My best wishes for a grand 2011 to all my friends and colleagues! I have just returned from an overseas seminar tour, where I conducted Strategic Project Management events in Singapore, Australia, Japan, and Thailand. The weather was balmy and the participants were enthusiastic, as this photo from my Japan workshop shows:
Sharpen Your Strategic Management Skills
If you want to expand your skills and gain a distinctive career edge, I invite you to join me at the Association for Strategic Planning’s (ASP) annual conference in Dallas, Texas from February 28 – March 2. ASP is the nation's premier forum for education and experience among strategic planning professionals. This annual event brings together thought leaders and practitioners dedicated to improving all aspects of strategic thinking, planning and action. I will be doing a deep dive presentation on the Rapid Action Planning (RAP) approach. Here’s more information on ASP’s website:
Highlights of This Issue
Guest Article – Can Strategic Project Management help lead to global solutions? Check out this provocative article, which tackles the critical questions we face, in an interesting way.
Project of the Month – Our PROJECT OF THE MONTH features the Board of Directors of a non-profit agency committed to being more effective. Great Logical Framework which you can adapt to your needs.
Self-Mastery – We all have emotional vampires in our lives. Here is how to deal with yours.
Book of the Month – Tweezed lately? With Tweezerman Tweezers? Whether you sport trimmed or bushy brows, you’ll enjoy the stories and business insights from Tweezerman Founder Dal LaMagna in Raising Eyebrows: A Failed Entrepreneur Finally Gets It Right.
Laugh Out Loud – Warning: This issue features clippings from British newspapers. They are politically incorrect and possibly offensive, but very funny. So, skip it or enjoy a good guffaw.
Can Strategic Project Management Concepts Lead to Global Solutions?
By Ronald Janki
Perhaps the greatest need we have on this planet is to align ourselves around shared goals, and then develop strategies to get there. Imagine my delight when Google alerts found this thought-provoking article in which the author applied concepts from my book to make a better world. Check out Ronald Janki’s imaginative article below. But come right back – lots of el primo stuff in other segments of this issue.
View Article
Sitting on the Board of Directors of a non-profit organization is both satisfying and frustrating. Board members are busy people in their own career, dedicated to the non-profit cause, but not always productive in the limited time they are together.
I recently did pro-bono work with the Board of a shelter for battered women, children and their pets. Together, we developed a Logical Framework for how the Board could be more effective in providing vital services in their city. This design consists of generic elements that can benefit any non-profit Board.
Who’s the Emotional Vampire in Your Life?
By Judith Orloff, MD
Author, Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions And Transform Your Life
As a physician, I've found that the biggest energy drain on my patients is relationships. Some relationships are positive and mood elevating. Others can suck optimism and serenity right out of you. I call these draining people "emotional vampires." They do more than drain your physical energy. The malignant ones can make you believe you're unworthy and unlovable. Others inflict damage with smaller digs to make you feel bad about yourself. For instance, "Dear, I see you've put on a few pounds" or "You're overly sensitive!" Suddenly they've thrown you off-center by prodding areas of shaky self-worth.
To protect your energy it's important to combat draining people. The following strategies from my book "Emotional Freedom" will help you identify and combat emotional vampires from an empowered place.
Signs That You've Encountered an Emotional Vampire
- Your eyelids are heavy -- you're ready for a nap
- Your mood takes a nosedive
- You want to binge on carbs or comfort foods
- You feel anxious, depressed or negative
- You feel put down
Types of Emotional Vampires
- The Narcissist
- The Victim
- The Controller
- The Constant Talker
- The Drama Queen
Their motto is "Me first." Everything is all about them. They have a grandiose sense of self-importance and entitlement, hog attention and crave admiration. They're dangerous because they lack empathy and have a limited capacity for unconditional love. If you don't do things their way, they become punishing, withholding or cold.
How to Protect Yourself: Keep your expectations realistic. These are emotionally limited people. Try not to fall in love with one or expect them to be selfless or love without strings attached. Never make your self-worth dependent on them or confide your deepest feelings to them. To successfully communicate, the hard truth is that you must show how something will be to their benefit. Though it's better not to have to contend with this tedious ego stroking, if the relationship is unavoidable this approach works
.These vampires grate on you with their "poor-me" attitude. The world is always against them, the reason for their unhappiness. When you offer a solution to their problems they always say, "Yes, but..." You might end up screening your calls or purposely avoid them. As a friend, you may want to help but their tales of woe overwhelm you.
How to Protect Yourself: Set kind but firm limits. Listen briefly and tell a friend or relative, "I love you but I can only listen for a few minutes unless you want to discuss solutions." With a coworker sympathize by saying, "I'll keep having good thoughts for things to work out." Then say, "I hope you understand, but I'm on deadline and must return to work." Then use "this isn't a good time" body language such as crossing your arms and breaking eye contact to help set these healthy limits.
These people obsessively try to control you and dictate how you're supposed to be and feel. They have an opinion about everything. They'll control you by invalidating your emotions if they don't fit into their rulebook. They often start sentences with "You know what you need?" and then proceed to tell you. You end up feeling dominated, demeaned or put down.
How to Protect Yourself: The secret to success is never try and control a controller. Be healthily assertive, but don't tell them what to do. You can say, "I value your advice but really need to work through this myself." Be confident but don't play the victim.
These people aren't interested in your feelings. They are only concerned with themselves. You wait for an opening to get a word in edgewise but it never comes. Or these people might physically move in so close they're practically breathing on you. You edge backwards, but they step closer.
How to Protect Yourself: These people don't respond to nonverbal cues. You must speak up and interrupt, as hard as that is to do. Listen for a few minutes. Then politely say, "I hate to interrupt, but please excuse me I have to talk to these other people... or get to an appointment... or go to the bathroom." A much more constructive tactic than, "Keep quiet, you're driving me crazy!" If this is a family member, politely say, "I'd love if you allowed me some time to talk to so I can add to the conversation." If you say this neutrally, it can better be heard.
These people have a flair for exaggerating small incidents into off-the-chart dramas. My patient Sarah was exhausted when she hired a new employee who was always late for work. One week he had the flu and "almost died." Next, his car was towed, again! After this employee left her office Sarah felt tired and used
.How to Protect Yourself: A drama queen doesn't get mileage out of equanimity. Stay calm. Take a few deep breaths. This will help you not get caught up in the histrionics. Set kind but firm limits. Say, for example, "You must be here on time to keep your job. I'm sorry for all your mishaps, but work comes first."
To improve your relationships and increase your energy level, I suggest taking an inventory of people who give you energy and those that drain you. Try to spend time with the loving, nurturing people, and learn to set limits with those who drain you. This will enhance the quality of your life.
Reprinted from The Huffington Post, January 16, 2011. Follow Judith Orloff MD on Twitter
Raising Eyebrows: A Failed Entrepreneur Finally Gets it Right
By Dal LaMagna
Reviewed by Terry Schmidt
Long before he was a success, Dal LaMagna was a serial failure. This self-described "compulsive capitalist" failed at every business he tried, from one of the original computer dating services (run on a 1950s vacuum-tube computer), to an ice cream parlor on the Venice boardwalk, to converting drive-in movie theatres to drive-in discotheques, to a Harvard Square waterbed store. These ventures landed him $150,000 in debt.
Raising Eyebrows reveals how Dal turned it around by founding the beauty tool company called Tweezerman, a successful beauty tool manufacturer with over 40 million customers.
First, a disclosure: I know Dal from our Harvard Business School days, during ere his early days of struggle and failure. He was deeply in debt, but eternally optimistic And from our early conversations, I knew he would make it big someday in some creative way.
Not all successful ventures are inspired by splinters in your butt, but that’s how Dal finally tweezed himself to success. On one life-changing day, Dal found himself on the wooden roof of a Venice California beach house making rigorous love to a woman he recently met. After their enthusiastic coupling, Dal discovered 34 painful slivers deeply embedded in his butt. A trip to the drugstore to buy tweezers disappointed, as the only tweezers they carried had square ends and were thus unable to do the job.
What tweezers could do the job? Perhaps a pair with needle tips to help extract the darts stinging his behind? That began the quest that resulted in Tweezerman, a socially responsible and highly profitable company. When Dal finally sold Tweezerman, he shared generously with his employees and put this millions to use in socially enterprising ways, such as funding the Bainbridge Institute, which delivers MBA’s in sustainability.
Are you also tired of blow-hard business celebrities like Donald Trump and Lee Iacocca telling you how great they are? Then you’ll enjoy Dal’s candor, humility and self-effacing humor. Level-headed and modest, Dal encourages us to follow our dreams. “There is nothing extraordinary about me. What I can do, anyone can do."
You’ll love Dal’s colorful and often hilarious stories. Check out his dark horse run for President in the New Hampshire Primary where the press called him “a dark horse.” So, naturally, he arrived at a Hillary Clinton rally riding – you guessed it – a dark horse!
Warning: Be careful where you read this book. I devoured mine on the 16-hour flight from Singapore to Seattle, where my frequent snorts, chortles, and LOL’s awakened all the passengers in my row as well as two rows ahead.
This is an uncommonly engaging business book with personal development undertones. You’ll find useful business lessons—but the real story is about being able to move on after each failure.
If you've ever dreamed of following your own path and changing the world along the way, let Dal show you how a lot of pluck—and a little luck—will help you succeed.
British newspapers are different. They aren’t afraid to print funny stuff just because it’s politically incorrect.
