Asking for a raise. Reassigning responsibilities. Giving critical feedback to an underperforming employee. Saying “no” to a request. All difficult conversations. What are the hard conversations you need to have,  but don’t,  or don’t do well enough?

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most is a book that rarely is more than an arm’s reach away. My copy is tattered, highlighted and post-it tabbed with years of use. The tools and techniques this book offers are ones I have found invaluable.

(In fact, we wrote a newsletter on the subject several years ago.)

In response to client interest, we have developed a one-day workshop that will aid you in having your toughest conversations with less stress and more success. The course deconstructs difficult conversations into manageable portions and provides practical and actionable tools to take back into the workplace or the homeplace.

We’ll start the day with examining the three conversations that are part of a difficult conversation: the “What Happened” conversation, the “Feelings” conversation, and the “What does this say about my identity” conversation. Then we’ll move forward to mapping the contribution system (wherever we are, we all contributed both good and bad), separating intention from results (“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.”), and how to shift the conversation from being about who is right, to a learning conversation about how to go forward from here.

An inaugural public workshop is being offered on Friday, November 12. Cost is $850 and includes all materials, course instruction, and lunch. Enrollment is limited.

Dedicated on-site workshops are also available and can be customized in length and topics to address the specific needs of your organization. For more information, please email us at: kw@wunderlin.com or give us a call at 502.895.3689.

And there’s another new workshop on the horizon…

Myers-Briggs Step II® Workshop Now Being Offered

Working in almost any organization today, chances are you have taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®. You know that you are a INFP (Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Perception) or an ESTJ (Extraversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judgment) or one of the 14 other combinations of psychological type. The Wunderlin Company uses the MBTI® to help individuals, teams and entire organizations improve the way they communicate, learn and work. The basic MBTI® is designed help identify your natural patterns for accessing information, making decisions and relating to people.

But did you know that there is a second part (MBTI – Step 2) that helps people better understanding their unique expression of a particular personality type? The MBTI Step 2 takes each of the 8 scales from Step 1 and breaks them down into 5 sub-scales known as facets. This gives us not 4 ways in which we differ but 40!

The Wunderlin Company is pleased to announce a half-day workshop that focuses on providing a much more thorough analysis of the Step 2 data and its applications in terms of personal development, teams, organizations, conflict, coaching, emotional intelligence and communication.

This new workshop is being offered for the first time on Monday, August 23 from 8:00 – noon and again on Monday, October 18 and Monday, December 13. The cost of the workshop is $249 and includes the Step II diagnostic test, and course instruction.

For more information, please email us at: kw@wunderlin.com or give us a call at 502.895.3689.

Fall Lineup Announced for Wunderlin Company Workshops
In addition to the two new workshops, we offer a whole series of workshops that mirror the services offered by The Wunderlin Company. Click on the one that will most help you polish your skills and get all the details.

Facilitating for Results
This introductory workshop provides leaders and managers with three days of experiential practice in both the skills of facilitators—asking effective questions, observing groups and making interventions—and the tools of facilitators—brainstorming, multivoting, gap analysis and others. The final day simulates a WorkOut style problem solving process.

Advanced Models for Facilitation
For the facilitator with some level of experience, our Advanced Models workshop enhances capability by working through Roger Schwartz’ Skilled Facilitator models, and introduces more sophisticated group processes such as Appreciative inquiry and Open Spaces and working on more complex team interventions. Advanced Models also customizes to the specific needs and requests of workshop participants with plenty of time for problem solving, Q&A and practice sharing with our very experienced and skilled faculty.

Coaching as a Leadership Skill

Often at the end of a coaching process, our clients will see the value in cascading the approaches of the one-on-one coaching process to a broader population of leaders. Coaching as Leadership Skill provides over two days the practice required to significantly improve manager’s effectiveness in communicating with and developing their associates.

Customized Leadership Development
We have also customized this workshop for several clients to specifically support their leadership development needs.

Effective Meetings
We all spend so much time in meetings… and almost universally find the majority of meetings to be a poor use of time. This half day workshop provides nine practical and immediately applicable practices for improving meeting effectiveness.

Discover Your Strengths and Put Them to Work
Building on Marcus Buckingham’s book Now Discover Your Strengths, this team building workshop enables teams to look at their collective and individual strengths and reorient both their work allocation and leadership development.

We offer these workshops both in-house and by subscription. For more information, please email us at: kw@wunderlin.com or give us a call at 502.895.3689.

If you subscribe to the “what’s new” approach to organizational change, Work-Out might seem like yesterday’s news.  But, recent experiences reinforced Work-Out’s continued relevance. In some ways, arrival of tough times for all organizations has made Work-Out – and concepts like it – more contemporary than ever.

The Wunderlin Company’s approach to cultural change is rooted in our collective experiences with GE’s Work-Out process. Work-Out places the work to be done (or the problem to be solved) in the middle of an organization and surrounds it with the people who know it best. This unlocks new resources for problem solving.

From the beginning, Work-Out was a source of major transformation at GE.  In the mid 80’s GE was still a stodgy, monolithic enterprise, weighed down by bureaucracy and bureaucrats.  The earliest Work-Out wins were in the moments that we observed the combination of problem-solving teams asking, “Why do we do things this way?  What if we could try…” and leadership teams saying, “I’m listening….and I’ll support you to make that change.”  It’s a transformational combination!  And, more than 20 years later, it’s exactly the same in organizations who are just beginning Work-Out.

While the process is directed from the top of the organization, it is implemented with broad participation from employees throughout the organization. Work-Out develops broad coalitions across the organization. Employees start to care deeply about success because they are connected to the organization and can make change happen. The Work-Out process also provides a vehicle for organizations to optimize speed, cost and quality – without compromising any of these measures, and results in new levels of success.

Proof it works

Last year, we helped a financial services organization introduce Work-Out and facilitated a number of their early problem-solving sessions.  A highlight for Laura occurred when true “breakthrough thinking” occurred, resulting in a 90% cycle time reduction.  By making a few simple changes to their standard business contracts, the contract negotiation process was shortened and the legal department was no longer consumed by iterative “red lining” of agreements.  It was proof that Work-Out really works – even in a legal department!

Early on in Karen’s consulting career, The Wunderlin Company was engaged to instill the Work-Out process throughout Louisville city government. From the city garages, to garbage pickup to purchasing processes, we worked with government employees to tackle difficult problems and the results were nothing short of remarkable – in terms of time and money saved, citizen services improved, and overall morale boosted. In fact, the program was so successful that the Louisville government was awarded a Ford Foundation Innovations in Government Award to teach other cities how to implement the process.

Carol worked recently with a utility distribution business that was able to save $1.8 million by buying pre-fabricated parts and expects to save nearly $20 million by rolling out the program system wide – all thanks to the Work-Out process. That same company was also able to make similar improvements to its collections, prepayments and safety programs.

Another example of success was a Safety Work-Out that was instrumental in turning around a difficult ongoing trend for the company, achieving a 25% reduction in preventable motor vehicle accidents and OSHA recordables within one year. The company also revamped the entire Accident Prevention Manual in just five days with 35 union and 15 management employees.

Why it works

Work-Out gets the whole system in the room. How many times have you or an associate been frustrated by a work process that you know can work better… but how to make “those people over there” – whether it’s production or people in the field or finance – cooperate?  An essential tenet of Work-Out is to get the whole system in the room.

Work-Out significantly shortens decision times. A typical task force meets for two hours every week or so for a couple months, presents to leadership, and then waits days, weeks or months to hear the final decisions.  With Work-Out, teams work with a facilitator for 2-4 days, and then leadership joins the group.  The teams make their recommendations for improvement and leadership makes the decision on the spot. In 20 plus years of leading Work-Outs, we have yet to see a Work-Out session that received less than 80 percent “Yes’s” to the recommendations – and that isn’t because senior leaders become easy marks in public forums; it is because if you ask the people who do the work how to do it better, they know and they come up with highly workable solutions.

Work-Out is much better than training. Frequently leaders talk to us about how to get employees to change their behavior.  What we have seen is the “double benefit” of Work-Out experiences – in addition to identifying and implementing recommendations to improve business results, associates learn new ways to do their work.  A participant in a Work-Out about fleet maintenance told us a year after his Work-Out experience “If I came in tomorrow and we went back to the old way of working, I would quit.”  Now that’s sustained organizational change!

People support what they help create. In Work-Out, participants own their approved solutions. Instead of “selling” their good ideas to the rest of the organization, the organization gets involved in selecting the best approaches to improvement, making implementation go more smoothly and faster.

The Work-Out process is elegant in its simplicity – yet deceptively powerful on so many levels

• You can get traction quickly working on important problems or opportunities.
• You can increase associate involvement and ownership in generating solutions. The people closest to the work are called upon to create and own the solutions; thereby creating support and buy in.
• You can breakdown real (or imaginary) organization boundaries – between manufacturing and engineering, sales and marketing, field and headquarters –because you start to look at the process end-to-end and with a customer-focused perspective. Participants gain valuable perspectives on their jobs and learn about other processes within the company. Leaders can demonstrate a way of leading that engages people in a more transparent and interactive way and gives associates, those closest to the work, the power of being involved in decision-making.

Here’s how it works.

1. Leadership identifies a critical organization issue or problem.

2. A small group of people from several functional areas comes together for uninterrupted work time with the pressure of a deadline as a catalyst and the assistance of skilled facilitators to support their work.

3. The group works to develop and present recommendations it can implement.

4. Leadership hears their recommendations and gives a “Yes,” “No,” (and here is why) or “Further Study” and then empowers teams to implement approved recommendations.

5. The teams implement accepted recommendations.

6. The teams come back together at a predetermined time (usually 90-120 days later) to report their progress.

At its core, Work-Out is a means for driving cultural change. In the short term, you can increase efficiency, improve work processes, eliminate nonessential work, involve your people in the process and increase communication. Long term, it empowers your people, sustains productivity improvements, and, perhaps most importantly, creates true partnerships.

What has to happen?

Senior leadership has to support the Work-Out. Participants’ most common fear: “Senior management will never really let us do this.”

Planning is critical. A small group of folks has to spend a couple weeks crafting the question to be answered, recruiting the right people to participate and gathering relevant background information.

Skilled facilitators are needed. Teams need a facilitator who knows Work-Out, and is highly skilled in bringing cross-functional teams to a high-performance state. The facilitator ensures the Work-Out teams’ efforts are focused and efficient, completing specific Action Plans to be accomplished within 90 days. The group must feel free to disagree, discuss, explore and problem solve in a short, intense period.

Try Work-Out

If you want to quickly see results, try Work-Out. If you want to improve dialogue, remove barriers between functions and bust bureaucracy, try Work-Out. If your work group has been wrestling with an issue for some time or is struggling to improve its performance, try WorkOut.

In 2010 being able to move quickly to take advantage of emerging opportunities and to streamline processes differentiates recovery from continued struggles.  When considering your department or organization’s recovery strategy, consider working in Work-Out—it really works!

These are practices to follow wherever you fall on the employment spectrum – from ecstatically happy, to profoundly unemployed.

• Have a career roadmap
• Prepare your elevator speech
• Keep your resume current… and update it annually
• Foster a network outside your current workplace
• Have an internet presence

Have a career roadmap

“If you don’t know where you are going any path will do…” – Cheshire Cat to Alice in Alice in Wonderland

Many of my colleagues remember that in the earliest days of The Wunderlin Company we used Lewis Carroll’s writings in our work—his writings are so relevant to organizational and personal change, and enabled a nice play on my last name!  This particular quote is one that has always been a personal guiding principle.

Every person needs a lifetime career plan.  It doesn’t have to be detailed; you can simply plan by decade.  We know that careers roughly follow the decades of life—in our twenties, we experiment, build foundations, and find the work we are meant to do.  In our thirties we achieve, progress and continue to learn.  In our forties we consolidate our successes, solidify our skills.  In our fifties, we leverage our significant skills and life experiences, in our sixties we consider and transition to our next careers.

Wherever you are now, pay attention to the high-level matters: What have you learned?  What do you still need to learn? To what extent do you have an entrepreneurial itch you need to scratch? What are your feelings about the public and private sector?  What are the significant experiences you want—international work?  A stint in marketing?  A sabbatical to write a book?  To teach at some point?  Take time to discern what is important to you: Predictability? rewards tied directly to your work? Financial security?  Making a difference? Control of your work? Prestige?

From here, you can set out your overall roadmap for your career.  It is not about getting it right – we can’t predict the future.  It is about identifying what you desire.  Then as life unfolds, you will be better prepared to differentiate true opportunities from distractions.

Here are a couple of my favorite tools to assist clients in defining a career plan:
Personal Compass
If You Don’t Know Where You are Going, You’ll Probably End Up Somewhere Else

Prepare your elevator speech

Every week we meet new people, open new doors, and make new connections. When someone asks what you do, you have very little (less than 10 seconds) time to answer. You must introduce yourself and your capabilities in a succinct and compelling fashion.  Having an elevator speech is not a new concept; and it’s like getting enough exercise.  We all know we should do it, and can find many reasons we don’t!

An effective elevator speech is simple, memorable, concise, and it describes you very, very well.  Even if you are not in sales, and not looking for a job, as we walk through life we are making impressions.  It helps to leave a clear and positive one.

In drafting your elevator speech, think about: What are your unique combinations of skills and attributes?  What is the best reason for someone to remember you in a work setting?

You can find numerous elevator speech tools on the internet by googling the term.  I found one article that seems particularly helpful: The Elevator Speech is the Swiss Army Knife of Job Search Tools.

Keep a current resume…and update it annually

We never know when an unexpected opportunity is going to come our way…or when we are unexpectedly going to be in the job market.  In the past 12 months, I have had coffee with numerous folks who were looking for their next position.  Those who had a resume handy were several months ahead of those who had to start their job search by reflecting on their careers, remembering key accomplishments, then drafting and redrafting a resume.  The ones who had a current resume were ready to get started with networking.  Largely, they were also reemployed more quickly.

I recommend that once  a year you think back over the last year.  Write down your major accomplishments, note the professional development you did, update your objective, and shorten earlier sections to keep the resume to one page. I undertake this exercise every year between Christmas and New Year’s. It has been an enormously helpful exercise.

Foster a network outside of your workplace

If you should unfortunately find yourself looking for a job, that is not the best time to create a network.  What you need in a time like that is a robust network of people who already know you and with whom you have a relationship.  So even if you believe you will sail into a gentle retirement at age 80 and never need to look for work anywhere else, just in case, pay attention to who you know outside your current workplace. Find ways to stay connected with people you will be glad to know if/when you are seeking your next opportunity.  The parents from Little League, the guy you coached basketball with or who go to your church are certainly connections; but in a career context, may not be the highest value.

To what organizations do you belong?  Are you on a non-profit board?  Do you maintain contact with college and/or graduate school friends?  Remember, if Sheree hasn’t heard from you in 18 years and that first contact is an ask for an introduction, you may not get the full benefit of what she can do to help you.

Try to set an informal goal (say once a month) of being in a professional setting that enlarges your network. You will also find that many of these contacts can enrich your current worklife.

When you do meet a new person, be intentional about capturing their information in your Outlook address file or your address book.  Make a note about where you met them, and some impressions of that person.  If you contact them in two years and remember how much that person likes to fly fish or that they have an electrical engineering background, the connection will be stronger.

Have an Internet presence

Finally, if there is a chance you will be moving to another position in the next 24 months, you need to be on LinkedIn—with a strong informative profile, and with careful attention paid to the key words you use.  If you have a technical background and are a skilled salesperson, be sure your resume includes the words and phrases that will bring your profile forward.

Then make any connections you can to your old workplaces, colleges, and groups. There are a growing number of ways you can use a LinkedIn profile.  For example, my daughter is just starting a career in the theatre, so for her birthday this summer, I went to moo.com to get her some business cards.  It offers an option to include a link to her Linkedin profile!

The younger you are the more likely Facebook is an important part of your social network.  Twenty years from now, when today’s twenties are running organizations, Facebook’s true place will be clearly understood.  For now, most of the folks who are hiring don’t consider Facebook essential… many are slightly distrustful.  In addition, they sure aren’t fond of finding a favored candidate tagged in numerous drunken poses!  If you are looking for a position, and you must be on Facebook, make your Facebook page appropriate.  You will be checked out online; be cognizant!  Remove tags you wouldn’t want an employer to see, pay attention to the comments you make on yours and others walls.

Let me know what else you do to maintain your career bearings.

Have you ever wondered…

• Should you “friend” your boss on facebook? What about your boss’s boss?
• Who calls back when a cell call is “dropped”?
• Which ringtone should you select? And what does it say about you?
• Can you post a photo on your facebook page that was taken 10 years and 20 pounds ago?

On my bookshelf is a 1975 edition of “The New Emily Post’s Etiquette” and I actually pull it down and refer to it once or twice a year. In her introduction, Ms. Post tells us that manners are just as important to us now as they were to previous generations. She rightly claims, “manners evolve of their own accord, influenced by current lifestyle.” While Ms. Post died in 1960, she would be bemused by the manners dilemmas people encounter in 2009.

So, because Ms. Post is not around to arbitrate these questions, Wired Magazine has stepped up to the plate with extensive and highly entertaining answers to your most pressing new-age etiquette questions. Entitled: How to Behave: New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans, I read this article while on vacation last month and believe you will be entertained and pick up a couple useful pointers!

– Warren Buffet, 2008 Letter to Shareholders

Sounds awfully gloomy, doesn’t it? Reminds me of the ballad which begs hard times to “come no more” and made fresh by Bob Dylan as he strums and laments: “Tis the song, the sigh of the weary.” (Click here for video of Dylan’s rendition). As I talk with business owners and organization leaders I almost expect them to break out into the chorus: “Hard times, hard times come again no more.” What is one to do?

Last week I took two actions to help me survive these tough economic times. Both felt like positive steps forward. First, I made a conscious decision to limit the amount of news I listen to. Avoiding reality, you say? Shying away from the truth, you wonder? I prefer to think I am preserving the sense of balance that shrill pronouncements of defeat and ruin drown out. Yes, I still listen selectively to NPR, watch the national news and read the New York Times (albeit, I pick up the Style section before tackling the World in Review). But I’ve quit listening to the “talking heads” predicting gloom and doom at every turn. I don’t need that. Thank you.

The second thing I did was read two publications that helped me frame my thoughts about the economy: Warren Buffet’s 2008 Letter to Shareholders (22 single spaced pages) and renown business writer Ram Charan’s Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty (138 pages). I highly recommend both publications, but since I realize that many of my colleagues and clients are too busy to read even these useful publications, this post highlights two quotes from Buffet’s letter and a summary of Charan’s points with some added examples.  For leaders in the not-for-profit and public sector, I have also attempted to “translate” Charan’s guidance into your frame of reference.

Charan begins his book by noting, “Whether you lead a small group of people or a whole business unit or company, these next few weeks, months, and years will test you.”

In responding to that test, he advises that you transfer your attention to cash.  “Your focus must shift from the income statement to the balance sheet.  Protecting cash flow is the more important challenge.”  You know the three sources of cash in your organization—earned funds (or donated funds in the not-for-profit world); working capital invested in inventories and accounts receivable, and proceeds from the sale of assets.  Make maximizing the cash flow from these three streams your relentless focus.

Another important change is shifting your focus from growth to gaining cash efficient market share. What Charan is referring to is that growth your organization can attain without excessive outlays of your precious store of cash. And, shrinking to providing only those products and services that provide cash will be a mandate. “Eliminate the rest,” he implores – that means shrinking will present opportunities to simplify your processes and reduce the layers of management.  In the end you will have fewer customers, fewer products, fewer facilities, fewer people, fewer suppliers –and a stronger [organization].”

In this new environment leaders need to dive into the details of operating their organizations in unprecedented ways.  Charan calls this “hands on, heads in”.  In adopting this leadership stance, we will all adopt a more intense approach to managing our companies.  We will communicate more with sales or development people, field people, our customers, and our employees who will need an ongoing balance of information from you about both the challenges of the current reality, and your optimism that your organization will come out in 2010 or 2011 healthy and strong.  The cycle for measurement and rewards will compress. Charan advises, “You have to increase your frequency of control, setting targets on a quarterly, monthly or even weekly basis.  Aggressive actions and decisions build optimism and confidence—your own and others’.”

The Six Essential Leadership Traits for Hard Times
Charan argues that the new economic reality changes the attributes leaders must have for success.  Think about your work, your decisions and your leadership since September.  Which of the following are your strengths?  Which do you need to intentionally add to your repertoire?

Honesty and credibility. Do the folks in your organization absolutely trust you to tell them the truth, even when it is a difficult truth?

The ability to inspire. How skilled are you in finding the compelling strands in your organization’s or department’s future and knitting them into a story behind which your folks can align?

Real-time connection with reality. To what extent are you getting real-time information from your customers, clients or donors?  Basing decisions from even January’s information could be very misleading

Realism tempered with optimism. How balanced are you in your communication and decision-making?  Have you unwittingly become the prophet of an apocalyptic future?  Or are you clinging too hard to the belief that this will all go away in 90 days?  How skilled are you at finding that balance?

Managing with intensity. What is your personal energy level these days?  To what extent are you modeling “Hands on, Heads In?”

Boldness in building for the future. What investments are you making with limited resources to ensure your organization’s or department’s strength when the recovery does kick in? Again from Buffet’s most recent Letter to Shareholders:

“Amid this bad news, however, never forget that our country has faced far worse travails in the past. In the 20th Century alone, we dealt with two great wars (one of which we initially appeared to be losing); a dozen or so panics and recessions; virulent inflation that led to a 211⁄2% prime rate in 1980; and the Great Depression of the 1930s, when unemployment ranged between 15% and 25% for many years. America has had no shortage of challenges. Without fail, however, we’ve overcome them. In the face of those obstacles – and many others – the real standard of living for Americans improved nearly seven-fold during the 1900s, while the Dow Jones Industrials rose from 66 to 11,497. Compare the record of this period with the dozens of centuries during which humans secured only tiny gains, if any, in how they lived. Though the path has not been smooth, our economic system has worked extraordinarily well over time. It has unleashed human potential as no other system has, and it will continue to do so. America’s best days lie ahead.”

The balance of Charan’s Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty is organized around the actions, skills and decisions required for the major functions in most organizations, many of which build on the concepts already outlined.

Despite my swearing off (or maybe weaning off) of gloomy news programs, I did catch a recent NPR report (click here to listen) on the Arizona Diamondbacks which illustrated the success organizations can achieve in implementing Charan’s approaches (although as far as I know, Charan and the Diamondbacks are not in contact!) The Diamondbacks have lowered their cash breakeven by implementing a player acquisition strategy that keeps them significantly under the salary cap.  They forgo marquis players with back-loaded ten-year contracts in the hundreds of millions in favor of talented but lesser known players. They are adjusting their products and services to suit the times—you can now bring your own food to the baseball park, or for $25 you can sit on the suite level and enjoy their All You Can Eat Buffet.   Their General Manager, Derrick Hall notes their philosophy is “One Fan at a Time”.  By maintaining this highly personalized approach to customer satisfaction, their season ticket sales remain strong.  Hall noted that they are working with their season ticket holders to define packages for next season that fit their reduced circumstances—such as partial or split season tickets—and keep them coming to the ball park.

I hope this post has inspired at least one or two new approaches or tweaks to your leadership that will make you more effective, and more confident, and your organization more successful during these most difficult days. I’d love to hear from you about what is working for you and what you are doing to survive. Please post your comments as a REPLY in the box below.

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A New Look Is Coming Your Way

We are currently revamping The Wunderlin Company website and blog to make the format and content more engaging for our readers. We will let you know when it is up and running and available for your perusal. In the meantime, you can still visit us at www.wunderlin.com. or contact Karen at kw@wunderlin.com.

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count.
It’s the life in your years.
~Abraham Lincoln

Response to our series of suggestions for how to seize the day in 2009 has been overwhelmingly positive. Thank you for your comments about how YOU are making the most of current opportunities. If you wish to revisit any of the post in this series, go to the end of this post and click on the topic you wish to read.

As you head into the new year, we wish you a 2009 filled with hope, happiness, success, and less stress.

While you may not be able to control the world, you can control how you respond to it. So wake up! Get going! Life is short and time is fleeting…Here’s our sixth suggestion for how to seize the day:

Get your heart rate up
Our last tip for “Seizing the Day” is to get your heart pumped up. Yep, we are recommending that you consider interval training to supercharge your fitness, boost your metabolism, burn off extra fat, and reach those goals that you have set for yourself.

Interval training is basically exercise which consists of activity at high intensity for a period of time, followed by low intensity exercise. These “sets” are repeated.  The four variables that you can manipulate when designing your exercise routine are:

• intensity (speed) of work interval
• duration (distance or time) of work interval
• duration of rest or recovery interval
• number of repetitions of each interval.

The idea is to work harder than usual in your work sets and to fully recover during the low intensity intervals. Interval training is a great way to change your routine, increase results and burn more calories. And there is nothing like a good hard workout to clear your mind of cluttered thoughts, leaving only deep physical and mental refreshment.

Let us hear from you.
We have enjoyed sharing our suggestions about how to seize the day. If you missed one of the installments in the series, you can click on any of the links below to revisit them.

• Push yourself to breakthrough thinking
• Reach out to someone in need
• Figure out your current crossroads
• Read broadly, read deeply, and read copiously
• Bring your business to the world of social networks
• Get your heart rate up

We’d love to hear how you are “seizing this very day” as well as your comments on our suggestions. Just hit the “comments” button below and let us hear from you.

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count.
It’s the life in your years.
~Abraham Lincoln

While you may not be able to control the world, you can control how you respond to it. So wake up! Get going! Life is short and time is fleeting…Here’s our fifth suggestion for how to seize the day:

As many of you know, I have been experimenting with virtual social networks and trying to understand how they can be relevant work tools.  If you have teenagers you have undoubtedly experienced (second-hand) the magnetism of Facebook or MySpace. If you are under 30, you probably can’t imagine managing your life without these virtual applications.  But just because you might fall into the over 30 category, doesn’t mean that you can’t begin to reap the benefits of social networks. If you just don’t think it is up your alley, think again. These social networks are finding new converts for businesses, non-profit organizations, and even specific products.

Take Facebook for instance—it can be a powerful growth tool. Facebook is no longer solely the domain of college kids. It now reportedly has over 67 million members and is adding 1.2 million a week, most of whom are in the 25-49 age group. Not only are individuals signing up, but companies are too. The NBA, for example, has an NBA Facebook page as well as a page for each of its teams. CBS recently announced a Facebook page for each of its shows.  According to a recent Fortune article, Proctor and Gamble’s network has 10,200 members and IBM’s has 33,000!  Uses include recruiting, connecting to alumni, and setting up internal groups.  According to “Facebook for Dummies,” the reason why many businesses promote themselves in this fractured way is because people might identify with particular parts of their business but not the business in its entirety.  Creating different pages for the different entities with which people might connect is important for maximizing engagement.

Think of a Facebook page for your company, your department, or a specific product as a way to engage your customers with videos, reviews, flash content, photos and more. Your customers can express their support by adding themselves as a fan, writing on your “Wall,” uploading photos and joining other fans in discussion groups. You can send updates to your fans regularly — or just with special news or offers.

Here’s a look at the top 10 Facebook business uses.

Spend some time getting to know the application and what it can do for your organization in 2009. Then consider creating a Facebook page for your business, brand or non-profit organization. It’s free and can be done in a couple of hours.

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count.
It’s the life in your years.
~Abraham Lincoln

While you may not be able to control the world, you can control how you respond to it. So wake up! Get going! Life is short and time is fleeting…Here’s our fourth suggestion for how to seize the day:

Read broadly, read deeply, and read copiously

I’m a reader – an enthusiastic one. Always have been; always hope to be. It is one of the main ways I learn, keep up with developments, and derive pleasure. Much to my dismay, I read the following statistics recently:

• 58% of the U.S. adult population never reads another book after high school.
• 42% of college graduates never read another book.
• 80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70% of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

I trust that if you are reading this blog, you do not fall into any of the above categories. But perhaps you are a reader of just one or two genres…you love fiction, or business books, or TIME Magazine. Perhaps you only like to read the sports page, mysteries or biographies.

Here is my challenge to you: read more broadly, more deeply, and more copiously. Here are some ways to get started:

• Read what your children are reading in school or pick up a significant work that you didn’t read in high school or college and read it to see what all the fuss is about.

Catch 22, by Joseph Heller
Moby Dick; or, The Whale, by Herman Melville
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Find a blog that matches an interest and subscribe to it or put it in your bookmark menu.

Fast Company
Boing Boing
Lifehacker

• Instead of getting your news from the local paper and the Wall Street Journal, check out:

The DrudgeReport
Salon.com
SportsBlogs Nation

• Spend a few minutes reading a poem or two.

The Art of Drowning, by Billy Collins
The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

• Be brave. Sit down with a graphic novel and experience this updated comic book genre.

Archewood: The Great Outdoor Fight, created by Chris Onstad
The Watchmen, by Alan Moore (writer), Dave Gibbons (illustrator)

I hope this will encourage you to expand your reading repertoire – and thereby your knowledge and pleasure. Let me know how it goes…and happy reading.

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count.
It’s the life in your years.
~Abraham Lincoln

While you may not be able to control the world, you can control how you respond to it. So wake up! Get going! Life is short and time is fleeting…Here’s our third suggestion for how to seize the day:

Figure out your current crossroads
Although not always apparent, we are always in a place of making choices and setting direction in our lives.  One effective response to the uncertainties of 2008 is to make your current crossroads explicit, to think clearly about your choices, and then make decisions consciously about where to direct your life.

Here’s an exercise that I often use with my coaching clients:
Take a blank sheet of paper and draw two intersecting roads on it.  Click here for an example.

Draw yourself in the crossroads.  Put a big thought bubble above you. In it, pose the focus question that describes your current crossroads in life.  For example, What do I really want to do with my career?, How can I conclude this chapter in my life? or How can I balance my work and outside work interests?

In one quadrant write about what is calling you; what draws your attention or energizes you. Your answers could range from very specific things, such as learning a new skill, to big dreams. In another quadrant, write about what is pressing; what is immediate, top of mind. Your answer should focus on the practical realities of your situation.  In the third quadrant write about who and what is involved. It should take into account your network of people and the relationships that affect your plans and decisions.  In the final quadrant, write about the possibilities. Imagine your best and brightest future.

Then return to your focus question.  Look for patterns and themes in your writing that will help you focus on the direction in which you need to move your life.

Note: Inspiration for this activity comes from The Personal Compass by The Grove Consultants.

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count.
It’s the life in your years.
~Abraham Lincoln

While you may not be able to control the world, you can control how you respond to it. So wake up! Get going! Life is short and time is fleeting…Here’s our second suggestion for how to seize the day:

Reach out to someone in need
One of the quickest ways to “seize the day” is to feel a sense of gratitude. I know it is hard to feel grateful when you’re thinking about your 401k’s drop in value, but thinking about giving to people who are worse off will remind you of how much you have to be grateful for. Here’s an easy way.

Imagine a family in Ghana, or India, or another desperately impoverished country. With a sewing machine, a goat, some seeds, or perhaps some leather to make shoes, that parent can make a life for his or her family. But they are very poor, with no means and not considered “bankable.” They lack collateral, steady employment, and a verifiable credit history.

Herein lies your opportunity. With just a few clicks from your computer, you can fund a microloan. For as little as $25, you can designate who you want to help and at what level. You can help a real family make great strides towards economic independence and an improved life for themselves and their community.
As the loans you help fund are repaid (and nearly 98% of them are!), that money is loaned again to help another entrepreneur. By “paying it forward,” your gift works many times over. As one such microenterprise development organization states: “One click does a world of good.”

There are a number of organizations that offer microfinance services – not just loans, but also other financial services, training, and counsel. With a bit of research, you can find an organization that best matches your interest, values, and available assets. Here are a couple of links to organizations to get your started:

• Opportunity International: Giving the Poor a Working Chance
• Kiva: Loans that Change Lives

In addition, Wikipedia provides a list of 37 additional microfinance organizations.

Not only thinking about others but also doing for others can give you a sense of satisfaction while, at the same time, help our world be a better place.