May 2007

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LEADERS LAMENT

What is the most common reason leaders inevitably give for not being able to move forward with adaptive initiatives? By 'adaptive' I mean those that are non-mandated by their bosses (hence not based on 'compliance') and which aren't a matter of technology or system. I.e. they require adaptation, growth, evolution, a shaking up of our status quo. The most common reason, the most repeated lament is...'I don't have enough time.'

However, leadership is about making time for the things that matter. Working smarter, not harder, is an essential leadership aptitude. Leveraging people, relationships, communication, teams, technologies, our own personal time, are all necessary ingredients to leadership effectiveness.

So here are my list of some favorite ways to increase effectiveness. I've seen leaders around the world, across cultures, from Shanghai to Ross-on-Wye, from Montreal to Hanoi apply these and reap the harvest of 'more time'...to invest in the adaptive, the creative, and the future-creating.

1. Create a 'to don't' list. From it, pick 2 of the things that sap your time and energy and don't add value that you can influence and remove. Go to war on two each quarter. As they go, our energy and excitement grow.
   
   If you find 2 stellar candidates for 'removal', but think you can't influence or remove them...find out who can and create an influencing strategy. Find out what they are trying to achieve with these activities and demonstrate how it could be better achieved...always speaking in terms of their interests as well as yours.
   
   But don't be a smart-aleck or share this 'truth' at all condescendingly. Help them 'arrive' at the idea and help them write their own victory speech at this breakthrough if necessary.
   
   We are all human, frequently brimming with vanity and ego needs. While we don't wish to stoke these in unhealthy ways in each other...appealing to these, alongside our rationality and values, to source the will and courage needed to make a key change is just being savvy about human motivation.
   
   
2. Try to avoid tight travel connections. Something always goes wrong, and then you end up stranded. Allow a couple of hours of connection time (longer at Heathrow!), and have plenty of work, leisure diversions, and patience with you.
   
   Either use this time to recuperate. Or if you can't relax while travelling, pick the worst items on your 'to do' list and use this incarceration period to deal with them -- thereby liberating your 'prime time' for activities that merit them.
   
   Take travel time and use it as a lab: for proactive planning, for advance preparation, for hatching contingency plans, for making key calls, for making it through postponed reading, whatever. But in order to do this, your travel habits must also be examples of proactive planning, advance preparation, ready contingency plans, having what you need on hand for the calls or reading or what have you.
   
   Make the ordeal into a monastery.
   
   
3. Show up at meetings determined to bring up conversations you want to have. If someone says, 'This is not the time,' politely ask for what would be a better occasion, opportunity, etc, and then follow up. Thereby you build a brand as someone committed to speaking truth (albeit diplomatically when you can) to power and making things happen.
   
   This is not just being contrarian. I'm suggesting that you pick the largest, most adaptive, most constructively provocative conversation to ignite in each and every meeting. One, you'll have a blast. Two, you'll help everyone else. Three, if your leaders have any mettle, they'll cherish you for it. Four, you may just stop being invited to meetings that aren't meant to advance anything, but which are just pro forma. Finally, you'll come alive, and your faculties, attention and energy will all be heightened.
   
   
4. When someone calls, be pleasant for sure, but let them know the boundaries of your attention and availability.
   
   'Hey Suzanne, got a minute?'
   
   'Sure John, my next meeting isn't for another 10 minutes. How can I help you in that time?'
   
   This isn't being rude, or officious. It's just letting people know what time you can dedicate right there and then.
   
   Life is time. Waste one and you waste the other. And by having a sense of urgency about time, you will gain enough of it, such that for the occasions you choose, you can put the wristwatch away and just wallow in your chosen experience.
   
   Funnily enough, by letting people have a boundary, you help train them to be more precise, concise, to have their thinking in order, to make clear requests, and to be ready to engage.
   
   Similarly when calling on others, just ask them what they're in the midst of, and suggest a time boundary yourself. 'Gopal, I need 30 minutes of your time to crack this project impasse. Is this a good time? If not, can you let me know when this week?'
   
   This is much better than a general request for a chat over a cup of coffee at some unspecified date... which will usually then await being triggered by the advent of a crisis, while nibbling away at the periphery of your consciousness in the interim.
   
   
5. Always have your day packed with not only the 'have to do' items, but some 'choose to do' (high value proactive options) and 'will do if I can' items (worth doing, but less of a priority or impact right now). Then when the unexpected happens, which it almost always will, we can sacrifice the 'will do if I can' items without remorse, while hopefully protecting the other two.
   
   Getting the 'have to do' items done is inescapable -- by definition! But advancing the 'choose to do' each and every day, making measurable progress in high value-adding areas which we opt to initiate, is the quintessence of leadership.
   
   
6. When you have an important adaptive project gathering dust because everything else clamors for attention, try this. Take 30 minutes and as fast as possible, make as much progress on this project as possible. Take as many decisions, write a first draft, distil salient points, whatever. Leave it in a shape such that you can pass it on to your team or colleagues to move further. Maybe they can't finish it without another round from you, but in 30 minutes you can leave it in a state that can be worked on and advanced by others.
   
   Then when it's next stalemated, book another 30 minutes, and blitz it again. Make sure you assemble all the people/materials/information needed to immerse yourself, take key decisions, provide guidance and move on.
   
   These '30 minute chunks' are much easier to find than a half day or even several hours. As long as you don't think 'sequentially' and allow for concurrent inputs, taking this on as continual 'rapid prototyping', you can unblock virtually anything and allow your team to step up to the leadership plate, still with the benefit of your input.
   
   
7. When you next negotiate a raise or a shift in role, decide how many days you can sensibly travel and build that into your package of agreements.
   
   The best way to do this is to subtract your holidays from the total days in a year. Then with those remaining days, agree with your bosses how many 'travel days' there should realistically be given what you have to deliver and your understandable desire to retain a private life.
   
   If they insist they need more travel time than you want, have them first demonstrate that we are taking full advantage of all existing technology, virtual team-working options etc. If the company can show it is doing everything feasible, and there is still a real need, you have a discussion. Otherwise, it's an insult to your intelligence and your life.
   
   Offer to help lead a project to help the organization achieve its aims of say a 30% reduction in travel, and ask for a senior-level champion to bolster and commit to the effort.
   
   Since the dividends will be heightened morale, sharper communication, better follow-through (to avoid another remedial meeting), keener decisions, more pre-consultation, AND lower costs and less wear and tear, there is a significant business as well as human case to be made here.
   
   A company unwilling to negotiate this is saying leaders are disposable piston rods. Help your company come to a different conclusion.
   
   
8. The more our energy, the faster and better we can get things done. Therefore you need to have 'recharge' rituals built into the fabric of your life. At home, it may be an hour of quiet with your loved one each evening. It may be surfing , or taking in a movie festival, or a several hour hike, a concert, loafing in a bookstore, whatever. Time 'off' leads to time 'on'. But whatever are your natural 'joy producers', schedule them as abundantly as you can each week and for longer periods when you can.
   
   Even while travelling, create your 'recharges'. A work-out at the gym. A visit to a local museum. Catching a movie over popcorn in your room. A visit to a distinctive restaurant. Some extra sleep. Exploring a new town.
   
   Yes on the road you may be lonely, but time in our own company in delightful, rather than sterile surroundings, is still restoring. And as such activities open us up, they allow us to bring more of us back to those we really care about.
   
   Moreover, many 'recharges' (beyond sleep anyway) tap a range of our faculties -- because engagement hones us...while monotony drains us. And as we are stimulated, we'll carry that sharpness and edge into the work we're there to do as well.
   
   
9. Don't engage in pointless debates. Consult often, and early. That way people have an investment in your idea and don't feel they have to showcase their value by nitpicking what you've come up with.
   
   If stuck in a debate going nowhere, ask the person if it would be possible to summarize what you think they're saying. Once you've done so and they agree you've understood them fully, invite them to reciprocate. You can simply say you want to ensure that both of you have a deep insight into what the other really feels and thinks. If they decline the invitation, decline to proceed, because they are then in effect staying they don't really wish to converse.
   
   However, virtually everyone will take you up on this once you've first comprehensively and accurately reflected what they're saying.
   
   After a couple of rounds, the real issue will be clear, and you can have a fruitful exchange in place of the pointless debate.
   
   
10. When reading emails or notes, convert them into either 'points to note' or 'actions to take'. If they have neither, toss them. If they have been sent to you out of politeness to show that you are on the 'cc' trail, scan to see if there are any points for you to note or actions for you to take. If not, bin them. If so, capture the points in whatever way works for you, and schedule the action. Then, move on!
    
    When writing yourself, the greater the urgency, the more you should lead with the requested actions. Then provide the rationale, and stress any nuances, etc.
    
    The more proactive it is, the more of a brief build-up you should provide to enroll engagement. Then specify the action requested and indicate the follow-up expected.
    
    The more evident the need, the quicker you should get to the point, the action, the issue.
    
    No matter what though, always briefly explain 'why' as well as 'what'. It saves other people from wondering, doing something else as a substitute that won't really work, and allows them to really help because they then know the real aim.
    
    
11. A 3 slide maximum for presentations should obtain, one page for memos, 5 minutes for a typical call, 30 minutes for a non-strategic meeting (unless additional time for relationship-building is an explicit aim of the meeting).
    
    Sound extreme? Work expands or contracts to fill the time available for its completion. So do our slides, memos, phone calls, all of them. Even if you really need a longer meeting, break it up into 30 minute 'result slots' and track its progress and success accordingly.
    
    I would even advocate creating an 'ROI' from each meeting...picking metrics that relate to the aim of the meeting. That way if no action flows, and there is a disreputable accretion of ROI's from certain meetings...then we must decisively intervene.
    
    The greatest untallied cost in corporate life argues Fernando Flores is the commitments not followed through on. Limit the smokescreens, limit the embellishments, insist on core messages and tangible accountabilities...and living commitments rather than pompous rhetoric and ponderous 'presentation' will get pride of place.

Omar Khan,
Senior Partner, Sensei International
Phone: 1 (212) 295 2191, Fax: 1 (212) 295 2121
e-mail: omar@sensei-international.com

Omar Khan is a globally acknowledged leadership development innovator and success coach. He is a sought after change catalyst and a pioneer in transformational learning. He is the author of the acclaimed book SYNERGY as well as the newly released and much awaited, TIMELESS LEADERSHIP.

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