Transformational Leadership. Social Entrepreneurship

Following our post on the 19 Time Management Woes for Today’s Knowledge Workers and on the Pomodoro Technique of Time Management, we will be looking at Chet Holmes’ Time Management System this week. Stay tuned as we look at David Allen’s Getting Things Done system next Friday.

Chet Holmes is the author of the best-selling book “The Ultimate Sales Machine.” He is also a top karate martial artist, corporate trainer and business consultant.

Chet Holmes’ basic time management system is built on the mindset that time management should be simple and uncomplicated. It’s funny, how he wrote about a time management seminar he attended where the speaker told them to track how they use their time for three months! He couldn’t believe his ears! He just rolled his eyes, gathered his things and left the seminar! Since then, he went on to devise a simple time management system that he could use in managing his businesses.

1. Touch it once.
2. Make lists.
3. Plan how much time you will allocate to each task.
4. Plan the day.
5. Prioritize.
6. Ask yourself, “will it hurt me to throw this away?”

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After writing in this blog for more than six months, I discovered that there are a lot of Filipino social entrepreneurs! They are increasingly becoming aware of their power to help change the world. I tend to look down on “noisy advocacy” where all that people do is to point out the wrongs in the society. But if such advocacy is coupled with actual projects and people empowerment programs, then I’d offer a nod of approval and cheer of encouragement, maybe even help out a bit in their advocacy.

You Don’t have to be Alone in Your Social Entrepreneurship Project.

Anyway, I have come across another Filipino Social Entrepreneurship project. This time, the project is not sponsored by a single individual. Rather, this is a team project called Ideals Creative! This organization was spearheaded by Daniel Gabriel Matutina, Dang Sering, Bernise De Leon, and Marielle Nadal.

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Following our post last week on the 19 Time Management Woes for Today’s Knowledge Workers, we will be looking at various time management techniques in the next few weeks. We will explore each technique and show how to use them. If you want to be productive and minimize distraction, you will need a good time management technique. I will look at the Pomodoro Technique, David Allen’s Getting Things Done and Chet Holmes’ Time Management Technique. After that, we’ll sum up the stuff we’ve covered and show how you can derive your own style and maximize your time!

I came across the Pomodoro Technique back in November 2009. Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato and there are several tomato kitchen timers. This is what inspired Francesca Pirillo in coming up with this productivity technique. It goes against the popular notion that multitasking can help you accomplish more things in a shorter period of time.

The Pomodoro technique is built upon the notion that you should do one thing and only one thing at a time. More specifically, you should only do one thing in every 25 minutes.

How does it work?

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Ashoka Foundation has been at the forefront of social entrepreneurship all over the world. It has helped so many social entrepreneurship startups including Room to Read, which was founded by John Wood.

In “A Leader’s Life” this week, we are featuring the founder of Ashoka, a visionary by the name of Bill Drayton. Here are some lessons that could be learned from his life.

Start at a young age.

Bil Drayton started young in his quest for social entrepreneurship, although he probably didn’t call it that when he was younger. His mother was a cellist who came from Australia to the United States. His father also had a knack to do things even though it is filled with uncertainty—that is why he became an explorer at such a young age.

From his elementary days, Bill enjoyed learning history and geography but did not like math. He started running a newspaper in his school even at such a young age. By the time he went to high school, he founded the Asia Society and made it into the biggest organization in his school!

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Every now and then, MightyRasing.com comes up with a series of articles on social entrepreneurship, leadership or personal development. For the next few weeks, we will explore Time Management, the things that make our lives difficult and the systems that could help us deal with the demands on our time!

Have you ever missed a deadline? Do you have workers that are so chronically late you have almost strangled them to death? Are you swimming under pressure or are you barely breathing because of too much pressure at work?

The knowledge workers of today are swamped with deadlines and work. If we are not careful, we will simply cave in to the pressure. Are you suffering from these time management woes?

Mindset. Some workers just show up at work at 9 AM so they can have their paycheck on the 15^th or 30^th of the month, pay the bills, enjoy life and just do the easiest things at work. You know the type, they are always late—as if they’re dragging their feet one after another. And if you give them an extra push for performance they cry out that you are unreasonably demanding.

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Concerns for the environment have gained popularity in recent years, thanks to the work of activists and non-government organizations raising the awareness of the extent of climate change that we are going through. Awareness is good. But unless it is followed up by action, it remains nothing as mere wishful thinking.

Denise Matias, however, picked up the passion for the environment. Although most people feel that incorporating environment-friendly practices into their lifestyles is a tedious, inconvenient and no-fun process.

Sometimes, all it takes for an idea to be implemented is to narrow down on some specific aspect of our lives.

For Denise, that meant helping recycle paper efficiently and creatively! He re are several lessons we can learn from the advocacy and experiences of Denise Matias.

It starts with passion!

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Corporate Social Responsibility is rooted in human compassion. While business organizations want to maximize profits and revenues, we cannot deny our responsibilities to the planet, to the employees, to the community where the business is situated, and to the rest of the world. That is why, corporate social responsibility is a necessary component for the operation of business organizations. But if your organization’s intention is to mainly save taxes that should be paid to the government, you have to think again. In such an instance, CSR becomes nothing more than a means to further enhance the bottom line of the company and a way to cheat the government.

For the month of June, MightyRasing.com covered several articles on corporate social responsibility. In case, you missed these articles, just check the following links plus some excerpts from the articles:

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Some changes will be implemented on this Transformational Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship Blog. Our A Leader’s Life section used to be published on Mondays, our ongoing series are being published on Wednesdays and on Fridays, anything goes. But times are a’changin’ so instead of publishing (shorter) content three times a week, I will focus instead on writing longer and more in-depth articles twice a week. A Leader’s Life articles will be published on Tuesdays and ongoing series on Transformational Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship or Personal Development will be posted on Fridays so you can think about them over the weekend.

Right now, I’m preparing to go to Berlin, Germany for the Global Young People’s Convocation and Legislative Assembly. It will be a great time to meet other youth leaders from all over the world. I’m sure, a lot of the youth and young adults who will attend there have ideas and activities, too, that they are already doing, to help change the world.

I will be posting lots of updates about the Global Convo while I’m there. And since, I’m in Berlin by that time, I might as well post pictures and the activities we’ll be doing there.

In the meantime, please don’t forget to subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed!

MightyRasing.com seeks to discover Filipino social entrepreneurs who are already doing something to help fellow Filipinos escape the bonds of poverty and any other issue that limit their potentials and make their lives more difficult.

If you’ve been to Payatas, which is on the boundary of Quezon City and Rizal Province in the Philippines, you will smell garbage kilometers away! Payatas is the largest dumpsite in the Philippines, consisting of a 22.3-hectare tract of land! Interestingly, because of the difficult life in Manila, 60,000 people (around 12,000 families) live around the area trying to get anything of value to sell, reuse or eat from the refuse of Manila.

Don’t just feel bad about the misfortune of others. Do something good!

One visit to the Payatas dumpsite would be enough to pinch your heart and make you want to help the poor who are living off the garbage of Metro Manila. Most of us are moved with the plight of the people we consider to be less fortunate than us. But then, if we do not take action right away, our good intentions will simply be that—good intentions no actions!

Therese Clarence Fernandez, together with her associates and friends, recognized the importance of taking action. That is why, together with ten partners, she founded the Rags2Riches, an organization that capitalizes on fashion and accessories while at the same time empowering the lives of women in the Payatas area!

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Your boss is the only person who cares about corporate social responsibility.

Your CSR activities are boring!

You just give money to a partner organization to do the “dirty work” of corporate social responsibility.

Only a handful of people in your company participates in it.

You just implement a one-time big time CSR event.

Your employees do not understand the implications and the importance of CSR.

You think that CSR is an excuse not to pay taxes to the government!

CSR events become  just another excuse for employees not to work.

You spend lots of money on it and you don’t really care about the outcome of your community outreach.

Everybody goes home after the photo-taking session, leaving behind the partner organization or community.

CSR strategy is not sustainable.

Does your organization have a corporate social responsibility strategy? Does it rock? Or does it suck? What do you think makes a successful corporate social responsibility strategy?