Urgent?

Have you ever reported an emergency or an accident? Maybe a car crash, a gas leak or any other thing that required urgent attention? You surely did not reported it via e-mail right? You called 911.

Then, why is there people who insists on sending e-mails requiring an “urgent” attention?

An e-mail is not a tool to report urgencies; in fact it does a very poor job at it. E-mail however is an excellent tool to recap and document agreements and important messages, which is not the same as urgent.

Just how many times have you received an e-mail requiring an “urgent” response? Or how many times a member of your staff has told you they sent the “urgent” message via e-mail? Or even worse, how many times have you done so too?

If you require an immediate response, you should not send an e-mail, you should pick up the phone and call the other person. Or, if you work in the same office as the other party, you should get up and walk to their desks!

“Oh, but what about the people who have a blackberry or another smart phone?” Some of you maybe thinking. Well news flash! These useful and practical little gadgets are not a leash or a biper that magically get their owners to immediately and automatically answer your “urgent” message. These are rather tools that enables its owners to read and reply to their e-mails whenever and wherever it is more convenient for them.

Which actually should no be a problem, since in reality there can not exist “urgent” e-mails, since usually (and bare with me here, be honest and do an auto analysis) whenever we send an email requiring “urgent” attention, its because we just let time pass, transforming our requirement, more than in an urgent, into a delay we are trying to cover.

So next time you need to send an urgent email, before you click on send, stop, take a breath and ask yourself whether it is really urgent or not. If it is, save the draft, close it and do not send it until you have personally spoken about your requirement with the person responsible and only then, and just as a confirmation or recap of the agreement should you send it out.

Picture credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/forestethics/

How are you helping prepare the leaders of tomorrow?

They say that a lot of the jobs of tomorrow that we are training people for today, does not even exist yet.

And I could not agree more. Things are changing and they are changing a lot. The way we do things at work and how we can grow in it are very different than what they used to be even just 5 years ago. And the personal and professional growth is 180° different than what it was supposed to be like before to have a successful career.

Just picture this: today’s learners will have between 10 to 14 different jobs by age 38. But this is not something of the future, its happening today, in fact now a days 1 out of every 4 employees have been with their current employer for less than a year.

Change is happening today! And the question we need to ask ourselves is: What are we doing today to prepare the leaders of our companies tomorrow?

The expectations are high and roles are transforming.

The famous Gen Y is already becoming part of the work force and, according to Penolope Trunk (Brazen Careerist), this new generation will completely change the way companies treat their employees.

The people in charge of leading the marketing and communication of organizations are evolving with urgency, shares Digital Marketing expert Mitch Joel, to face the enormous opportunities that social media and technology present today. And according to Joseph Jaffee in the US and Rafael Perez-Toribio in Mexico, Advertising and Communication agencies will not be an exception.

So I ask again: What are you doing today to prepare the leaders of your companies tomorrow?

And we cannot let the answer be: “…well I’m sure the CEO of HR are doing something…” 
To think like that would be to condemn us to loosing power over our own careers. 
Each one of us has the potential and the responsibility to act as leaders, even if we lack the official title (Leaders without title, is how Robin Sharma names it), to place ourselves on top the wave of change and successfully ride it and help others do so as well.

Lets get it for once and for all:

TODAY is THE AGE OF CONVERSATION AND COLLABORATION.

So lets get to work!

The pics of the week!

And just like every week, here are a few pictures from the first class I gave at El Semillero (school of advertising professionals) and from the Digital Marketing seminar organized by the Mexico Internet Association and the Mexico Media Agencies Association, in which I got to speak along with a group of great digital marketers too!

An excellent policy to have.

You have them, the company you work for has them, your children’s school has them too, in fact any organization and institution has them: Policies.

Special criteria the helps organizations guide how the behavior and interaction between members, clients and suppliers should be. They have different policies about dress codes, work schedules, requests and usage of work equipment and even policies on how meetings ought to be run.

But what I very seldom see in them is a “No a**holes policy”.

Yes! A policy with which organizations can create an “a**holes free” environment. That is, a work place free of people who instead of positively and productively contribute, not only to the profitability of the company but also to create a space where the members of the team can work better and contribute more by growing their personal and professional skills; contaminate their peers and colleagues, creating a feeling of unnecessary tension and stress among everybody, leaving all without wanting to do any work at all.

There are in fact a lot of a**holes who interact with your team every day. It can very well be a manager, a key executive or any other member who feels or thinks he has special attributes and rights, or it can be an abusive client or a vendor who is not delivering like he should. 
But be it whom it may, the impact that these people can have on your organization could be bigger than you think.

This is why it is so important for companies and, why not, individuals too, to have a no a**holes policy in place, that prevents them of hiring, purchasing or selling to an a**hole, even if the immediate cost of it seems big, because believe me, the cost of sticking with an a**hole in the lung run could very well be a log bigger.

I mean, how important to acknowledge this is, that thought leaders with the likes of Guy Kawasaky and Bob Sutton have work on this subject too! (Do take a couple of minutes and watch his video)

Of course it would be very easy to point fingers and arbitrarily classify the people around us, thinking that we are no a**holes at all. So Professor of Management Science and Engineering atStandford University, Bob Sutton, shares with us, as an offshoot of his book “The no Asshole Rule”, the “Are you a certified a**hole? On-line test.

And even though none of you might get a higher note than 5 (I got 1 by the way), you might know someone who can even break the record!

I need your help

What an active week the last one was! Definitely full of great events!

First, starting with a keynote at the WTC in Mexico City for the “Empresas 2.0” conference.

Then following up with the presentation at the “Universidad de Monterrey” and the “Empresas 2.0” Keynote at Monterrey as well; and then closing with a bang with the presentation of the YouTube Awards chapter with the “Círculo Creativo” (Creative Circle).

And just as promised here are a few pictures of the people who participated in the conferences…see if you show in one of them!

It’s funny, but when you dedicate a big part of your work and time to writing and public speaking you can get used to talk, to giving away suggestions and advice; although more frequent than not, you can forget to follow the very same recommendations you give. So thinking about this and looking to answer a question I’ve been asking myself for a few months now, is that I now am asking you for your advice.

You just need to answer the following 5 very simple questions. I will not take you more than a couple of minutes and you will be helping me out big time! So please do share your thoughts with me.