Eat the Elephant

Wow! The big project is here. It has so many steps that you cannot see the top rung. It is so big that it looks like it is the size of an elephant. How do you manage? How do you get your head around it? How do you get your team through this? One step at a time. Just like eating an elephant – one bite at a time.


What does that mean exactly? Well, don’t....

• Push the project onto one person without providing detailed expectations – give instructions and review each step of the project regularly

• Set unrealistic expectations for completion – determine the timeline that makes sense by including key stakeholders in the planning process

• Take away resources to complete each part – payroll, time, people – it’s work, plan in advance to spend the resources

• Put too many pieces of the project in motion – there should be an order or process to follow.

Eat the elephant one bite at a time. It really is the only way.

The 3 Hour 30 Minute Meeting

Would you like to have one of these at your next meeting?

If you have a boss like I had long ago, they would call a 'quick' 30 minute meeting....
....and we never got out in under less than 3 hours!  And everyone in the department, no matter what the role, was required to attend.

What a waste of time!  We ended up calling this the 'M' Meeting!

Having a meeting without a purpose or agenda, it was all about feather-fluffing and her talking about what she just did or what she still has to learn and why she (meaning us) is always behind on every project.

Not fun!

What to do?  Let the boss know that an agenda would be appreciated so that you can prepare for the meeting.  Also, request that your team need not attend because you would be happy to provide the meeting details and action steps so they can keep working on the project at hand, keeping productivity moving efficiently.