productivity Archives - Excellerate Associates

Unlocking Productivity Through Human Wiring

January 16, 2025 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

By: Lisa Mininni

In a world obsessed with to-do lists, time management tools, and productivity hacks, it’s easy to overlook the most critical factor in getting things done: your unique human wiring.

Understanding your natural tendencies and aligning your work to complement them isn’t just a nice idea—it’s a game-changer for sustainable productivity. When you work with your innate wiring, you can not only improve your productivity but also enhance your overall sense of fulfillment.

What Is Human Wiring?

Human wiring refers to the natural preferences that influence how we create ideas, process information, and make decisions. Unlike learned skills or habits, your wiring is deeply ingrained. Through self-development, it can be leveraged.

Think of your wiring as the operating system of your brain. Just as you wouldn’t install Mac software on a PC, trying to force yourself into methods of working that clash with your wiring will only lead to frustration and burnout.

The Cost of Misalignment

Many professionals struggle with traditional productivity advice because it doesn’t consider their wiring. For example, a consultant was wired to create and act on his own ideas and produce fast results. He ended up working with clients who got so big and corporate-like bogging down implementation. He wondered why he was de-energized.

It made perfect sense when we looked at it from the lens of human wiring. I suggested that he vet his clients more closely making sure they met his Preferred Client Profile. He needed to work with smaller, well-funded entrepreneurs, who took fast and decisive action. When I mentioned his new Preferred Client Profile, it clicked for him. The new client profile is much more in alignment with his natural human wiring that needs fast results and decisive action.

When we force ourselves into environments that don’t fit, we not only fail to achieve our goals but also experience diminished motivation and increased stress.

How to Leverage Your Wiring for Peak Productivity

Here are three practical steps to align your productivity strategy with your wiring:

1. Learn About Your Natural Wiring

When you understand your natural human wiring, you discover ways to align your human wiring with your environment. A good place to start is the Wired to Win 101: How Are You Hardwired happening on March 14, 2025 where you will learn customized ways that work for your unique wiring pattern. Understanding what’s underneath why you procrastinate on certain tasks leads to troubleshooting ways to get it done more effortlessly. You’re not expending energy fighting your wiring—instead, you’re channeling that energy toward meaningful work.

2. Tailor Your Work Environment

Once you understand your wiring, design your environment to support it. This doesn’t necessarily mean find another career. When a professional who needed his alone time was bombarded with interruptions all day every day, I asked if he could build a day where he worked from home instead of going into the office each day. When he implemented it, he was more productive, his employees took more initiative, and he got his alone time to strategize on ways to grow his practice.

3. Proactively Get Your Innate Motivators Met

If you’re energized by face-to-face interaction, make sure to get it met each day. Incorporate team-based projects, brainstorming sessions or face-to-face interactions, like networking. If you need your alone time, create a distraction-free zone with noise-canceling headphones or dedicated quiet hours.

Final Thoughts

Productivity isn’t about forcing yourself to do something. It’s about creating an approach that honors who you are. By understanding your wiring, tailoring your environment, and aligning tasks with your natural way you execute, you’ll not only get more done but enjoy the process, too.

As I often say, “Success is sustainable when it’s aligned with your natural wiring.

How Do You Manage Others The Way They Need to Be Managed to Increase Productivity?

February 23, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

Managing people is the process of training and motivating others. If you searched on how to effectively manage others, you would see a lot of generic information that is helpful, such as set clear expectations, give feedback regularly, and provide training and development opportunities. Rarely, however, does this generic information get to the root of how to effectively manage others to increase productivity.

With over 30 years coaching leaders, I’ve seen how effectiveness can increase significantly by understanding human wiring. Specifically, the positive changes that occur when a leader understands their human wiring, the wiring of those whom they lead, and the process of leading.

When a leader understands human wiring, that insight can forever change productivity. When one of my CEO clients called me shocked at how one of her employees blew up at her, I asked her to explain objectively what happened. As someone naturally wired lower in patience, she was constantly interrupting her assistant. A thought would pop into her head, and she would interrupt her assistant.

Her assistant who was wired to thrive in a more sequential environment was frustrated by the constant interruptions from her CEO. It finally came to a boiling point. While the assistant was often described at nice and patient, she was frustrated at the constant disturbances.

Manage Others How They Need to be Managed

The CEO never gave it a second thought each interruption significantly impacted the employee’s productivity. The CEO was naturally wired to juggle versus needing a sequential environment. I suggested to the CEO that she needed to manage her assistant differently if she wanted her assistant to be highly effective.

Instead of the CEO constantly interrupting her assistant, we created an accountability process. Each morning, the CEO met with her assistant to identify the priorities of the day and week. If the CEO needed to change direction, she sent an email to her employee to complete what she was working on and to see her.

With this new process in place, the employee had focused time to work on her list, increasing her productivity 40% in 30 days. It’s also important to note that the employee realized that she needs to be fully expressed in communicating what she needs before it comes to a boiling point.

Being mindful of the environment in which someone best thrives is key to increasing employee engagement and productivity. As a leader, what small changes could you make to maximize the productivity in yourself and in others?

Human wiring significantly impacts your company culture, leadership, idea flow, productivity, and engagement. To learn ways to be highly efficient and maximize your team’s natural talents, join us for:

Wired to Win 101: How Are You Hardwired?

Wednesday, March 15, 2023 from 8:30 – 1 pm Eastern Time.

Join us online or onsite.

Register on the link below:

One Highly Effective Habit for Productive People

October 26, 2017 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

Thousands of books have been written on highly effective habits to make people more productive. You may have even tried a few of these habits. You may have even tried excessive amounts of caffeine or purchased the latest organizing binder with mixed results.

With over 14 years teaching business leaders a systems approach, there is one habit that makes a real difference in accomplishing what matters most. It’s so simple, but is often completely missing in your processes, communication, requests, or when giving directions.

What is it?

A date.

It might sound overly simplistic but think about it.

Does your every day language sound like this?

• “Let’s have lunch!”
• “I look forward to hearing from you.”
• “Please get back with me asap.”
• “Sounds interesting. I’ll call you.”
• “I will host a …workshop, webinar, or teleseminar.”
• “Get back with me when you’ve reviewed the proposal.”

Most people can’t and don’t work well with vagueness. Be exact to attract results by grounding requests, directives, or communication in a date.

• “Let’s have lunch, what’s your schedule look like for (DATE)”
• “I look forward to hearing from you. Let’s schedule a follow up conversation on (DATE)”
• “Please get back with me by (DATE)”
• “Sounds interesting. I’ll call you by (DATE) to get that scheduled.”
• “I will host a workshop by (DATE)”
• “Let’s schedule a (DATE) to finalize your decision about the proposal. How long will it take to review it?”

Notice that all of the requests were grounded by a date. The habit doesn’t stop there. Round out your dates with an action. Remember to log the date into your calendar and send a calendar invitation.

When you implement this highly effective habit, you’ll become known for being one of those productive and reliable people others can trust. You’ll also notice that you have improved focus, intentionality, and outcomes.

A Highly Effective Way to Enhance Workplace Productivity

May 25, 2017 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

If you want to scale your business, you can’t ignore the need to enhance employee productivity. Enhancing your team’s productivity involves more than adding work disguised as skill development.

And, while it’s important to be clear and align your company’s foundational aspects of productivity, like the vision, mission, and goals, it’s equally important to understand what’s underneath productivity. The most effective driver of productivity is often misunderstood.

Old school methods of increasing productivity point to managing behaviors or establishing incentives. Much to the dismay of leadership, these tactics are short-term motivators.

As a leader, if you want to effectively enhance workplace productivity for the long term, then it’s important for you to understand your and your team’s natural wiring. Natural wiring or hardwiring is distinct from personality or behaviors.

Your natural wiring is present at birth and stays with you your entire lifetime. It determines how you best generate ideas, communicate, the environment in which you best thrive, and the amount of certainty you need for effective decision making.

Align your team’s natural wiring to the wiring requirements of a specific job or role and watch as employee engagement and productivity increases.

While reverse engineering tha CEO, there was a look of impending overwhelm on his face. Knowing his biological wiring, I mentioned that we were going to develop a one-page Business Blueprint. Instantly, he was relieved.

Most importantly, he is wired to best perform when his information is received; and in this case, developed in short, concise bullet points. If he developed a lengthy Business Blueprint, he would have never implemented it.

By keeping his Business Blueprint in alignment with how he naturally executes, he increases his productivity and consistency.

In another case, a CEO was constantly interrupting her assistant with requests. Her assistant performed best in an environment where she could be sequential in her work and completed her work with limited interruptions. The constant interruptions impeded her work flow.

Instead of continuously interrupting her assistant, the CEO sent an email to her assistant requesting her to see her when her assistant came to a stopping point. This way of working not only became more efficient to the CEO, but increased her assistant’s productivity by over 40%.

A highly effective way to enhance workplace productivity can be found in human hardwiring. Want more fresh strategies to scale your business and build your team? JOIN US.

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