Category Archives: strategies for success

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A Better Way To Manage Your Task List

Most effective people who I know use a task list to help them to stay focused throughout the day. Some randomly work their way through their list, while others start at the top and work their way down.

Gary RyanA better way to manage your task list and to improve your daily effectiveness is to follow these simple steps.

1. Prepare your list

This is a classic brainstorm of all the tasks that you need to complete today. Given it is a brainstorm your list will be in a random order in terms of priority.

2. Identify your high value tasks

Rate each task in the context of value that you receive from completing the task. A ‘High’ rating means that the completed task gives you a lot of value in the context of what your role requires you to do, a ‘Medium’ rating gives you medium value and a ‘Low’ rating gives you low value.

3. Identify your hard-to-do tasks

Rate each task for how hard you find it to complete the task. A ‘High’ rating means that you find this task difficult to do (such as having that ‘important’ conversation with your colleague about her ability to meet deadlines). A ‘Medium’ rating is a task that is moderately difficult for you to do and a ‘Low’ rating is a task that you find relatively easy to do.

4. Identify how long it takes you to complete each task

Rate each task in terms of how long it will take you to complete the task. a ‘High’ rating means that the task will take you a long time to complete (you decide your time scale for yourself as it will depend on the type of work that you do), a ‘Medium’ rating means that it will take a reasonable amount of time, and a ‘Low’ rating means that you can complete the task quickly.

5. Complete your tasks in the following order

A. High Value, Hard To Do Tasks That Can Be Done Quickly (H/H/L Task Rating)

In his book Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy refers to these tasks as your frog. If you were to eat a frog at the start of each day, nothing you do for the rest of the day will be as bad as eating that frog! In this context, your High Leverage, Hard-To-Do Tasks that can be done relatively quickly are your ‘frogs’. When you do these tasks first, you clear your mind for the rest of the day. This is a terrific habit to form. When you know that at some stage during the day you are going to have to eat a frog, it clouds your mind until you do it. So you might as well get it over and done with at the start of the day! You won’t regret it!

B. High Value, Easy To Do Tasks That Can Be Done Quickly (H/L/L Task Rating)

Getting these tasks completed creates a sense of accomplishment and shortens your to-do list in the process!

C. High Value, Easy To Do Tasks That Have a Medium and/or High Time Rating

These tasks take longer for your to complete them, but they provide high value in the context of your role.

D. High Value, Hard To Do Tasks That Take a Long Time To Complete (H/H/H Task Rating)

In my world these are my proposals. Each one needs to be tailored to my clients specific needs, so they tend to take a fair amount of time to create. I require decent chunks of dedicated time to complete this task. Knowing that I have already completed other high value tasks before getting to these provides me with the clear ‘mental space‘ that I need to get on with completing this task.

E. Everything else on your list

All these tasks are the things that provide a level of value but aren’t the most important tasks that you need to get done. Sometimes you may find that these tasks can change in value if they are time related. As a deadline nears the value in completing the task may rise. If you find yourself moving these tasks across to your new task list each day (because they aren’t being completed), make sure that you continue to rate them just in case their value has changed. Another option is to set aside an hour or two every week that is dedicated to completing these tasks.

If you follow the five steps that I have outlined above you will discover that you get more high value work done than you do today. Give it a try and let me know how you go!

Gary Ryan enables talented professionals, their teams and organisations to move Beyond Being Good.

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Project Matrix For Learning

My first permanent job was to commercialise a fitness centre for Monash University in the early 1990s. I was the only permanent employee and had a strong team of casual employees with whom I worked. I quickly learned that there was too much that needed to be done in a short period and that I needed to better use the full suite of talents of the members in the team.

Projects For LearningI was aware of the various interests and strengths of the team members that went beyond their skills and ability as Gym Instructors. One team member was studying Information Technology and had a clear passion for it, another was highly officious and had a passion for consistency among the team, and yet another loved to organise things.

I knew that somehow that I had to find a way to tap into their talents that would benefit the Fitness Centre and themselves, and not break my budget!

I drew up a list of the tasks that needed to be completed. I then rated each of those tasks from a Risk perspective. A Low rating meant that the outcome was a ‘nice to have‘. If it got completed it was a ‘Bonus‘. A Medium rating meant that the outcome was important and the performance of the Fitness Centre would be reduced or slowed if it wasn’t completed in a timely manner. A High rating meant that the task was extremely important to the performance of the Fitness Centre and if it wasn’t completed properly the Fitness Centre would suffer serious consequences which meant that I wouldn’t have been doing my job properly.

Before you ask, the option to hire more permanent staff was not available. First I had to generate the revenue that would eventually pay for more full-time staff. It was a great challenge!

I spoke with each team member and asked if they were interested in leading a project to help us create the performance we desired. All team members said ‘Yes‘. I arranged their schedules so that they had time during their normal shifts to work on their projects. I knew that this meant that they wouldn’t be ‘on the floor‘ as much as normal but I was prepared to take a half step backward to take five steps forward. We also agreed that the projects would have a six-week timeframe within which they needed to be completed.

I took responsibility for all the High rated projects. It was my head that was on the ‘chopping block‘ if we failed so it was only fair that I took responsibility for those projects. I ‘parked‘ the Medium rated projects. I decided to wait until after the first round of projects had been completed and then use that experience to assign the medium rated projects. I needed to have confidence that the medium rated projects would be done properly. I also knew that I would have to coach the team members through those projects which meant that I would need to have more time available to provide that assistance.

I could not have been happier with the results of the first round of projects. The team member who had a passion for I.T. completed an important project that related to setting up ‘norms‘ as comparative data for our fitness tests. The ‘officious’ team member completed a project that set clear standards for the fitness testing procedures and protocols that the team was using. The ‘organised’ team member completed a project that involved re-organising the equipment to improve the ‘flow’ in and around the equipment. I managed to complete the High rated projects as well.

This experience taught me at a very young age the power of projects for learning. Projects create real outcomes. By assigning low risk projects to my team members I was able to tap into their passion and skill. If they ‘failed‘ I wasn’t going to ‘lose‘ anything. By tapping into their passions I also increased the likelihood that their first projects would be a success – which they were! That success built confidence and provided energy for the Medium rated projects which were also embraced and successfully completed by the team with great enthusiasm.

Best of all our success drove the performance results that we were seeking which meant that the following year I was able to engage a number of the team in permanent roles.

I also learnt a great lesson. A lesson that I continue to use to this day. Projects are a powerful tool for creating results, building confidence and assessing team member capabilities. They allow you to learn a great deal about your team members. They also allow your team members to learn that they can produce results themselves.

I created the Projects For Learning Matrix above and have used it many times throughout my career. I assign Low risk projects to inexperienced team members, Medium risk projects to team members who have ‘proven’ themselves and High risk projects to highly experienced, energetic and motivated team members. I avoid giving too many low risk projects to highly experienced and motivated team members – it is better to use those projects to developed inexperienced people.

I have found this simple matrix to be useful and highly effective over many years. I am confident that you will too!

Gary Ryan enables talented professionals, their teams and organisations to move Beyond Being Good.

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Please, Don’t Kick The Cat!

There used to be a saying that when you’d had a hard day at work, when you got home you should ‘kick the cat‘ before you went in the house. This theory was based on the idea that if you ‘kicked the cat‘ then you could let out your aggression and everything would be okay when you went inside.

Thankfully such thinking is long gone! Not only would it be politically incorrect to take such action, it would be morally and legally inappropriate! So please, don’t kick your cat.

iStock_000003616381SmallUnfortunately, however, this metaphor is alive and well in ‘Organisation Land’. Maybe some of you have been the ‘cat‘ who has been ‘kicked‘ (metaphorically speaking).

A case in point. A client of mine has a national sales role. In 2012, prior to her taking on the role the sales team failed to achieve their prescribed 2012 targets. When she took over leading the team in 2013, despite missing the 2012 target their new targets were arbitrarily raised by 20% and they just achieved them. Celebrations followed. The ‘cat‘ was patted.

In 2014 (their financial year finishes in October) another 20% was added to their target. They just missed their prescribed targets after having been ahead of them for most of the year. Ultimately the team’s performance was 113% better than it was in 2013, but 7% short of the 2014 target. What do you think is happening now? Yes, you guessed it, the ‘cat‘ is being ‘kicked‘. Apparently in ‘Organisation Land’ kicking the cat inspires the cat to higher performance. What do you think?

Personally I have never found getting kicked motivating. Unfortunately I am hearing more and more stories like this.

In this specific example my client was informed by senior managers that she and her team would be trusted to contribute to the targets process once they could be trusted to achieve them. Interesting logic!

Let me just walk through that logic again. Once the team regularly achieve budgets that they had no input in creating, that’s when they will be trusted to put forward budgets in the future. Oh, by the way I should mention that I’m not talking about junior staff here. I’m talking about staff with a minimum of seven years’ experience. There’s a lesson in how to de-motivate people right there!

‘Kicking the cat‘ creates demotivated and disengaged staff. Seriously, if you think that such behaviour really motivates people to perform at a higher standard, you probably also believe that if you go outside and yell at your grass to grow that it will! I’m sorry to let you down but both strategies don’t work.

Folks, growth doesn’t happen in straight lines, not in the short-term that’s for sure. Linear growth expectations are flawed and ultimately cause senior managers to behave in a ‘kick the cat-like‘ manner.

My client is a wonderful, high performing person. She did amazingly well to achieve her result in 2013 and did amazingly well given local economic conditions to achieve what she did in 2014. I doubt that any other team could have matched her team’s performance. Yet do you think she is feeling valued right now?

You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? This high performer will leave and will end up serving another organisation more worthy of her commitment. It is an interesting thought experiment to consider whether your organisation is worthy of the commitment of the people who serve it?

‘Kicking the cat‘ doesn’t work so if you’re one of the guilty ones who does this behaviour, please stop! Treat your people like human beings – you may just be surprised by how well they shine.

If targets aren’t achieved by experienced, engaged people, then sit down with them and work together to work out what can be done. Maybe achieving the 2012 target in 2013 would be, in reality, a success. Just giving people bigger numbers to achieve because it is a new budget cycle is seriously flawed and lacks using the knowledge, talent and expertise that exists within organisational teams. People don’t want to fail. People don’t try to fail. Not most people. Work with people so success over the long-term can be achieved. It is possible.

What’s your experience of being ‘kicked’?

Gary Ryan enables talented professionals, their teams and organisations to move Beyond Being Good.

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Positive Self Talk Is Not Enough

Throughout your career there are many times when you will doubt yourself. Am I worthy of a promotion? Will my boss laugh at me when I ask for a pay rise? Can I really do this project that I have never done before? Will the audience really want to listen to what I have to say? Can I manage people who are older and more experienced than me?

For over 12 years I have coached leaders and developing leaders about the power of positive self talk. In simple terms, the words that you say to yourself in your head promote an image of success or failure in your mind. This image influences your performance.

Imagine that you were asked to do a presentation to senior management on a project that you had worked on. Throughout your university degree and career you have done your best to avoid presentations because you think that you ‘suck‘ at them.

In this example you are cornered. You can’t ‘run away‘ from this presentation. You have to do it. Imagine your self talk. “I’m going to be terrible doing this presentation. The senior management team are all going to know that I’m a terrible presenter. My future here is going to be damaged. Oh my god why did this have to happen to me!“.

No matter how much practice you did, if you maintained this type of self talk you will have created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Moments in to your presentation your mind will go blank. Then it will fill with the words, “See, I knew I wasn’t any good at presenting and now look at what has happened! My mind has gone blank and the senior management team now thinks that I am useless!“

When your performance matches your self talk it re-enforces it which in turn re-enforces the image that you have of yourself either succeeding or failing. This can result in either a virtuous or vicious cycle that affects your performance.

The point of leverage is your self talk. You don’t have to create ‘fake‘ self talk. This is the type of self talk that even you don’t really believe. In the above example, ‘fake‘ self talk would be something like, “I’m going to be the best presenter the senior management team have ever experienced. I’m going to have them eating out of the palm of my hands.“

You might have this type of self talk if you were already an accomplished presenter, but if you were coming off a low base then this type of self talk will be ‘fake’ and actually won’t help you (because you won’t really believe it!).

A more effective form of self talk is something like, “I’ll be the best presenter that I can be today. Period.” This type of self talk is believable and gives you the opportunity to see yourself as a ‘learner‘ rather than an expert. When you see yourself as a learner and you make a mistake it is far easier to recover than if you have used ‘fake‘ self talk.

However, self talk is not enough. It must be balanced with doing the right work and focus. The right work in this example relates to learning how to do an effective presentation and putting what you learn in to practice before you do your presentation to the senior management team. Focus refers to the skills and structure that support the action that you are taking. In this example your focus would relate to the core message that you want to convey, the key supporting arguments that you have for your message and the call to action that you want the senior management team to adopt.

These self talk principles can be applied to any situation.

If you aren’t doing the right work and don’t have focus, then all the positive self talk in the world will amount to nought.

How do you manage your self talk?

Gary Ryan enables talented professionals, their teams and organisations to move Beyond Being Good.

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Two strategies for personal success

The following is a exerpt from a transcript of one of my OTM Plan for Personal Success Workshops which have now been delivered to over 5,700 people. This one was provided to an audience at RMIT University in Melbourne Australia. You can find out about the live program here.

In this section I offer two clear strategies for helping to create personal success. The first involves the power of questions, and the second involves gaining experience, even if you have to go into a poor company culture.

…Others among you have expressed concerns that, “You know I’ve already had a fair degree of success in my life but what if that stops? What if my success doesn’t continue?“

Now your plan can help address this; the plan can help you continue your journey of success. Some of you expressed the issue: ‘I’m just not sure: what do I want?’ even with things like career, even when you’re graduating after you’ve done your degree, something like up to 90% of students still aren’t sure if this is the right path for them – you know, that’s okay!

About 10% of people are really, really clear: ‘Yes! This is what I’m going to do’ or ‘this is the career path I’m going down to’ – the other 90% is still not sure.

The thing with your plan is that it’s okay to explore questions because guess what – if you’ve got questions, there is one thing you know therefore that you want: you want to know the answer to your own questions – yeah – if you think about your future!

So your question gives you focus. Some people think that because they don’t have the answers, they won’t even bother doing anything. I say: ‘let’s focus on the questions and let’s go exploring.’

And humans are amazing explorers right? When you’re exploring and you go down a dead-end – you go along this path and then when you turn, it’s a dead end! Is that bad? What do you reckon – is it bad?


It’s not, is it? Because you’re exploring; if you’re looking for the one right answer and you go down a path and it’s a dead end, how is that for you? It’s like the end of the world, isn’t it?

An exploring mindset through exploring questions is really, really powerful for your plans. Some of you are concerned: ‘Will I be in an organisation that’s worthy of my commitment?’

The work and research I’ve done over time is that the more clear you are for yourself with your own vision, the better a position you’re in to choose a company – and I use those words deliberately – for you to choose a company or organisation or even your own part with your own company that’s worthy of your commitment because you’re better off when you see the signs and the consistency between how they interact with you.

You have more power than you realise in this process; it’s not just them picking you.

It’s also about you choosing them.

Now I’ll talk about strategies later on – sometimes you might deliberately choose to go into a culture that’s not right for you because at the end of the day, you just need to get some experience – you might put some specific timeframes on how long you’ll stay there so that that culture that does not negatively infect you.

That might be a deliberate strategy because you might say to yourself, “Okay in this industry I just need experience and the only way I’m going to get to work in the culture that I desire is to gain enough experience over time so that I progress far enough to influence it (the culture) – that’s when I’m going to be able to make real change for cultures in this particular industry but I’ve got to start off and get experience.

So you might consciously choose to work for an organisation that isn’t worthy of your commitment – but only for a period of time. All the while you are looking for opportunities to move to another culture while also being a high performer for the organisation that is currently employing you – even though it might have a poor culture.

This might be an example of a strategy that you’ll consider – your personal plan can help you by providing clarity and focus that your personal vision provides. By the way, Australian government research in hand with the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry collectively which represent 95% of Australia’s employers says that employers want people who are clear about their personal vision.

So even doing this plan today helps set yourself up to be able to convey to an employer, “I know where I’m going and I want to go with you because I want to help you go where you’re going because we’re going to help each other!” – that’s what the research says.
The launch of the Yes For Success Online Course is just a few weeks away…register your interest below.

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Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
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Passion Matters If You Want Success

If you want to achieve anything worthwhile in life then there is a simple secret that successful people know.

The first principle for achieving success is passion and I absolutely believe that you have to have it in your life if you want to have access to the energy that is required to create success. 

Passion provides our energy, our drive for taking action, especially when those actions are hard and/or challenging. In simple terms we derive energy from our passions.
Try this quick exercise.

Stop and close your eyes for a moment think about your passion. It could be one or more of many things such as:
  • Playing a musical instrument
  • Singing
  • Physical exercise
  • Playing sport
  • Water based activities
  • Drama
  • Art
  • Reading
  • Gaming
  • Studying
  • Learning
  • Cooking
 This list doesn’t have an end! It could go on and on and on.

Once you have identified your passions focus on one of them and think about it, remember yourself doing, see yourself doing it. Notice what happens to your body when you start imagining yourself doing your passion.

When I ask participants in my programs to do this exercise you should see what I see! While their eyes are closed as they are imagining themselves doing their passion, whatever it is, people smile! It is as if they can’t help it. Smiles simply appear on their faces!

It just happened to you too, didn’t it.

If you require evidence that passions drive your energy then here it is! Just notice the smile on your face. 

However a sad fact is that as many of us get older, we stop experiencing our passions. Just when our lives get busier and more serious, just when we need more energy to create the success we desire, we stop living and experiencing our passions. If you think about it, isn’t that just plain crazy?

Our passions ‘leave’ our lives or they simply fade away from being present in our lives. Yet we need our passions in our lives in order to give us the energy to get through some of the less passionate things that we have to do. No matter how successful we become there will always be things that we have to do to create our success that aren’t the most fun in the world to do.

As you consider your passion or passions, are they present in your life now? When did you last experience your passion? When is the next time you plan to experience your passion?

Interestingly your passion doesn’t have to be ‘present’ all the time for you to benefit from the energy it provides. As an example many people have travelling as one of their passions. For many of us such a passion is ‘serviced’ when we have annual leave holidays from our work. So what people with this passion will do is book in and pay for their travelling experiences a long time in advance. As a result they have the positive energy benefits of looking forward to experiencing their passion.

If you don’t have a passion and can’t remember ever having one, you have a wonderful opportunity to include this in your Vision. For example. as part of your personal vision you could write, “In 12 months’ time I will be living and regularly experiencing at least one passion in my life.”

Remember, when planning for success it’s okay to write things down into the Vision section of your plan even when you have no idea about how they are going to be brought into reality. In fact, this is usually true for most things that you write down in the vision section of your plan and why writing them down is so powerful.

In wrapping up, what’s your passion or passions? How are you leveraging the energy that they generate?

Gary Ryan facilitates the OTM Plan for Personal Success® program. Click here to find out more about how you can create a plan for your personal success.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
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Ebook for Senior and Developing Leaders Released

This complimentary ebook is for Senior & Developing Leaders who share our view that organisational success is created through enabling people to be the best they can be, was created from a selection of articles published on the OTM Academy from May 1st 2012 through to August 31st 2012.
The ebook includes articles to help you move from ‘good’ to ‘high’ performance.
Please feel free to join the OTM Academy – it’s free!

In the ebook you will discover:

* What ‘Truth to Power’ is and how it affects performance

* Why communicating via multiple channels matters

* How Virgin Australia handled a brand damaging event

* Why change management is an oxymoron

* How to use three steps to bring organisational values to life

* How to be free of problems within your business

* How to use five steps to connect strategy to action

*And much, much more!
Order this free ebook to download here.
Contributing authors include:

  • Gary Ryan
  • Ian Berry
Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Enabling organisations to be worthy of the commitment of employees