Over 7.2 million people miss out Christmas presents!

In the last quarter of 2014, the North-pole International Centre for Excellence (NICE) boasted that Santa was a five nines organisation and the world could relax knowing that everybody would get the right present on time..

Process Guru Siobhan Sherman (a six Sigma Black Belt) ran the numbers and came up with shocking finding: running a five nines organisation wasn't good enough for global impact and accuracy. Based on current estimates, 7.2 million people missed out on Christmas! (Subsequent Intercontinental Statistical Testing [SIST], has shown this to be the case).

Earlier this year, North-pole spokesperson "Alf on the shelf" said that the core principle behind Santa Clause’s  excellent supply chain delivery organisation was the checklist. Alf boasted, not only do we use checklists, we check them twice! 

Nevertheless, 7.2 million people woke up on Boxing Day wondering whether or not they've been naughty or nice. So far, no comment from Alf on the shelf on how the North Pole organisation intended to correct this problem and ensure it does not happen again.

The harsh lessons we have learnt from this Christmas season can be summed up in one word, CHECKLIST!

If you want your organisation to compete with a world class supply chain like Santa's and make a positive impact on the world, you have to ask yourself, do you have a checklist? Do you use your checklist? Do you check it twice? Anything less will leave unhappy customers

checklists ensure that things get done in an organized and consistent way. They are the key to overcoming "task saturation", where the flow of incoming data and tasks is so overwhelming that one becomes paralyzed and unable to take action.  Checklists can be used as an audit tool to see if you are utilizing best practices in your current and future plans.

As shocked as we all are about the 7.2 million mistakes uncovered after last Christmas, this tragedy could have been much worse had Santa and his elves not used checklists.

Are you smart enough to use checklists? 

Maybe the first place you could use them is on your New Year's resolutions :-) .

Happy New Year from Tony Sherman, the Implementation Rabbi, at Impact Teams. My your checklists bring you prosperity throughout 2015.

24 Seconds to Fail

Merry Christmas Everyone!!! I wish you a safe Happy, Healthy and Successful New Year. My gift to you is this link and my personal football story that occurred in 1967.  Please invest 7 minutes and 50 seconds to watch this video first then read the rest of my Blog.

The title to the video is "The Greatest Comeback That Never Was". It makes you think what is going to be the outcome to this story. In 1967 I had the opportunity to try out for a sandlot football team in my hometown of Indian Orchard, MA called the Eastfield Rams. I had a burning desire to play football since I was 5 years old. At the age of 9 the opportunity arrived to play football and in 1967 I was a walk on for August try outs for the Eastfield Rams Football Team. There were only a couple of small issues. I was overweight, uncoordinated, slow runner, and could not catch a football to save my life. However, I could hit and tackle like a freight train. The month of August in 1967 was boot camp for the Eastfield Rams and it was grueling. The workouts were twice a day or known as (2-A-Days) and were very intense. Many kids that came to play and were in good shape and had ability to make the team easily but they QUIT. They were focused on the short term pain and ridicule that we faced during the harsh workouts. They lost sight of the big picture. I knew that the Head Coach highly disliked me and was very disrespectful of me. He figured I was going to quit after the first day. I defied every negative expectation he had of me and every negative outburst of me in front of my fellow players. The quality, poise, precision, attitude and level of success with any sports team starts with the Head Coach (The Leader). Some of the other players began to disrespect me along with the coach. They basically followed the leader. Through it all I had survived 30 days of August Boot Camp and it was time for what used to be called "Cut Day". This was the day that the head Coach eliminated players that he didn't want on the team. "Guess who was on the Cut List?" ME! This is where 24 seconds to fail comes in. Failure is a pure result of failing to act, failing to complete your mission, failure to stand up for yourself and to speak up for what is right at anytime without fear of reprisal. It is stepping out in faith knowing what you need to do at that moment and know it MUST be done.
If you watch the video above this team had made one of the greatest comebacks in high school history. With 24 seconds left they were celebrating, crying, wallowing in victory and just want to kick the football off let 24 seconds run off the clock and be inducted into Hero History forever. It wasn't to be! They took theirs sights off the mark and failed. They celebrated 24 seconds too soon. 
Getting back to me and August 1967 "Cut-Day". As the Head Coach read off the list of who wasn't going to be on the team ironically I was the last one called from the list. When he dropped the hammer on me said: " Slosek your off the team". My 24 second clock started ticking. In this short span of time I had to defend myself  it became one of the key moments that changed my life forever. I jump in the middle of the circle of standing players where the Head Coach was and looked him directly in the face and said: "WHY?" I haven't missed a practice, I supported the team in every way, I have improved my skills, I have learned every play, I have lost weight, I put up with your disrespectful attitude for 30 days. "I DESERVE TO BE ON THIS TEAM!!" An amazing thing happened. The assistant coaches sided with me and told the coach the exact same thing. Eventually, Coach folded and I remained on the team. This began a 10 year football career. I played 5 years with the Eastfield Rams, 4 years High School and made All-City as a Tight End and played 1 year of College before I hung up the cleats as a Wide Receiver.
In this life all of us will eventually will be faced with situations that will start our 24 second clock. When that day arrives will you be prepared to overcome any situation and win the day?
                                              *         *         *         *         *
All the best.
Sincerely,
John Jr.

John Slosek with Welterweight Boxing Champion of the World
Marlon "Magic Man" Starling his record  45-6-1-1 back in November 2014.
John is an 30 year Insurance Agency Owner in Chicopee, MA.
He will speak for groups and seminars on request. He will make himself available for speaking engagements if your speaker cancels last minute.
His forte is business development and personal growth.
He can be reached at Inspiringwealth@aol.com or by text at 413-246-5037.

It's not DONE yet!

Hi, this is Tony Sherman the Implementation Rabbi and Impact Teams hoping that as we hit the holiday season, there is nothing broken and nothing missing in your life.

I've had some interesting interactions about some of the prior blog posts, but the one that seems to have caught a lot of people off-guard is my idea that if you haven't finished the task at the end of the day, break it down into at least three subtasks. Apparently, my brevity in that post did not lead to clarity.

So, let me break it down a bit more to show you how I use it. When I teach this as a component of my SPIDER program, my students quickly come to realise that the reason why something is not done, typically falls into one of two categories:

1. You've bitten off more than you can chew that day, and the task may have been better living on your backlog list rather than your daily integrity list.
2. It's a task that you really would rather not do, so there is some psychic resistance to doing the task. The classic example of this for me is travel expenses. Quite often, I would find myself moving the item of travel expenses from one day’s to-do list to the next for way too many days than I care to admit.

However, once I created the system where if I did not complete a task or even worse didn't even start the task, I could not carry it forward without decomposing that task, life changed dramatically from better.

I found one of two things would happen to me as I decompose the tasks. I found that I either just put one of the tasks onto my next day’s list, and the other subtasks went on to my backlog. Or as typically happened with travel expenses when I put the three small steps (which were almost embarrassingly small) onto the next days to-do list found that once I started one small task, and completed that to standard, that I naturally just completed the others because I was in the flow and they were really trivial anyway. In the second case, decomposing a psychological barrier into a few small trivial tasks allowed me to overcome my mental inertia.

I hope this bring some clarity into the idea of decomposing a task and using it to maintain your momentum and sense of professional pride as someone who is a can-do person, who doesn't just start tasks, but completes them to standard on time, every time.

Merry Christmas

Until next year, this is Tony Sherman the Implementation Rabbi at Impact Teams wishing you a productive and high-momentum month with nothing broken nothing missing in your work and personal life, Merry Christmas to all.

Defining DONE!

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that one of the steps to driving tasks to “DONE” was to define what done is. So I wanted to grab a few moments  to take a deeper dive into what sounded like a simple activity.

When we're doing something, it is almost always for someone else, let's call them the client. When I'm doing something by myself, I ask the client is this what you mean by done? And then I ask

‘if I do it this way is that a good standard for you’?

I always ask this, even for simple tasks. If I'm having a conversation with somebody and I agree to do something very simple, I will still say at the end of the conversation:

"let me please just reflect back to you what I think my action items are for you - you want X done by this date, and if it's done like this then you will find that satisfactory. Is that correct?"

You'd be amazed at how much clarity comes out of something simple like that.

The other situation is when I'm doing something for the client, and I'm working with a team, here I do exactly the same thing. First, I confirm with the client what DONE is, and what an acceptable standard is. Second, I tell the team what we are doing, what done is, and what the acceptable standard is. Thirdly, I apportion the work that I want them to do, and  also tell them how it contributes to DONE. Finally, I asked them at the end of the conversation to reflect back to me what they are going to do for me, what DONE is, and what the acceptable standard is.

When I first started this practice, I was very nervous that it would make me appear unprofessional or a micromanager. In fact, I have had nothing but positive feedback from both customers and teammates. They enjoy the clarity. The clarity of knowing I know what they want, and what an acceptable level is; and also knowing when it needs to be done.

This is truly a WIN-WIN-WIN situation. Not only do you very rapidly get a reputation for being someone who delivers to a high standard of reliably, but you'll find that your teammates enjoy working with you because you exude a level of confident professionalism in your conversations.

So the next time you think about getting something done, make sure that you define DONE fully; you'll find it a lot easier to do (and by that I don't mean to start doing, but drive through to finished and DONE!).

Until next month, this is Tony Sherman the Implementation Rabbi and Impact Teams, hoping that in your work life there is nothing broken or missing.

Are we there yet?

Too often while we are trying to get things done we add them to a "to do” list. The problem with to-do lists for most of us is that they really represent a starting to do list, not a “get it done” list.

Here's how to transform your "to do" list into a "GET IT DONE" list.

Firstly, define two things, for you to do this you need to have a firm understanding of who the customer is, who are you doing the work for and how will they use it? Then define what DONE is. Not only what done is, but what an acceptable standard is. This may seem laborious at first, but having a clear understanding of who you're doing something for, what they think DONE is, and then what an acceptable standard is, puts so much more clarity on the task that it becomes far easier to complete fully first time.

Secondly the next thing is to put it on your to-do list. Once I put something on my to-do list, and I start doing it, I move it into processing. If I'm using paper to track my to-dos, I put a small circle next to the item which means that I'm working on it. At the end of the day, I either move it to the done column (electronic - TRELLO) or put a checkmark (paper tracking) next to it to signify that it is complete.

Lastly, whether I started the task but did not complete it, or did not start it at all  at the end of the day I only allow myself two choices:

• Finish the task, today!
• Transfer it onto tomorrow's task list, but break it down into at least three steps. This allows me to get the tasks done in their component parts. The power of this is it makes me drive towards DONE!

This is Tony Sherman, the Implementation Rabbi at Impact Teams, wishing you a productive month.