Cyril Peupion

Topics

In control

Most of us have never been taught how to work.

We go to school, universities, and learn a qualification. We train and graduate as doctors, accountants or engineers. And one day we start working. We get a computer and before we know we are swamped with documents. We get an inbox and get bombarded with emails. We get a role and suddenly are overwhelmed by tasks and ‘to do’ lists.

Many of us are committed and want to do a good job. We are neither lazy nor un-willing. But we are not working efficiently – we work hard but not always smart. Only to find ourselves at the end of each day having worked hard on a lot of small crises but not having the time to focus on any of our big-ticket items.

Cyril and his team have spent years working with leaders and their teams, around the world, to challenge and change their work habits. In this session he will share some simple and very practical ways to work smarter and become in control.

Main Points:

• Realise the impact of existing work habits
• Discuss how to manage the constant flow of incoming tasks
• Share simple strategies to reach inbox zero every day
• Explain how to make decisions and stop procrastination
• Show practical ways to become in control of your workload

Focused

Many people believe that performance is about quantity. The number of emails they respond to, the number of meetings they attend, the number of tasks they achieve. Not at all. Performance is first and foremost about quality and focus.

Remember a time when you blocked an hour on something only to realise how little you did during this time. You got distracted by a few emails, interrupted by a few people, and found it hard to progress what you were doing.

Now remember a time when you spend 25 minutes on a task, 25 minutes of high focus with no interruptions, no distractions. Maybe you got to the office before anyone else, or stay later when everyone was gone, or worked from home. And you realised how incredibly productive you were during these 25 minutes.

Increase your performance and well-being by learning some simple and practical ways to be more focused.

Main Points:

• Discuss focus in the context of high performance
• Create a mind shift from quantity to quality
• Share simple strategies to manage interruptions and distractions
• Demonstrate the dangers of multi-taskings and ways to avoid
• Show how to ensure continual focus on high impact activities

Execution

Two-thirds of corporate strategy is never executed. Companies spend a lot of time and resources to think ahead, to decide their long-term vision and strategy. They engage consulting firms and their top leaders to do so. They involve many people and resources to produce a lovely Word document and numerous PowerPoint slides to display their plan and strategy.

Only to see that two-thirds of it will never be executed.

The issue is rarely the quality of the strategy and action plan decided. One of the biggest challenges for companies today is execution. They might be clear on their strategy, on where they want to head. But if you check what people are doing on a day-to-day basis, what they spend their time on hour per hour, you realise there is often a big gap between what they are doing and what they are supposed to do.

Cyril works with many leaders and their teams around the world helping them with this critical topic: from strategy to execution.

Main Points:

• Emphasize the importance of aligning strategy and execution in the workplace
• Demonstrate the benefits of the concept of “Think quarterly, plan weekly, act daily”
• Share a powerful question to clarify individual and team key priorities
• Discuss very practical ways to prioritise your time
• Show how to ensure continual focus on long term strategic topics

Alive

Many people are completely swamped at work: with documents, with emails, with things to to. As a result, they feel stressed and out of control.

This might come as a surprise, but stress is not linked to the amount of work you have. Let me repeat, stress is not linked to the amount of work. We worked with very senior leaders with huge amount of work who were in control, and junior people with far fewer things to do but completely out of control and stressed.

Stress is linked to the way you manage your workload. You come home in the evening, but your brain is still in the office ‘I forgot to do this, and I haven’t responded to this request due today, and …’

Working smarter is about simple changes you can make on how you manage your emails, your meetings, your time, your focus. But ultimately it is about how you can transform your life. How you can become more alive at work and at home.

Main Points:

• Realise the link between our work habits and our work life balance
• Give simple strategies to be more in control of our workload
• Discuss different ways to organise your tasks and prioritise your days
• Move from buzyness to focus
• Share simple practices to dramatically improve work-life balance