Saw this and thought of COO

Reading a quote from Steve Jobs I had one of those 'bolt of lightning' moments.  I recognised an articulation of the problem (and solution) I'd been struggling with for a while...
I'll paraphrase and apply to my situation now:


"There’s a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to others tell them they were losers for years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they’re not losers. What they didn’t have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now"


These words describe perfectly my observations of the company I work within.  I see talent unmanaged, unloved and without a plan
Thank you Steve.  Now every time I look at my iPhone, MBP etc I'll also remember these words and hopefully they'll nudge me a little closer to being that coach, setting that plan and contributing to that team

Networking Status

I'm in the process of designing a strategy to use my network to extend performance and contribution

This is on the assumption that there are performance gains to be had from changing network structure

Rough goals for the strategy as they stand today (and these may change as I think about them a little more)

• Positioning within key points in a network so that I can leverage effective work
• Developing diverse networks
• Stretch myself to get out of a 'comfort' network

Organisation line targets:

• External peers or SMEs (So if you are one and you'd like to network - say hi)
• Clients both internal and external
• Outside of credit risk for a different view of the world
• Inside of credit risk for coordination, technical support and recognition

Hierarchical lines

• Mentors and mentoring
• Strategic contexts
• Political support and resources

Two mins on the positive impact of GTD workflow

My two minutes on this topic

Before adopting a GTD approach although I felt was very effective I was constantly stressed. My head was constantly busy

GTD allows me to dump a lot of my work into a trusted system. When it works I'm super efficient and very relaxed

Don't get me wrong. I fall fall off the wagon occasionally - but I've learned that that's ok. It's reasonable easy to get back on

Add this to approach to a team. We're all more productive, less stressed and hopefully have a little more fun

Yes. I still work too hard. Yes I still do too many hours and yes my life isn't perfect. But I do know it's better for GTD

GTD probably allows me to cope with the bad stuff more effectively. The bumps aren't so bad

My workflow tools

• MacBook Pro
• iPad2 (not the fatPad)
• iPhone4 (5 when that comes out)
• Omnifocus for Mac
• Omnifocus for iOS
• Evernote
• Omnioutliner
• Omniplan
• Omnigraffle

A rough plan and a few objectives

Didn't do too well with the new and improved approach to blogging. But in the interest of perseverance I thought I'd start again

My new plan looks something like this:

Workflow

1. Thoughts on the positive influence of the approach I'm advocating
2. Efficiency vs Effectiveness
3. A case study I have from work and some reflections

Networking

1. Current position (A whinge)
2. My thoughts on a new project I've created to address this
3. Updates against this project
4. Thoughts on personal networking (And the dreaded social networking)

As a rule I'll try and keep to two minute intense sprints at writing when the mood takes me and a weekly update with this rough structure

We'll see

Long absence - but I'm back

After a long absence I think I'm back to jotting down some loose 'credit risk' musings and general thoughts on work

My first observation is that the absence from this blog was caused by an imbalance in my work:life balance

Too much focus upon work put me into a poor place personally. Very little attention paid to Personal or Health areas within my life meant that, unsurprisingly, I'd not accomplished some unconscious goals and this was frustrating me

See this link for a reference that has help me become motivated again to address some of my personal and family goals

As such. I shall be using this blog (and a second less business focused blog) to keep focus upon my progress in the following business areas:

• Workflow : GTD and the positive influence this approach has upon business areas that are poorly performing
• Networking: Not my strongest area professionally. But an area I've decided to focus upon. I will be tracking approaches, thoughts and successes / failures here

I plan to update this blog weekly on progress in these areas and will post a proposed outline in the next few days