Coordinating people and projects in a virtual working environment can be difficult. My consulting work with executives and professionals is focused on maximizing their individual productivity. However, the underlying reason for this effort is to foster their leadership effectiveness. As we draw near the end of our time together, conversations often turn to how their newly-developed productivity skills can be applied to achieve this over-arching goal.

Leadership in the Modern World

To remain effective today, leaders must add Productivity - the kind that relates to getting things done at every level - to their leadership skill set. In days gone by, in organizations other than the truly large, companies were relatively local with most executives, managers and employees working in one or, at most, a few locations. Most team members were near at hand and a leader’s effectiveness was largely related to physical presence and the ability to communicate face-to-face.

The greatest modern-day change to this scenario is that any company can now be distributed across a large geographic area, just as the multi-nationals have been for years. The result is that leaders who used to command their ranks physically have to now think harder about some of the key components of productivity to be effective over a distributed working environment.

The Key Components to Productivity

To be productive in this new model, leaders must be mindful of the four key components to getting things done: Vision, Strategy, Tactics, and Execution. At the risk of being pedantic, here’s a brief overview of each component, followed by a discussion of their application in the virtual enterprise.

• Vision. This is the broadest statement an organization can make about itself. It describes the purpose the organization existences. Whether it is a brief statement or a manifesto, understanding and reinforcing the enterprise’s vision is one of most important things a leader does. A leader’s primary objective is to guide the organization towards achieving its Vision.
• Strategy. With Vision in hand, a plan for affecting it must be created. This is where Strategy enters the picture. Linking together all the various efforts for achieving the organization’s Vision is the company’s Strategy. Engaging in the development and coordination of the business’s Strategy also fits into a leader’s primary job description.
• Tactics. These are the specific plans laid out for each component of the Strategy to achieve the Vision. Where Strategy is about coordinating all the plans, Tactics involve affecting each plan. The responsibility for accomplishing specific action plans will often be delegated to managers and others who report to the leadership ranks.
• Execution. This is where the rubber meets the road. Execution is what most people consider productivity – where things actually get done. However, as you can see from above, it’s just the last step in a process designed to achieve an intended result. Everyone is charged with some amount of Execution in every organization, but often leaders get too involved in the efforts of others instead of focusing on the components of Execution most relevant to their role - Vision and Strategy.

Utilizing these basic definitions gives leaders a working understanding of the architecture of getting the organization from A to Z.

Meshing These Components Together

Whenever you’re reviewing the various tasks at hand, the best way to eliminate/prioritize/delegate them is to ask this question:

How does ________ advance the organization’s objectives for which I am responsible?

Thus, for a leader, the analysis is to determine how their actions are advancing the company’s Vision or Strategy - the two most important objectives leaders must achieve.

Though all activities should past muster under this analysis, things not directly related to Vision and Strategy should, as a rule, be delegated to other people in the organization. Consequently, all efforts will ultimately advance the organization’s Vision and Strategy, but the actual doing of most will be affected down the chain of command. The net result is that the leader remains focused on accomplishing their primary objectives while managing those of others.

Staying Focused in the Fray

Leaders today are pulled to and fro during our hectic modern work days. With many demands on their time, it’s important to develop a method for weeding out the unimportant and focusing directly on those efforts that best achieve the organization’s Vision and Strategy. The model set out above is simple to understand and simple to apply. It gives leaders a solid tool for achieving success.

© 2009, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

All in all, it’s great to have an esteemed learning institution validate the notion that multi-tasking produces less than optimal results. In today’s 24/7 global working environments, so many people consider “on it” the only way to accomplish what needs to get done, preferring the idea that multiple “on its” result in multiplied productivity. This is simply not the case.

With multi-tasking functionally debunked as an effective means of increasing productivity, what otheroptions do we have for achieving that goal?

Re-Enter Batch Processing

Henry Ford figured out an effective way to get things produced over 100 years ago – batch processing. That is, group like tasks together because repeating the same task over and over in one “batch” increases productivity. Ford applied the concept to the manufacturing line, but the underlying premise holds true for any group of tasks that share similar actions for their completion.

Batch Processing Defined

Batch processing is a workflow behavior – a way (or “process”) for getting things done. To batch process means to gather together like items and act upon them at the same time – sequentially. In effect, it’s working through a stack of items in a repetitive way until you have completed the batch.

Take processing your physical mail as an example. Physical mail – a group of like items - is delivered in a batch by the post office each day. Most people grab the stack of mail, open each one, toss the junk out, and sort the meaningful items in some logical manner, then get back to the highest priority task. That’s batch processing.

An alternative method to processing the mail in a batch would be to grab one piece of mail from the stack, open it and then make three un-related phone calls and attend a meeting or two before grabbing the next piece of mail.

Doesn’t that just seem inefficient? Yet, when you’re multi-tasking, that’s exactly what you’re doing from a workflow processing point of view. It’s just more efficient and effective to batch process things whenever possible.

Things to Batch Process

Here’s a quick list of things you can batch process in your current work day. Give one or more of these a try to see if you find it a more efficient way to plow through your workload.

• E-mail. If you have read my previous articles on e-mail management, you’ll know that I consider e-mail just another form of correspondence. Thus, it should be batch processed just like the physical mail example above. Instead of responding to each e-mail that comes into the Inbox as it arrives, I advise that you check it frequently – two or three times an hour – and process what’s in there. Powering through 5, 20, 50 e-mails all at once is far more efficient than doing each one separately. Moreover, many of the e-mails in any one batch will cancel out other e-mails in the same batch given people’s penchant for Reply All and Half-Thought Sends (you know who you are). The net result of batch processing your e-mail is you will move through it faster. (For more on my views about e-mail processing, read my related missives at www.quietspacing.com.)
• Questions. One of the most difficult things to do for yourself and others is to group questions together – into a batch. We desperately want the answer to each question right now! Yet, constantly running down the hall to interrupt someone to ask a question devastates focus for both people. Regardless of whether you are the one asking or the one answering these questions, agree to set aside a period each day to ask and have answered all the questions that currently exist. The benefits of this are several-fold. First, questions will get answered in a timely fashion. Second, many questions will evaporate in the interim either because they get answered or they become irrelevant as new information streams into your day. Third, both parties will remain more focused on the task at hand with the interruptions eliminated, which means double the productivity gain.
• Errands. Ask any stay-at-home parent if they run errands one at a time and they will ask if you’ve been getting enough sleep. Yet, at work, we often charge off on a “must-do” errand (personal or professional) just to charge off 30 minutes later to do another errand. Whether you need to move about inside or outside of the office, stack your errands in a pile near your workspace and do as many of them at once as possible.
• Phone Calls. Another lost art is batch processing phone calls. Before the advent of voice mail, we received little message slips that included the pertinent information for calls we had missed. Many of us would sit down and return those calls in batch form. Now, because we get a blinking light or, worse/better, an e-mail with the message attached (and possibly transcribed), we react to them individually. No need. Carve out a set period or periods each day (10:30 AM and 3:00 PM?) to return calls.
• Social Media. There’s an entire article here on the value proposition for social media in the business setting. However, for our purposes, the point is to review social media connections in batches. Whether it’s directly via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn or via an aggregator such as HelloTxt, HootSuite or TweetDeck, peruse these communiques only once or twice a day for short periods of time. Look for things of interest, act upon them and disregard the rest.

Seek Out Batches

Many of the tasks we must accomplish each day can be grouped into batches for more efficient processing. I encourage you to identify additional activities that can be grouped and accomplished in batches. It’s more productive and efficient, which are key components to feeling in command of your work environment.

© 2009, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

We do, however, have a laundry room. It’s one of those closet-style areas with swinging doors and it runs along the hallway out to the back deck. Instead of bi-fold doors, it has nice whitewashed barn doors. It’s very attractive and not an eyesore for us or our guests when we head outside.

A Scheme is Born

During the winter months we spend a fair number of late evening hours watching television. Specifically, and I hate to admit this, we’re HGTV junkies.

Last winter we began discussing the desire to create a coat closet somewhere in the house to replace the coat rack. The solution we decided on was to remodel the laundry room, as the washer and dryer, though full-sized, can be stacked. Much discussion ensued about exactly what we’d like to do with the laundry room, which tells you just how long the nights can be in the Pacific Northwest!

The main problem was that, over the years, the laundry room had become a repository for all things homeless. If we didn’t have a preordained place to put something, it went into the laundry room. Not only did the washer and dryer reside there, but so did all the cleaning implements and supplies. Joining them was all the home repair and maintenance items and tools, along with spare towels and sundry other items. Fortunately (?), there was a cabinet mounted above the washer/dryer so we could store away some of these things, but many were stacked up on top of the washer/dryer or stood up on either side of them along the wall. Needless to say, the laundry room became a disaster area!

A Scheme is Affected

When summer was again upon us, we contracted with a remodeling expert to affect our dream and, with some excellent suggestions from our contractor, we converted the laundry room into a combination laundry facility and coat closet!

I know, “Wow, Paul! Breaking news!” However, there’s more to this story, as I’m sure you suspected.

The Epiphany Occurs

Just the other day I was tasked with a minor home repair. I toddled off to the new and improved laundry room, retrieved the tools I needed and went to complete my assigned duty. As I returned to the closet to store my tools, I was struck with two powerful observations:

• Gone was the dread of opening the closet doors to retrieve/return things.
• A well organized space was a pleasure to experience.

Again, this is not rocket science. In fact, that’s the point – small organizational changes can have large impacts on how we experience our lives. Let’s look a little closer at these two points in particular to see what I mean.

The Dreaded Closet

Prior to the remodel, the laundry room was a large closet with two big appliances ensconced in the middle of the space and a cabinet mounted above them. There was no “organization” to the space and, as a result, things were stored willy-nilly wherever they wouldn’t (probably) tumble to the floor. Over time, things heaped up higher and higher on top of other things making a trip to the closet a precarious proposition. If you could even find what you were looking for, you stood a strong chance of starting an avalanche when you extracted it from the pile. The laundry room was just not a place you went into unless absolutely necessary!

The new closet is well organized. The washer and dryer are stacked to the left side with just enough room to hang a iron/ironing board storage unit on the wall next to them. There is a custom-built, five-shelf shelving unit running vertically to the right of the washer/dryer that splits the space. The size of each shelf is adequate for the things we store and having five of them provides for good separation. The right side of the closet has a dowel stretched across it for hanging coats, etc. There is also adequate space to stand the vacuum, brooms, mops, etc. in that same area without interfering with the hanging items.

Because everything rests on a stable surface, instead of on something else, I feel entirely confident that I will not only be able to quickly find what I need, but that I will also safely extract it. I no longer dread going there.

Experiencing Good Organization

After conducting my household repair and returning everything to the closet, I stood looking at the newly remodeled space and felt a distinct sense of satisfaction that we had (1) fixed an irritating problem and (2) accomplished a terrific result through a little thoughtful analysis and action.

Many who know me will want to ascribe the sense the well-being I derived from this remodel to my latent OCD tendencies. However, I believe that we all experience satisfaction from accomplishment. And, more importantly, feeling satisfied (or good) is the measure of success by which we should gauge our lives. Therefore, whether I have OCD or not is irrelevant. The point is that I experienced well-being from a simple act of organization which also made my day both more effective and more efficient. To wit, I completed a task without undue delay in the preparatory or clean-up stages.

The Challenge

I hope you are able to translate this simple example into an opportunity in your own life to make a minor organizational improvement that positively affects your sense of accomplishment and well-being. Whether it’s in your personal life – like the example above – or your professional life, look for something that would be relatively easy to change, but could confer significant benefit to you upon its completion.

May all your laundry rooms be well organized!

© 2009, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Time Management

I often quip that there’s no such thing as time management because time ticks inexorably forward. Though you can’t really manage time itself, you can manage how you use it. The distinction is between managing something external – time – and managing something internal - behavior.

Changing long-established behaviors is difficult. I advise looking for one or two small changes to make to experience the positive feedback of success immediately. Once a number of small changes are paying productivity dividends, larger changes can be tackled. Here are several easy time management QuickTips to try.

• Eliminate/Shorten Meetings. If you control the occurrence or length of any meetings, ask yourself three questions.

1. Does this meeting even have to happen?
2. If so, how frequently?
3. If so, can you cut the scheduled time for the meeting by 25%, e.g. reduce a 60-minute meeting to 45?

Many meetings are simply unnecessary and are counter-productive because people have to prepare for and attend them instead of getting work done. Even necessary meetings can often be reduced in frequency, e.g., a weekly meeting moved to bi-weekly. Additionally, work fills the time allotted. Consequently, 45 minutes will suffice for most 60-minute meetings and 20 minutes for most 30-minute meetings. The net result of these small changes can mean hundreds of hours in increased productivity.

• Group Like Tasks. It’s very common to see people charging around to get things done. However, if you watch what they’re actually doing, you’ll find much of the charging around is duplicative. A person may rush to the supply closet to grab a new tablet only to charge back five minutes later for a new pen! The same is true of people “dropping by” to ask a question - again and again throughout the day. The answer here is to simply group (and ask others to group) tasks into logical categories, so that they can be performed together to save time.

• Leave Time in between Meetings. One of the biggest mistakes most busy people make is scheduling meetings back-to-back. Two problems are occurring here. First, you are running out of one meeting without capturing all your thoughts and rushing into the next meeting not ready to focus on that subject. This results in unnecessary lost data on both sides of the equation. Second, you’re running and rushing around which only accelerates your mental exhaustion and reduces your overall effectiveness.

Leave at least five minutes open between meetings (15 is preferable), plus realistic travel time. These precious minutes will allow you to collect and record all the information from the last meeting before entering the next meeting. You will also be more focused when entering the next meeting with the last meeting put to bed mentally. Oh, and if you’re early to the next meeting, take a break and just enjoy the view of whatever is around you – it’s called relaxing!

• Use Subject Line Naming Conventions. When dealing with e-mails, calendar events and tasks, create and use a meaningful naming convention for the subject lines. Naming conventions will save you lots of time when you’re searching for information related to that matter. For example, for an appointment in your calendar, put the following in the subject line:

Mtg: John Doe (123-456-7890) - Re: Johnson Marketing Campaign - Mr. Doe’s Office

Now you can look directly at the event item on your computer (and smartphone) and see exactly what will be happening and where.

This is true of e-mail subject lines as well. Instead of:

Update

try something like this:

Johnson Marketing Campaign – Update Following Meeting with John Doe

It’s not only easier for you to search for and find later, the recipient of your e-mail will immediately know what the content of the email is.

• Coach Versus Instruct. When you manage others, the best thing you can do both for yourself and for them is to develop their abilities to do their job with as little supervision from you as possible. You’ll accomplish that by coaching them on how to get the result you need versus instructing them on the specific steps to accomplish that result. The difference is subtle but important. If you help them figure how to succeed on their own, you won’t need to look over their shoulder along the way.

Small advances in these time management behaviors demonstrate my point that it only takes a little savings each day to aggregate into a significant improvement over the longer term. Remember also, that I’m talking about both your productivity and your sense of accomplishment.

Organizational Skills

We’ve all seen the desk that looks like a hurricane recently passed over it. The oft-heard retort is, “But I know where everything is.” And that may be true to a certain degree. However, when pressed, it usually takes about 30-45 seconds to actually find a specific item. Those seconds add up over time, resulting in hours lost searching.

I’m not advocating that you live a highly structured life or keep your working environment Über-organized. However, small changes to your organizational behaviors pay big dividends both in terms of efficiency and greater peace of mind. Try a couple these QuickTips to see how they work for you.

• Create a Designated Work Area. This is the easiest way to improve productivity that I’ve ever discovered. Take everything off your desk and put it all behind or beside you. See that wide open space in front of you? It’s called a desktop! I call it a designated work space and into it should only go the ONE thing you are working on right now.

Multi-tasking is far less efficient than single-tasking. Seriously, just do a Google search for the hundreds of recent articles on the subject. Creating a designated work space allows you to focus on the one thing that needs doing. When you’re done with it, put it away and turn around and pick up the next thing!

• Develop a Structured Filing System (Physical or Electronic or Both). Papers piled high all around you is not a filing system. It’s a “noisy” collection that costs you and others precious minutes all the time. The same is true for your computer where you might have hundreds of e-mails stacked up in your Inbox and dozens of shortcuts on your screen.

Most businesses have a filing system for physical files. Take advantage of it and, if you have an assistant, delegate to him/her the task of grabbing finished items out of your workspace daily. If you don’t have an assistant, make it part of the “grouped tasks” above! For electronic filing, just duplicate your business’s physical system. Create folders and sub-folders and file stuff away, both in your e-mail and on your computer.

• Centralize Task List Management. Instead of having a dozen little sticky notes plastered all over the place, create a centralized task list and develop a method for routinely reviewing and updating it. The more things get spread around, the more likelihood of system failure. This is an easy one to do and will greatly increase your productivity.

• Use a Subject Line Naming Convention. I’ll say it again - leverage your subject lines wherever possible through a descriptive naming convention. See above for examples.

Consider organizational skills the oil in the machine. When things are where you expect them to be and you can readily find and/or identify them, everything runs more smoothly. The result is increased productivity and a greater sense of well-being.

Workflow Processing

In today’s world the phrase “workflow processing” brings to mind countless consultants descending on a business to make it all better. Though to some extent true, more simply viewed, workflow processing is just identifying the steps to getting something done. The struggle we all face today is the endless stream of interruptions and distractions that bombard us while we’re trying to do just that! Here are a couple of QuickTips that will help you navigate through the daily minefield more productively.

• Regularly Assess Workloads. Most people hit the office at a dead run these days. STOP! There are two times in the day when it’s vitally important that you assess what your workload is - first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening. Determining what’s on your plate is the very best way to determine how to best integrate all the new things coming at you.

Instead of starting your day in your e-mail Inbox, first survey what is already on your to-do list then jump into your e-mail. Similarly, spend the last five minutes of each day assessing what’s on your plate before going home. Oh, and if you can, do it once mid-day to see your progress and to re-prioritize based what’s happened since your morning review.

• Practice E-mail Triaging. E-mail is the boon and bane of modern-day working environments. We’re fortunate to have it and hate to think about how it’s stacking up in our Inbox right now. The most significant problem with e-mail is that it has created a Pavlovian response mechanism in bright, capable people! We jump every time one comes in and we worry about what we’re missing if we don’t sit in the Inbox all day long waiting for the next one to arrive. Insanity!

Whether you use the QuietSpacing™ method or some other system, get in the habit of viewing e-mail as just another form of correspondence and triage it accordingly. If you start treating e-mail as correspondence instead of a lifeline, you’ll break the spell and get on with the work at hand.

• Set Outlook up as a “Command Center”. Now that you’re not salivating in your Inbox anymore (!), you can switch over to hanging out in your Calendar view. When you get there, set it for Work Week (View | Work Week) and add your Task View to it (View | TaskPad). Voila! Now you can see your entire week of events and an organized list of your tasks. The next step is to start creating Tasks and using them to collect your…well…tasks in one organized place. Hey, wasn’t there something above about that?

• Sequestering. If you can’t get people to leave you alone, then just leave them! That’s right, move to a conference room or an empty office. Take what you MUST work on (one or two things) and get those tasks done. Then head back to your workspace and tell everyone you were attending to business. None the wiser and you got more done!

• Aggressive Delegation/Prioritization. Oddly enough, all this new technology has created a never-before-experienced problem – a reduced ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. Just because we can do things doesn’t mean we should do them. It’s a lot like the Reply All button. People hit it because it’s there. If you stop hitting it, fewer people are distracted by unnecessary e-mails.

Look at your task list and ask of each item, “How will this drive my primary objectives?” If a particular item won’t move you down that path, de-prioritize it or remove it altogether. You’ll be amazed at how effective you become when you focus your efforts on more productive endeavors.

Sitting On Your New Three-Legged Stool of Productivity

You may or may not be successful with all these proposed changes. However, each small change generates increased control over your productivity and, generally, produces measureable results. The real win comes from continuing to ask yourself, “How can I do X a little better?” There’s always something you can improve upon and each time you do, you receive the reward of achievement!

© 2009, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Don’t get me wrong, I want people to feel a part of the team and playing on the same field in the same game. I just don’t believe weekly status meetings do much to accomplish that result.

If it’s team building you’re after, schedule a group activity that allows individuals to get to know and interact with each other more personally. If it’s meeting productivity you’re after, give some thought to the suggestions below.

Managing Meeting Expectations

When I was put in charge of my first team of people, the group was used to weekly meetings. My predecessor mandated them. The purpose of the meetings was to make sure everyone was pulling on the oars together and in the same direction. The meetings involved status reports, project updates and, most importantly, doughnuts.

When I took over the group, there was a weekly meeting already scheduled, which we held. During that meeting, I announced that this would be our last regularly scheduled weekly meeting. I went on to explain that it was my opinion that such meetings were not particularly productive, but that if anyone had a specific topic they needed input on from the group, I’d be more than happy to schedule everyone together to discuss that item. Of course, I explained, the individual seeking input would be required to prepare and present a brief presentation on the topic before open discussion ensued. I also explained that no more than 45 minutes would be scheduled for these events.  Oh, and doughnuts were discretionary. My final comment was that anyone needing assistance with their work was more than welcome to stop by or schedule time with me in my office (at my in-office conference table) to discuss their needs.

The result of this change was dramatic. We held infrequent group meetings that were very productive. I spent many highly productive hours meeting with individuals and/or small groups of team members in my office. And, in the end, the group’s revenue doubled over a 24-month period, primarily, in my opinion, because the team was allowed to get to work and make things happen versus being compelled to prepare for and sit through endless hours of status meetings.

Elements of Effective Meetings

There’s a host of learning points in that brief summary. However, I want to focus on the meetings component and how we used a new structure to produce very effective and efficient meetings that got the job done for the person needing the meeting. It is my experience that good meetings have the following elements:

• Agenda. I don’t know how meetings happen without an agenda. To me it’s the equivalent of scheduling a business trip without an objective! Agendas are simple to construct and distribute, but the road map they provide not only prepares attendees for what will be covered during the meeting, they are a terrific way to keep the meeting on track. The more specific the agenda, the better the road map, and the more likely the success of accomplishing the stated objectives!
• Predetermined and Stated Start/End Times. Meetings need physical structure, which means predetermined start and end times. The old saying that “work fills the time allotted” is all to true in this context. It’s also important to state the start and end times at the beginning of the meeting. It serves as both a reminder and a set of parameters for everyone involved.
• Only Necessary Materials Prepared/Distributed. A lot of work can go into preparing for a meeting, so prepare (or instruct others to prepare) only what is truly necessary to communicate effectively during the meeting. One thing that should be eliminated from virtually every team meeting is PowerPoint slides! Read that sentence again because it’s important. Most people use PowerPoint to put their speaking points on the screen. BORING! I can read your speaking points, so why are you there? In fact, why are any of us here if we can all just read these points at our own desks? Moreover, creating a list is much easier to do in e-mail or Word than it is in PowerPoint and there’s no setup time required for sending out an e-mail or handing out a list. If you’re one of the very, very few who can truly leverage PowerPoint to communicate AND have extra time in your day, then go ahead because the payoff is there. If you’re not, just prepare a summary of your points and sub-points on paper or in e-mail.
• Distribute Materials in Advance. Send out the agenda and any accompanying materials well before the meeting – like the day before the meeting – with a request that people review them and come prepared to discuss. That material is everyone’s homework before coming to the meeting. When you’re putting several (10? more?) people in a room, you don’t want to waste everyone’s time by reading them your thoughts! Group time is precious, so leverage it to your best advantage.
• Moderate the Discussion. If you’re the presenter or person in charge of the meeting, it’s your job to run or moderate the meeting. That means keeping your mouth shut most of the time and acting as a guide to keep everyone on course (topic-wise) and moving forward (productivity-wise) within the timeframe allotted. Think of it as a referee’s or facilitator’s role. You want to marshal these valuable resources (people and their ideas) toward an effective end. If you get on the field too much you’ll run the risk of (1) taking over the meeting by superiority alone and of (2) allowing the group to stray off into the wilderness of other topics, thereby losing your effectiveness and fundamentally wasting everyone’s time.
• Confirm Decisions & Action Items. As the moderator, it’s your role to confirm out loud with everyone in attendance both the decisions made and the action items determined (if any) and people assigned to those action items. This is a huge point of failure for many meetings – the failure to articulate decisions, action items and attendant responsibilities assigned. Ironically, it is generally the stated reason for the meeting! Fix this hole by stating things clearly before everyone disperses. (Note that this list can be reduced to a follow-up e-mail and used to gauge progress downstream.)
• Identify Follow-up Expectations. The final point of any effective meeting is identifying and stating the next point of follow-up, if there is one. Put parameters around the work so people have relatively short-term goals for producing results. Make the follow-up period reasonable within the context of the work to be performed, but make it date-certain.

A New Culture Develops

I’m sure all this sounds reasonable and fairly easy to implement. Doing it is always the hard part. Take this list into your next meeting and follow it. You’ll be surprised at how well it works. Eventually, your team will come to meetings well-prepared to participate and add value to the issues at hand. They will also leave meetings energized by the dynamic productivity and clear direction they received from the meeting.

© 2009, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

© 2009, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

For example, if an individual increases his/her measured productivity by 1/10 of an hour per day (or 6 minutes), that improvement aggregates to 24 additional hours of production per year. That’s three days of additional production. Or, at $200 an hour, it’s almost $5,000 in increased billings. Multiply that result by the number of people in an organization and the productivity gains are significant.

More importantly, though, is my belief that better workflow/time management practices improve responsiveness, effectiveness and efficiency.

• Responsiveness is delivering considered advice to a client in a timely fashion.
• Effectiveness is having a solid handle on what must be done and an accurate understanding of when and how things will get done.
• Efficiency it increases the amount of work getting done during the same time frame.

These are all key components to building and maintaining solid working relationships with colleagues and clients.

Individual productivity comes down to increasing the amount of time an individual is focusing on the work at hand. To increase focus, the distractions and interruptions that bombard us during the day must be reduced.

For example, one of the most repeated productivity recommendations in today’s world is to turn off the new e-mail notifications received via Microsoft Outlook or other e-mail clients. These new e-mail notifications are self-inflicted distractions allowed under the pretense of responsiveness. The reality is that they slice focus in half and actually reduce productivity.

Allow me to demonstrate my point. The other day I was working with an individual on some other Outlook efficiency settings. She was right in the middle of executing a simple instruction I had given her when a new e-mail notification popped up in the lower right hand corner of her screen. I watched her physically look away from what she was doing with me, review the preview pop up, then look back up at what she and I were doing. I ticked off the seconds in my head between the time she looked away and the time she began completing the simple instruction I had given her. The result was three seconds.

“So what,” you ask? Well, multiply that by even 100 e-mails per day. That aggregates to 300 seconds (or 5 minutes) a day of activity with no associated productivity; nothing happened. You can argue that the e-mail may have been more important than what she was doing with me, which is a fair point. However, even if she’d jumped onto that project, the lost productivity associated with the original distraction would still creep back into her day when she returned to the task we were completing.

I’m not advocating ignoring your e-mail; I’m advocating managing it better. In fact, I think most professionals need to check their e-mail as frequently as necessary, up to two or three times per hour. The point I’m making is that self-inflicted interruptions like these are adversely affecting productivity on both sides of the analysis. Checking e-mail is one thing, but being interrupted every single time one enters an Inbox is an unnecessary and unproductive distraction.

As this small example demonstrates, slight changes in workflow processing behaviors have dramatic effects on productivity. Increasing productivity improves responsiveness, effectiveness and efficiency. When achieved, the result is greater satisfaction – for you, your colleagues and your clients.

© 2009, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Delegation Roadblocks

There are numerous reasons why people don’t delegate work or don’t delegate it well, including:

• Individualists. Many are individualists and don’t tend to play well with others. Most high achievers focused and relied on their own efforts to succeed. Delegation requires the acceptance of a team environment and many high achievers  just aren’t accustomed to that way of thinking.
• Fear. Many fear delegation because: (a) it questions their value if another can do the work, and (b) the delegator is exposed to negative consequences if the delegatee fails to accomplish the work properly. As for (a), your own worth is tied to your work product, not the stack of work on your desk. As for (b) the process detailed below will minimize the risk of failure.
• Financial. Many believe that if they give away the work, their compensation will be adversely affected. The reality is that leveraging the skills of others allows the delegator to engage in other value-added activities, including higher value work, business development, etc.
• Inexperience. As mentioned above, many lack experience when it comes to delegating properly. Experience comes from doing, so we’ll focus on that.

Delegation Framework

Here are some methods to improve your delegation skills.

• Organize Your Work. You can’t possibly delegate work effectively or efficiently if you don’t have your own house in order. The “messy desk is a sign of a great mind” cliché is just that – a cliché. This article doesn’t address professional hygiene, but there are numerous resources available to those that need this assistance. The bottom line is: Get Organized!
• What Can Be Delegated? Determine what components or projects can be delegated. Factors in this decision include skill set(s) required to accomplish tasks, interest or challenge in the work, and best use of available personnel. For example, a routine filing can be delegated, as can an ancillary deposition, but a key merger negotiation cannot.Like all skills, practice makes perfect. Though the list of steps above seems long, the steps are logically interconnected and flow easily once you acclimate yourself to the process. Improving your delegation skills will greatly improve both your own work and those of the people with whom you work.
• To Whom Can it Be Delegated? Staff members can handle repetitive, easily completed tasks. Newer subordinates can handle more substantive work, provided the requisite skills have been developed. More advanced employees should handle less defined elements of a project and those that require application of more advanced critical thinking skills. Note: one factor to consider is the need to bring newer people along, so make sure everyone is challenged a little.
• Define the Project Deliverables and Deadlines. One of the worst delegation mistakes work givers make is to ineffectively define what is expected from the delegatee. What may seem obvious to you is not so obvious to a less experienced individual. The same holds true for deadlines. It’s likely that you weren’t always able to complete projects in an efficient manner . Less experienced people need more time to become efficient. Give them specific and reasonable guidance on your expectations.
• Estimate the Time the Delegated Task Should Take. Providing the delegatee an estimate of how long a task should take sets parameters around the task, as well as provides them a yardstick to use while doing the work.
• Align Your Attitude/Expectations. This goes hand-in-hand with the last two points. Remember, it’s almost always more efficient for you to simply do the work yourself. However, there are only so many working hours in the day. Aligning your expectations with the work and the person to whom you’re delegating it will return a much better result for you both.
• Schedule Enough Time to Meet. The better you explain the work, its background, and your expectations the first time, the fewer mistakes that will be made and the less repetition that will occur. If your delegatee walks out of your office with a sound understanding of the task(s), the better able they are to complete it without further assistance from you.
• Delegate Ownership. Don’t have your delegatee come back at every step. Let them know that you want them to make decisions on their own. If they truly have a question they can’t figure out, you can always assist them, but challenge them to work through the problem on their own.
• Obtain Feedback for Confirmation. When discussing the project, make sure you’re getting feedback that confirms that they understand what you’re saying. Similarly, feed back to them what you’re hearing to ensure you understand what they’re saying.
• Engage in Progress Updates. Make time to check in on the progress of the project. This is especially true if the project is more involved. Just confirming for the delegatee that you’re interested in their progress will: (a) give them a greater sense of pride in the work and (b) provide ample opportunity to facilitate the work being performed.
• Debrief if Appropriate. It’s always a good idea to debrief with the person you assigned work to if the project merits it. What went well? What could have gone better? These are opportune moments to greatly improve both the work product and the working relationships.

Like all skills, practice makes perfect. Though the list of steps above seems long, the steps are logically interconnected and flow easily once you acclimate yourself to the process. Improving your delegation skills will greatly improve both your own practice and those of the people with whom you work.

© 2009, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Whether productivity drives new business.

Rule

Clients use and refer professionals they know will be the most responsive, effective, and efficient – all components of productivity. This is especially true during business slow downs.

Application

Productivity drives new business because it increases your responsiveness, effectiveness, and efficiency in the following ways.

Responsiveness

Clients use and refer professionals who are responsive. Responsiveness is something more than, ”I’ll take a look at it A.S.A.P.” It’s a substantive communication that informs the recipient, e.g., ”I’ve reviewed the materials you sent and advise you to…” To be more responsive you must increase your focus by reducing distractions and interruptions. This allows you to spend more time producing meaningful responses for your clients. Here are several specific suggestions that will reduce your distractions and interruptions:

1. Turn New E-mail Notifications Off. E-mail is the boon and bane of modern productivity. It’s a vital communication channel, but it never stops coming! Allowing yourself to be constantly interrupted and distracted every time a new e-mail arrives in your Inbox is the equivalent of having the mail person enter your office every two minutes to drop things on your desk. It’s killing your productivity. Turning off the new email notice allows you to remain focused on the matter in front of you. Here are the steps:

• In Outlook*, click on Tools, then Options.
• On the Preferences Tab, select E-mail Options.
• Click on Advanced E-mail Options.
• Under “When new items arrive in my Inbox,” uncheck:
  1. Play a sound.
  2. Briefly change the mouse cursor.
  3. Display a new e-mail desktop alert.
• Click on OK, OK, OK.

* Other e-mail programs have similar steps to turn off the new e-mail notification.

Check your Inbox several times an hour to stay abreast of what’s arriving and needs your attention.

2. Face Away From the Door. Most office configurations have the desk chair facing the door. Given today’s open door policies, this is hugely distracting because your attention is constantly directed towards any motion passing in the hallway. Re-arrange your office so you are not facing the door. By doing so, you will reduce those unnecessary interruptions. This works in two ways. Your eye doesn’t catch the movement and the people passing by see you are working.

3. Silence Your Handheld Device. We have become enslaved to our PDAs. One of the greatest self-imposed distractions we create is having the various notification sounds and vibrations set to the “on” position. There is nothing worse than having one of those notifications erupting right in the middle of a conversation or during a concentrated work moment. Do yourself and others a favor, turn most, if not all, of those notifications off and check the device at regular intervals – to see what needs attending.

Effectiveness

Clients use and refer professionals who get things done. Effectiveness is the measure of that ability. You can increase your effectiveness by developing a workflow system that helps you better manage and act on your e-mail and other tasks. Suggestions include:

1. Disciplined Triaging. The way you triage your incoming stuff, electronic and physical, is a terrific place to increase productivity. Most people handle things in a fairly ad hoc manner, dealing with them as they arrive. Ad hoc triaging is very ineffective and distracting. Instead, place the newly arrived items in a predetermined location a designated inbox. That way you can periodically work through what’s there in a concerted manner. Your e-mail Inbox already does that for you with e-mail. Now, you can do the same with a physical inbox. The corollary for this tip is to make decisions when triaging instead of deferring them. This applies to items in both your physical and electronic inboxes. The vast majority of people defer decisions while looking through their workload; i.e., “I’ll deal with that later” or “I’ll handle that later.” That’s activity without productivity; nothing is being accomplished, but time is being spent cycling through the work. The better behavior is to decide specifically what needs to be done, who owns the next action item, and when you need to be reminded about it again. Then you can move that matter to a staging area (away from your designated work area) to be reviewed when the “reminder” date you set for it arrives.

2. Schedule Small Blocks of Open Time Just Before and Just After Meetings. You or your assistant can take better control of your schedule. Start and end times in calendaring software can generally be changed incrementally, so don’t schedule things back to back. Leave 5 to 15 minutes before and after meetings open so you can debrief on the prior meeting and prepare for the upcoming one. By jotting down some final notes about the meeting you just left, you not only memorialize the details about that meeting, you also enter the next meeting with a clear mind ready to focus on the subject at hand.

3. CC Yourself on Every E-mail You Send. There are two benefits here. First, you are announcing to the recipient that you are actively tracking this item on your end. You will be surprised at how many people you work with rely on you to remind them of the work you have given them. By copying yourself on the original e-mail, they will take note of your new tracking system and will likely respond in kind by doing the work without the need for an additional reminder.

Second, and more importantly, by copying yourself on e-mails you send to others, you can triage them properly when they arrive back in your e-mail inbox. This works better than periodically searching through your Sent folder because the Sent folder contains numerous e-mails that don’t require further attention, which makes doing so unnecessarily time-consuming.

Efficiency

Clients use and refer professionals who produce results in an efficient manner. When you control your workflow, instead of being controlled by it, you are more efficient. Not only does more get done, it gets done at a reduced cost to your client. Look for small ways to increase your efficiency so the aggregate effect is high. For example:

1. Open Next/Previous Item in E-mail. Most Outlook* users use their Inbox as a collection spot through which they rummage for important items. Many leave the Reading Pane on to assist in this methodology. The result is a ping-pong type of activity with the user bouncing from one e-mail to the next searching for the next action item. As noted above, this results in a lot of activity without much productivity and a lot of deferred decision making. By turning off the Reading Pane (View, Reading Pane, Off) and replacing it with an Open the Next Item or Open the Previous Item setting, you can work through each e-mail as you first open it. The result is you are deciding what to do with each e-mail as you go, deleting the trash, filing away the archival and reference materials, and leaving just the work in the Inbox. Here are the settings:

• Click on Tools, then Options, and select the E-mail Options button in the first tab (Preferences) area.
• At the top right of that box is a drop-down menu; click on the down-arrow and select either Open Next Item or Open Previous Item depending on whether you (a) read your e-mail from the top down (Open Next Item) or (b) read your e-mail from the bottom up (Open Previous Item).
• Select OK and OK.

* Other e-mail programs have similar steps.

2. Physical Inbox/Outbox Placement. If you have a designated inbox and outbox, chances are you have them placed right on the corner of your desk or somewhere very nearby. If you don’t have a designated inbox and/or outbox, chances are your desk top or chair serves those functions. Either way, the result is that people coming in to place things in or take things out of them are causing you a fair amount of unnecessary interruption and distraction.

First, make sure you have specifically designated areas for things coming in (the inbox) and things going out (the outbox). Second, place them at the end of the credenza/bookcase nearest your door or somewhere similar. It will make access to them easy for everyone and greatly reduce the level of interruption/distraction you suffer when someone is using them. Moreover, you can spot-check it on your way in and out of your workspace.

3. One Subject Per E-mail. One of the mistakes we make with e-mail is trying to cram too much into each one. Since they’re free to send and receive, place just one subject into each e-mail. That allows the recipient(s) to focus on one thing at a time. Moreover, details about one matter won’t get confused with details about another matter. Part of effective communication is clarity. Adopting the one subject per e-mail rule communicates much more clearly and will enhance efficiency.

Conclusion

During economic downturns, productivity is an especially valuable tool in retaining existing clients, in producing new work from them, and in securing highly valuable referrals. Implementing the suggestions above will help you increase productivity and develop more business.

© 2009, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Paradigm At Issue

Though this may be obvious to many of you, the premise of balance is too simplistic to describe the working world in the third millennium. That is, to balance something, pros and cons must be determined. Good must be offset against bad, and rarely is work categorized as good.

And that’s the rub. Work shouldn’t have to be bad. In fact, given the amount of effort that it takes to develop a career, work should be a positive factor in your life whenever possible.

Moreover, as your career continues to develop, what is important to you professionally and personally will change. Therefore, you will constantly be reassessing what a balanced lifestyle means. Thus, the work versus personal dichotomy never ceases.

The paradigm is simply inadequate.

And A River Runs Through It

Now consider a flowing river. Its rate depends on gradient, its current on topography. The steeper the hill or narrower the path, the faster the river flows. The larger the rocks or more ragged the riverbed, the choppier the water. Wide, slow areas are tranquil. Steep, boulder-strewn stretches are a cacophony of sound and water.

Life flows in much the same way. There are periods of high activity, as well as miles of reflective opportunity, and who knows what awaits us around the next bend.

Navigating this constantly changing environment requires some forethought and perspective management. Life is a long-term proposition and proper alignment should always be a primary objective. Several factors play into managing your alignment, including your familial situation, your career goals, your workload, and any civic and other non-professional obligations you have undertaken. If you focus on where you want to be 100 yards down stream and initiate the steps you need to align yourself with that goal, you will find greater satisfaction in your life.

Fine Tuning

Staying attuned to your immediate situation always facilitates obtaining longer term objectives. Here are several ways to maintain satisfaction on a day-to-day basis.

• Mandatory Personal Time. The very first thing that gets lost in our hectic worlds is time for ourselves. This is not necessarily time to ourselves, rather it’s time for ourselves. Time to do whatever you choose. Start small – during one hour every week, do something you want to do. Spend it alone, spend it with your spouse or your child or children, spend it with a friend, even spend it with man’s best friend. Don’t give that hour away. If you find you need more, schedule another hour, and so on until you find the right mix. You’ll likely be more productive during your other hours knowing that your personal one is coming soon.
• Manage Your Technology. Don’t let technology dictate your time. If you don’t know how to use it effectively and efficiently, then make time to learn how. Every hour you spend learning technology will return several fold to you when utilizing it. Similarly, if you’re a whiz at, but overwhelmed with technology, remember the single most important fact about any modern technology is the OFF button.
• Quiet Time. Remember naptime in pre-school? This is probably the single greatest self-help tool ever invented. Whether you nap, meditate, or just sit quietly for a few minutes, find a solitary place (and many places will do) and take a quick 10-minute break. Close your eyes; let the stresses of the day wash out of you, relax and re-energize. Then get on with it.
• Define Your Space. Experts disagree about whether it’s better to segregate your professional and personal lives or integrate them. Try one method, but do it intentionally. Drive your lifestyle; don’t let others or circumstance drive it for you. At least if you’re at the helm you can steer the ship.

Throughout your professional career, you will be pressed to make time allocation decisions. The frantic pace of the world is not likely to slow any time soon, so never forget that career/personal satisfaction is an important objective. Implement some simple processes to protect yours!

© 2009, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.