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Hi Team,

As of this week, my Weekly Email will have a new name, "Our Culture". This is part of a strategy to broaden the reach of this weekly email and to spread the DDB culture to a much wider audience. Over the next few days we will be posting an invitation on several social media platforms for followers of DDB to subscribe to Our Knowledge Culture to receive My Weekly Emails and a full library of previous emails will be posted in the Blog section of the DDB website for anyone to access at any time.

Last week was a significant week for the business when the Management Team created a "6-Month Plan for DDB".
This multi-stage plan sets out a whole new set of goals and objectives and a step by step strategy for surviving the COVID-19 health crisis and the economic downturn. A large part of this 6-month plan is an extensive list of tasks and commitments for each manager to carry out and almost all of these items on each "To Do List" are new. But this is only half of a successful formula for change, because to successfully execute this new plan we will all also need 
"A Stop Doing List."

"If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old",  Peter F Drucker.

To achieve our new goals and objectives we must remove or delete an equivalent number of tasks and commitments that are no longer in alignment with the new priorities. Change is never easy and this "pivot" (new set of priorities) will require courage, determination, leadership and above all, teamwork. As the leader of the DDB Team it is vital for me to practice and become comfortable saying no to people. This is something I personally struggle with and need to focus on getting better at. David Guest, my business coach has said on several occasions that for me, the key to saying no more often is to focus on not feeling guilty whenever I say no.

"The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything", Warren Buffet.

Here are five processes that I will use to create my "Stop Doing List".

1. Review my job role. Re-write my job description to remove anything that does not directly help me to move towards achieving our new goals and objectives.
2. Make some tough decisions. Review and reassess all potential new jobs and clients and stop working with the ones that are not in alignment with our 6-month plan. and our new priorities.
3. Review the team. The current DDB Team is the best it has ever been, so I do not envision any significant changes hear, but some of our subcontractors and suppliers will need to be changed.
4. Eliminate bad habits. I must try to reduce or eliminate time wasting activities or bad habits. We all have them and for me it's Instagram. Also, for me email can be an enormous "time suck". Most of the time we spend on email is in responding to everyone else's demands!
5. Stop all non-vital meetings. I have a very competent project manager; construction manager and site foreman and I don't need to attend every client or site meeting. 

I have previously discussed "the value of time" (email 10th Feb 2020); it is the most valuable resource we have so it is vital to choose your commitments very carefully to ensure that every task and meeting is moving you towards achieving your goals.

"If you have dug yourself into a hole, the first step to getting out of the hole is to stop digging", Brett Mckay.

Thanks for reading.
Stay safe and soldier on.
David