photo credit: alancleaver_2000

Deadlines are often an effective, if stressful motivator, and countdowns, as a reminder of that deadline, work in all kinds of settings. Once, while working for an e-commerce retailer, I tested a variation of the site’s home page during December with and without a “days ’til Christmas” countdown. You can probably guess the outcome: the variation with the countdown left the other variation in the dust.

But sometimes it isn’t even the specifics of a deadline that motivate me; the generalities of the limitations of time work well, too. I don’t know about you, but when I think about having only 8 hours in a typical workday (well, perhaps more like 10 or 11 or sometimes 12 or 13 — I am starting a business, after all), and how many false starts it sometimes takes to get things done, it really pushes me to focus on the important stuff. And at a more macro level, it’s helpful sometimes to remember there are only 52 weeks in a year, so that each week had better be moving me measurably closer to the goals I have for the year.

What are your time-based tricks to force focus and get yourself moving?

Happy Monday!

photo credit: TheeErin

Take a stroll through most corporate offices these days, and the attitudes you’ll often encounter are anxiety and skepticism, whether camouflaged or blatantly on display. With all the layoffs going on around us and friends and family out of work, it is difficult for many people to work up even a modest enthusiasm for their work, let alone passion.

Yet for businesses to succeed in a tight economy, they need dedicated, passionate people. How can a leader instill passion?

John Baldoni addressed this question in an article on HarvardBusiness.org the other day called How to Make People Passionate About Their Work. Some of the suggestions were:

Focus on the positive. Passion in leaders can be palpable; you know in an instant that the executive cares about the company. In my experience, those senior leaders who stroll through the halls with a nod or good word to say to all are those executives who get things done. And it is because they are out and about, not cloistered in their offices on mahogany row. Rather, they are meeting with employees and customers, vendors and investors, getting to know issues and concerns. They also use these times to talk up the good things.

Address the negatives. Passionate leaders are not Pollyannas; they know the score, precisely because they spend so much time out of their offices. They see firsthand what is working and what is not, and because they have a relationship with people in all levels of the company, they can more readily mobilize employees to solve problems.

At first blush these suggestions seem at odds. But it is vital to address both the reality of the situation and to foster hope for great outcomes. At the risk of sounding like a Jim Collins groupie, Good to Great addresses this as the “Stockdale Paradox,” citing it as one of the factors that allows great companies to survive difficult times and ultimately triumph.

(Moreover, in the book The Opposable Mind, Roger Martin relates management examples where leaders are able to “hold two conflicting ideas in constructive tension.” This is a skill we need as managers and executives.)

How are you rallying your teams to be passionate about their work? How are you, as an individual, cultivating your own passion? Tell us in the comments.