(catchy music)
Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the Performance Cafe. I hope
you've had a great week, we are six weeks away from the summer holidays in South
Africa. And man, it's hot. It's sweltering, and it is really busy this time of the
year. And that's actually what I want to speak to you about today; is about it being six
weeks towards the end, or to the [beginning] of Christmas. And, you know, so much has happened
in 2021. A friend of mine says when she told 2021 it must be better than 2020. She
didn't mean it must be better, it mustn't more of the same. So 2021 was
really not the year that I think many people had hoped for. We still saw too much
impact from COVID. On economy, on society, on health, it was just, wow, it was there's just
so much to deal with, right? So what I want to talk to you about today is what can we do
with six weeks left in the year and exhausted - employees, team leaders, managers,
executives, and selves. So I often speak of this construct of Productive Kindness.
And the idea of productive kindness is "I want to produce as a manager, a team leader,
an employee", even. On the other hand, there has to be a certain kind of level of
compassion, of empathy, of kindness in the business to make sure that people actually
will be able to show up and do what they need to do. And so today, the question is, what
six weeks towards December, everyone's exhausted? where to from here? And I think it's
about understanding what do we really need to get done in the next six weeks? What's really
urgent and important for those of you who don't know, the Eisenhower Matrix, it was
actually also made quite famous by Stephen Covey, who quoted in his books. And it
says, "When I'm deciding how I need to deal and whether I need to deal with a certain
task or imperative that's come across my desk, the first thing I ask myself is, is this
important?" If it's not important, you get rid of it. And the most important, the
biggest way of doing that is by understanding who is this important to? So for example,
someone might send me something. And go 'it's important that you do this
urgently.' Well, actually, it might not be in my world. But because it's not
important in my world, doesn't mean that it's not important in other people's worlds. And
therefore, the important thing to ask is, pardon the pun, 'That task? For whom does it
make a difference? Who does it impact if it doesn't get done? Who is going to suffer if it
doesn't get done properly?' And so from that perspective, I think the important thing is
identified for who it is important and delegate it to them, not just to get it off
your table, but delegated to someone for whom it is meaningful to actually
complete that task.
The other thing that the Eisenhower Matrix does is so if your one axis is
Importance and the other one is Urgency. And everything nowadays sort of feels like
urgent, urgent, urgent, and I think, with our "Always On" culture, of always having
devices and not being able to switch off all this digital overwhelm we have is that we tend
to, we tend to sort of overdo how urgent things are, instead of stopping and reflecting and
saying, "Okay, yes, this is urgent, but is it urgent for this minute, this hour, this
day, this week, or this month?" Because if I can tell you how often I have driven myself
over the edge, trying to complete something that after the fact I realized wasn't
urgent, and I did that to me, no one else did that to me. So either to learn to stop and do
the check of this minute, this hour this day, this week, this month, and if it is something
that is important to me, but it can wait a week. Then it's entirely fine to let it (wait).
Because very often what's not on our agendas, is time with friends and family, is time for
self care, is time for our own healing. And so often we're like, "I don't have time for that
stuff." But it's because A: we don't put enough importance on it to plan it. But even when
we've planned for it, the moment someone else tells us that something is important,
we tend to rise to the occasion. I see this so often and so beautifully, because
often people will say, "I only check my emails now twice a day, because otherwise, I'm
living someone else's agenda." And that's exactly it. That email that comes in may be
urgent and important to that person, but is it to you? And so I hope that you can create
positive movement, but appropriately for the next six weeks. And that you will use
this Eisenhower matrix as urgent versus important to see what is it that really needs
to get done so that we don't push people who are already exhausted, already had a big
year. And actually just almost finish them off in the process. And so I hope that
you've enjoyed that insert, I look forward to hearing your comments and feedback on that.
And of course, any helpful tips that you have on how do you survive for the last six
weeks of the year. And I hope that I will see you for every one of those weeks, until we
hit 2022. And I'm quite excited about the prospects. As always, if you found this
useful, and you are on YouTube with us, please like and then subscribe. Also click on the
notification bells so that you know when we're going to be sending more videos your way.
And then if you're joining us from LinkedIn or Facebook, thank you so much. Please Like
Subscribe, Share, Comment, do whatever you can to get the news out there because we do
hope to add some positivity to people's performance and their work lives for this year, still.
And I look forward to seeing you at the next Perspectives on the Performance Cafe.
(catchy music)
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