Business

Hold Your Tongue

Marxists groups aside, sometimes it seems as if the U.S. is an authoritarian society.

Published

1 year ago

March 8, 2021

Jeff Davidson

We’ve all witnessed the verbal fascism of groups such as Antifa, BLM, and the Left in general: Unless you employ terms and phrases which they approve, watch out. Yet, apart from these Marxists groups, sometimes it seems as if the U.S. is an authoritarian society. I learned early about three statements that you’d better not make, although each of these statements otherwise seems perfectly acceptable.

Don’t Discuss Job Offers

Only once in my life have I ever received unemployment compensation, in between my first and second job. When I was asked by an unemployment office agent if I had been looking for jobs in the last two weeks, I replied yes. In fact, I said, I even got an offer, but it was from a firm significantly far from my residence and for far less salary than I had been earning years ago. So, I had to turn it down.

Bzzzz! Wrong answer. With that, on cue, the agent became indignant. Was this the moment for which she lived? She told me definitively that I would receive no further unemployment compensation. I had violated the rules. The rules encompassed having to accept a job offer, apparently, even if the job paid far less than you are accustomed to be earning, represented a hardship in terms of distance, and was not quite in your field.

I needed another eight weeks to finally land the right job for my needs, and I surely could have used the unemployment compensation during that time. I was 25 years old, with no savings, barely making my way in the career world. Lesson learned, I’ll never volunteer that kind of information again.

Don’t Ask About IRS Procedures

I brought coins to a coin show and was contemplating selling them to a particular dealer. In the back of my mind, I remembered that if you deposit too much cash in the bank on any given day, you might flag the IRS. Never mind that I was seeking to sell coins that I purchased with money which I had earned, and upon which I already paid taxes. Never mind that I was selling the coins at a slight loss.

I harmlessly (or so I thought) asked the coin dealer, “What is the amount that triggers IRS scrutiny?” With this question, the dealer clammed up and told me, “I can’t discuss that with you,” otherwise, I am potentially “colluding to violate IRS rules.” I said, “What? I’m simply asking if you know what the sum happens to be.” He clammed up even further. I could see this conversation was going nowhere, so I stopped on a dime.

Why, in contemporary America, can you not ask a simple question related to the laws of our nation? The Internal Revenue Service used to be called the Department of Taxation. Funny, I’m not sure where the ‘service’ aspect of their activities kick-in.

Don’t Mention Your Reasons

I’m at a local Red Cross chapter, donating blood, as I do every eight weeks. I’ve been donating blood for years. It is helpful to me and it is helpful for those in need. The need presumably is urgent: I continually receive messages from the Red Cross every few days, even after I’ve already donated, asking me to donate again. For health and safety, one is asked to wait at least eight weeks between donations.

During one encounter with the nurse on hand, I said that one of the reasons I donate blood is that I have a high iron count. Donating blood helps to keep it in check. At that point she bristled. Then she regained her composure, and told me I should not mention my reasons. Donating blood for purposes of lowering your iron count, which has some technical name, gets you thrown out of the system.

Well, excuse me.

During the same visit, because I have a blood type that is in demand, I was asked by someone else if I could come in more frequently to make other kinds of transfusion donations? So, you want me to visit more often to donate what you need. Yet, if I seek to make a donation that benefits both the Red Cross and myself, I am violating Red Cross regulations? Guess who’s going to seek another place to donate blood, other than at the local Red Cross?

Today’s Deadly Words

The above scenarios are tame and lame compared to the ridicule, employment termination, career destruction, physical attack, or death that might fall you if you have the temerity to state in public, or in a public forum, “All Lives Matter,” “All Black Lives Matter,” “White Lives Matter” “All Baby Lives Matter,” “All Victims Matter,” or, God forbid, “Blue Lives Matter.”

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Jeff Davidson

Jeff Davidson is the world's only holder of the title "The Work-Life Balance Expert®" as awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He is the premier thought leader on work-life balance, integration, and harmony. Jeff speaks to organizations that seek to enhance their overall productivity by improving the effectiveness of their people. He is the author of Breathing Space, Simpler Living, Dial it Down, and Everyday Project Management. Visit www.BreathingSpace.com for more information on Jeff's keynote speeches and seminars, including: Managing the Pace with Grace® * Achieving Work-Life Balance™ * Managing Information and Communication Overload®

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Delegation: An Ongoing Phenomena

Failure to delegate effectively often happens because team leader don’t trust the people with whom they’re working

Published

3 days ago

June 29, 2022

Jeff Davidson

For most of your career, you’ve read or heard that one of the key approaches to getting things done is to delegate effectively. This presumes that you have others to whom you can delegate. In my contact with more than 950 organizations over the last two and a half decades, I’ve found increasingly that people have fewer resources, a lower budget, and less staff people. If they want to get something done, often they have to do it themselves!

Assuming you have others to whom you can delegate, the first or second time you personally tackle a particular task yields useful information. You learn more about the nature of the task, how long it takes, and whether or not you enjoy doing it.

By the third time, a task of the same ilk as those you’ve handled before often becomes best handled by someone reporting to you. Such tasks could involve updating a database, completing an interim report, or assembling meeting notes.

All that You Can

On the path to getting things done, your quest is to identify all those things that you can possibly delegate to others and then prepare those others so that they have a high probability of succeeding. In the course of your workday there may be only a handful of things that you alone need to do because of your experience, insight or specialized knowledge. Everything else that can be delegated should be.

Some people feel they have to take care of everything themselves and to this day haven’t been able to break the habit of “doing it all.” If this someone is in your seat right now, recognize that as a category of one, you can only get so much done.

Many managers and supervisors fail to delegate effectively because either they don’t fully trust the people with whom they’re working, or they’ve always been get-it-all-done-by-myself types.

Take Time before You Assign

Prior to delegating anything to anyone, take the time to actually prepare your staff for delegation. This would involve assessing an employee’s skills, interests, and needs. You could even ask people what new tasks and responsibilities they would like to assume. You might be surprised at the wide variety of responses you receive. There may be people on your staff right now who can help you with tasks you’ve been dying to hand off to someone but didn’t see how or when you could put them into play.

While you want to delegate to staff people who show enthusiasm, initiative and interest, or have otherwise previously demonstrated the ability to handle and balance several tasks at once, sometimes you have to delegate to someone who has not exhibited any of the above. In that case, delegate on a piece-meal basis.

Ensure that the staff person is able to effectively handle the small task or tasks he’s been assigned and does not feel swamped or overloaded. When the staff person demonstrates competence, you can increase the complexity of assignments and even the frequency with which you delegate.

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Business

Multi-tasking: More Harm than Good

In this day and age, where so much competes for our attention, it is easy to stray!

Published

2 weeks ago

June 16, 2022

Jeff Davidson

I belong to a local health club, and while I was there one day, I saw a woman get on the Stairmaster. I watched as she whipped out an mp3 player and started listening to music. Then, to my surprise, she reached into her gym bag, pulled out a book, and placed it on that ledge to read. I almost asked her if she would like a piece of gum!

Today, when so much competes for our attention, it is easy to stray! More often than we care to pretend, in the office and at home, we invite more than we can handle, and then act as though we didn’t. As individuals, throughout society, we are trained to believe that the ability to multi-task is a great attribute. Unfortunately, that’s a big mistake. Here’s why, and how to avoid multi-tasking in the future.

First Things First

What’s the fastest and easiest way to handle six tasks competing for our attention? Identify the most important task, second most important, third most important, and so on, then tackle the first and finish it all the way, move on to the second and complete it, then move all the way down the list.

Any other way of tackling those items, whether they are tasks for home or work, is simply not as efficient. The catch is, any other way is more psychologically satisfying. Why? It’s almost as if juggling projects, switching gears unnecessarily or abruptly, or leaving a job unfinished to start a new project gives you the opportunity to say to other people, “Hey, look at me! Look how involved I am! Look at how busy I am! I’m great at multi-tasking.” A multi-tasker, however, can’t compete with others who tackle their to-do list, one item at a time.

What about doubling up as a procedure for tackling a number of routine items or very simple tasks? You can eat dinner and read a book at the same time. Eating and reading at the same time is relatively harmless.

How about driving and talking on the cell phone at the same time? Driving requires your sharp attention, as does carrying on an intelligent conversation with someone else who is not present; doing both at the same time spreads your attention too thin, with often disastrous results. The same is true for projects you’re working on that require your best thinking.

Tips:
* give yourself 5 to 10 minute intervals to focus on the task at hand
* safe-guard your immediate environment to avoid interruptions
* acknowledge yourself whenever you stick to one task and finish it
* repeat all the above, often, knowing that ‘more often’ is better!

Your Undivided Attention

When you’re working on a new task, brainstorming, engaging in first-time thinking, or doing creative work, it’s vital to offer your complete and undivided attention to that one task before you. To dissipate your attention or otherwise stray means you are not going to do your best work.

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