focus

Finding Improvement in the Margins [Lessons from the Road]

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on 10-17-17

There are connections in every organization.  Some are easily seen while others are not. But, look closely and you will find them.  In the recent column I wrote for IndustryWeek I examined the waste that often occurs in these connections.  It is in these connections, in the margins, that there

Read More
Video preview: Playing vs. coaching

Playing vs Coaching

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on 08-29-17

One common instruction many coaches violate is trying to play the along side their players while they are coaching.  This often happens in business and when it does we get the same result – much less effective coaching because you lose your ability to be objective and to be a

Read More

How did you spend the first week of the new year?

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on 01-11-15

How did you spend the first week of the new year? If you were like many people, you spent it doing some pretty common things such as catching up on emails and going to some standing meetings, many of which probably began with people trying to remember why we have

Read More

1 useful method for keeping strategic when you’re tactically focused

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on 07-23-13

You might be in an organization that is all about the tactical. It’s the “what’s next?”, action-oriented, go-go-go culture. There are certainly benefits to this environment. It avoids inaction and it gets things done; a good idea unimplemented isn’t much value. It is generally pretty focused. It is generally performance-oriented.

Read More

Prioritize to Finish, not to Start

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on 07-11-11

There’s a lot of focus on prioritization and rightly so. There are so many things I can get you distracted, not prioritizing can generate a great deal of waste. However, when individuals or organizations decide to prioritize, they often focus on the wrong factors. What everybody wants to prioritize our

Read More

If you’re not frustrated, then you’re not working on the right problem.

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on 01-03-11

In my coaching, many of my conversations begin with a source of frustration by the individual. The source of frustration could be rooted in another person, or a team problem, or in their own abilities. But nonetheless, the frustration is there. This is a good thing. The philosophy that I’ve

Read More

Don’t problem solve to infinity

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on 10-18-10

Good problem statements define a gap to close. They do not just describe an undesirable condition that you would like to remove completely. Why does it matter? It comes down to when you consider yourself “done”, or at least done for now. David Allen of “Getting Things Done” fame talks

Read More

The Benefits of the Stand-up Desk

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on 09-07-10

I’ve been in and out of a stand-up desk as I’ve changed offices or moved, but I’ve been an advocate for a long-time. Many people I know use one, including my former mentor when I was at MIT my financial manager Kevin Meyer of Superfactory, who’s be a very strong

Read More

Focus on your core work

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on 08-27-10

So many things can distract us from what the core of our work is all about. Email is often a distraction, but there are so many more – Facebook and Twitter, consuming news whether on the internet or TV, politics inside your industry or company, promotion and self-promotion, and the

Read More

Small-i ROI as Applied to Strategy

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on 08-20-10

Entrepreneurs and small business owners are all in search of a big return on their investment. How best to maximize my ROI? Many investing are looking for the big-R, the giant market. Where is there billions of dollars of opportunity? Surely, with billions on the table, we can grab a

Read More