Thinking Day

Questions of the week:??How can I best use ME Day?

I write this article based on the insight of my conversation with my team in our monthly 1-on-1 call. I speak with each one of my team members. This article is to share the question of this week and our method to work on it. You can subscribe to the Building Our Team newsletter (2800+ subscribers)

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?How can I best use ME Day?

This is a quick recap for readers who don't know how we generate creative ideas generate creative ideas from our team members without any pressure.

We only work three days a week; 1 day is dedicated to Scorecard Day (Creating a DEI Scorecard in 1 Day) 1 day is dedicated to Me Day (Giving a full day uninterrupted to the team members to think about ideas to improve the Scorecard Day)

We truly want them to learn the skill of thinking clearly.

There are theories on thinking which include

- Confirmation Bias

- Authority Bias

- Limiting Beliefs

- Halo Effect

- Framing

- Association Bias

- Cognitive Dissonance

- Information Bias

- Simple Logic

- Common Sense

- Ambiguity Aversion

- Overthinking

- Planning Fallacy

- Cherry Picking

There are many more, and I don't even know all of them.

We control the way the Scorecard Day goes with surgical level

SOP gives us a time measurement of completion in minutes.

Case in point: this week's version of the scorecard is completed in 16 minutes, and the team has set a target of 12-minute completion. The confidence we have in being a profitable business is enormous.

On the other hand, Me Day doesn't have any constraints. The team is free to do whatever they think is best on that day.         

• No one asks them what they did on Me Day
• There is no tracking of time for activity
• No report or status needs to be submitted
• No guidance or over-the-shoulder interruption

They only inform the team they are on Me Day

No one interrupts them.

If they are busy and cannot take the Me day

We encourage

1) Take 2 Me days the next week

2) Take 1.5 Me days for the next two weeks

3) Take half Me day for the next whole week

If there is a busy month, take a whole week as an ME Day.

We don't have official guidelines for ME Day

But juniors keep asking them, so here are a few

1. Experiment with quick automation
2. Watch videos on HOW To Think
3. Do a brainstorming with a colleague
4. Go outside and take a walk to think
5. List down all the hurdles you are facing daily
6. Ponder on the questions that come to your mind
7. Read the ideas shared by others and build on it
8. Improve the readability of existing documented ideas

Are you thinking, what a waste of time?

If you have ever created something creative like a strategy, template, program, initiative, resolution, solution, event, etc., and you are a knowledge worker like me. You would agree that good ideas germinate after an excellent discussion, deliberation and discourse. However, you will need some alone time to process the data, information and insights to come up with an idea.

How does Thinking Day benefit you in your DEI consulting business?

Ask yourself...

Are you taking the time to think and work on your business?

It doesn't have to be 1 full day but 1 hour each day.

It can also be a couple of uninterrupted hours on weekends.

It can be one day every other week or every month.

Here are some recommendations

1) Pick a top priority of your business, like marketing, systems, or processes, that will be an ever-green leverage

2) Work only on 1 area of your business for a year. For instance, Generating qualified leads for your service business

3) Put weekly, monthly and quarterly milestones.

4) The process would look like this:

(a) Identify the best lead magnet for you. White Paper, Checklist, Cheat Code, Scorecard, Online Community, Discovery Sessions, Working Sessions, Templates, Intro Webinars, etc.

(b) Create and Craft your lead magnet with early adopters from the client community.

(c) Publish it and test the user feedback

(d) Iterate the lead magnet for multiple rounds of iteration. Most people don't do this part; it takes 50% of your efforts. It will truly show your prospects' pain, dreams, and desires.

Now imagine you are at the last part. You are happy with the lead magnet, have dozens of testimonials, and are getting on calls with your prospects to discover more about how you can help them.

Here is how you can use the thinking time

a) Ask the list of questions you currently don't have answers to

b) Pick the top three questions that would move the needle

c) Ponder on it till you are really happy with your answer

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