20 Got-a-Minute Updates
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Long story, short. Tighten your message to be sure your audience stays positive and on track.

The “Say-Do” Ratio
When someone asks you, “How’s it going?” be ready to give a straight answer.
Everyone needs to give superiors updates. It’s a part of our daily reality. Typically, we give these progress reports on the go. People stop by the office, shoot off an e-mail, bump into each other in the hallway, or pick up the phone and call.
These are moments when it’s vital to paint a clear picture.
Years ago, I worked in a PR agency and managed a large team. Each member was responsible for generating media coverage for our clients.
One of my constant concerns was letting clients know how we could generate prominent press coverage. In PR, it’s difficult to get a notable media outlet like CNN, the Wall Street Journal, or Forbes to write about your client. You’ve constantly got to be looking for news hooks, story angles, and reasons for them to cover what you think is worth their time and consideration. There’s a lot of groundwork necessary to generate that kind of result: building lists, researching what the news outlets cover, understanding what they anticipate in covering, understanding the news cycles, or identifying people within the organization that are qualified to speak to the media.
So when I would walk the halls or check on my staff, I would always ask people, “How’s it going with the media?” Many of them would rattle off a list of activities to get their client on the radar of a prominent reporter. But one guy I worked with, Dave, understood what I was really looking for when I asked that question. In one instance, we were at a particularly important juncture with a key client that had very high expectations.
I bumped into him in hallway, and I asked him “How’s it going?” His response was, “I got nothing.”
I knew that when he answered he wasn’t saying, “I’ve done nothing.” He was saying, “I’ve got nothing to report in terms of a media result for this client. I can tell you all day long what I’m doing, but you don’t care about that. You want to know: What have I been able to accomplish?”
And he was right. That’s exactly what I wanted to know.
If you are giving people progress reports, being brief requires that you give them what they are looking for—not all of the other details and information they really don’t care about. They want to know about what result you are driving. Some people refer to this as the say-do ratio: the relationship between what you say and what you do.

My daughter Monica did an internship during her junior year abroad in Brazil. She worked for a start-up that was very similar to a Staples or an OfficeMax online. “I’ve discovered that it’s really important for me to say less and do more than to overpromise and underdeliver,” she said. “I can have all these ideas of things I want to accomplish, and I can talk all about it—but I’m only able to do one or two of them,” she explained.
Monica told me that it was always better if she said less about what her plans were and instead showed her progress by doing more.
“When I started to do that, I got a lot more work, responsibility, and recognition.” By taking the initiative instead of talking up her plans, Monica got her ratio in the right proportion.
When it comes to progress reports, it’s better for you to get to the point. Just say, “This is what I’m doing; this is what I am getting done.” Then you can have the results speak for themselves.

Be Prepared to Be Lean and Drive Out Wasteful Words
Dan Ariens, CEO of the lean manufacturer of lawn mowers and snow blowers Ariens Company, summarizes each of his company’s machines and administrative processes in one page. The 81∕2- by 11-inch sheets of paper include a simple picture, up to 10 explanatory steps, and a few comments—and that’s it.
His firm has embraced the practices of Lean Six Sigma that result in eliminating waste in organizations. For Ariens, this approach also requires engaging in lean communication.

“Whether I’m completing payroll or doing human resources or manufacturing in an assembly, there are work instructions,” Ariens said. “We boil that down to one page that says, ‘These are the standard ways that we do payroll, or accounting, or assembly station four.’ It’s very brief, very concise, and very focused work instruction.”
If someone wants to amend a Standard Work sheet, that person documents his or her comments on one page as well: “Draw us a picture, give us a sentence. I take it to the supervisor for approval. That gets updated, and we’ve made our change. We can do that in an hour,” he said. “It’s using pictures and simple words and short sentences. Don’t write me a big book on why you want to make one change.”
Short sentences keep Ariens up to date on daily operations at the manufacturing level.
“I can walk through our plant and read at each line, handwritten, whether or not that line is producing at its regulated expected time,” Ariens said. “Handwritten stuff works. It’s quick; it’s easy. Having someone write it down requires them to know, hour by hour, how we’re performing at an assembly cell.”

To be succinct is the primary skill of productive professionals.

Brevity is a force that wages battle against the constant threat of inattention, interruption, information, and impatience.Win this war by surrounding yourself with people who not only recognize the challenges of the inattention economy but also arm themselves to win it

Keeping operative instructions down to one page helps everyone understand what’s expected of him or her and what needs to be done to change it. Ariens also practices what he preaches in his own office.
“In my office, I have a single page for each strategic initiative. It states the strategy, its reason, and its purpose—and it should be only a sentence or two.”
Ariens’s strict adherence to brevity means he has a low tolerance for unprepared direct reports. He complained that his usual meetings are defined by agendas that are too long and filled with boisterous pontificators who tend to repeat themselves.
“It just is very wasteful,” Ariens says. He can tell whether someone is unprepared within the opening paragraph or sentence. “It is really about giving concise and consistent instruction or working on a problem in a focused manner.”
Ariens identified two mistakes that cause meetings to drag: “If people are insecure about their position, they keep searching for the answer as they’re talking,” he explains. “They’re looking for people who will give them some consensus, and they’ll keep going until they find people who nod their head and agree. A more confident person will get right to the point,” he said.
Think of your meetings as a one-pager. No one wants to hear you go on and on.
Ariens also blames office politics for seemingly endless and pointless meetings: “People want to make sure that the layers of management are hearing them. They think they will sway opinions and take a leadership position because they own the floor.”
“It’s very frustrating. You want to say, ‘Okay, I got it, I got it,’ and ask, ‘Can we move on?’ or ‘Can I hear from someone else?’ And when you try and push back with some questions or ask for data, people ramble on with an answer that doesn’t really give you what you want.
“My most important commodity is my time,” Ariens said. “If you treat it badly, I’m going to get a little upset.”

The Most Important Question: Why Am I Here?
For the past several years, Jim Metcalf, CEO of USG Corporation, has required all his direct reports to state the purpose of each meeting up front.
“One day I was coming home from a day filled with meetings and I thought, ‘I accomplished nothing today.’ I wasn’t making an impact,” Metcalf said. “I was attending a lot of meetings—but halfway through all of them, I would wonder, ‘Why am I here?’”
Metcalf realized that his direct reports were draining his valuable time because they simply wanted to update him, not get a decision from him. Even though they had the authority to make the call, they wasted his time by insisting on informing him face to face.
“I hate meetings,” Metcalf says. “I like meeting people for a reason, but not meeting just to meet.”
He prefers short meetings, and if he can get them, short summaries and no meeting at all. He expects the purpose to be clearly stated at the beginning: this is for information only or for a decision

“I like one page. I don’t always get one page, because that’s hard for people to do,” he said. “If it’s more than one page, I lose interest real fast. Getting one page helps me control my time and have a greater impact on the areas where the shareholder wants me to spend my time.”
Metcalf asks the same follow-up question at every meeting: “Why do you need me here?”
“I am a stickler on starting meetings on time, having an agenda. I don’t think any meeting should last more than an hour. If someone is late for a meeting, I sometimes close the door—or they don’t get a chair.”

Having brief meetings usually requires that a member of the leadership team mediate who talks when. Metcalf usually interjects when someone is taking up too much of the allotted time. And once he’s had enough of the meeting, he says thank you, stands up, and leaves. He doesn’t allow anyone to take more time than necessary. Either you’re brief, or he’s gone.
Metcalf also manages his time when people walk into his office while he’s working. He automatically begins talking to them standing up.
“If someone gets into your chair across your desk and is crossing [his or her] legs, soon you’re hearing about what happened on [his or her] summer vacation,” he said. “But when I’m in my zone, I’ll have a brief discussion standing up. I’m escorting them out the door, and they don’t even realize it.”
That direct, no-nonsense approach sends a clear signal: brevity is part of the business.
Long story, short. Tighten your message to be sure your audience stays positive and on track.

When People see you reading this book they’re going to expect a difference

Enough said