Here’s a productivity tip that will save you a lot of time and trouble if you need to collate responses from staff for any reason, especially if you work for an organisation with a lot of staff.

Case Study: I worked for a financial institution with 3,000 plus employees and had to identify how many employees needed compulsory training in certain legislation so that we could plan and resource the training.

I emailed everyone within the centre with a request that if they had not completed the training within the last three months, they were to reply to my email without changing the subject line. They were to reply by a certain deadline … any queries were to be sent via a new email addressed to me and I explained why.

I created a folder called ‘Legislation Training’ and used Rules Wizard to divert any email received with the subject line: ‘Legislation Training Requirement’ into the folder. Every time a new email arrived it automatically went into the folder and Outlook incremented and displayed the number of unopened emails in the folder in brackets at the end of the folder name. It looked like this: ‘Legislation Training (125)’.

By the deadline all I had to do was look at the end of the Legislation Training folder to see how many people needed the training. No counting … all done automatically by our productivity tool Outlook 2002.

As the fast talking salesman on the television said, ‘And there’s more!’

When I was asked for a list of the names of those who had responded, all I had to do was export the Legislation Training folder emails to MS Excel. Excel allows you to choose the fields you export. I chose the ‘From’ field and finished up with a list of names since all email addresses were in the format WILLIAMS Royston. Once in Excel it was a simple matter to sort them into alphabetical order.

Not only that, I could now email 20 people at a time and advise them when and where they had to attend this mandatory training.

This is an excellent way to deal with large numbers of people and, although Outlook does have options for creating forms with yes/no buttons and so on in them, it is more complex than this option.

I hope this short article has been of interest to you and that it helps you improve your work performance.

Robin Henry is a human resources specialist who provides support to small businesses keen to improve organisation and methods. He operates his home-based business from Central Australia and his site is found here http://www.dwave.com.au

Note: This article was written for a internet business site. It is a promo for my work with the business world. I published it here for anyone who is interested in a shamanic perspective on creating success, in both business and life. If you read between the lines, it will offer you some help when dealing with any challange.

The sound of the drum is strong and steady. It’s cold and damp in the large cave, except near the central fire. There are 40 naked, hairy, human-like creatures in deep celebration. Yet there is fear in the air. The clan is preparing for the next hunt.

The shaman enters and speaks to the group of his dreams, explaining all the dangers the tribe will face tomorrow. The hunters begin to prepare themselves mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The shaman leaves, going into his small,sacred cave to begin the magic ceremony. He must do this to help bring about a successful hunt, and to protect the tribe from what he knows lay ahead. He has seen it all in his visions, he’s an intuitive.

That was a long time ago, or was it? You still need a place to live in, perhaps a cave, but more likely an apartment or house. You still need food to eat, but most likely from the grocery store. So, things have not really changed but just updated.

Today we don’t trade shells for our supplies and services, but money [ and lot of it ]. So we need success in our economic and business life. But like the primal hunter, we need more then just survival, we need a mental, emotional, physical and spiritual approach to help us be fully successful. We also need a good source of intuitive information to guide us through the challanging times.

So things have come full circle as more and more people are living a holistic lifestyle. The health and mental health fields have been shifting towards holism, and for many years I was deeply involved with that. Today, the business world is also changing, you only have to read the newspaper to know that. I have spent the last ten years exploring and testing new, more holistic business approaches that can be applied to day to day operations or towards reaching long term goals. I’ve hosted television programs on these matters, and publish an online magazine dealing with shamanism and holism as it applies to life and business.

Oh yes, I am a real shaman. I bring to my work a strong male intuitive function and all the trimmings of the ancient shamans but with a modern perspective. I am known as the business shaman. I went on line to offer my services to the global business community. I work with all levels and aspects of business and deal with any issue through training, coaching, consulting and intuitive guidance. Generally I work in a partnership with you and your business to create, reorganize or transform.

Jerry publishes an online magazine and newsletter dealing with shamanism and holism as they apply to life and business.
http://www.jeremiahhuck.workzsites.com

We all have psychic abilities that we use daily, although most of us don’t even realize that. The full study of this issue would take many books, and years of experience to grasp all the factors. Since we can’t do that here, we can still focus on applying these skills to making informed business decisions. Those of us making constant business choices, effecting staff, ethics , health, and the botton line ,need all the data we can get our hands on. So these tidbits are designed to help you use your natural abitities, and to improve your business situation!

First of all, there are many, many management styles. It is in your best interest to honestly evaluate your personality and your personal approach to making choices and running your business. This gives you a baseline to start from when adding ESP into your operating formula.The ancient Greeks said ” Know Thyself”.

Some of us are very mental in perspective, some emotional, and others more physical. These basic personality factors often don’t change much during our lifetime. We tend to keep processing life from the same angle. When we pick up psychic data from outside this base personality, we tend to ignore it. It’s not comming from our comfort zone.

In the business world, what we ignore can create lost potentials or major problems. What we tune out doesn’t really go away, it just stays out of our awareness. So our business is effected but we never get to know it, it stays in our blind spots.

When working in a group situation this blindness is compensated by others around us, often with different main personality types. They can pick up what we miss. This works fairly well, but……

Frankly, at the executive level you often must make choices by yourself. This leaves you open to your limitations. Sure you can get data, but still the final choice is usually yours. Remember that both your strong and weak functions tend to stay that way for life. So you will tend to always focus on some things while ignoring others.

Opening your natural ESP abilities can present a personal challange. As you pick up data from your comfort zone, well…no problem. But when you get psychic information from your weaker traits, again you will want to tune it out……you will tend to feel it as a stress.

So, if you want to include data from a broad range of psychic information..even beyond your comfort zone, there are many techniques you can use……

Realize that stress can be a sign that you are aware of something that you would rather ignore.Then use stress busters to help you handle that. Try to meditate each day, in a quiet place… and see what happens. If stress kicks up try to breathe through it, so you can stay focused on what you are processing.

It takes great courage to trust your whole self, and all your awareness. Don’t push yourself beyond your limits, but try to broaden your scope, little by little.

The real test is to see if you are willing to apply your ESP gained data into your daily business planning.

Jerry publishes an online magazine dealing with shamanism and holism as they apply to life and business.
http://www.jeremiahhuck.workzsites.com

Change is not simple. Why do we repeat behavior that doesn’t work? Those actions that lead to stifling debt, disappointing careers, or stuck relationships? Then do it harder, yet expect a different result? Why is it not obvious that trying to exit an old story by simply writing a “better ending” only recreates the same story, and ensures that we remain in it? That a thousand better endings to an old story don’t create a new story? That the past cannot be changed and is a settled matter? That too often, we see ourselves as the victims of the stories that we author and the feelings we create?

We actively construct what we think, feel, and experience.

How surprised we are to learn that our fears are not in the dim shadows of the past’s unknown, but in the hopeful light of this moment’s change.

The only thing more difficult than changing and growing is not doing it.
It is never too late to become what you might have been. Or too soon to become who you want to be.

As adults, we are the sole authors of our own life stories. Every day begins a fresh page. The dramas of everyday life do not simply affect us, they are created by us. Yet so often the story closest to us, our own, is the most difficult to read How can we tell our life stories to ourselves in order to know which aspects of the narrative work and which need to change? How can we identify what is missing, change an attitude, or generate happiness? How can we shift our understanding to see life not as a multiple-choice test with certain predetermined answers, but as an open-ended essay question?

12 STEPS TO LISTEN TO YOUR LIFE STORY

This exercise intends to illuminate invisible decisions camouflaged as beliefs and
assumptions. This exercise intends to align your efforts with a refocused vision.

1. Crystallize awareness of beliefs, views, and opinions that you hold in each area of your life: family, business, personal, financial, creativity, and spiritual development. Recognize that none of these are facts, but beliefs that are created. The beliefs, points of view, and opinions are decisions that you make, a perception that you hold.
You can track when in time you made your original decision that led to the view or belief that is limiting. Most often the original decision arises from disappointment, or what you did not get. An example is a decision to be cautious about relationships, and protect yourself in case of rejection. This belief brings about what you fear, though perhaps based originally on adaptive protection from physical or emotional abandonment. Problems are not written into your genes, though an assumption such as victimhood can be a powerfully organizing storyline, even an aspect of identity.

2. Look for the link/connection between the original decision to the view or perspective held now. Acknowledge the impact it has on your current life, the costs, and the exchanges that you make. Does each belief serve you right now?

At one time, the decision served you but you may have outgrown it. Is it
still worth the cost that you pay? Are you exchanging valuable time and
energy in pursuit of something that ultimately is disappointing?

3. Try new perspectives and possibilities. You have to try on and live an experience to get informed data of how it may bring a change to your life. An experiment may be an idea or image that you live into, and evolve it to create a habit.

4. Explore what is possible. From the place of what is possible, clarify what you want to create, and what action would be paired with it.

5. Recognize and honor your uniqueness. Your uniqueness includes distinctive capacities and abilities, what you do exceptionally well, what works best for you. The design of your life plan must recognize your exceptional strengths, and place your energy on leveraging strengths, rather than creating obstacles. Are you engaging your passion and creativity to do what you do uniquely well in your life and career?

6. Recognize that which you can determine, and that which you cannot. Let go/accept what you cannot determine rather than engaging it with hope and ultimate frustration. Embrace that which benefits you and the elements that serve you, and let go of all that do not.

7. Do only that which works in current time and that is consistent with your needs and values. The bottom line of any theory or belief system is: Does it work now?

8. Clarify decisions about how you use, invest, and refurbish your life energy based on your life plan.

9. Change is a process, not an event. Design short-term, step-wise measurable goals to validate your progress. Hold yourself accountable to the timetable of your goals.

10. Review your tolerations list. Update and revise it.

11. Create a mission that is stronger than your fear.
Focus your energy on where you are: the present– and where you are headed: the future. You cannot change the past, but you can free yourself from its grips.

12. Focus your energy on where you are: the present– and where you are headed: the future. You cannot change the past, but you can free yourself from its grips.

15 REFLECTIONS TO BEGIN MASTERFUL PLOT REVISION

1. What are the recurring storylines in your life that work?

2. What are the recurring themes in your life that do not work?

3. Is there a piece of your life that is unlived?

4. Who are you in your career?

5. Who are you (or who have you become) in your most intimate relationship?

6. What goals have you realized in your life?

7. What goals have you not realized in your life?

8. Do you have a clear internal ideal of who and what you want to be?

9. What percent of your full capacity are you functioning in your work?

10. What percent of your capacity are you living in your personal life?

11. What are your conflicted storylines where it is obvious not all of you is going comfortably and effectively in the same direction?

12. Do all the storylines fit and further the plot you want to advance?

13. What do you continue to engage by disclaiming and denying?

14. Do you have an awareness of your different states of mind? Do you have basic mastery of how to enter and exit various states of mind?

15. What do you hear in listening to your body’s somatic language?

David Krueger, M.D. is an Executive Strategist/ Professional Coach
He is author of 11 books. This article is excerpted from Dr. Krueger’s 12th book, soon to be published, LIVE A NEW LIFE STORY: The Essentials of Change, Reinvention, and Personal Success.
dkrueger@mentorpath.com
http://www.MentorPath.com

Results of Poor Cross Cultural Awareness. Having a poor understanding of the influence of cross cultural differences in areas such as management, PR, advertising and negotiations can eventually lead to blunders that can have damaging consequences.

It is crucial for today’s business personnel to understand the impact of cross cultural differences on business, trade and internal company organisation. The success or failure of a company, venture, merger or acquisition is essentially in the hands of people. If these people are not cross culturally aware then misunderstandings, offence and a break down in communication can occur.

The need for greater cross cultural awareness is heightened in our global economies. Cross cultural differences in matters such as language, etiquette, non-verbal communication, norms and values can, do and will lead to cross cultural blunders.

To illustrate this we have provided a few examples of cross cultural blunders that could have been avoided with appropriate cross cultural awareness training:

An American oil rig supervisor in Indonesia shouted at an employee to take a boat to shore. Since it is no-one berates an Indonesian in public, a mob of outraged workers chased the supervisor with axes.

Pepsodent tried to sell its toothpaste in Southeast Asia by emphasizing that it “whitens your teeth.” They found out that the local natives chew betel nuts to blacken their teeth which they find attractive.

A company advertised eyeglasses in Thailand by featuring a variety of cute animals wearing glasses. The ad was a poor choice since animals are considered to be a form of low life and no self respecting Thai would wear anything worn by animals.

The soft drink Fresca was being promoted by a saleswoman in Mexico. She was surprised that her sales pitch was greeted with laughter, and later embarrassed when she learned that fresca is slang for “lesbian.”

When President George Bush went to Japan with Lee Iacocca and other American business magnates, and directly made explicit and direct demands on Japanese leaders, they violated Japanese etiquette. To the Japanese (who use high context language) it is considered rude and a sign of ignorance or desperation to lower oneself to make direct demands. Some analysts believe it severely damaged the negotiations and confirmed to the Japanese that Americans are barbarians.

A soft drink was introduced into Arab countries with an attractive label that had stars on it–six-pointed stars. The Arabs interpreted this as pro-Israeli and refused to buy it. Another label was printed in ten languages, one of which was Hebrew–again the Arabs did not buy it.

U.S. and British negotiators found themselves at a standstill when the American company proposed that they “table” particular key points. In the U.S. “Tabling a motion” means to not discuss it, while the same phrase in Great Britain means to “bring it to the table for discussion.”

In addition to interpersonal cross cultural gaffes, the translation of documents, brochures, advertisements and signs also offers us some comical cross cultural blunders:

Kellogg had to rename its Bran Buds cereal in Sweden when it discovered that the name roughly translated to “burned farmer.”

When Pepsico advertised Pepsi in Taiwan with the ad “Come Alive With Pepsi” they had no idea that it would be translated into Chinese as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead.”

American medical containers were distributed in Great Britain and caused quite a stir. The instructions to “Take off top and push in bottom,” innocuous to Americans, had very strong sexual connotations to the British.

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into “Schweppes Toilet Water.”

In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push the button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In a Bangkok dry cleaner’s: Drop your trousers here for best results.

In an East African newspaper: A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.

Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan: Stop–Drive sideways.

At a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

In conclusion, poor cross cultural awareness has many consequences, some serious others comical. It is imperative that in the global economy cross cultural awareness is seen a necessary investment to avoid such blunders as we have seen above.

For more information on how Kwintessential can aid you in your cross cultural needs please visit http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/cross-cultural/cross-cultural-awareness.html

Neil Payne is Director and consultant of London based company http://www.kwintessential.co.uk