CNN cancelling Piers Morgan Tonight due to crash in ratings

After three years of running Piers Morgan Live, CNN has confirmed plans to cancel the prime time show due to poor ratings. According to the New York Times, the host of the show Piers Morgan, who stepped up as the replacement for Larry King (who ran for 25 years), said last week that he and CNN president Jeff Zucker had discussed the show's failure to connect to the network's audience and had decided to cancel it. The last shows will be aired in March.
"It's been a painful period and lately we have taken a bath in the ratings. Look, I am a British guy debating American cultural issues, including guns, which has been very polarizing, and there is no doubt that there are many in the audience who are tired of me banging on about it. That's run its course and Jeff and I have been talking for some time about different ways of using me. I think I can credibly do news and the ratings reflect that, but it is not really the show that I set out to do," Morgan continued. "There are all kinds of people who can do news here. I'd like to do work — interviews with big celebrities and powerful people — that is better suited to what I do well and fit with what Jeff is trying to do with the network." - Piers Morgan told the Times, "

STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD

Excellence is the possession of good quality in an unusual degree. As God’s ambassadors, we must represent him accurately. Excellence is doing things right. But before we consider how to do it right, lets ensure we are doing the right thing. Excellence in the wrong thing still spells failure.

DEFINE YOUR ASSIGNMENT

You cannot just be efficient for efficiency’s sake. We must also be effective. Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things. Defining your assignment is the starting point for you to achieve excellence. State clearly your vision in life or the vision of your organization. This defines the limit of the areas in which to achieve excellence as a person or organization.

DEAL WITH OLD MINDSETS

Some people say that you have to choose between quality and quantity. This is not true because the more quality you have, the more quantity you attract. The more you do things better, the more you will be patronized.

There is another myth that says you must have large amounts of money before you can achieve excellence. The truth is, you need excellence to attract a large amount of money. If you will improve on the quality of what you are doing, your customers will increase; this translates into more money for you. Do not ask, “What will this cost us?” Rather ask, “What will it cost us if we do not do it?””

WHY EXCELLENCE IS A MUST

Things are changing around us every day. A person or organization that is outdated cannot be relevant to a contemporary world. If you are still making use of your old manual typewriter when you are supposed to be doing your work with great speed on a computer, it may mire a lot of things. We must endeavor to up-date ourselves with new technologies.

Excellence motivates, especially in an underdeveloped environment like ours. We should inspire the people around us by our actions. Our organizations should be places of inspiration. What is that unique thing you have or your organization has that can inspire other people?

Striving for excellence shows people that we are serious about our assignment i.e. what we are doing and encourages them to want to be part of it. No matter how small a thing looks, if you have invested quality thoughts in it, people tend to appreciate and identify with it. Great works are a result of deep thoughts.

Like begets like. Excellence attracts good quality; human, financial and material resources. For example if you work in a bank and that bank is known for excellent customer service, i.e. within five minutes a customer has been attended to; people tend to flock to such banks. The same goes for supermarkets, salons, and various companies.

Life is progressive and not stagnant. We have to jog to maintain our position. If we remain stagnant, we risk failure. There is no pride in failure. We must appreciate excellence wherever it is found. Excellence attracts. We must strive for it. This is one of the keys to success in life.

If you run an organization, then make it an excellence-oriented organization. Look for ways to continually improve quality in services offered, events and your facilities.

AREAS OF IMPROVEMENTS

Communication – i.e. your advert materials must portray excellence.

Customer service – when a service is good, one person tells a maximum of 5 people. But when the services are bad, one person tells 20 people. Now only 4% come back to complain but the remaining 96% speak with their feet.

Creativity- your staff must keep churning in ideas about how to do things in a better way.

Staff trainings – staffs should be exposed to world class improvement programmes for better performance. It is vital to keep learning.

Facilities- The organization’s facilities reveal what we value and reflect our self-image. Therefore, the excellence-oriented organization must thrive for excellence in the following areas:

The painting of the facilities and landscaping of the environment. Keep the plants and grasses well trimmed and all directional signs freshly painted.

The environment should be well lit, has comfortable seating arrangements and the temperature should be well managed with a cooling system.

The rest rooms should be clean. Visitors may forget what you say but not the memory of a foul-smelling restroom.

The appearance of staffs says a lot about your organization’s priority for excellence.

The excellence-oriented organization invests money in what people can see. Human beings are generally motivated and affected by what they see.

Excellence is more of a process than a product; a journey, not a destination. We should not make excellence a one- time goal. The key is never to stop learning. When you stop learning, you stop growing. Upgrade from time to time.

NUTRITION TIP

Pineapples are loaded with vitamins and minerals including vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium.  It is also rich in fiber and calories. On top of it all, this fruit is low in fat and cholesterol. All the nutrients it contains promote good health.

PRESSURE MANAGEMENT

Adjust your standards. Perfectionism is a major source of avoidable stress. Stop setting yourself up for failure by demanding perfection. Set reasonable standards for yourself and others,  and learn to be okay with “good enough.”

PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS

Accept Your Shortcomings:The people who are most equipped to move on in a productive manner are those who are able to see their own flaws. This is an excellent place to start strengthening your own personal effectiveness.

PRESSURE MANAGEMENT

In our culture, we are often led to believe that anything can be achieved by hard work, and hard work only. But we all know full well that we can’t keep performing at peak level. For a while, we may be able to cheat,  push through, force ourselves to stay focused and get the job done. Eventually we get to the point where we are just too exhausted, drained, bored or uninspired to go any further.  We seem unable to muster enough energy to get another project started. We stare at problems, puzzled, confused and unable to solve them. We procrastinate for no obvious reasons. We can’t see the proverbial forest for the trees. In this state of mind,  the smartest thing to do is to press the pause button. On the other hand, we have all encountered “eureka” moments, when the “penny dropped” and we finally – and  often unexpectedly – find the answers we were looking for. This can happen when we are not even actively engaged in our work and in the most unlikely places, like in the car, on a walk, in the gym, on the golf course or in the shower. I speak from experience. Like most writers,  I regularly jump out of bed in the middle of the night to write down some thoughts that have eluded me for days.  It seems that when we allow ourselves to relax and stop trying too hard, our mind keeps going at its own pace – and sometimes with astonishing results. Forcing ourselves to keep going when we’re running on empty may be the worst thing we can do – for our workand ourselves. Researchers in the relatively new field of “psychobiology” have shown  that our mind follows a certain pattern of activity and rest throughout the day.  In analogy to the more familiar “circadian rhythm” (the 24 hour cycle of night and day),  they call these fluctuations of the mind “ultradian rhythms.” According to their findings, the mind does switch back and forth between periods of intense focusing and phases of recovery – not at the time of our choosing, but at its own volition. In other words, we are biologically programmed to take breaks and rest periods, whether we want to or not.  Scientists believe that these downtimes are necessary to clean the body of metabolic waste and restore energy.  Continuously and forcefully ignoring the need for rest and relaxation can lead to any number of negative  consequences, such as chronic stress and many of the typicalstress-related health effects. Scheduling regular breaks into your busy day So, before you fill up your day planner and compile your to-do lists next time, make sure you schedule your breaks as if they were appointments. Actually, they are appointments you make with yourself for the benefit of your health and well-being.  Coffee breaks and little chats around the water cooler are fine,  but I mean something more focused and purposeful. If your job requires you to spend hours on end in front of a computer monitor, your breaks should definitely involve some moving and stretching exercises.  If you work mostly inside with no windows to open, you should go outside for a little sun and fresh air whenever you can get away. Your office building may or may not have a gym. If so, use it often! If not, take the stairs;  walk around the premises or to a nearby park. Use your lunch break for walking, running, Yoga, Tai Chi or whatever takes your mind off work. Join your colleagues or invite them to team up with you.  Many companies encourage and facilitate health and fitness programs for their employees.  If not, come up with a proposal and talk to your personnel department. Weekends are not meant to be work days at home. Do something specific on your days off,  instead of letting the time get away from you by doing a thousand little chores.  Have a change of scenery. Go hiking or bicycling, walk on a beach, visit a museum, go dancing, go bowling, attend a county fair or music festival. Join a sports club. Make physical activities a regular family event or become part of a group that shares your interests. When you are at work, don’t clutter your mind in ways that pull you in many different directions. You may be proud of your multi-tasking skills but, in the long run, juggling too many projects at once is not a good way to spend your energy.  Try to stay focused on one thing at a time, so your mind can fully function. I wouldn’t be a dietitian if I didn’t have some advice to give about the food you should eat during your breaks.  Most of us think of caffeine and snacks when we are in need of a boost.  My advice is to avoid caffeinated and sugary drinks as well as sweet, fatty and salty food items. Instead,  I recommend fresh fruit and plenty of water for rehydration.  In truth, you may crave something to drink or to munch on, not because you are hungry, but because you are bored or tired and in dire need of some rest. Your typical snack food may seem to hit the spot for a moment, but because it has little or no nutritional value,  it doesn’t give you much energy and rather bogs you down with empty calories. The best break of all, of course, is a good night’s rest. Chronic sleep deprivation and disrupted sleep patterns are among the leading causes for stress.  If you can’t get enough repose during the night, you can make up for it with an afternoon nap.  If that is out of the question (as it is for most people), you must make more sleep time available on weekends or as soon as possible. Observing and maintaining good sleep hygiene is still the best medicine we have to recover  from our daily challenges. Take a short walk. If you are at work, take a bathroom  break or get a glass of water. Do something that changes your focus. When you come back to the problem, chances are it will not seem nearly as insurmountable.

PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS

Focus your energies. There are a lot of demands on your time, but your time and energy are limited. Focus on what is important to you and do that first. It is better to do a few key things well than to do lots of things, but none of them well. How well do you manage your time? Even if you do not believe in getting things Done, you probably have a schedule, calendar and a couple lists of things to do. If you are particularly busy you might own a day-planner where you schedule in tasks and work to be done. Now here is a better question: how well do you manage your energy? If you answered, “Huh?” to that question, that is not a good sign. While there may only be twenty four hours in the day, your capacity for energy is not a fixed quantity. Organization and time-management play an important role, but it will be your ability to manage energy that makes the difference. Athletes understand that effective training comes from a combination of exercise and rest. By getting better control over your own energy cycles and capacity you can do far more for your productivity than writing a to-do list will. Increasing Your Capacity How do you train for a marathon? You start by running 5 km, move up to a 10 km, then a half marathon. In other words, it’s a gradual increase of your endurance. Your energy functions exactly the same way. You build increased energy capacity slowly through progressive training. Physical, mental, emotional, and social are all different dimensions of energy. For all of these dimensions you should strive for increasing your endurance and your strength. Endurance is the ability to maintain energy levels for longer periods of time and strength is your ability to sustain a short burst of energy. Marathons and sprints. Physical - Exercise and eat healthy to increase your physical energy. This forms the basis for all energy and is necessary even if you’re spending much of your day sitting at a desk. Mental - Mental endurance is the ability to focus for long periods of time while mental strength is the ability to focus very intensely. Progressively train yourself with your workload to fulfill this capacity. Emotional - Emotional energy comes from handling stress. This is your willpower, motivation and courage. Social - This is your need for stimulation and interaction. You build social energy by being able to handle socializing as well as periods of introspection. Managing That Capacity Increasing your capacity for energy may take time and effort, but it is relatively straightforward. The real key to productivity is being able to manage the energy you already have. You probably know athletic jocks or creative artists that don’t seem to get a lot done. Having a large capacity for energy is good, but just like time, it is an easy thing to waste. You manage your energy in cycles that vary between work and rest. Your energy is like a muscle. You stress your muscles during a workout, and follow it with a period of rest so they can recover. Working constantly and resting constantly are both suboptimal. Balancing the cycles is the core of managing energy. Here are some ways you can manage your energy cycles: Set Periodic Goals – To-do lists are never-ending. Set daily and weekly goals so you can chunk out a specific amount of work for a period of time. I keep a daily goals list that allows me to plan the amount of work for each day. Using this technique helps you oscillate between hard work days and lighter work days to build your capacity and manage your cycles. Timebox – Within the span of a day, set 30-90 minute timeboxes of activity followed by a short break. You might decide to spend the next hour working on a report before taking a short breather. This method is far more effective than simply expecting to work constantly for the entire day. Smart Recovery – To be productive you need to focus on what is the best way to use your energy, right? Well an almost equally important aspect is to focus on what the best way to recover your energy is. Figure out what will truly replenish your energy and do that. I’ve found television watching to be a really poor way for me to recover energy compared with socializing or going for a walk. Effective time-management doesn’t give you more time. You still end up with a 24 hour day. But effective energy-management can create more energy. Properly training your capacity and working within energy cycles will increase your energy. Use both time and energy management to achieve peak productivity.