Avoiding Work-Related Burnout

Work-related burnout is a silent killer in the workplace. It is believed to have caused serious long term health problems such as heart disease, hypertension, ulcer and cancer.

What is a burnout? It is basically the physical and mental conditions that are characterized by tiredness, lack of focus, low desire to work and others. If left untreated, burnout can cause serious health problems mentioned above.

Causes of work related burnout include relationship problem with colleagues, overwork, lack of resources, financial problems, poor health  and many others.

How to avoid workplace burnout? Maybe you can try some of the tips below;

1. Be a better communicator at work. Most of problems at work are caused by misunderstanding. Learn to 'read' people better, a good listener and polish your skills to ask quality decisions.

2. Build good work relationship. We spend most of our day time at work the entire week. Having good work relationship will help us to feel appreciated, cared for and loved. These are strong emotions that can be great motivators and killers of work related burnout.

3. Manage time effectively. Multi-tasking is a common thing today. So, on a weekly or daily basis, plan how you will use your time, taking into account not only work related activities but time for families, God, personal development and hobbies.

4. Exercise regularly. One of the best ways to beat work-related burnout is by being physically fit. Activities such as brisk walk, jogging, swimming or cycling 3 times a week will do wonders to your body and guard you against burnout at work.

5. Nurture your spiritual growth. Humans that live for something bigger than themselves normally can withstand many challenges in life. They are found to be more positive thinking, disciplined and motivated. If you feel the symptoms of burnout, maybe now is the time for you to go to that spiritual retreat than you have planned but postponed many times before.  

Slaying The Procrastination Giant

Procrastination or delaying tasks that are supposed to do now is one of the greatest thieves of time and the enemy of productivity. Millions of hours are lost daily (not to mention personal productivity) due to procrastination.

I once read that everybody procrastinates. The issue is whether we procrastinate 'productively or not'. If we procrastinate or delaying doing things that are not productive such as gossiping, updating our facebook or other similar tasks, then we are practicing productive procrastination. The opposite is also true.

What strategies can we use to slay this giant called procrastination? Maybe the next time you stare at your 'To-do List' and start to think of delaying completing them, try some suggestions below;

1. Just Do It. Most of us procrastinate because we want to get 'that feeling' or sudden rush of motivation to complete our tasks. Unfortunately, most of the time, it will not happen. It's like waiting for a bus that never comes. Rather than waiting to get the right feeling, why not start doing it first regardless of how we feel? Normally, after we complete 1 or 2 tasks, that feeling of wanting to complete more tasks start to kick in. Psychologists called this feeling 'flow'. Once we are in 'flow', we will be on an automatic mode to complete them so much so that we forget about time and maybe that cup of coffee too.

2. Eat That Elephant. How to eat a 1-ton elephant? One bite at a time. A great way to beat procrastination is to divide our tasks into smaller ones and tackle them 'one bite at a time'. Usually, we get motivated or excited after we completed smaller tasks and crossed them from out 'to-do list'.

3. Make Them Visible. Use visual boards, white board or personal calendar to list down all the tasks that we want to complete. Better still if we can write them in bold red letters. This will unconsciously create a sense of urgency to complete the tasks on time.

4. Make Them Easy & Within Reach. Say you have been procrastinating to exercise. One way to beat this, according to experts, is to make it easy for you to decide to exercise. How to do this? Well, for a start, you can put your exercise attire, shoes etc on your living room table. The moment you reach home, it is much easier for you to decide to exercise than if you were to look for your attire in your closet and your shoes in the shoe rack. The same goes for other tasks either at home or in the office.

5. Use Your Reminder. Set your smartphone alarm or other apps to remind you to start doing your tasks. Like most others, I made lots of excuses not to make cold calls to prospects. However, I beat this problem by setting my phone alarm at a certain time on weekdays to remind me to call my prospects. After a while, it has become a habit.

So the next time the giant 'procrastination' stares you on the face and tempts you to postpone completing  your tasks, remember to apply the above strategies to beat him and you are well on your way to a more productive team player in your organization.            

The Power Of 1-Minute Praise

All of us long to be praised for a job well done whether we want to admit it or not. Sincere praise has the power to boost morale, motivate employees and increase productivity.

However, how often do we receive and give sincere praise to others? In my training workshops, most participants lamented that when their bosses call them, most of the time it is because the bosses want to reprimand them. 

Even though giving negative feedback do improve productivity if done correctly, it has to be balanced with sincere praise as well.

Giving sincere praise for a job well done doesn't have to take too long. From my experience, most of the time it will only take 1 minute or so. How to give a powerful 1-minute praise that can make the morale shoot through the roof? 

Three simple steps in the form of the acronym BIT will help you the next time you want to give a 1-minute praise to your team members.

Behavior : State the positive behavior that you observed your team member has performed. Be specific as much as you can. For example, you can say something like this ; "Steve, I really liked the way you handle that phone call with our client Mr Smith. You were respectful and polite even though Mr Smith was angry and raised his voice at that time."    

Impact : Next, explain the positive impact or outcome of his behavior that you have observed. Your conversation can go like this ; "Because you were respectful and polite, we are able to keep Mr Smith as our client". 

Thank you : Lastly, end your 1-minute praise by giving sincere appreciation and thank him for a job well done. You can close your conversation similar to this ; "I really appreciate your effort and would like to thank you for a job well done. Thank you." 

These three steps will help you to give sincere, morale-boosting 1 minute praise in a more structured and well-organized way. Try it today and get ready to see the positive changes in your team members. 

Making The First 30 Seconds A Life Changing Experience.

What can 30 seconds of interaction with other people do to your career and life? Apparently a lot, according to many studies done in the US. 

People unconsciously decide whether to like or dislike us within the first 30 seconds. Just think of the many opportunities we missed be them career advancement, new jobs and even business opportunities because we fail to make a great first impression within the first 30 seconds.

Below are four practical things that we can do to make our first 30 seconds contact a life changing one. 

Firstly, we need to smile. Nothing is more contagious than a genuine smile. My friend used to say that a smile opens up a thousand doors. A smile is a universal language of acceptance and rapport. The key here is genuine smile. People will know it if we fake a smile. How to create a genuine smile? Create the feeling in our heart and project it on our face. Then let go and let that smile flies away.

Next we need to have good eye contact. As they say, the eye is the window to the soul. Giving the other person good eye contact is a sign of respect and telling him "I am paying attention to you and only you". Just be careful not to stare at the person for too long (especially if he or she is of the opposite gender).

Thirdly, offer a handshake. In the old days, a handshake is a sign that you don't have ill intention towards the other party. During time of war, a handshake ie holding the other person hands with open palm are signals that they don't have hidden weapons. Today, a good handshake is a sign of trust. In some culture, a handshake is a binding contract.

Lastly, greet the other person appropriately. Greetings are the appetizer that opens up conversations. Although different cultures have their own way of greeting people, 'universal greetings' such as 'Good morning, Good afternoon, Good evening etc' are pleasantries that can open up countless possibilities.

So the next time you meet someone be in in a formal interview, on a bus or in a plane, follow the four steps above to create 30 seconds of contact that may change your life. Who knows where that 30 seconds might lead you?        

Making your Speeches Memorable

How can we make people remember and understand the points that we are trying to make in our speeches? Some speakers keep on rambling points after points without clear explanation, examples or elaborations. Others keep on telling stories one after another that finally make the audience go into 'screen saver mode'.

You can avoid all the above if you use the 4As below to spice, color and anchor your speeches for better retention and understanding;

Anecdotes - Anecdotes are short stories that help to explain your key points. Use wisely, it will keep your audience entertained, More importantly, it will help you to illustrate the point better and clearer. Just make sure that the story is short (2-3 minutes), simple and without any complicated plots. Then, tie up the story with the point that you want to deliver.

Analogy - Analogy uses the concept of prior knowledge of the audience to explain your ideas. For example, if you are talking about financial savings, then you can use the analogy of planting a tree and watching it grows to illustrate the concept of growing one's assets. One caveat to this idea is to use simple analogy that all of your audience can follow and understand.

Activity - Short and content-relevant activity is another powerful tool to explain a point. The classic activity to teach the audience about resistance to change is the 'arm folding' activity. To make it more impactful, debriefing is a must at the end of every activity. One key point to remember is to keep it sort ie 2-3 minutes.

Acronym - Acronym is another attention grabber that help to hammer your points to your ideas. For motivational speeches to youths and students, I use the acronym DREAM to illustrate and explain my points. Just ensure that your acronym is not too long ie less than 9 letters as audience will have problems remembering them if it is too long.            

Traffic Light Technique to Manage Stress

Exposure to prolonged high level of stress can damage our health, lower productivity and affect relationships. One of the fact that we need to accept is that, as long as we are still here on earth, stress is our way of life. The main issue now is how to manage stress more effectively so that we can maintain our productivity at work and home.

One of the simplest method to manage stress is the Traffic Light Technique. It is easy to use, fast and highly effective. It helps us to reorient ourselves and refocus on bigger, more important issues at hand.

Using the traffic light as an analogy, red signals that we need to stop that ever that we are doing at that particular moment that causes us to be under stress. It can be an argument with a colleague, feeling overwhelmed doing that pile of paper work or cursing that driver that suddenly overtakes you in a dangerous manner.

Next, orange means that we need to reorient and refocus ourselves internally. Feel that tense feelings in our body, that fast heartbeat, short breathing or stiff shoulders. Acknowledge that we are now under stress. There is no point in fighting the symptoms. The best way is to feel them inside our body. Once we are aware of them, it signals the brain that we are in control (it takes away the control from our more primitive brain - the amygdala and passes it to our more advanced brain - the neo cortex).

Lastly, green means that we actively do something to let that stress feelings (or symptoms) go. The easiest way is to take several deep breaths, inhaling through our nose and exhaling through our mouth. You will feel you heartbeat slowly going down, your muscles starting to loosen up and a sense of inner peace comes to you. Taking a short walk or doing light stretching are some of the other methods to let go of that stress symptoms.

The next time you feel stressful, remember the traffic light; red - stop, orange - reorient and refocus and  green - letting go of the symptoms by actively doing something.Try it today!

How to Give Morale-Boosting Praise

Experts said that most managers catch their subordinates doing something wrong rather than doing something right. Let us put ourselves in the shoes of that poor subordinate. How would he or she feel? Dejected? Unmotivated? Unappreciated? You bet!

Catching them doing something right and doing it properly on the other hand, will boost their morale, increase productivity and most importantly, reinforce the positive behaviour being praised.

So, how to give that morale-boosting praise? The acronym SIPS can guide us.

Specific - Our praise needs to be specific. What behaviours are we praising? What are the effects of that positive behaviour? Congratulating Donna for handling that difficult phone call from Mr Joe last Friday and because of that he is still our customer is an example of specific praise. Telling Alex he did a good job last week without going into the specifics, on the other hand is vague.

Immediate - We need to praise someone within 24 hours after a particular behaviour is shown. Telling Ahmad that he did a wonderful job assisting a customer 3 months ago will have little effect on him.

Personal - Muthu loves being praised and rewarded in front of a big crowd. Siti however, prefers a personal note or phone call. Not all people wants to be praised in public. Study our team members and choose the best praise method for them.  

Sincere - An example of insincere praise goes like this, "John, you did well last Monday for helping Mandy with the department's proposal. Because of that, the proposal was submitted on time. Great job! By the way, could you sit in for Tony tonight and do over time? His kid is sick and he needs to be home". Do not sugar coat request with praise because it is the fastest way to kill its effect.

So, a great way to boost morale is to catch our team members doing something right. The next time you do that, remember SIPS to give that morale-boosting praise.