Mind Tools Newsletter 163: Manage Change - Effectively!

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You've received this newsletter because you subscribed to it using our double opt-in sign-up process. To unsubscribe, just click the link at the bottom of this email. Alternatively, if you're not already a subscriber, you can sign up here. Contents Kotter's Change Model The Flow Model Sales Skills Learning Leadership Managing Emotion Open Leadership Multipliers Leadership Styles Beliefs and Motives Effective Recruitment A Final Note At Mind Tools... About Mind Tools Membership Corporate Services Tool Explorer Contact Us Mind Tools Newsletter 163 - September 28, 2010 Manage Change - Effectively! Whether you're in charge of a large-scale organizational merger, or simply introducing a new reporting system to your team, implementing change can be challenging. Where do you start? Who do you need to involve? And most importantly, how can you get people's support? Our Career Excellence Club has many in-depth resources that help you manage change effectively, and Kotter's 8-Step Change Model is a popular and useful tool to use for this. In this week's article, find out more about Kotter's eight steps, and learn how you can apply them to your own situation, so that your next change project is a success. Get in "Flow" We're also taking a look at the Flow Model, which helps you reach a mental state where you're both satisfied and exceptionally productive (and no, we're not getting "mystical" here!) Plus we've a guide to Sales Skills for Non-Salespeople, where we look at how you can apply "Consultative Selling" to pitch an idea, service, or product successfully! Enjoy the articles! James Manktelow and Rachel Thompson MindTools.com - Essential skills for an excellent career! Featured Resources at Mind Tools Kotter's 8-Step Change Model Implementing Change Powerfully and Successfully All Readers Find out how to plan and implement change successfully, with this eight-step process. All Readers' Featured Favorite Flow Model Balancing Challenge and Skills All Readers "Flow" is a state of mind when tasks seem effortless, challenging, and rewarding at the same time. Learn how to use the Flow Model to be more productive. All Readers' Skill-Builder Sales Skills for Non-Salespeople Using "Consultative Selling" to Pitch Your Idea or Product All Readers Good sales skills are useful, whatever role you're in. Learn how to sell an idea, service, or product to your manager, team, and customers. All Readers' Skill-Builder   ... And from the Career Excellence Club Managing Emotion in Your Team Maintaining Harmony in a Group Club Members Find out how to manage negative emotions within your team, so that you can get everyone to work together productively. All Members' Skill-Builder Open Leadership, with Charlene Li Club Members What benefits can social media such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn offer business leaders? In this interview, Charlene Li discusses how social technology is positively transforming the way that they lead. Premium Members' Expert Interview Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, by Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown Club Members This book is a practical guide to how you can bring intelligence, creativity and energy to your team and your organization. Find out more about it here. Premium Members' Book Insight Understanding Leadership Styles Club Members Learn about three of the most common leadership styles, and their strengths and weaknesses. Then discover how you can apply them to your own situation. All Members' Bite-Sized Training™ What a Real Leader Knows Developing Fundamental Leadership Skills All Readers Find out about the four key skills areas needed for successful leadership, and learn how you can apply them to become a better leader. All Readers' Featured Favorite Coaching to Explore Beliefs and Motives Understanding What Drives Your People Club Members Learn how to coach people to understand their beliefs and core values, thereby improving motivation and decision-making. All Members' Coaching Clinic Effective Recruitment Finding the Best People for Your Team Club Members As a leader, one of your most important jobs is to pick the right people for your team. Learn how to recruit effectively here. All Members' Skill-Builder Editors' Choice Article Kotter's 8-Step Change Model Implementing Change Powerfully and Successfully Change is the only constant. - Heraclitus, Greek philosopher What was true more than two thousand years ago is just as true today - we live in a world where "business as usual" is change. Cost reduction exercises, new initiatives, project-based working, technology improvements, staying ahead of the competition - these things come together to drive ongoing changes to the way we work. Learn how to implement change successfully. © iStockphoto Whether you're considering a small change to one or two processes, or a systemwide change to an organization, it's common to feel uneasy and intimidated by the scale of the challenge. You know that the change needs to happen, but you don't really know how to go about delivering it. Where do you start? Who do you involve? How do you see it through to the end? There are many theories about how to "do" change. Many originate with leadership and change management guru, John Kotter. A professor at Harvard Business School and world-renowned change expert, Kotter introduced his eight-step change process in his 1995 book, "Leading Change." We look at his eight steps for leading change, and show you how you can apply them to your change project, below. Step One: Create Urgency For change to happen, it helps if the whole company really wants it, so you need to develop a sense of urgency around the need for change. This may help you spark the initial motivation to get things moving. This isn't simply a matter of showing people poor sales statistics or talking about increased competition. Open an honest and convincing dialogue about what's happening in the marketplace and with your competition. If many people start talking about the change you propose, the urgency can build and feed on itself. What you can do: Identify potential threats, and develop scenarios showing what could happen in the future. Examine opportunities that should be, or could be, exploited. Start honest discussions, and give dynamic and convincing reasons to get people talking and thinking. Request support from customers, outside stakeholders and industry people to strengthen your argument. Tip: Kotter suggests that for change to be successful, 75% of a company's management needs to "buy into" the change. In other words, you have to really work hard on Step One, and spend significant time and energy building urgency, before moving onto the next steps. Don't panic and jump in too fast because you don't want to risk further short-term losses - if you act without proper preparation, you could be in for a very bumpy ride. Step Two: Form a Powerful Coalition Convince people that change is necessary. This often takes strong leadership and visible support from key people within your organization. Managing change isn't enough - you have to lead it. You can find effective change leaders throughout your organization - they don't necessarily follow the traditional company hierarchy. To lead change, you need to bring together a coalition, or team, of influential people whose power comes from a variety of sources, including job title, status, expertise, and political importance. Once formed, your "change coalition" needs to work as a team, continuing to build urgency and momentum around the need for change. What you can do: Identify the true leaders in your organization. Ask for an emotional commitment from these key people. Work on team building within your change coalition. Check your team for weak areas, and ensure that you have a good mix of people from different departments and different levels within your company. Step Three: Create a Vision for Change When you first start thinking about change, there will probably be many great ideas and solutions floating around. Link these concepts to an overall vision that people can grasp easily, and remember. A clear vision can help everyone understand why you're asking them to do something. When people see for themselves what you're trying to achieve, then the directives they're given tend to make more sense. What you can do: Determine the values that are central to the change. Develop a short summary (one or two sentences) that captures what you "see" as the future of your organization. Create a strategy to execute that vision. Ensure that your change coalition can describe the vision in five minutes or less. Practice your "vision speech" often. Tip: For more on creating visions, see our article on Mission Statements and Vision Statements. Step Four: Communicate the Vision What you do with your vision after you create it will determine your success. Your message will probably have strong competition from other day-to-day communications within the company, so you need to communicate it frequently and powerfully, and embed it within everything that you do. Don't just call special meetings to communicate your vision. Instead, talk about it at every chance that you get. Use the vision daily to make decisions and solve problems. When you keep it fresh on everyone's minds, they'll remember it and respond to it. It's also important to "walk the talk." What you do is far more important - and believable - than what you say. Demonstrate the kind of behavior that you want from others. What you can do: Talk often about your change vision. Openly and honestly address people's concerns and anxieties. Apply your vision to all aspects of operations - from training to performance reviews. Tie everything back to the vision. Lead by example. Step Five: Remove Obstacles If you follow these steps and reach this point in the change process, you've been talking about your vision and building buy-in from all levels of the organization. Hopefully, your team wants to get busy and achieve the benefits that you've been promoting. But is anyone resisting the change? Or are there processes or structures that are getting in its way? Put the structure for change in place, and continually check for barriers to it. Removing obstacles can empower the people you need to execute your vision, and it can help the change move forward. What you can do: Identify, or hire, change leaders whose main roles are to deliver the change. Look at your organizational structure, job descriptions, and performance and compensation systems to ensure that they're in line with your vision. Recognize and reward people for making change happen. Identify people who are resisting the change, and help them see what's needed. Take action to quickly remove barriers (human or otherwise). Step Six: Create Short-term Wins Nothing motivates more than success. Give your company a taste of victory early in the change process. Within a short time frame (this could be a month or a year, depending on the type of change), you'll want to have results that your team can see. Without this, critics and negative thinkers might hurt your progress. Create short-term targets - not just one long-term goal. You want each smaller target to be achievable, with little room for failure. Your change team may have to work very hard to come up with these targets, but each "win" that you produce can further motivate the entire staff. What you can do: Look for sure-fire projects that you can implement without help from any strong critics of the change. Don't choose early targets that are expensive. You want to be able to justify the investment in each project. Thoroughly analyze the potential pros and cons of your targets. If you don't succeed with an early goal, it can hurt your entire change initiative. Reward the people who help you meet the targets. Step Seven: Build on the Change Kotter argues that many change projects fail because victory is declared too early. Real change runs deep. Quick wins are only the beginning of what needs to be done to achieve long-term change. Launching one new product using a new system is great. But if you can launch 10 products, that means the new system is working. To reach that 10th success, you need to keep looking for improvements. Each success provides an opportunity to build on what went right and identify what you can improve. What you can do: After every win, analyze what went right and what needs improving. Set goals to continue building on the momentum you've achieved. Learn about kaizen (members only) - this is the idea of "continuous improvement." Keep ideas fresh by bringing in new change agents and leaders for your change coalition. Step Eight: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture Finally, to make any change stick, it should become part of the core of your organization. Your corporate culture often determines what gets done, so the values behind your vision must show in day-to-day work. Make continuous efforts to ensure that the change is seen in every aspect of your organization. This will help give that change a solid place in your organization's culture. It's also important that your company's leaders continue to support the change. This includes existing staff and new leaders who are brought in. If you lose the support of these people, you might end up back where you started. What you can do: Talk about progress at every chance that you get. Tell success stories about the change process, and repeat other stories that you hear. Include the change ideals and values when hiring and training new staff. Publicly recognize key members of your original change coalition, and make sure the rest of the staff - new and old - remembers their contributions. Create plans to replace key leaders of change as they move on. This will help ensure that their legacy is not lost or forgotten. Tip: This is just one of the articles on change management on Mind Tools. See also our Career Excellence Club articles on Change Management, Lewin's Change Model, using the Change Curve, the Burke-Litwin Change Model and Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Change. Key Points You have to work hard to change an organization successfully. When you plan carefully and build the proper foundation, implementing change can be much easier, and you'll improve the chances of success. If you're too impatient, and if you expect too many results too soon, your plans for change are more likely to fail. Create a sense of urgency, recruit powerful change leaders, build a vision and effectively communicate it, remove obstacles, create quick wins, and build on your momentum. If you do these things, you can help make the change part of your organizational culture. That's when you can declare a true victory. Then sit back and enjoy the change that you envisioned so long ago. A Final Note from James While our opening quote from Heraclitus has become a cliché, change is a routine fact of life for very many people around the world. For many organizations, these changes need to be successful if they are to survive, which is why it's so important to have the right strategy in place when you're involved in a change project - even if it's a minor change that's only affecting a few people. Change management skills really matter! Watch out for our next newsletter in two weeks' time as we focus on helping you get more done! Plus, we look at how managing feedback and complaints effectively can help you to improve the way that your team or organization delivers its services and products. We've also got plenty more coming up in the Career Excellence Club. Until then, best wishes! James Manktelow email us Mind Tools Essential Skills for an Excellent Career! Privacy Policy: Mind Tools will treat your email address with complete respect and will not circulate it to any third party. If you are not already a subscriber to this newsletter and you would like to be one, you can sign up at http://www.mindtools.com/subscribe.htm If you have enjoyed this issue, please do email it on to your friends and co-workers. To find out about new tools on the Mind Tools site the moment they're uploaded, click here to subscribe to the Mind Tools RSS feed (you'll need an RSS newsreader installed). We welcome appropriate reprinting and reuse of Mind Tools material, but , you must get our permission first! To do this, please visit our Permissions Center. © Mind Tools Ltd, 2010. This newsletter is published by Mind Tools Ltd of 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, UK. You have received this email because you have confirmed that you want to receive it using our confirmed opt-in process. To unsubscribe, please use the link at the bottom of this email. Mind Tools Ltd (Company Number 04829074, VAT Number: GB 840 1273 62) and Mind Tools (North America) Ltd (Company Number 05610859) are companies registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Hardwick House, Prospect Place, Swindon, Wiltshire, SN1 3LJ, United Kingdom.

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Mind Tools Workbook - 1 Day to Go!

Dear min-q, Free Workbook - Just 1 Day to Go! A quick reminder that there's just 1 day to go to get our new "Get That Promotion!" workbook (worth US$19.99) for FREE, when you join the Mind Tools Career Excellence Club! "Get That Promotion!" helps you: Explore the full range of opportunities open to you, and understand the skills and experience you'll need for each. Analyze your interests, values and talents; identify your best promotion opportunities; and spot the options you really should avoid! Plan how you'll build the skills and get the experience you need for success. Identify and network positively with the people who control access to the role; and find a mentor who can guide you to success. Shape and polish your professional reputation, so that you're the natural candidate for the position. Together with the rich career support and skills training you'll get in the Club - teaching strong leadership, team management, direction-setting, problem-solving, decision-making, communication and personal effectiveness skills - this is a superb, career-success package! Join now at http://www.mindtools.com/rs/CXC for a first month fee of just $1. But hurry - you can only get "Get That Promotion" free if you sign up before midnight, Wednesday, September 22. Don't miss out! I look forward to welcoming you to the Club! PS: Remember the tiny first month fee, the low ongoing payments, your right to cancel at any time, and our no-quibble money-back guarantee. Join today, download the workbook, and get the huge boost to your career that the Career Excellence Club delivers. Click here to find out more! James Manktelow CEO, MindTools.com Address: Mind Tools, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, UK. Mind Tools Ltd (Company Number 04829074, VAT Number: GB 840 1273 62) and Mind Tools (North America) Ltd (Company Number 05610859) are companies registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Hardwick House, Prospect Place, Swindon, Wiltshire, SN1 3LJ, UK. All currently agreed Mind Tools Ltd and Mind Tools (North America) Ltd Terms & Conditions and product and service Warranties are implicitly assumed with this Email. Other than this, no contract is being entered into in this email unless explicitly stated.

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Mind Tools - Get Promoted!

Dear min-q, Mind Tools - Get Promoted! As September picks up pace, this is a quick reminder that you can get our new Get That Promotion! workbook free when you join our Career Excellence Club before midnight on Wednesday, September 22! Whether you're just starting to think about career progression, or you're working actively towards promotion, this workbook helps you: Identify all of the opportunities open to you. Separate the good ones from those you really should avoid. Build the skills, experience and contacts you need for success. Develop and polish the positive, impressive reputation that will win you the job.   Plan and prepare for promotion success! By combining the workbook with the rich skills training, support and development you get in the Career Excellence Club, you have everything you need to make a real success of your career. So join now at http://www.mindtools.com/rs/promotionsuccess, and get all of this for your first month fee of just $1! Best wishes, and I look forward to welcoming you to the Club! James Manktelow CEO, MindTools.com Address: Mind Tools, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, UK. Mind Tools Ltd (Company Number 04829074, VAT Number: GB 840 1273 62) and Mind Tools (North America) Ltd (Company Number 05610859) are companies registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Hardwick House, Prospect Place, Swindon, Wiltshire, SN1 3LJ, UK. All currently agreed Mind Tools Ltd and Mind Tools (North America) Ltd Terms & Conditions and product and service Warranties are implicitly assumed with this Email. Other than this, no contract is being entered into in this email unless explicitly stated.

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Mind Tools Newsletter 162: Get That Promotion!

To view this newsletter online, please click here.

You've received this newsletter because you subscribed to it using our double opt-in sign-up process. To unsubscribe, just click the link at the bottom of this email. Alternatively, if you're not already a subscriber, you can sign up here. Contents Get That Promotion! Working From Home Fear of Failure Employees First Changing Career Personal Missions Self-Awareness Do More Great Work A Final Note At Mind Tools... About Mind Tools Membership Corporate Services Tool Explorer Contact Us Mind Tools Newsletter 162 - September 14, 2010 Get That Promotion! Time to get ahead and take on more challenges? For most of us that means one thing - promotion! But, do you just wait for an opportunity to come along, and hope for the best? Or do you consciously build the skills and contacts you need for success, well in advance? The power is in the planning, which is why we're proud to announce the new Mind Tools "Get That Promotion!" workbook! "Get That Promotion!" helps you develop a step-by-step plan for preparing for a promotion. From identifying the best promotion opportunities, to building skills, developing contacts and polishing your workplace reputation, it puts you on the track to promotion success. Worth $19.99, "Get That Promotion!" is yours free when you join the Career Excellence Club before midnight PST, Wednesday, September 22. With a first month fee of just $1, the right to cancel at any time, and the incredibly rich career development resources within the Club, this is an unmissable opportunity. Click here to find out more! Working from Home, and Beating Fear of Failure Also in this newsletter, we think about how to be most productive when Working From Home. And we look at strategies for Overcoming Fear of Failure, so that you can enjoy lasting success at work, and in life. Enjoy the newsletter! James Manktelow and Rachel Thompson MindTools.com - Essential skills for an excellent career! Featured Resources at Mind Tools Get That Promotion! Bonus worth $19.99 This new workbook brings together everything you need to prepare yourself for your next promotion. From highlighting promotion opportunities that match your interests, strengths, and career aspirations, to building new skills and identifying the people who can help you along the way, it's full of tools, ideas, and strategies to help you get that all-important promotion. Working From Home Staying Focused Amid Distractions All Readers Working from home may be convenient, but it can also be distracting. Learn strategies for staying productive and focused at home. All Readers' Skill-Builder Overcoming Fear of Failure Facing Fears and Moving Forward All Readers Fear of failure can affect life at work, and at home. Learn how to overcome your fears, so that you can keep moving towards your goals. All Readers' Skill-Builder   ... And from the Career Excellence Club Employees First, Customers Second, with Vineet Nayar Club Members Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies, tells us how he transformed his company by putting employees first and customers second. Premium Members' Skill-Builder Personal Goal Setting Club Members This short training session shows you how to set manageable goals and achieve your ambitions - quickly and effectively. All Members' Bite-Sized Training™ Changing Career Within Your Organization Staying Challenged with a New Role Club Members You don't have to move company to change your career. Find out how to do this without leaving your current organization. All Members' Skill-Builder Personal Mission Statements Defining Your Goals Club Members Do you know what you want to accomplish in work and in life? Personal mission and vision statements can help you achieve your goals in a very focused way. All Members' Skill-Builder Coaching to Develop Self-Awareness Helping People Get to Know Themselves Club Members With strong self-awareness, we can improve our relationships, and become more successful. Find out how you can coach your people to become more self-aware. All Members' Coaching Clinic Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters, by Michael Bungay Stanier Club Members This book is full of ideas and exercises to help you make your work more engaging, and more enjoyable. Learn more about it here. Premium Members' Book Insight Getting the Most from Training Programs Managing Your Learning Club Members Simply showing up at a training session won't ensure a successful outcome. Learn how to get more from your training experiences. All Members' Featured Favorite Editors' Choice Article Working From Home Staying Focused Amid Distractions Mark's organization has allowed him to work at home three days a week, and it's his first full day of "telecommuting." He sets his computer up on his dining room table, and is ready to get to work. Three hours later, however, he's shocked to realize that he's completed very little. What's he been doing? Well, he had to make coffee. Then he did a load of laundry, took a phone call from a friend, and sorted through the mail when it arrived. One thing led to another, and now he's really behind! Make sure you're productive if you work from home. © iStockphoto/DNY59 Working from home can be incredibly productive, but it's also full of distractions. If you work from home, it's up to you to make sure you're doing a full day of focused, productive work. In this article, we'll discuss the benefits and challenges of working from home, and we'll provide some tips to help you be at your most productive during the day. Benefits and Challenges There are many benefits to working at home. For instance: You can be more productive when you're not distracted by casual phone calls, impromptu meetings at your desk, or interruptions from other team members. You can be more relaxed and have better morale because your schedule is flexible and fits your needs. This can lead to less stress. You can save money, including the costs of commuting, lunches out, and work clothes. You'll have more time, as you won't need to commute to work. Of course, for all the benefits of working at home, there are also a number of challenges: Working at home can be incredibly distracting if you're not self-disciplined, especially if family members are around during the day. Without interaction with team members, you can feel isolated. You may find it more difficult to be productive when you're unsupervised. (This also includes "supervision" by the people you manage!) Working from home can make it hard to separate work hours from off hours, causing you to work more. People at the office can forget that you exist, meaning that you're not selected for interesting or high profile projects. Working at home is definitely not for everyone. Some people love the freedom and have the required self-discipline, while others need supervision to be effective, or yearn for the energy and camaraderie of a busy office environment. Tip: Our article The Big Five Personality Traits Model (members only) can help you think about whether home working is likely to suit you. Your conscientiousness and extroversion scores are particularly relevant! Workspace Having a productive and comfortable workspace is particularly important when working from home: Have a dedicated workspace - If you want to do your best work at home, then you need a dedicated workspace - preferably not your kitchen table! Ideally, this space should be a separate room with a door that you can close to shut off distractions. The more you make it feel like a "real office," the more productive you'll be. A room with a door also helps you stop working at the end of the day. When you close the door, it means you're off work. Get an ergonomic office chair - If your chair is uncomfortable, you'll probably find plenty of reasons to get up and go somewhere else. A high-quality office chair is one of the best investments you'll make for your home office. Your organization may even be able to contribute towards the cost. Make sure your "office" is a place where you enjoy spending time – Put some effort into making your working area appealing to you. If this means painting the room or buying plants and artwork, then do it. Organization It's important to keep your home office organized: Make sure your desk is big enough - This will vary, depending on the type of work you do. Keep essential tools in an area that you can reach from your desk; this reduces frustration, and avoids the need to get up repeatedly when you need something. Tidy your desk daily - Spend a few minutes at the end of each day clearing off your desk and filing papers. This is especially important if you don't have a dedicated work area. Organize your information - If you work on several different projects at once, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and disorganized because you're handling so much information. Our article on Action Programs shows you how to stay organized when you're involved with several different projects. Time Management Good time management skills are essential for productive working at home: Create structure for your day - Get up, take breaks, and quit working at the same time as you would if you were at the office. This helps create a rhythm for your day and a sense of normalcy. Prioritize daily tasks with a to-do list - Knowing that certain items must get done by the end of the day will help you avoid distractions. Make a to-do list of "in between" items - These are tasks that won't take more than 10 minutes to complete. For instance, if you have a conference call 15 minutes from now, you can choose one of these shorter tasks that you can complete quickly. Keep a timesheet - It's easy to lose track of how much time you've spent on a certain project or client. Avoid this by keeping detailed timesheets. By tracking your time, your organization will be able to see how you've spent it. You can also identify when you are most productive. To learn more about how to track your time effectively, see our article Accounting for Time (members only). Communication As you're not visible in the office, communication is especially important when working from home: Communicate effectively with your managers and co-workers - They need to know that you are, indeed, working productively and available, even when you're not at the office! If possible, redirect your office phone extension to your home phone. Alternatively, let people know how they can reach you when you're working at home. This is also important for customers and suppliers if they need to get hold of you. Use tools like Skype or instant messaging - These allow people to check in with you during the day if they have questions or need an update. You can always set your status to "busy" or "unavailable" if you want to focus on a particular piece of work. Go into the office on a regular basis - Where possible, do make the effort to go into the office one or more days each week. Not only will this help you remind others that you exist, it helps with the social relationships that are such an important part of working in a team. Losing Focus Although you may, at first, enjoy the peace and quiet of working at home, over time it may become very isolating and you may feel lonely. You may start to miss the relationships and interactions with your co-workers, especially if you work at home full time. This, in turn, can hurt your productivity, and cause you to lose focus. There are several ways to overcome this: Find out what truly motivates you - Do you love working from home? If so, remember that your company might take away this privilege if you don't perform well. For many people, this is enough of a motivator to keep them focused during the day. Know your goals, and work on a project basis - Make sure that you have clear work and career goals that you're working towards. Also, try to structure your work so that you have clearly-defined projects that you need to deliver, and specific deadlines that you need to meet. Identify distraction - Are you doing household chores during the day? Is the TV on? Are friends and family constantly interrupting you? Figure out what's causing you to lose focus, and develop strategies to overcome these things. Often this is as simple as shutting your office door. Get involved with your team - If everyone is going out together after work, time your days in the office so that you can go with them! It's important to continue to bond with your co-workers so that you don't feel cut off from the organization. Further Tips for Working from Home Train your children to let you work - Working from home with young children in the house can be especially challenging, and it's almost impossible to do work of any quality while you're looking after them. Make sure that you have appropriate childcare in place, and teach your children that when you're in your office, you're "away." Put a sign on the door to help them remember. If you have young children, use colors instead of words to let them know to "stop" or "go." (Don't be too rigid here: one of the real joys of working from home is being around to welcome your children home from school. Make sure that you take a little time to enjoy simple pleasures like these!) Beware the Internet! - If you find yourself drawn, for example, to Internet news sites, use some of the time you save commuting to read these in-depth before the start of the working day. They'll have little attraction for you if you've already read the most interesting content. And if you're still struggling, you can use tools like Freedom and Anti-Social to block Internet or social media access for a pre-determined length of time. Set alarms - If you tend to waste too much time on the Internet or with other distractions, then set an alarm clock or kitchen timer for one hour at a time. Do one hour of focused work - and when the alarm goes off, reward yourself with something you enjoy. Then set the timer for another hour of work. Dress in work clothes - You'll probably feel more productive if you dress just as if you were going into the office. Key Points Home working is becoming more and more common. When you're trusted enough to work from home, you must give your organization your best effort. Make sure you have a dedicated, comfortable workspace that you like. Schedule your day just like you would at the office. If you often lose focus, identify what's distracting you and try to eliminate it from your day. And, if possible, get involved socially with your team. Working from home can be isolating, so you need to make an extra effort to build your work relationships. A Final Note from James Whether you're working from home or in the office, your professionalism, proactivity and productivity will always stand you in good stead. This is why, when you think about promotions, it's so important to put in the right groundwork before you apply for them. Not only will you give yourself the best chances of success, but you'll almost certainly end up with a more interesting and enjoyable role. So I really do hope that you'll join us at the Career Excellence Club, and take advantage of our bonus Get That Promotion! workbook. But make sure that you do this right now - this offer is only open for the next 8 days! We'll be back in two weeks with a look at sales skills for non-salespeople. Plus, we examine how you can use the Flow Model to be less stressed and more productive. Until then, all the best! James Manktelow email us Mind Tools Essential Skills for an Excellent Career! Privacy Policy: Mind Tools will treat your email address with complete respect and will not circulate it to any third party. If you are not already a subscriber to this newsletter and you would like to be one, you can sign up at http://www.mindtools.com/subscribe.htm If you have enjoyed this issue, please do email it on to your friends and co-workers. To find out about new tools on the Mind Tools site the moment they're uploaded, click here to subscribe to the Mind Tools RSS feed (you'll need an RSS newsreader installed). We welcome appropriate reprinting and reuse of Mind Tools material, but , you must get our permission first! To do this, please visit our Permissions Center. © Mind Tools Ltd, 2010. This newsletter is published by Mind Tools Ltd of 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, UK. You have received this email because you have confirmed that you want to receive it using our confirmed opt-in process. To unsubscribe, please use the link at the bottom of this email. Mind Tools Ltd (Company Number 04829074, VAT Number: GB 840 1273 62) and Mind Tools (North America) Ltd (Company Number 05610859) are companies registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Hardwick House, Prospect Place, Swindon, Wiltshire, SN1 3LJ, United Kingdom.

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