience has changed (no longer the corporate family) bring up so much fear and trepidation?  As an innovator and thought leader in Project Management and Learning Solutions, I had many of my ideas criticized and even shot down over the years at IBM.  It never stopped me before from finding new ways to get the job done.  What makes this any different?  What makes being outside the corporate structure so scary?  Criticism stings and it may set me back (it may even feel overwhelming at times), but not moving forward because of the fear would be the saddest thing I could do.

Are you dealing with self-doubt?  How are you getting through it?

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Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDigital

(All the Social Butterfly’s views are her own)