Strategy in Principle http://strategyinprinciple.com The Leadership / Management Blog of Kevin Crenshaw posterous.com Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:34:00 -0800 The Great Twitter Identity Theft Caper http://strategyinprinciple.com/the-great-twitter-identity-theft-caper http://strategyinprinciple.com/the-great-twitter-identity-theft-caper

A case study in excellent (and not-so-excellent) customer service processes.

I'm starting to hate Twitter and love Facebook. Here's why, and here's what we can learn from Twitter about customer service.

"I Email, Therefore I Am."

Last-man-standing-email
You may not know it, but you are your email account. At least that's what Twitter thinks.

I learned that the hard way on November 7, 2011 when I couldn't log in to my @kcren twitter account. Sometime before that, @kcren, @priacta, @totalrelaxed were all hacked and imaginitively renamed to @Shamus851, @Shamus852, and @Shamus853.*

Thousands of great tweets (in my history) were lost, sort of a professional mini-journal. Thousands of followers lost. Hundreds of Twitter listings lost. Online reputation lost. Hundreds and hundreds of hours, lost.

Was it my fault? Partly, for sure. See the Epliogue for hints about my/our mistakes. But that's not the lesson at hand. Fiirst, let's try to reclaim that hacked account...

Support to the Rescue? (Facebook: Yes!  Twitter: Think Again...)

Like-facebook
Facebook's account recovery rocks. You get multiple email addresses per account, and Facebook will prompt you to remember which ones you were using. They'll challenge you if you log in from an unknown computer, and then they give you creative ways to prove your identity if you lose access to (or forget) your email address, like identifying people in photos on friend's walls. Impressive and fun at the same time! Very cool.

Not Twitter. Twitter only gives you one email address per Twitter account, and it must be unique. Forget or lose access to that email account, and you're toast. If you forget which email address you used, tough. You need to guess and guess and guess. (Exception: If you associated a phone number with your account, you can use that. Unfortunately, I didn't out of privacy concerns. Does anyone know if a phone number has to be unique for each account? Do I need separate phone lines for multiple Twitter accounts?) 

After waiting three weeks for any human reply from Twitter support, a battle started over proof of ownership (based solely on my ability to communicate with them via the "associated email address" on the hacked Twitter account), the Twitter support rep** finally said:

Unfortunately, if you don’t have access to this account’s associated email address or mobile device, we are unable to continue troubleshooting. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause, but we insist on going through this ownership verification process in order to prevent malevolent users from accessing Twitter accounts that aren't theirs.

(**The rep was always named "dino" in at least 10 separate tickets over two months. Is only one human being helping people recover their hacked Twitter accounts?)

Megamind-poster3

Customer Service Lesson 1: Never let attorneys create your customer service processes. The only safe answer a lawyer can give is "no."

The Common Sense Test

Twitter's processes just wouldn't help me. Never mind that:

  • The old picture on the account was my face (Facebook knew that!).
  • The pictures on ALL THREE hacked accounts were changed at once (to the same picture!)
  • The names on the accounts were SEQUENTIALLY numbered.
  • My account used to point to my web site, to which I could prove owership.
  • ALL THREE hacked accounts pointed to bizarre, questionable web addresses.
  • I still had access to my accounts via 3rd party apps [like Posterous - K] and could tweet to them as proof of a connection.
  • Many of the links on the Tweets pointed to my (or my company's) sites.
  • Twtrland even knows it's me (as of the date of this post).

Anyone with an ounce of common sense could tell that those accounts were hacked, and that I was the rightful owner of (what used to be called) @kcren.

Kevin-crenshaw-ceo-stairs-diag-128 Markus_allen
See the full gallery on Posterous

(Quiz: There are several differences between these two photos. Can you spot them? First photo: @kcren profile photo (before). Second photo: same account profile photo (after renaming to @Shamus851). Photo 1 is also my current photo on Facebook, Assembla, my new @kcren Twitter, and other places image searches turn up. Gee, I wonder if somebody seized control of that account?)

Customer Service Lesson 2: Great customer service is impossible if employees aren't empowered to exercise common sense. No script can cover everything. To handle risks, set reasonable boundaries, then let your people act as much as possble within those boundaries. Empower them to be merciful. Your customers will love you for it, and your workers will love their jobs more.

The Final, Outrageous Dead End

After dozens of failures to guess the right email address, it hit me...

The first thing a hacker will do when stealing an account is change the email address!

So was I wasting my time? Were they asking me to prove access to the new (hacked) email address? Do they even have a record of prior email addresses? I asked for reassurance on ANY of these questions, but they wouldn't give a straight answer. When I pressed as hard as I could, they finally said:

For security reasons, I can not reveal the specific aspects of our internal work-flows about which you are asking.

No hope. As far as Twitter is concerned, you have no identity if you lose access to your email account, or maybe even if the hacker changes the email address on your Twitter account after hacking it, and if you previously chose to withhold your phone number for privacy reasons.

So now there was nowhere else to turn, not even "advanced support," (I would have glady paid $300 per incident if I had hope of resolution.) It was just me and the immovable, unempowered "dino." He/she seemed nice enough--as nice as his/her script would allow.

And then he/she cancelled my support tickets without recourse. Try again, dude, and wait another three weeks. (No wonder they have a huge backlog.)

Fail-whale

Customer Service Lesson 3: Provide a final escalation path, even if you charge for it. In tough cases, let them esclate processes that aren't serving the customer. Create someone to review desperate cases, your own "Supreme Court" to inject humanity, common sense, and self-improvement into the process.

Good Support = Empowered, Humanoid Workers, Not Lawyers or Scripts

At least you and I benefit from Twitter's failures here:

  1. Lawyers aren't service reps. Lawyers don't create assets--they only protect them. The only safe answer an attorney can tell you is "no," and "no" doesn't win they hearts of customers.
  2. Empowered support workers = common sense support. Strict scripts are the kiss of death.
  3. Give me somewhere to turn. Besides my blog. Remember United Breaks Guitars.

Epilogue

@kcren exists again, but only because the hacker renamed my stolen account, which left the @kcren name open. I grabbed it ASAP and started rebuilding from zero followers. @priacta too. Ouch.

Lessons in corporate and personal security come from all this. Maybe I can help you not lose your accounts like we did:

  1. Use highly secure email passwords. Passwords you can't even remember, 12 characters long, with digits and special characters.
  2. Use LastPass to generate your passwords, share them securely (if you must), and keep them all straight.
  3. Never use the same password on multiple accounts, no matter how secure the passwords are.
  4. You ARE your email address. It's your proof of personhood online. If you use it to log in, keep access to that email account at all times!
  5. If you are a company, only use corporate emails for access to company accounts and services. Never let employees to use personal accounts or webmail accounts. What if they quit?

*UPDATE: LOL. This post auto-tweeted to the hacked @Shamus851 account--Posterous still had an old connection to it. If you are following the hacked account, I recommend UNfollowing @Shamus851 and FOLLOWING @kcren again. My old content was recently deleted there; future content cannot be guaranteed.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/600630/kevin-crenshaw-ceo-stairs-diag.png http://posterous.com/users/4avxwwuk9GtX Kevin Crenshaw kcren Kevin Crenshaw Mon, 03 Oct 2011 08:55:00 -0700 Why Your Organization Needs ONE Clear Leader (A Wordless Essay) http://strategyinprinciple.com/why-every-organization-needs-one-clear-leader http://strategyinprinciple.com/why-every-organization-needs-one-clear-leader

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/600630/kevin-crenshaw-ceo-stairs-diag.png http://posterous.com/users/4avxwwuk9GtX Kevin Crenshaw kcren Kevin Crenshaw Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:00:00 -0700 The Eight Laws of Excellent Corporate Communication http://strategyinprinciple.com/the-eight-laws-of-excellent-corporate-communi http://strategyinprinciple.com/the-eight-laws-of-excellent-corporate-communi

 A Simple Blueprint for Any Organization

 

Stock_photo_team

The most essential element of leadership and management is... communication. To be effective, you have to understand the impact of what, why, and how you communicate--personally and as an organization. Fortunately, great communication comes down to a few simple principles. Master them and you get amazing organizational focus and vigor.

Here are the most crucial laws of communication for any organization--from a family to a Fortune 500 firm. I've identified these from decades of experience with start-ups to multinational Fortune 500 corporations to nonprofits to families. Regardless of the size or setting, these principles apply.

Do you know of more laws? Do you disagree with the order? Let us know below.

Law #1: Communicate the strategic vision to everyone, often. 

Where are you headed? Decide, then focus everyone on it, over and over and over. Constantly tie short-term actions to that long-term vision. You can't get organizational clarity any other way. As Yogi Berra said: "If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there."

Law #2: Keep it clear and simple. 

Less is more. If they won't read it or can't understand it, you didn't communicate.

Law #3: Distinguish leadership from management, and communicate accordingly.

Managing = Delegating and following up.
Leading = Encouraging, lobbying, focusing each other on the common vision.

Everyone leads. Only direct supervisors manage. Violate this rule and you will confuse the troops, stifle initiative, and micromanage a lot.

Law #4: Ensure excellent, constructive engagement on all the issues. 

Internal contention destroys organizations. So does its opposite, groupthink, as the Lehman Brothers collapse attests. Therefore, keep communication abundant and effective by emphasizing the need for feedback with mutual respect and mutual purpose.

The Crucial Conversations model gives excellent results. 

Law #5: Create accountability, but don't kill initiative.

What you measure, improves, and in the best organizations, everyone is accountable to each other regardless of level or seniority. HOWEVER, excessive follow-up stifles initiative, and if you measure the wrong things, the wrong things improve.

So, be careful what you ask about, and when. But do ask.

Law #6: Add permanent value.

Convert discussions and decisions into long-lasting, easy-to-use stores of knowledge. Let all participants do this together, especially new team members, since that reinforces learning and formalizes decisions. Do it during meetings in a shared document that everyone can see (a Google doc displayed overhead, for example).

Law #7: Involve others freely, but beware TMI. 

By involving more people, you get great benefits:

  • Communicate whole-organization issues directly to the whole organization for precision and efficiency.
  • Include others when it can create collaboration and shared responsibility. This breaks down information silos and creates essential systems thinking.

However, you need to avoid TMI ("too much information"), which can paralyze people. Therefore, limit communication to what really matters, when it matters, and only to the parties who will benefit.

Law #8 The Golden Law of Great Communication: "Never reach a negative conclusion without carefully clarifying."

This one should really be first. Violating this rule destroys teamwork by damaging mutual trust and mutual respect. Visibly honor this law and insist on it in others. It will establish trust, which is the foundation of great teamwork and world-class communication.

 

Now, stop a moment and look over the items above. Seriously--do it right now.

Imagine your organization communicating this way, all the time. How would it feel? What would you accomplish together?

It is surprisingly easy to do with the right tools.

"We need to be the change we wish to see in the world." – Ghandi 

 

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/600630/kevin-crenshaw-ceo-stairs-diag.png http://posterous.com/users/4avxwwuk9GtX Kevin Crenshaw kcren Kevin Crenshaw Thu, 06 May 2010 06:14:00 -0700 Twain on Time Management ... http://strategyinprinciple.com/twain-on-time-management http://strategyinprinciple.com/twain-on-time-management

Twain

 

Without a foundation of relaxed productivity, you can't lead or execute your strategy well. And here's some futuristic advice on productivity from Mark Twain:

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one." - Mark Twain

Great advice. David Allen (GTD) popularized this idea as the "single next action." However, he never claimed to be its inventor. Dean Acheson introduced the concept to Allen (GTD, p. 237), and Mark Twain beat Dean to it by a century....

Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:19:37 -0700 On Going First (The Real Cost of Pioneering) http://strategyinprinciple.com/going-first http://strategyinprinciple.com/going-first

Prepare to be surprised. This poem isn't about what it seems...

Goingfirst

"1st"

Intrepid leader, pioneer,
the first to start the race.
Who charts a course to lead the way,
a route to second place.
 
Though guides are callow, maps unknown,
who treks the virgin land,
by each new failure, marks the path,
to reach the final strand.
 
The first will vanquish demons that
no other man will face,
and then to hold the place in line,
march on at double pace.
 
Who oft as not will never see
themself the end reward.
The trail built but someone else
will bridge the final ford.
 
Regret and failure, dreams destroyed
the conquered hero stands,
to see the next, in half the time,
will navigate these lands.
 
What will they see, the third and fourth,
while passing by the first?
A counterfeit? A vagabond?
A swine? A fool, accursed?
 
Or will they see the harbinger
of all they soon will reach?
Who cut the trail, but time expired
short of the final beach.
 
And will the vanguard be content
to never see the end?
Instead, to be the stepping stone,
instead, to help a friend.
 
~ John Crenshaw
"Dedicated to every oldest sibling."
 
My son John wrote this the day his fourth brother received his Eagle Scout award. All his brothers beneath him got theirs or are in line for it.
 
He never received his.

As new parents, we were still learning the ropes, and he was cutting a trail for this brothers and sisters. I'm the oldest in my family, and I never earned my Eagle either.
 
However, I'm totally "content," as his poem uses that word, and I think he is too. Blazing the path for others and seeing them succeed is where I get much of my satisfaction in life. Perhaps that's why I love being a coach so much ...
 
Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:32:00 -0800 Consensus in Crisis http://strategyinprinciple.com/consensus-in-crisis http://strategyinprinciple.com/consensus-in-crisis

Consensus

What happens when a true leader, facing a crisis, honestly collaborates with all parties to find a group solution?

Read the following article. I don't think this is "spin" or positioning. It's the real deal. There were no dissenting comments posted on the Richmond Time-Dispatch news article as of this writing.

I recommend this pattern for any leader in any organization: 

  • Use your influence as a leader to be a catalyst for responsible consensus.
  • What common ground can you find?
  • What ideas does the "other side" have?
  • Avoid finger pointing. Focus on issues, not people. (I think this article only scores a C+ for that.)
Bring all parties to the table, agree on the need, then figure it out together. Not only do you get a solution, but you get a solution people can believe in and implement with enthusiasm. And that makes all the difference.

"Tough, Responsible Choices Set Stage for Recovery"
Richmond Times Dispatch, March 7, 2010
By Guest Columnist Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell

Virginians need more good jobs. In this uniquely difficult economy, a top priority of government must be strengthening the free enterprise system and helping the private sector create jobs to get our economy back on track. This has been the focus of much of our efforts since taking office.

We have seen in Congress what happens when our leaders do not focus on economic growth, competitiveness, and job creation. They get pulled into partisan fights over other issues. Some of their actions have a negative impact on the capital markets, captains of industry, small business entrepreneurs, and consumers upon whom job creation depends.

I'm grateful to our state legislature that most of my economic development and reform proposals have passed one or both houses, most with large bipartisan majorities. The new tools we will have to promote small business, tourism, film production, wineries, and the energy industry will help to create the jobs and prosperity of tomorrow.

For the past seven weeks I have been working in a collaborative fashion with leading budget-writers in both parties and have made our budget priorities clear: First, new tools for job creation and economic development to foster future growth. Second, no job-killing tax increases. Third, generating a balanced budget on time that preserves our Triple-A bond rating and attractiveness to new private investment. Finally, protecting public safety and focusing reductions on those areas that had not received large cuts before.

Our work on the budget began in January -- facing a budget shortfall of $4.2 billion. Gov. Tim Kaine's introduced budget proposed to cover half of the shortfall with the largest tax increase in Virginia history -- a minimum 17 percent income tax increase for Virginians. Both houses of the General Assembly dismissed this plan on a bipartisan basis.

The inclusion of a tax hike proposal with no realistic prospect for passage left us with an unbalanced budget. It meant closing the remaining $2.2 billion shortfall in just a few weeks. It presented an unprecedented situation. Prior to this year, the most revisions an incoming governor ever made to his predecessor's introduced budget were $400 million (by Gov. Mark Warner in 2002). Our task has been more than five times greater.

Choosing a process of collaboration with my former legislative colleagues, I have been meeting regularly with leaders from both houses to help forge a balanced budget. On Feb. 17, I sent the General Assembly $2.3 billion in budget recommendations. Developing this package of recommendations was one of the most difficult undertakings in my 19 years in public office. Many cuts carry with them a human face, a personal story, and a real impact on fellow Virginians. But Virginians rightly expect their elected leaders to make the hard choices necessary to run government efficiently during tough times, just as they do in their family and business budgets. That means reducing spending to meet available revenues, conservatively projecting future revenues, and not balancing the state's budget with higher taxes.

According to Virginia's watchdog agency JLARC, the total state operating budget has grown by 73.4 percent from 2000 to 2009. After adjusting for population and inflation, it still grew by 28 percent. When times were good we adopted a high level of spending, not sustainable in today's economy.

Before I took office, Gov. Kaine and the General Assembly had already cut $7 billion from the budget over the past two years. Higher education, public safety, and transportation were all hit with deep cuts, while K-12 education and health care generally were not. Thus, our new spending reductions focused on those areas.

Reducing education funding is a tough choice. My sister is a teacher and all of my children graduated, or will graduate this year, from public high schools in the state. Over the past decade, direct aid to K-12 education has grown by 55 percent, faster than other areas of the general fund. In fact, education spending accounts for 39 percent of all general fund budget growth over the past decade. This has occurred while student enrollment has gone up only 7.6 percent.

Our budget proposal will still leave total K-12 spending in 2012 50 percent higher than it was in the year 2000. Our reductions are targeted primarily at expenditures outside the classroom. And the proposed reductions to K-12 can be offset in large part by the use of more than $500 million in additional revenue generated for localities through budget savings from the Virginia Retirement System payments, and through the utilization of nearly $280 million in additional revenues recently identified by our office.

The budgets of both houses have significant savings in the area of social services and health care. However, even if all of these cuts are made, Virginia will still be spending more on health care than ever before.

I have been heartened by the common ground we have found in crafting the final budget. Both the Republican House and the Democratic Senate rejected tax increases, preserved car tax relief, included funding for job creation and economic development efforts, and closed the shortfall through reductions in spending in areas not cut significantly before.

The collaboration with the General Assembly has fostered an atmosphere of candid dialogue. I have much faith in the senior leaders in the legislature to resolve their differences promptly and civilly. We stand ready to pass a balanced budget, in a bipartisan fashion, on time, and without a tax increase. These extraordinary fiscal times will bring about innovation and entrepreneurial management by both public and private sector leaders. The spirit of the people of Virginia to endure and recover from difficult times is outstanding, and I look forward to helping lead our state to brighter days ahead.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:04:00 -0800 A ZDNet Post on Priacta http://strategyinprinciple.com/a-zdnet-post-on-priacta http://strategyinprinciple.com/a-zdnet-post-on-priacta
I was happy to see Dan Kusnetzky at ZDNet wrote a piece mentioning our Total, Relaxed Organization training program, as he's just starting out on our TRO training. Check out this excerpt:

Recently, I came across a system offered by Priacta that claimed to offer the benefits of GTD using a more relaxed approach, an approach they call Total Relaxed Organization (TRO.)  I became intrigued, signed up for an inexpensive online course and have been working with Kevin Crenshaw, Executive Coach and one of the company’s founders.

You can read the rest of his post here.

Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:15:00 -0800 Some TRO/GTD Humor: Dilbert & Time Management http://strategyinprinciple.com/a-little-trogtd-humor-dilbert-and-time-manage http://strategyinprinciple.com/a-little-trogtd-humor-dilbert-and-time-manage

Media_httpdilbertcomd_beuid

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:32:00 -0800 The Secret to (Actually) Getting Fanatical Support from Rackspace http://strategyinprinciple.com/the-secret-to-actually-getting-fanatical-supp http://strategyinprinciple.com/the-secret-to-actually-getting-fanatical-supp

I'd like to start off by asking you: Are you one of the people who are sick of seeing this message?

Outlookpic

After my case study analysis of Rackspace Fanatical Support, we received a number of disillusioned, irate, and even hopeless reader comments (read them below the article here). Now it's time to report back, share our experience since then, and give you a likely solution. This article outlines our roadmap for getting true, Fanatical Support, as advertised by Rackspace.

Yes, I'm pretty confident you can get it, and it's not too hard. You just have to know the "secret," which really isn't supposed to be a secret at all.

Priacta's Recent Experience

Many of our site's reliability problems continue. They have improved somewhat, but from time to time they revert back to their old ways, like the Mr. Hyde side of Dr. Jekyll.

However ... something huge changed along the way.

Here's the big difference: Priacta was assigned a Rackspace Cloud account manager who 1) owns our issue and our account, and who 2) definitely acts accountable to us. (If you want this level of support yourself, read on ...)

RESULT: We feel like we are getting true fanatical support, in spite of the continuing issues.

SPECIFIC IMPROVEMENTS IN SUPPORT: Now someone is validating and responding to our concerns. We are getting regular updates from Rackspace on the status of the issues, setbacks, and progress made. We have some contact with front-line techs and engineers in the email chains. We are able to provide data and work with them to help resolve the issue. And there is progress... definite patterns are being discovered in when and why the issues surface, and likely causes identified and pursued.

ANALYSIS: It's interesting that even though the problems are not yet solved, we are much more willing to live with the pain when we see that Rackspace is definitely listening, letting us help resolve it, and trying as hard or harder than we would. It creates hope. There is no pain like the pain of uncertainty and hopelessness. Remember this principle for your own business: if your people are distressed at the size of the waves, give them an oar and ask them to paddle. When we feel like we are at least doing something about our problems, we don't feel as afraid of them. 

CONCLUSIONS: 1) Adding accountability (to the customer) and 2) Rackspace taking ownership of the issue does, indeed, restore a "fanatical" level of support in the client's mind.

What About the Rest of You?

I believe that this is not just special treatment for us. Instead, there seems to be a gaping chasm between Level 1 and Level 2 Rackspace on a few critical, high-profile issues that you have to cross on your own. Why? There is no automatic escalation path. (Level 1 support was decent for a very long time. It only became bad for a couple of specific, company-threatening issues that they did not know how to handle.)

RECOMMENDATION TO RACKSPACE: Create a tech who owns this particular problem and is accountable to anyone reporting it. This tech's mantra should be: "I'm the 'No Suitable Nodes' Engineer. My mission is to find enough nodes, all the time, for everyone, no matter what. I want to hear your experience and give you Fanatical Support on this issue." Then tell your Level 1 techs to refer people to the "No Suitable Nodes" Engineer. Give her/him a face and name, a blog or web page, then let people post comments there and let him/her respond to them all at once with a running discussion. Channel all the complaints to one place where you can do excellent damage control and give people the same relief we're feeling now!

Escalating It Yourself

Rackspace reps have said that this kind of support is their plan, they have a policy of complete transparency, and they have an open door. But the real problem, in my opinion, is that this just isn't true right now for Level 1 support. Instead, you have to escalate it to the next level yourself by contacting management. Fortunately, their management contact information is public. Here is what Angela Bartels said:

We do keep our contact information public, including our leadership. Our GM, Emil Sayegh, publicly responds to customers and posts his contact information freely, and frequently. You can reach him at emil.sayegh@rackspace.com or via Twitter @esayegh. All of our contact information is here as well: http://bit.ly/8utwKW.

Her complete post and contact information is posted in the Comments here.

Try The Experiment and Report Your Results Here

If you're having troubles, let us know here. Then contact Rackspace using the contact info above to escalate your issue. Report back here in the comment section on how well they responded. After trying this approach, I'm betting you will get the Fanatical Support they promise.

Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:46:00 -0800 Family Businesses, Entrepreneurship, and "It's Not a Real Job" Syndrome http://strategyinprinciple.com/family-businesses-and-its-not-a-real-job-synd http://strategyinprinciple.com/family-businesses-and-its-not-a-real-job-synd

Entrepreneurkids2

USA Today recently featured an article about the entrepreneurial spirit that family businesses inspire in the children of the parents who run it. Consider this:

Nearly half of business founders had a parent who started a small business first, according to a Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation report released last summer. Slightly more than 15% had siblings who launched a business before they did.

"If you had a family member who started a business, you are more likely to become an entrepreneur than someone who didn't," says Vivek Wadhwa, founder of two technology companies, as well as a senior research associate at the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and a co-author of the Kauffman study. "They provide inspiration, financing and they teach you the ropes."

This hit close to home for me. As a serial entrepreneur and father of 10 children, I'm seeing strong entrepreneurial tendencies in nearly all of my kids. Even my youngest son, at 5, routinely set up a "store" in our living room selling things he found around the house. When he turned 6, we explained that he needed to buy the stuff from us and resell it. Words like "profit," "inventory," and "margin" became a natural part of his vocabulary.

Owning a business absolutely helps you teach and train entrepreneurship in a more thorough, profound way. In fact, that's been one of our business objectives all along: involve the children, and teach them marketable skills in the process. We received some surprising benefits, as well. For example, some unexpected sibling communication issues did not get resolved until we hired certain children and put them into the same office. The emphasis on teaching and training also helped create a company culture of continuous learning.

The Rub: "It's Not a Real Job" Syndrome

However, even with all the benefits, you need to be careful. One issue we've run into is what I call "It's not a Real Job" Syndrome. Children tend to take a family-managed business more lightly than a "normal" job, so you have to take measures to prevent that attitude. Here's a few quick tips from our play book:
  1. Where possible, let non-parents supervise children. Make it clear to the supervisor and the child that this is not a guaranteed job, and that they should be treated like all other employees at work.
  2. At work, wear a different hat. I'm "Kevin" at work to my children, and "Dad" at home. When they speak using one title or the other, it makes the context clear. "Business is business, family is family." They don't overlap.
  3. Don't rescue them. Let managers and the children work things out. Letting a child fail at something is often the best way for them to learn. Be ready afterwards with some encouragement and mentoring. Let them know that you still have great confidence in them, and everybody falls short once in awhile.
  4. Establish clear, fair performance standards and review progress. "What we measure, improves." This helps ensure that the same standards apply to everyone.
  5. Rely on principle-based management. Principle-based leadership and management bases its decisions on proven, externally-verifiable principles. Circumstances change, but principles always apply. This management mindset is strong insurance against favoritism, and it encourages and reinforces the clear standards, metrics, and processes you need in an organization (above).
  6. Assure others of non-favoritism. It may not seem like it, but this is different from not actually playing favorites. Managers and others will be afraid that you will treat children differently, so you must reassure them, over and over, that you will not. Ask them to hold you accountable to that standard. 
With a few safeguards like this in place, family entrepreneurship can be a blessing to you, your children, your business—and it can be a lot of fun!

See the WSJ article on entrepreneurial families here.

Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:11:00 -0800 Why Is Twitter Declining? Two Answers, Plus Three New Social Media Networks with Ideas http://strategyinprinciple.com/why-are-twitters-numbers-waning-one-answer-pl http://strategyinprinciple.com/why-are-twitters-numbers-waning-one-answer-pl

Oops

Twitter's numbers are flatlining or declining lately. Not as many people are joining up as they used to, and fewer people seem to be visiting. That spells trouble for Twitter. It also makes the business consultant in me wonder "Why?" and "What's next?"

What's the Problem?

I believe Twitter is waning for two simple, subtle reasons: 1) It's not creating persistent value, and 2) it's an unreliable communication channel.

1) No Persistent Value

What do I mean by "no persistent value?" Old tweets do not show up in searches anywhere. (See "Older tweets are temporarily unavailable.") The information in these tweets effectively drops off the end of the earth, lost to anyone unless they want to sequentially sift through someone's history. Imagine writing for a blog, knowing that in two weeks your article won't show up in any Google searches? How useful would Google be if it only indexed things posted to the Web in the last week?

This limitation threatens to relegate Twitter to the realm of mindless chatter instead of the world of real, personal resources. Example: My twitter stream is designed to be a persistent resource of micro-ideas, thoughts, and tips that would actually help people. But its value drops if you have to read the entire thing start to finish to find what you want.

A temporary workaround is to use archiving services such as TweetBackup or grabbing the RSS feed for a twitstream and adding it to our preferred RSS reader, but these won't help you or other users retro-actively search Twitter for old tweets.

2) Unreliable Communication Channel

Without third-party tools, Twitter is a leaky, inconsistent means of communication. Yes, I know that's part of its beauty, since you can turn off the background noise and see only some of it some of the time. I like that. Yet I've also had colleagues tweet me @replies that didn't get seen for a week or more, and they were miffed. They were expecting something that Twitter isn't really designed for, but that's the point! They expected it. Twitter didn't deliver it. Currently, Twitter can only send you email notices of Direct Messages, not your @replies. In contrast, Facebook lets you get notices of any messages people leave for you. That's important if you want to reply promptly and really contribute to a community.

Twitter should add an option, pronto, to send you immediate or daily digests of @messages (any tweet that mentions you). Without it, it's an unreliable communication channel, and it's value diminishes. It becomes "optional" communication, most useful once again for mindless chatter.

The workarounds for this are far from obvious to the average Twitterer. Take a look at notify.me and this article for solutions.

What's Next?

1) Hopefully, Twitter will fix their search and notification limits ASAP, and hopefully they will remain relevant.

2) If not, look for some other micro-blogging platform to emerge. It may include features from a three other new ideas coming our now. 

The first network is Foursquare, a location-based social network that allows you to "announce" and keep track of places you've been. The second social service is Plancast, which allows you to "broadcast" your plans to friends and colleagues. And the last network is Tungle, which allows you to schedule meetings by proposing multiple possible meeting times, publishing your schedule's free and busy times, and inviting others to book meetings.

Check out this great video explaining how these three programs can keep you productive and connected. They may be the services to dethrone Twitter, if these problems persist.

Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:31:00 -0800 Tenacity: The Most Important Tool in Your Blueprint For Business Success http://strategyinprinciple.com/tenacity-the-most-important-tool-in-your-blue http://strategyinprinciple.com/tenacity-the-most-important-tool-in-your-blue

Tenacity

Tenacity is everything. It means if the front door closes in your face, you find a side door. Then if the side door closes, you look for a window. Get the picture?

In other words, if you don't know something, you'll learn it. If you lack experience, you'll seek out a mentor who has it and learn from them. If you can't "do" it yet, you actively listen and learn and watch for an opening when you can. It means asking gently, over and over—latching on like a bulldog and not letting go (with a smile)—until things finally start to happen.

Tenacity creates self-confidence and self-esteem: when you exercise tenacity, you know—100%, absolutely, positively, sooner or later, no matter what it takes—you're going to make it happen. And it feels great!

The Will to Win
By Berton Braley

If you want a thing bad enough 
To go out and fight for it, 
Work day and night for it, 
Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it

If only desire of it 
Makes you quite mad enough 
Never to tire of it, 
Makes you hold all other things tawdry 
and cheap for it

If life seems all empty and useless without it 
And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,

If gladly you'll sweat for it, 
Fret for it, Plan for it, 
Lose all your terror of God or man for it,

If you'll simply go after that thing that you want. 
With all your capacity, 
Strength and sagacity, 
Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,

If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt, 
Nor sickness nor pain 
Of body or brain 
Can turn you away from the thing that you want,

If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it, 
You'll get it!

Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Fri, 01 Jan 2010 12:26:00 -0800 How Many Emails Are in Your Inbox? 2010 New Year's Poll, Plus Solutions (#howmanyemails #tro #gtd) http://strategyinprinciple.com/how-many-emails-are-in-your-inbox-2010-new-ye http://strategyinprinciple.com/how-many-emails-are-in-your-inbox-2010-new-ye

Emailorganization3

 

Quick Poll: How Many Emails in Your Inbox? Post your number on Twitter using the Retweet badge below. Include both your READ and UNREAD emails, since they're all in there, gumming up the works ... Results will be posted on this blog.

So What's the Big Problem?

I keep seeing 2010 New Year's resolutions about organization, especially regarding email. For example, one blogger on new year's email resolutions for leaders said:

#7. Responsiveness. Is your inbox volume out of control?  Haven’t cleared that voicemail in a long time?  Try setting aside an hour a week or a daily block to review and respond to your messages regularly.

This idea isn't bad—it's called "time boxing"—but it's not enough. What the author calls "reviewing" we would call "processing" or "doing" as taught by David Allen's GTD and our GTD-inspired TRO approach. However, I've found that to keep your inbox from exploding into chaos, you absolutely, positively need to "triage" it. So, what is "triaging?"

5 Easy Steps to Triaging Email

To help you with your 2010 email resolutions,  here are the 5 easy, GTD-friendly, TRO email "triaging" steps  that will not only get your inbox volume "under control," but will allow you to use your inbox to get your entire life "under control," too.

Step 1) Identify junk email and remove it. Be honest with yourself. Delete it if you know you're never going to deal with it again. 

TIP #1: Unless it's sleazy junk mail you never subscribed to, click "Unsubscribe" at the bottom to stop getting more emails. The US CAN-SPAM act has made this safe and effective with one or two clicks for most mailers.

TIP #2: After unsubscribing, group emails by sender to remove large chunks of email all at once.

Step 2) Operate under "Quick Communication" mantra. Keep it under 2 minutes. Disengage from emails by deleting or forwarding to someone who might care, then forget about it. Do not create a follow-up task. And if you can’t disengage, email makes quick replies easy, like: “Thanks. I got it. I’ll get back with you next week.”

Step 3) Is it a "hot" item for your to-do list? Create tasks from all actionable emails and process immediately.

Step 4) Not a hot issue? Put it in an "Unprocessed Tasks" list for later processing.  Move the the email  to “[Action]” for later processing, or, quickly add a task to your task list to collect the task. Include any relevant notes or information.

Step 5) File the email as a resource item, if applicable. Label reference items if needed, then archive them. Archive all of your email this way. Gmail has excellent search capabilities and plenty of space (7+ GB). Retrieving information is easy: simply search for it. The video below gives you a quick step-by-step on organizing your email with labels in Gmail:

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Apply these 5 time management methods to your inbox, and you will have one more resolution you can check off your 2010 list.

Click here to see the full article on New Year's Resolutions for leaders.

Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Fri, 01 Jan 2010 09:43:00 -0800 HOW MANY EMAILS in your Inbox? http://j.mp/8Qzfw3 #howmanyemails #tro #gtd - Please RT your # here -> http://strategyinprinciple.com/how-many-emails-in-your-inbox-2010-new-years http://strategyinprinciple.com/how-many-emails-in-your-inbox-2010-new-years

Quick Poll: How Many Emails in Your Inbox? Post your number on Twitter using the Retweet badge below. Include both your READ and UNREAD emails, since they're all in there, gumming up the works ... Results will be posted here.

Click here to see our post on how you can get from tens of thousands of unorganized, unarchived emails ... to the elusive Inbox zero.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Fri, 01 Jan 2010 08:26:00 -0800 How Many Emails Are in Your Inbox? 2010 New Year's Poll, Plus Solutions (#howmanyemails #tro #gtd) http://strategyinprinciple.com/how-many-emails-in-your-inbox-2010-new-years-0 http://strategyinprinciple.com/how-many-emails-in-your-inbox-2010-new-years-0

This blog post has been updated. To see the newest version, click here.

Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:46:00 -0800 ROI Resolutions: Add Social Media to Your To-Do List for 2010 http://strategyinprinciple.com/roi-resolutions-add-social-media-to-your-to-d http://strategyinprinciple.com/roi-resolutions-add-social-media-to-your-to-d
Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

If you haven't already made social media a significant part of your marketing schedule, there's no better time than New Year's Eve to add it to your company's list of resolutions. With more than 350 million users on Facebook and more than 30 million on Twitter, social media may not rule the world, but it absolutely dominates the web.

But if that doesn't convince you, here's a great video from @equalman that clearly illustrates why social media has significant returns in ROI.

Convinced yet? Not so fast. Make sure you do your research so that your strategy helps you get out at least as much as you put in. Check out this great post for more tips on social media ROI measurement.

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:51:00 -0800 The Case for Open-Book Management: How Trusting, Empowering and Rewarding Your Staff Transforms Your Business http://strategyinprinciple.com/the-case-for-open-book-management-how-trustin http://strategyinprinciple.com/the-case-for-open-book-management-how-trustin

Graphguy

Kevin Crenshaw is a business consultant and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on hot topics in management and productivity tips for business owners. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a time management company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

Right now Priacta is preparing to open our books to our staff, giving them a first look at financial information about the company. Why would we want to do something crazy like that? I was pleased to see a recent article in the New York Times that answers that very question:

Because doing so has the power to change the way the company operates and to change the way employees think about their work. ... Open-book management, Mr. Gephardt wrote in his book, “An Even Better Place,” represents “an overall approach to corporate governance that treats the employees like co-owners of the business who have to make sacrifices and take on the burdens that any owner assumes.”   

My Definition of "Open Book"

My brand of "open-book management" means employees (and even contractors) are given enough fiscal information about the business—and incentives tied to that information—to empower and inspire them to make better, highly-motivated decisions, automatically. "Fiscal information" can include revenue, profit, cost of goods, cash flow and expenses. "Incentives" can include bonuses (even small ones), stock ownership programs, and profit-sharing programs that are timely and tied directly to the numbers that really matter in your business.

Personal Case Study: WordPerfect Corporation

Here's a personal example. In 1984 I became programmer #6 at a small, privately-held company called Satellite Software International. They later changed their name to WordPerfect Corporation. Early in my career there I proposed a new project (the WordPerfect Thesaurus) and offered to work on it after normal business hours. Their response floored me: they offered me a bonus of .2% of the gross sales of the entire company in every paycheck. The change in me was profound--I was incredibly motivated and never saw that company the same way again. Every decision was based on "what impact will this have?" I watched for threats on the horizon and opportunities the company could seize. And it was fun. In short, I thought and acted like an owner--at age 24. Management felt they saw initiative and potential in me, they rewarded it with information and incentives tied to the success of the company, and it paid off for them big-time.

Not Just Data, But Automatic Incentives, Too

Going back to that NYT article, the author argues that with open-book management, employees feel a greater sense of ownership toward their jobs, even if they may not literally own part of the company. I would add—and this is very, very important—when you also add automatic incentives tied to the success of the company, the quality and intensity of that ownership intensifies. In other words, you empower your staff to think and act like owners, to feel like an even bigger part of the team, by giving them the data to make good choices and then making them true stakeholders. You all win or lose together. When the company succeeds, they succeed. When it starts to falter, you all feel the pain ... not just the bosses. It happened at WordPerfect Corporation. it is happening now at Priacta.

In the past, apparently, open-book management carried a fearful stigma with some, but as more and more  businesses practice it, that stigma is disappearing. Employers are learning that good things can come from trusting their staff and rewarding great decisions automatically. I highly recommend it. 

Read the entire Times article here. 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:50:00 -0800 Google Caffeine: The Revolution is Coming, But Are We Prepared For What It Will Change? http://strategyinprinciple.com/google-caffeine-the-revolution-is-coming-but http://strategyinprinciple.com/google-caffeine-the-revolution-is-coming-but

Google-caffeine

Kevin Crenshaw is a time management expert, business consultant, and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on productivity, management, and other organizational hot topics. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

It seems the release of Google Caffeine, Google's new search technology, is bound to revolutionize the way businesses present their products and services online. A random evaluation of 50 businesses recently showed that the overwhelming majority of web sites are not prepared to take advantage of GC. Here's what the report by SEO Internet Marketing firm Irbtrax had to say:
  • Most web sites had little fresh or updated content.
  • Many had poorly-constructed Meta Title/Description Tags.
  • Several had issues with universal website download times, mainly Y2K-T2. 
  • The majority had few genuinely quality outbound links relevant to site's theme.
  • Many sported poorly-formatted internal linking and lack of proper Siloing.
  • There were virtually no Social Media involvement/Bookmark icons where applicable.
  • Many sites' emphasis on Advanced Flash images could cause access problems.
All in all, the report produced some serious food for thought. For one, we can expect to see our newer pages showing up in the index, but not necessarily our best (i.e., well-ranked) pages. For another, Google is really weeding out duplicate content. And finally, we should all regularly add meaningful, value-added content, if we don't already do so.

How will your business need to change its web presence, to "make the cut" on Google Caffeine? And if you don't make the necessary changes, will you be left behind? 

For more, see the complete posted press release from Irbtrax.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Mon, 28 Dec 2009 08:04:00 -0800 7 Predictions: What Businesses Can Expect From Social Media in the Year 2010 http://strategyinprinciple.com/7-predictions-what-businesses-can-expect-from http://strategyinprinciple.com/7-predictions-what-businesses-can-expect-from
Kevin Crenshaw is a time management expert, business consultant, and executive coach. As author of the blog "Strategy in Principle," he shares insights on productivity, management, and other organizational hot topics. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for more tips in all these areas.

Connie Benson wrote a helpful post over at "Social Media Today" listing 7 new developments we business folk can expect from social media in 2010. Here's a taste:

3. Cultural shift inside of companies.
This is going to be a challenge for many companies. In order to be successful in connecting with customers, organizations are going to have to have communications channels in place and the openness to utilize the information. I shared a diagram of how a community manager can increase sales & the many departments affected. Management is going to need to have a level of trust for their employees interacting online and understand that the risk can be mitigated by education & training.

For the rest of her list, check out the complete post here.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:27:00 -0800 Suffering from "Missed Appointment" Syndrome? 6 Problems You Might Have, With 6 Convenient Cures http://strategyinprinciple.com/suffering-from-missed-appointment-syndrome-6 http://strategyinprinciple.com/suffering-from-missed-appointment-syndrome-6

Busyplanner

Do you repeatedly change, cancel, or (worst of all) miss appointments? These symptoms could mean you need a better time management system. But if you already have a great system and you still miss appointments, then your problem might just be a bad scheduling habit or two. 

Each kind of bad habit demands a different solution. So, to help you recover from your particular appointment ailments, we've listed 6 possible diagnoses and their cures. Refer to this list whenever you find yourself falling behind on your appointments.

Symptom: Missed appointments.

Diagnosis #1: Multiple calendars. You aren't Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. There is only one of you. So why keep more than one calendar?
Cure: Your calendar is your time-budgeting tool, so you must use one and only one calendar. Otherwise, you may book yourself twice. (Exception: You can have sub-calendars for specific times of the day, like work, so work time is only scheduled in your work calendar.)

Diagnosis #2: Unrealistic scheduling. This includes scheduled appointments too close together, scheduling too much for a specific time period, leaving out buffer time between appointments, committing yourself to too many activities, or not assigning enough time for an appointment.
Cure: Look at the big picture. Before you commit yourself, look at your schedule for the week. Be honest with yourself: do you have time to drive to and from that meeting, and still make your doctor's check-up at 4 p.m.?  Could that assignment take longer? Don't count on the best case scenario! There is great peace in admitting that you're not a time-traveler and can't do everything in one day.

Diagnosis #3: You're scheduling tasks for the wrong times. Perhaps you're scheduling that phone call when it's their dinner time, or you're trying to squeeze in one last meeting too close to a holiday.
Cure: Take 5 seconds to look ahead. Look at the calendar and your planner for conflicts, then schedule things when people are available, when you will be free, and when the appointment is appropriate.

Diagnosis #4: You're fighting certain unalterable priorities of scheduling. These include sleep, eating, and essential routines like showering and dressing.
Cure: Separate wants from needs, and honor the needs first. Face the fact that skipping lunch and chronic late arrivals to meetings affect your health, increase stress, and impact other appointments. Maybe most important of all is sleep. When you impact your bedtime or miss sleep you have to pay it back later--with interest (extra sleep or fatigue).

Diagnosis #5: You're avoiding it. You could be avoiding a certain task, or speaking with a specific person, or dreading an overwhelming issue that may be discussed at  a meeting.
Cure: Admit that you are avoiding it, figure out why, and address that issue. There are a number of reasons for procrastination (these will all be discussed soon in another article). However, procrastination usually comes from a surprising source: not identifying the correct next step for your project. If you get the cart before the horse, you're going to feel a lot of natural resistance. Figure out the real next step and schedule that. Example: not "talk to Joan" but "Ask Bob how to tell Joan about the issue."

Diagnosis #6: It isn't really important, after all! You're rescheduling or canceling because the task in question isn't all that important!
Cure: This should be easy: If it isn't important, cancel it. Don't you have something better--or more fun--to do? 

Bottom Line:

Make the commitment to always honor your appointments. Without that, you're not likely to get much done or be considered reliable. But even then, if and when you find yourself struggling, look at the list above and figure out which diagnoses match your problem. Then apply the cures. Your prognosis will be excellent!

Kevin Crenshaw is a time management expert, business consultant, and executive coach. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a company that helps you get an extra two hours out of your day—for life. Follow him on Twitter for regular tips in all these areas.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/460680/nicebutoldshotofme.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5ebzHTBThcGZ Stormy Brownrigg Stormy's Scoops Stormy Brownrigg