Hanukkah started last night and continues through December 12.
Eid al-Adha begins at sunset on December 19 and continues through December 20.
Christmas Day is on December 25.
Kwanzaa begins on December 26 and continues through January 1.

What clients say to me is: “With shopping and cooking and wrapping and decorating and partying and visiting and celebrating…how are we going to get any work done this month?”

Some people have already given up, or lightened up, choosing to go with the flow and simply enjoy. While some say, “Bah Humbug - this is business. Nose to the grindstone.”

This article is for you if you want to be but struggle to be productive during this time of year.

This article is for you if you manage others who struggle to be productive during this time of year.

Here are eight suggestions to help you and yours be enormously productive and still enjoy the holidays. Some of these suggestions won’t work for you because of the nature of your business or the size of your team or some other reason. But there is something in here for everyone - even Scrooge himself.

1. Decide what is most important this month - at home and in your business. What do you want to do? Who do you want to be?
On the business front, this may have been decided by a boss or bank or your very own business plan. If so, you know the revenue you need or the billable hours you must have or the number of customers you must service or some projects to complete. If it hasn’t been done, decide on some measurable targets for the month and share them and the reason for their importance with your team. Besides these measurables - what else is important to focus on right now? Consider things like teamwork, morale, customer retention, systems.

What about the home front? Your spouse, children, other family members. How do you want to spend your time with them? What is most important? What memories do you want to re-live or create? What about them - what are their thoughts on this?

If your mind free flows with ideas, keep a pad and pen with you all the time and write things down as they come to you - one page for home - one page for business. Before the week is over - read over both lists and use this marking system to help you prioritize:

*** really important - must do - absolute top priority
** would like to do if at all possible
* it would be nice to do this
blank good idea but…

Or you could use an A, B and C system. I like stars because they are more festive.

Now go back and review your list.
Are you being too optimistic?
Are you allowing for sleep?
Can you do all of this and still be who you want to be?
Now might be a good time to read or re-read “Traditions”.

2. Be aware of holiday needs for your staff and clients.
Why?
a. It’s interesting to learn about the traditions of others.
b. It will let you know if you need to adjust holiday party plans or gift giving.*
c. They will appreciate your interest.
d. It can be a morale and team builder.
e. From a practical standpoint, it can help with scheduling, i.e. those who don’t celebrate Christmas can cover for those who do.
How?
A fun way to do this is at a staff meeting. Ask each person to share a favorite holiday memory or tradition.
Or you can invite each person to decorate his/her office space according to their tradition.

3. Help people focus on the important stuff in #1
If you talk about holiday traditions, decorate office space, plan an office party and go back to your office, the holidays are going to stay front and center - productivity in the background. To prevent this, find extra ways to remind and reinforce people about business goals for the month. For example:
a. at the same staff meeting in which you share holiday traditions, review progress to goals.
b. carry the attention between staff meetings by posting progress on a wall. In a prominent place. You could use a white board or an easel. Or on poster board. It could be in table format. Or a graph. Or on a “United Way style thermometer” but it doesn’t have to be a thermometer - why not an icicle or a star or a reindeer antler? If you aren’t sure how to do this, send me an email and tell me the goal you are trying to track and I’ll help you come up with something. Just remember that people pay attention to what the boss pays attention to.
c. Offer a special December bonus to each person who contributes at a certain level. Tie it in to one of those measurables up in #1.
A friend of mine works in sales for company that gives out $5,000 per month in prize money. The money goes to the person who brings in the most new business that month and because they want to reinforce the actions that result in those sales, they also award prizes to the people (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th place) who made the most presentations to prospects. Now listen to this. Because the President of the company knows how hard it is to “play through” to the end of the year, he has doubled the money for December. That’s right - there is $10,000 on the line!
If that’s way out of line with your budget, do not despair. Offer $10 or $25 or $50 to each salesperson who brings in three new accounts this month or to each person who brings in $1,000 of account receivables or to each person who makes their billable hours goal - once again - tie it back in to the measurables in #1.

4. Put the adrenalin to work.
This one is especially for people whose business is not especially demanding during this time of year.
The phone isn’t ringing a lot. There isn’t a lot you HAVE to do because your customers are busy with their customers or they’ve already started their holiday. So you really could do the same. But…you want to be productive…or you are paying these people and want them to be productive…but you and everyone else are having a hard time focusing since there aren’t any real pressing issues or goals. So - use that time and energy to clean up and organize. For example:

a. Ask everyone to clean up his/her office space this week. Offer an award for “Most Improved Office or Cubicle”. Something like $25 in cash or a ½ day off for holiday shopping.
b. Offer a similar reward to anyone who will volunteer to re-organize the supply closet.
c. Have a shredding contest.
d. Tell everyone to wear jeans tomorrow for Office Clean Up Day. Have the whole group clean out the storage room. Or tackle the file cabinets.
e. Use this as an opportunity to find “lost” items. I have a client who mis-placed an important file. All his search efforts had failed. So he offered a $100 reward to everyone at his office - at home too! The file was located within 48 hours.

5.Document & Celebrate 2007. This is another great way to put adrenalin to work. And an excellent exercise for capturing valuable information.
This could be 10 minute staff meeting discussion…or extended all the way to a day long celebration with advance assignments. Ask each person to bring or share:
a. The best of 2007
b. The best mistake
c. The best lesson learned
d. The best sale
e. The best budget
f. The best lemons to lemonade story
g. The best save
h. What I would do the same
i. What I would do differently

Do one or all of these. Or make up your own. Take lots of notes. You might even want to have a bottle of bubbly on hand to help you celebrate the many lessons and successes of 2007.

6. Prepare for 2008.
This could be the sequel to #5 and another great way to put adrenalin to work.

You may have already made the plan for next year. If so, congratulations! This could be a time to review that with your staff. And then connect that to your discussion about 2007, asking questions such as:
a. What lessons from 2007 do we need to be sure to apply as we implement this plan?
b. What obstacles might we face?
c. How could we overcome these?
d. Why don’t we hire a management coach like Jan Bolick to help us with this? (Sorry - I couldn’t resist☺)

Many people who haven’t made a plan for next year, hate making plans. If that’s the case for you, consider having a brainstorming meeting, addressing questions such as:
e. What is great about this business?
f. How can we expand on these things?
g. What could be better?
h. What are all the ways we could make it better?
i. Which of these would have the biggest impact?
j. How can we weave all this together into a plan?
k. Same as 6d.

7. Build your team
If morale or teamwork is one of the important things you listed in #1, now is a terrific time to make progress in this area.
Any of the seven suggestions above will contribute to your effort.
Do all six for a power punch.

Even if you do something as simple as getting everyone together to address holiday cards….putting on some music and serving hot apple cider.
Or if you have a holiday party* and want to develop some new traditions - ask for team input.
And there is still time for your team to help others by adopting a child or a whole family; sending treat boxes to the troops; working in the soup kitchen; or helping with in any other cause.

8. Take care of yourself and others.
Whether you celebrate a holiday in December…or two or more holidays…or no holiday at all…December distractions abound. And they are stressful and can be energy zapping and productivity busting. To avoid the Scrooge blues, it’s important to nourish body, mind and soul. We all know we are supposed to get sleep and eat well and get exercise. Here are some ideas to help make that really happen during this time of year.

i. Draw attention to the importance of this and your support of this by using some of the suggestions in #3.
ii. Bring a big bowl of apples to work. You might even deliver an apple a day to each person’s desk.
iii. Instead of delicious pastries, bring a beautiful bowl of berries and melons to staff meetings.
iv. If you typically give cookies and cakes as gifts, consider giving fruits or nuts instead.
v. Play soothing classical music in the office during stressful times.
vi. Play upbeat fun music in the office when people need a boost.
vii. One of my clients brings in a massage therapist on Fridays. Each staff member gets a 30 minutes massage.
viii. Another brings in a yoga instructor each week for a 45 minute stretch session.
ix. Announce Free Fridays - all who go for a walk with your during lunch get free lunch (salad and soup) in the conference room.

There they are. Eight suggestions to help you and yours be enormously productive and still enjoy the holidays.
If you have a suggestion…something that has worked well for you…will you share it with me? I’d love to hear it.

Meanwhile - whatever holiday or holidays you celebrate - even if you celebrate none - I wish you a productive and enjoyable December!

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