At Orbit we are privileged to work with many organisations and departments going through major change. All of them want to ‘step up’ in some way. Maybe changing the way their clients work with them, focusing more at a strategic level, increasing their influence, expanding, developing new services or improving profitability. In cases where a change of ‘paradigm’ is required, it always requires a similar degree of change in the way the managers and leaders operate.
In those organisations, leaders always tell us that they are working hard, but not on the type of things they know they should be.
In order to make the transition they want to make, they know they need to spend some quality time on investing in the business – thinking through new processes or products/services, developing new skills, building key relationships, planning for the future, reflecting on how to make the change.
However meanwhile they are stuck on the treadmill of the business as it is now. Compensating for processes that are ineffective and people who don’t have the right skills, working hard for clients who don’t value them in the right way, delivering business which is less profitable, fire-fighting and dealing with too many last-minute issues. It would be great if it was possible to ‘stop the world and get off’ for a while! The problem is they have one foot in the old world they want to get away from and one in the new world they want to move towards at the same time.
Making the transition as a leader is often not about working harder, but working in a different way.
Stephen Covey in his book ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ put forward a model for reflecting on how you spend your personal time – it is simple but the leaders who attend our courses and apply this model find it can make a remarkable difference
The top left box ‘Necessity’ is all about the things which are both urgent and important – the things in our life we have no choice about – we just have to do them. Getting a report or a delivery on time to an important client, a crisis that has to be dealt with, a ground breaking opportunity that must be exploited – these things are important and urgent. We all have these activities and of course we need to respond. The challenge comes when it feels like your whole life is like this! We can pull all the stops out when it is necessary, but operating constantly in this kind of mode is stressful and ineffective. Although some of us have to admit to getting a ‘buzz’ from being the super-hero that saves the day! If there is too much fire-fighting, you have to take a look at what it causing all of this last-minute stuff. Are there ways of forecasting, or preventing issues?
The bottom left box ‘Deception’ is very interesting. This is about things that may superficially seem urgent, however when you consider them, they don’t really have long term importance. It could be an urgency being imposed on you by someone else. It could be a job which could in truth be delegated. It could be something you are in the habit of doing which is ineffective or no longer relevant. It could be a meeting you sit through regularly which has no real relevance to your objectives, and where you feel you don’t add any value. This is where honesty and objectivity is required. You might need to let go. Look at a way of doing things more efficiently. You might need to brief and train others. The good thing is that a task that is holding you back could be an exciting new development for someone else.
The bottom right box ‘Waste’ is about ‘hanging your brain up’ and doing things that are neither urgent or important. We all need to ‘veg out’ in front of the telly sometimes. Most managers we speak to say they don’t have much of this (at work at least!)
The top right box – ‘Quality and Investment’ is the most important of all. These are the activities that are not urgent – nobody will chase you or pressure you to do them, but they are vitally important. Planning, reflection, taking time to develop people, building relationships, developing strategy, improving the way you do things. This is the most important box of all for any leader wanting to take a step up. These are the activities that will enable you to make the step-change you want.
Most crucially, if the right kinds of investment activity don’t happen, then the issue will reappear in the top left box as a crisis. If you don’t give a person enough support or coaching they will decide to leave the company, the client account where you haven’t done enough relationship building and account planning will be captured by the competition, the product that hasn’t been reviewed and updated will be overtaken by new arrivals in the market.
When we work with leaders, we challenge them to look for ways they can ‘steal’ time from the other boxes, so it can be used in that top right box. For example, is there a pattern in the type of crisis and emergencies? Could you reduce them by planning, developing people, improving processes?
Are there things you are doing at the moment that could be done by others if they were briefed and trained?
Are there activities you are doing that really don’t add value? For example, time consuming reports that nobody reads?
Sales managers will often tell us that they don’t have time to coach their teams, or go out on appointments with them, or review account plans. It makes a remarkable difference if the manager will put those activities in the diary first and have them be sacrosanct.
Of course this brings to the surface some questions – So what is really important? What do I do as a manager which adds the most value? What do my team and my manager really need from me? Where are my talents best used? If I delegated all of the low level tasks that currently take up my time, where would I focus my attention? These are all very important questions and can really sharpen the mind.
This all takes honesty and a bit of humility to look in the mirror… and then determination to make the change, often against the tide. But often a small amount of change in the right direction can make an enormous difference…. Not just to company results, but also to personal well-being.
Every company and every manager is different – so you alone can decide what activities you need to focus on to help you and your company or department to take the step up to the next stage of its development.
What activities are in your top right box? What difference would it make to you and your team to spend more time focusing on what is truly important?
