A Day In The Life Of...
38 | TRAINING MAGAZINE MIDDLE EAST JAN 2015
Tell Us More About Your Background?
Well I really didn't know what I wanted to do to until I was in my 30s. I was interested in a lot of areas. However, my main interest was looking around at everything and seeing what could be improved. One day I discovered the consultancy profession, a 'job' where people would pay me to do what I love. So, I decided to go out on my own and see if I could make it in the profession. I was a success and have been a consultantsince 1981. My college background really helped me, while at college, I was fascinated with how models work, how business works and how paradigms work. I was fascinated by high-performance behaviour and the interface with businesses and organiZations.
What Made You Become a Productivity Expert?
Most men are not naturally organized, however, I am an organized individual who has always been interested in efficiency and with how little effort you can produce results. I have been amazed to discover the amount of inefficiences that exist in the business and professional worlds. My aim is to bring sophistication and clarity to the inneficiencies.
To build my foundation I got involved in martial arts. The meditative practices gave me the ability to clear my head space and maintain that space. That's the optimal place to do anything from; to work from, to spend time with your kids etc.
I I became fascinated with seeing the value that achieving 'clear head space' has for business entrepreneurs and bringing what I learnt about how to get things done in the professional world to clients. My methods have worked for everybody, I did not have to tailor my message to the type of business I was working with.
What Current Trends Do You See?
TMyprinciples are always eternal, they will always help individuals to focus on where they're going and they always help to determine your next actions so you can focus on the meaningful things.
I guess what is different currently is that every single person within an organization needs to have this executive skill and needs the capability to make decisions.
I think today many people now need to apply re-sophisticated executive techniques to keep ahead of others, and even though technology has made a difference, the biggest differences is how much change is happening at such a rapid speed and how far this change is implemented into the organization.
What Interesting and Successful Projects Have You Been Involved In?
Well everyone of them is interesting because every person is interesting and that is what I love about the work that we do.
The simple but profound principles of getting things done and GTD apply to everyone but everyone has an arena in which they need to flourish. To me personally my arena iis working with very high level individuals over an extended period of time, getting to the things that they want to do so they get more room to be creative, innovative and be more strategic. That's what people really want, it is that space and individuals are now ready to take the steps needed to what they want and take advantage of that 'space'.
As a result of the coaching many individuas stepping into a CEO role,manage to sustain a balanced lifestyle of work and spending time with family, This ia a phenomenal achievement and is an example of the great kinds of things we get to experience when we work with individuals and organizations using the GTD principles.
DAVID ALLEN
THOUGHT LEADER