JanaMKemp

Decisions

2009-03-16T14:06:00.001-07:00

Whatever you do, make a decision. The longer you take to decide, beware that these things can happen to you: people will think you've said yes when you haven't; work will go on without you; or because of your indecision, you'll be asked to leave.

Make a Decision

2009-03-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

Every day calls for a decision. Are you making best possible decisions? How do you know when you've made a best-possible decision?

Business Betterment

2009-02-05T08:49:00.000-08:00

Now is a great time to focus on bettering every aspect of your business. What costs can be saved? What customer innovations can you offer? What employee ides can improve your business? Start talking to each other to discover the very brain-power that will get all businesses out of this economic doldrum.

Down in the Conference Room there Arose such a Clatter

2008-12-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

Down in the Conference Room there Arose such a Clatter

Adapted by Jana Kemp from Clement C Moore’s The Night Before Christmas for the 2008 4th Quarter Better Meetings for Everyone newsletter

‘Twas the week before holiday vacations,

when all through the office

all creatures were fretting, fussing,

and sometimes even cussing.

The candy bowls near empty

at the reception desk and in the meeting room

reminding us of holiday weight gain

that we’ll all dread soon.

The children’s wish lists

echo in our heads

while we’re in the midsts

of accomplishing the to-do lists we dread.

All workers wish for a long winter’s nap

and a settling of brains

to keep from showing holiday strains.

When down toward the conference room

there arose such a clatter,

we sprang from our desks

to see what was the matter.

Away down the hall

we trotted in a flash

threw open the conference room doors

and ran to the windows in a dash.

The can-lights on the whiteboard

gave the room a glow,

eerie and wonderful,

like the room had filled with snow,

when what to our wondering eyes

should appear

but a heavily logo-adorned sleigh

and eight tiny reindeer with logo-adorned sashes,

with our CEO as the driver,

so flush and so quick,

we believed for a moment

we’d seen St. Nick.

More rapid than superman gets suited,

and more loudly than over quarterly returns we sigh,

the CEO’s sleigh-pullers came nigh

as he whistled and hooted,

and called them by name:

Now Crasher of the computers,

Now Dancer upon tables,

Now Parader of stories, and Vixen to us all!

On Comet the cleaner,

On Cupid the office lovelorn,

On Darn’d if it doesn’t beat all and Blitzen too.

To the top of the elevator stack, to the top of the wall!

Now, Dash away, Dash away, Dash away all.

As the recycled papers that before

the wild waste-managers fly,

when they meet with an obstacle,

reach for the sky.

So up to the building-roof

the fastest the eight flew,

with a sleigh full of office supplies

and our CEO too.

And then, in a twinkling,

we heard on the building’s roof

the prancing and pawing of each hoof.

As we drew in our heads

and turned around,

up out of the podium our CEO

came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur,

from his head to his boot,

and his clothes were all radiant

with good cheer and good office supply gifts down at each foot.

His eyes, how they sparkled!

His dimples, how cherry!

His cheeks were like cotton-candy,

And his nose lit up like a strawberry.

His droll little mouth

was drawn up like a bow,

and the beard of his chin

hadn’t been shaved for a week or more we know.

He had a happy face and a barely noticeable belly

That shook, when he laughed, like a plastic-single-serving of jelly.

When we saw him, all dressed up and jolly,

we laughed in spite of ourselves by golly.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

soon gave us to know that we had nothing soon to dread.

For he spoke some words but a few,

“the year has turned out better than feared for we’ve all been cleared to return to work”

then he turned with a jerk

and went straight back to work, leaving us with ours to do too,

and laying his finger aside his nose,

and giving a “go-be-merry” nod, behind the podium he froze.

Then sprang to the logo-adorned sleigh,

to his team gave a whistle,

and away they all flew,

like the down of a genetically improved-for-flight thistle.

And we heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight:

“Happy Holidays to All and to All a Good Night!

Last one out, remember to turn out the light!”

Who Reads a Blog anyway?

2008-12-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

Who Reads blogs anyway? Busy with work, family, and personal time investments, I'm amazed at how many people find time to read blogs....so how do you do it? What sparks your "read" and what keeps you reading?

Meeting Mania Runs Rampant

2008-11-13T16:37:00.000-08:00

Yet again this week I heard complaining over people asking for meetings and then rambling at length, wasting everyone's time. Meetings can be improved when everyone attends with a clear understanding of WHAT needs to be Discussed and Decided. Without ingoing clarity, rambling is the typical result and frustration follows. Put an end to meeting mania and lost time - always ask for an agenda, or at the very least "what's the purpose of the meeting?"

When Did I Go Green?

2008-11-11T09:13:00.000-08:00

My “green” work was probably originally sparked in the 1970s by the commercial calling US citizens to stop polluting our highways and rivers….the one with the Native American standing silently with a tear running down his cheek at the end.

Fast forward to 2005/2006 when I co-wrote Building Community in Buildings with Ken Baker. Then in 2007 Ken and I teamed up with interior designer Suzie Hall to form GreenSteps . Both Ken and Suzie are LEED Accredited experts in their fields.

From the Mouth of Kindergarten

2008-11-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

Promptly at 8:00 a.m. my kindergartener and I were in line to vote. I wanted to instill a sense of the importance of and the process for voting. On the drive to school, from the backseat I heard: "Mom, if someone looses in the election, they shouldn't cry." I said that was probably true. Then I heard "Because they can always try again." And of course, I agreed. Ah, the simplicity and truth of a child's vision.

May today's U.S. votes result in CLEAR results and lead to a smooth transition in leadership, we can not afford less.

Another Way to Be Green: Recycling Design Center Out-dated Items

2008-10-27T08:04:00.000-07:00

Design Centers around the country get annual updates of carpet, fabric, tile, window treatments and the like. Which means that the out-dated items end up being discarded. In a new approach to recycling, I've begun picking up out-dated items from a local interior design center and putting the items to the following uses. Schools, craft-classes, and creative individuals can recycle things in useful and artistic ways:

Fabric samples – turned into pillows and a patchwork doll-quilt.
Fabric samples on the card-rings are serving as Fabric Store play things.
Paint chip cards – are perfect for playing design store – and are big enough to draw on as individual “canvas” pages.
Tile samples and flooring – peeled off the original display boards they become squares for counting and pattern making. Plans include glue and paper for patterns too.
Carpet samples – have been turned into play house and doll house carpeting.
Wood Blind samples – taken out of the holder, they are now in the block-set for building ramps or roofing.
The 4 and 5 –ring binder/book handles from some of the big display books have been cut apart and delivered to the neighborhood Kindergarten teacher who uses such things for big-books illustrated by the kids and sent home to each house for “reading and review comments” --- These are GREAT binder/board/handle which serve as binding/spine improvements for what had been worn-out in the circulation of the kids.
Ongoing samples – each year Kindergarten teachers create learning centers. Some teachers include a “home building/design” center in their rotation. So, we’d love to keep getting items and be able to forward them to our school's Kindergarten classroom. Perhaps other schools would be interested too.

Papered In?

2008-10-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

If your office is piled with paper, it is time to clean! Even when you can find what you want when you want it, a piled-high office creates a visual information overload. Sort your papers into the following categories: recycle; file in the archives; file in active files (or piles); destroy - anything that needs to be kept confidential should be destroyed. Once you have sorted and organized, work will flow more easily and you'll feel less overwhelmed.

How Many Calls Does It Take?

2008-10-20T14:07:00.001-07:00

How many calls does it take to talk to a live person at your company?
Over the last few months, I've discovered that it can take from one call to as many as 20 calls before talking to a live person who can actually address my question. Only because of the intense desire to conduct some business with the 20-call firm have I persisted. The royal-run-around is a waste of time and a lost business opportunity.

Stanford Picks up Moving Out!

2008-10-16T13:45:00.001-07:00

Moving Out of the Box (Praeger/Greenwood, 2007) has been picked up by Stanford University Press for paperback publishing for a period of seven years. To have my work recognized by Stanford as a valuable contribution to decision-making, consensus, and command-and-control literature is an honor.

Vision in Action

2008-10-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

Ran across this Japanese Proverb: Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.

Clear Messaging

2008-10-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

Saw this bumper sticker: "Visualize Whirled Peas." Which prompted a smile and this business reminder: be clear about your message and desired outcomes before broadcasting and publishing the message.

We Need a Commanding Collaborator in Chief

2008-09-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

Reading a reprint of a New York Times News Service article, I see that candidate McCain "came of age in a chain-of-command culture"(command-and-control) and that candidate Obama "came of age as a community organizer" (consensus).

Interestingly, my 2007 book Moving Out of the Box suggests that in this millennium we need Chief Executives in all sectors who have demonstrated mastery of BOTH command-and-control and consensus driven decision making skills.

From Moving Out of the Box: "A commanding collaborator in chief is a master of both consensus-driven and command-and-control decision making as well as being a master of meeting facilitation and interpersonal communication skills." (page 153) Which goes on to say:

"The reasons we all need the balanced use of command-and control decision leadership and consensus-driven decision making are multiple-fold. If more commanding collaborators in chief led organizations, more people would feel valued in their workplaces. If more commanding collaborator in chief decision making occurred in organizations, greater creativity and innovation would likely result. If more commanding collaborator in chief decision making ocurred on a daily basis, there would likely be a reduction in national and personal debt."

Moving Out of the Box (Praeger/Greenwood, 2007) has just been picked up by Stanford University Press for a paperback release in the Spring of 2009.

Manage the Meeting

2008-09-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

Beginning with my time as a 4-Her in the midwestern US, I learned how to conduct effective meetings. Such that, by the time I was in college, my tolerance for poorly run meetings was very low. Thus began my focus on improving meetings.

Unless meeting leaders and participants manage every meeting, the meetings take on a life - yes an unproductive one at that - of their own. Manage the meeting so it doesn't manage you. For starters, have an agenda that includes the following.
* Day, Date of the meeting *Start and STOP times for the meeting
* Contact person/meeting leader name
* Agenda topics and Time alotments and Topic Discussion Leaders
* Introductions 2 minutes Leader
* Item One 10 minutes Topic Leader
* Item Two 15 minutes Topic Leader
* Item Three (and so on) 20 min. Topic Leader
* Meeting Summary of decisions and assignments 10 minutes Leader
* Adjourn 1 minute

Entry into Blogging

2008-09-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

Business colleagues have said "Blog" because it is one more tool in your business outreach. So, today begins the blog-journey of idea posting and exchange; of public policy comment from my vantage as a State Legislator (2004-2006); and of banter for potential speaking and book content.

I've been in business 15 years, written 5 books (one of which is in 6 languages), graduated from the Idaho Police Academy, and am constantly learning.