(Author’s Note: The following is a Cliff Note style summary of my keynote presentation and upcoming book titled The Waterfall Effect: Six Principles for Productive Leadership.)



Time is every organization’s most valuable asset.  Yet it is a non-renewable resource; once gone it cannot be recaptured.  Thus, leaders must leverage their time to remain productive.

The Benefits of Leveraging Leadership Time

Leaders who focus on the right objectives, people and activities are leveraging their time.  The result is called the Waterfall Effect – the cascading benefit that flows down through the organization and out to clients and customers.

How can leaders best leverage their time in today’s always-on, frenetic world? How can they ensure that they’re making the best use of this precious, non-renewable resource to deliver the most productive leadership possible? How can today’s leaders reproduce the Waterfall Effect over and over?



Six Principles for Productive Leadership

The following six principles for productive leadership assist leaders in producing The Waterfall Effect.

1. Developing Field Vision.  Leaders must focus on assimilating and responding to today’s dynamic work environments to remain in command of their organizations.  Here are some ways to accomplish this result.

• Visualize the path.  By creating a mental path of the route to success, leaders can keep actions, projects and people moving in the right direction.
• Glance at the goal.  Remaining mindful of, but not entirely focused on, the organization’s objectives allows a leader to move forward in a meaningful but flexible way.
• Call time out.  Being in charge also means staying in command. Knowing when to step back to gather the group together and refocus the effort is an under-valued skill in today’s frantic world.

2. Keeping the Glass Half Full.  How people feel directly affects how they perform.  Keeping the team’s attitude positive requires effort on the leader’s part.  These suggestions will help.

• Cultivate every relationship.  Solid relationships among team members (and others) are the glue that keeps a group working cohesively.  Leaders are well advised to remember this timeless fact in the frenzy of e-mails and teleconferences that consume our days.
• Mandate dignity and respect.  Feeling valued is another emotion-based factor in team dynamics.  If a leader demonstrates dignity and respect for those inside and out of the organization, the message is clear:  people are valuable.
• Embrace the risk of failure.  The notion that “failure is not an option” is patently ridiculous. Failure is always a possibility.  Leaders who embrace the risk of failure demonstrate true courage to those around them.

3. Leveraging The Value of Silence.  Leaders are regularly guiding others and are often looked to for direction.  So much so that they often forget the benefits that accrue from being quiet.  When working in groups be mindful of the following tenants.

• Engagement is something they do. Pundits speak often of engagement and the need for leaders to “produce” this result.  The reality is that engagement is a result, not a product.  Team members become engaged versus directed to be so.
• Count to five. Giving direction is a key leadership function.  However, many times it’s more productive to say nothing.  An effective way to achieve this result is to make a statement, then count to five mentally before saying anything else.  The result can be surprising!
• Take “me” time.  Just as leaders need to know when to Call Time Out for the team to regroup, so too must the leader recognize the value of taking time to gather his/her thoughts and regenerate energy before launching into the next fray.

4. Peeling Back the Onion.  There is hidden potential in everyone.  Uncovering it is more than a leader’s obligation, it’s a leader’s reward.  There are several mechanisms for mining the potential in others.

• Mentoring redux.  Mentoring has traditionally focused on development within a job or career. An expanded view of mentoring – something that advances the individual’s interests, as well as career objectives – can uncover previously undiscovered convergent paths.
• Hire yourself out of job.  Most hiring is focused on filling an immediate need.  This is important.  However, hiring into the future needs of the organization is possibly even more important.  Slowing down during the hiring process and challenging candidates during interviews can ferret out those who may possess skills and aptitudes better suited to the organization’s long-term goals.
• Guide versus direct.  Leaders who constantly answer questions are training team members to be question askers.  Conversely, most people are hired to be solution finders. Instead of just answering every question asked, leaders can achieve a better result by asking leading questions.  This guides the team to the right answer, a much better learning experience for everyone.

5. Setting the Bar.  Given the current speed of interaction, setting and managing expectations has never been more important to individual or group success.  These are the guideposts to facilitate this result.

• Start on the right foot. The best time to set expectations is when a relationship – internal or external – is new.  Leaders who communicate how to best to work together (including response times, etc.) to others are leveraging their time at a critical point of engagement.
• Clarity is king. A sign of great leadership is to give clear instruction to others, including specific deadlines.  The minor effort it takes to accurately define what is needed when provides needed clarity to team members who are also dealing with their own frenetic work environment.
• Be a hero not a zero.  The most common leadership failure is overcommitting and under-performing.  This is largely the result of misplaced optimism – the belief that more will get done in a given time frame than actually occurs.  A terrific way to remedy this behavior is to intentionally under commit and over perform. In the end, everyone is happier and the stress level of the entire team goes down.

6. Triaging Priorities. The modern working environment can be likened to a medical emergency room where constant triaging must be done to ensure the best outcome.  When the day gets hectic leaders are encouraged to remember these principles.

• Multi-taking is impossible.  More and more neurological studies are proving what most of us already know – multi-tasking is impossible.  Focus is where productivity lies and leaders who pursue quiet spaces to work for themselves and their team members produce the best result.
• Use a simple sorting system.  Information is constantly flowing at us. Using a simplified sorting system to separate what is necessary and what is irrelevant will keep the requisite administrative time to a minimum.  QuietSpacing® – one such system – mandates that there are only four types of information: trash, archive, reference and work.  Use it or another system to maximize leadership time.
• Secure clear deadlines. The cousin to clarity is king, securing clear deadlines from others allows leaders to properly prioritize the work.  Often persistence and diplomacy are needed in this pursuit, but the rewards outweigh the effort.

Remaining in Command
 

Today’s world is demanding. That means today’s leaders need some simple tools to lead productively.  The six principles listed above, along with their corresponding implementation suggestions, will help you and your people produce the cascading of benefit promised by The Waterfall Effect.

© 2012, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Bureaucracy-phobic

Such was my state of mind a few weeks ago as I approached our DMV branch office with the title to my new (old) car in hand.  The mission: to get the old Montana title converted to a new Nevada title.  Simple enough.

To maximize my opportunity for success, I planned to arrive at the local office at 7:15 a.m., a full 45 minutes before it opened. You can imagine my dismay when I pulled into the parking lot to discover that, if I hurried, I might be the 100th person in line!

A Sea of Humanity Flowing as One

The doors were flung open at 8:00 a.m. sharp!  Or at least I imagined they were since I was too far back in line to see the actual doors open.  The people streamed into the building and that’s when I received my first pleasant surprise.

At the door was a greeter and she was directing everyone to one of three different areas in the wide open, airy and well-lit building.  Some were directed to Licensing, some to Title & Registration, and the rest were pointed in the direction of “Additional Services.”

I took up my position in the Title & Registration line.  Waiting there, I had the opportunity to look around. There was plenty of seating, all setup in classroom fashion.  The building had a lot of natural light shining in from the large skylights inserted in the very high ceilings.  It was clean and though certainly institutional, it was nice institutional (if that’s possible)

Queued Up & Waiting

I reached the front of the Title & Registration line where a man behind the counter asked me what I needed to do.  I explained my mission and he gave me a slip of paper with a number on it and directed me to the larger group of chairs, saying that my number would be called in order.  All of this was administered to efficiently and with a professional demeanor.

So professional, in fact, that I almost forgot to be suspicious of the “just wait over there and we’ll call your number shortly” part.  If I didn’t remain vigilant, these people just might make this experience enjoyable!

I sat and waited.  During my wait I determined that there were no less than 15 stations open and servicing people.  Suspended above us in several locations and in clear view was a reader board assigning numbers to stations.  And, to make sure I didn’t miss my opportunity, there was a constant announcement in a pleasant female voice reciting which number was now being served by which station.

The Actual Interaction

It didn’t take long, not long at all, for my number to be called.  I approached the DMV representative seated at her desk and sat down.  She asked what I needed to do and I reiterated my mission.  She immediately turned to her computer, pulled up the appropriate form, and asked for my driver’s license.  Then, to my surprise, she completed the form for me!

Sitting there stunned, I didn’t hear her ask me how I would like to pay my fee – cash, check or credit card.  I came to as she asked again and blurted out credit card.  She slid the card swiper in my direction and I finished the transaction on my side. She printed a receipt and a copy of the new title application and told me that it generally takes three to five weeks to get the new title in the mail.

Epilogue

I wandered back out into the sunlit morning.  It was 8:35.  I’d spent more time in line waiting for the doors to open than I did accomplishing my mission!  Oh, and my title?  It arrived in under two weeks.

Whoda thunk?

What They Did Right

As a student of process and efficiency, I had immediately begun taking notes on my experience as soon as I encountered the greeter at the front door. Here’s what they did right:

1. They understood their primary mission – to assist people with their licensing and vehicular needs – and everything was centered on that core objective.

2. They broke their services down into a simple customer-centric list of divisions – Licensing, Title & Registration, and Additional Services.

3. They took pains to understand the workflow of their business – parsing, queuing, paperwork – and incorporated human interaction steps and technological solutions to ensure smooth operation.

4. The building’s design and decor were well suited for its purposes and were actually “soothing,” such that the physical space accommodated the workflow.

5. The staff was professional and helpful – to the point of completing the forms for us.  (Note, this is also more efficient since they’re much more familiar with the forms than we are!)

Did Apple Take Lessons from the Nevada DMV?

Apple stores are the rage of retail in terms of customer service stories, and it’s well deserved.  Apple does a very good job of customer service. So does Nordstrom and so does Zappos.  But they’re all for-profit businesses.

In this instance we’re talking about a state department of motor vehicles.  Yet, by focusing on workflow and efficiency, and throwing in a mix of good design, the Nevada DMV took what has historically been a fear-inducing experience and made it an award winner.

When was the last time you looked at your business through your customer’s/client’s eyes?

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

There’s a blessing in that last bit.

Seriously, though, I know speaking on time management doesn’t sound exciting. It pales in comparison to things like, “I do product design for Apple.” or “I’m in marketing at Nike.” I get that, but unfortunately I possess a driving need to find better, faster ways of getting things done. In the bio I provide those tasked with introducing me at speaking engagements it says that at age thirteen I found the quickest way to vacuum the family store so I could spend more time fly fishing. It’s true. I’m afflicted. I’m okay with that. Let me tell you why.

What is Time?

In conversations about QuietSpacing® – my time management methodology – and the related programs I conduct, I often explain to people that the overarching principle of all my work is this:

Time is a limited, non-renewal source with an undisclosed expiration date for each of us.

This fact drives me personally and professionally. I want to make the best use of the time I have because I know that, at least in this life, when it’s over, it’s over. There’s no way to get more no matter how much money or power I accumulate.

The Potential of Time

But that’s only one aspect of this philosophy. Another is that time represents potential. The potential to use it well or not so well. It’s our time, it’s our choice.

Realizing that potential is the fruit of time well used. It is seen and felt as accomplishment, a sense of well being, the ability to truly relax or, in my vernacular, experience a quiet mind. This is the promise of fulfilling the potential of time.

Measuring a Life of Realized Potential

We humans are visual creatures. We think in pictures and our memories are stored pictures of events in our life. Thus, memories – snapshots of time – are the currency of life. As our days draw to a close, we will look back over our lives using our memories and we will assess whether we’ve made good use of our time.

My belief is that if we pursue our potential – personally and professionally – we will make good memories so that when we look back later, we’ll be able to say “Yes, I made good use of my time.”

Yet Another Holiday Season Lurks

As we enter another frenzied holiday season, remember this: Most of the gifts we receive will mean nothing in the end, except the gift of the present. Maximizing the potential in the present creates the wealth of memories that mark a successful life.

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

I kept getting distracted by new and exciting topics – simplicity, lifestyle choices, Tenkara fly fishing.  Instead of focusing on my core business of developing solid content to help my clients solve their time management struggles, I was drafting tables of contents for new books and making lists of authors to read and people to follow.

Thank gawd for my National Speakers Association Master Mind group – Viki Hess, Jeff Civillico and Liz Weber.  During one of our monthly calls the resounding consensus regarding my efforts to cobble together these disparate objectives was that I was creating very muddy professional waters indeed.  And, as I once heard the famous speaker Mark Sanborn say, “A confused buyer buys nothing.”

My peers advised me to pursue new ways to communicate my topical expertise – time management and productivity – and to seek ways to incorporate my other aspirations into my own life.  In a way, they advised me to separate my professional focus from my personal focus.   Stated differently: Not everything needs to be revenue source, Paul!

Out of the mouths of babes…er…professionals.

Live Simply

Most people will tell you that I’m a bit of a slow starter.  Ideas take time to germinate in my brain before flowering into action.  The same was true for the advice I’d received.

In fact, it wasn’t until several weeks later, while driving from our winter digs to our summer digs, that clarity was achieved.  What I needed to do was to Live Simply.  As a “process guy,” I naturally pursue the most efficient way to accomplish the stated goal.  Many times finding that path results in a truly elegant or simple solution.  Thus, marrying my predisposition for process with living simply is wholly congruent. The congruence lies in my belief that that simplicity is arrived at ONLY after gaining an understanding of the complexity of the very thing we are attempting to simplify – in this case, my lifestyle!

Elimination is part of achieving simplicity – the removal of things that are unnecessary to the journey.  However, reduction is just the beginning of the journey to finding the elegant solution – that perfect intersection between the form of the “answer” and the function of the “answer” – again, true simplicity.

With the excess baggage eliminated, the challenging part begins.  Prejudice and judgment must be identified and removed.  Habit and custom must be acknowledged.  Information – useful and not – must be accounted for and incorporated or discarded.  True motivation must be ferreted out.  Self-honesty is mandatory and the discoveries made are as often displeasing as pleasant.

Over the last few years, I’d been reducing and eliminating things in my life.  I have stopped taking up new sports and now focus my time on the ones I really enjoy – golfing and fly fishing.  Not only did I stop spending money on new gear, I stopped breaking myself physically so much, which requires recovery time and its associated time away from those activities.  Moreover, I was no longer running up the often-stressful learning curve.  Rather, I was enjoying more time on the golf course and small water creeks engaging in activities that I was already competent at doing.  I had decided on the What.

We had also identified our long-term summer and winter spots.  This reduced the ongoing discussion and preoccupation with the Where question.  It also reduced the associated expenses with changing locations every year or two.

Interestingly, determining the Where and What drove the ability to reduce the stuff needed in my life.  Unused gear, clothing, furniture, etc. were all donated to charity.  In its place came physical and mental quiet. There were simply fewer things physically and intellectually with which to concern myself.

I was also free to pursue more deeply new ways to doing old things – rejoin the legions of golfers hitting the latest driver (having abandoned that effort years ago in favor of my 5 iron) and investigate Tenkara (radically simple fly fishing from ancient Japan.)  And it wasn’t just sports oriented.  We found more time to be tourists in our own towns – doing all the things the tourists do but we had never found time to do.  All these things where the How.

With the big questions resolved, I am focusing my ongoing Live Simply efforts on the way I work and the tools I use.  There is so much evidence that supports the idea that people work best (produce the most) in short, intense cycles with periods of recovery in between. This was, in fact, the underlying conclusion to the study Malcolm Gladwell cited in his book Outliers.  (Note, for those interested in a comprehensive discussion of this theory, as well as many related ideas, see The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working by Tony Schwartz.)

Not only am I looking at working shorter bursts followed by recovery periods, I’ve also reduced the number of technologies required to engage in my work.  Gone is the Windows machine that required so many peripherals – all plugged into sockets creating a fire hazard in my home office.  In its place is a MacBook Pro with a blue tooth keyboard and track pad.  Gone is the software programs installed on my computer.  In their place is cloud-computing – from Office 365 to MyERP with a shot of Dropbox thrown in for good measure.  Everything resides in a browser.  Big Iron, Thin Client.  What goes around comes around.

Living simply is hard but not in a deprivation sense. It’s hard in a conceptualization sense.  To achieve and maintain a simple life, one must dig down into the complex aspects of life and, with a surgical focus, ask whether each aspect is necessary and if so, whether it’s been accomplished in the most effective and efficient manner.  Only after a studied and educated analysis can simplicity in life be achieved.

The best question to start with is, “What is it that I really want?”

Work Passionately

Having separated my personal aspirations to Live Simple from my professional objectives to help people make the most of the time they have, I began to see numerous ways to re-engage with my subject matter expertise.  I attribute this refresh flood of ideas to freeing up my clogged brain from the angst of trying to tie it all together.  Ironically, once I quieted my own mind, engagement naturally took over.

I was able to apply a lot of simple living concepts to my work efforts. Not only did I de-clutter my work space (fewer peripherals, cables, etc.) and less software, I also abandoned a number of efforts that I thought were helping me from a marketing stand point.  Out went Twitter and auto-submission services.  The people who make decisions about hiring me don’t spend much time hanging out in social media sites.  (Note, I’ve reduced my Facebook activity to just my friends – people I really to want to stay connected to.)  In effect, I re-focused my efforts to what made my QuietSpacing® practice successful in the first place:

• Creating Content
• Building Relationships
• Solving Client Issues with Time Management

It’s easy to get lost in the technology and the next great thing.  Most of us have to develop a basic understanding of how all these things work.  (I must go a step further and glean an understanding of how they positively and adversely affect my client’s day.)  Beyond that, it’s up to each of us to determine whether the bright shiny object actually adds value to our days and to our lives. If it doesn’t, it should be discarded and replaced with other things that do add value.

The net result of this cleansing and re-focusing of my professional efforts is a terrific sense of engagement.  Personally, I hate the word “passionate” as it relates to our work.  I used it here to get your attention since it’s the vogue concept to promote…this week.

My opinion is that it’s less about passion and much, much more about engagement.  Maybe I’m just mincing words, but I believe causes require passion. Work isn’t (and shouldn’t be) a cause.  Work, to be enjoyable, requires engagement. And, further on that topic, there’s no reason we can’t or shouldn’t like work.  Most of us will do it for a long time, so why not enjoy it!

You’ve undoubtedly noticed that there was a stripping down process in getting back to being engaged.  Again, what goes around comes around. There’s even more similarity between these personal and professional efforts.  To become engaged in my work, I’ve had to root around in its particulars to determine what about helping people with their time management struggles is so interesting to me.  It could be the process – finding an efficient and effective route to get through it all each day.  It could be watching them regain a sense of command in their day.  It could be the downstream feedback I get that they feel more successful or that they have received recognition of their efforts.

No.  All of these things are great, but they aren’t what engage me.  What engages me is the idea that we only have so much time and we need to make the best use of the time we have.  Taking this one extra step, we can say that memories – snapshots of time – are how we will measure the use of our time.

Thus, a successful life is one measured at its end by the one living that life.  Memories will be how we will measure our success when we ask the question, “Did I make good use of the time I had?”

In my case, being engaged means that I am making good memories of the time I spend working.

Stated most simply:  Memories are the currency of life.  The question to ask is, “Am I making good memories?”

Post-Script – Personal Experience is My Kernel

Over the couple of days it’s taken me to craft this missive, I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with three very important people in my life with whom I rarely get to hang out.  During the course of my discussions with them, the topic of engagement in work and personal life came up several times.

The great thing about meaningful conversation is that one is forced to put ideas into a linear framework (sentences) that make sense.  As Aristotle maintained, discourse is the true nature of being human. And it was during those conversations that I discovered an even deeper truth about myself.  That truth was that I am drawn both professionally and personally to Personal Experience.  Whether it’s the music I listen to, the movies I watch, the books I read, or the people with whom I wish to maintain relations, it always boils down to my interest in the Personal Experience being described.

Though opinionated (what lawyer isn’t!), I rarely care much about politics or social causes or sports or a host of other areas of the human experience.  What I most gravitate to is the personal experience of the individual.  This revelation is significant only to me in its subject matter, but it’s hugely relevant to the topic of this article because it’s what I’ve long referred to as the Kernel.

The Kernel is my way of describing – in one or two words – the thing that drives you forward.  Unlike “passion” which has a lot of puppies and daisies associated with it, a Kernel is at the core of your personality and motivation.  Discovering a Kernel takes a tremendous amount of patient introspection, fearlessness, exposure, and interaction with others on the subject.  It’s less about honesty, though that plays a role, and more about clearing out the layers that are built onto of the Kernel.

In my case, I always thought my Kernel was “time.”  Helping people make the most of their time and making the most of my time.  Then, over the course of these recent discussions, it dawned on me that time was a layer on top of “personal experience.”  What I really enjoyed hearing and what I really sought for myself were interesting personal experiences. Helping people make the most of their time was a means to achieving that end!

Take-Aways From This Tome

Having pontificated for over two thousand words, I owe the patient few who reached this point a concise and cogent conclusion. Here’s my best shot:

• Living simply is about stripping away the unnecessary and focusing on the intriguing.
• Working passionately is about finding ways to be engaged in your work so that you’re creating good memories from it.
• Relentless pursuit and discovery of your personal Kernel will drive more engagement and contentment in your life than every other endeavor.

An even shorter summation may be: Life Life On Purpose.

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Once we can quiet the cacophony of the modern work place, the next point of attack is to increase productivity (and it’s cousin – sense of accomplishment) by making the way we actually get work done more efficient.  And, like most things, it’s all been done before.

Texting is Great Practice for Good Communication

Much lamenting is heard about texting.  How we are “disengaging” from our surroundings to remain digitally linked to persons distant.  We also talk about how our use of the English language is suffering from the cryptic abbreviations used in texts.  And let’s not forget the ~ping~ that sounds each time a new text arrives.

These things are all true, but they’ve all been said before about other technological innovations.  What if we looked at some of the positive aspects of texting – specifically, at how it might be making us more efficient communicators?

The 140-character (soft) limit to texting is great practice for achieving the Keep It Simple Stupid (K.I.S.S.) philosophy of life.  It’s even more beneficial if we alter the K.I.S.S. philosophy slightly – Keep It Short & Simple.

Texting is a terrific way to communicate in one line and/or one sentence bursts.  So, if we look at texting as a practice ground for good burst-communication, we’ll find many applications in our daily work life where this skill can reap rewards.

Three Ways to KISS

Here are three applications of this newly reconstituted KISS philosophy as enhanced by good texting mechanics:

1.  Subject Lines. Subject lines appear in many electronic technologies; e.g., E-mail, Appointments, Tasks just to name a few.  If we leverage those one-line blank fields by creating robust Subject lines, we’ll be able to communicate very effectively in 140 characters.  For example, what if our e-mail Subject lines looked like this:

Big & Large – Firm Retreat – September 23-25, 2050 – QuietSpacing(R) Proposal – Executive Summary

or our calendar Subject lines looked more like this:

QuietSpacing QuickStart Demo – John Doe (206) 555-6666 & Paul H. Burton (503) 680-9872 – PHB Initiates

or our to-do Subject lines looked more like this:

ODP: Finance – Deposits – Cybersource thru 7/28 – Google Checkout thru 7/25 – PayPal – Amazon on 10th and 25th

Each of these Subject lines convey a tremendous amount of information without even opening the underlying e-mail, calendar event or task.  Moreover, they are easier to find and file which makes the workflow processing run more smoothly each day.

2.  New Style Short-Hand. We all take notes. Whether it’s in a meeting, on a conference call or when we’re working alone, there are numerous ideas and to-dos that get jotted down along the way.  You may use old school technology (pen and paper) or new school technology (laptop or tablet), but in the end, the notes get recorded in some fashion.  One way to make note taking more effective and efficient is to create a short-hand dictionary to avoid re-writing words most often used and to indicate items of particular interest by category.  Here are a couple of examples to consider adopting when taking notes:

• M = Meeting
• C = Call
• T = To-do

Just start a note with the applicable letter and jot down the subject matter.  Later, we (or our assistant) can quickly peruse the notes to pull out the actionable items before filing the notes away for archival purposes.

3.  Bullet Points and Bullet Points + Narrative. The final suggestion is to continue leveraging our newly acquired brevity skills right in the body of the communication through the use of bullet points.  Though bullet points may have led to Death by PowerPoint, it’s not their fault; it’s the fault of the PowerPoint user.  Bullet points are great ways to list the key points in any communication – if not be the entire communication.  The next time a long(ish) e-mail must be written, consider starting with a list of bullet points that identify the main points before launching into the narrative description below.  It might just be that the bullet points alone suffice!

Mick Jaeger Once Said

One of my favorite quotes is from Mick Jaeger.  Decades ago, he said (paraphrasing), “All the cords on a guitar have been played.  Now, it was just a matter of arrangement.”  Much of what we can do to “fix” the ills of modern technological over-connectedness and consumption is to apply some old behaviors in a new way.  Diligently remembering that technology is a tool and not a set of chains and seeking to Keep It Short & Simple will generate the kind of results that we all want – more done in less time.

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Urgent!  Top Priority!  A.S.A.P.

The problem with this type of deadline setting is that it has become common place and is attached to all manner of work delegation – both urgent and … well … less than urgent (to be polite).   The quandaries this behavior creates are numerous:

• If I have five “Urgents” on my to-do list, which one do I do first?
• Why is an assignment recipient being asked to shoulder the responsibility of gleaning the true deadline in play on any particular piece of work?
• Isn’t deadline setting a managerial responsibility most logically expected of the assignment giver?
• And, if the assignment giver is just shoving the assignment downstream in the same manner it was received from above, doesn’t this notion of who’s responsibility it is to determine an actual due date and time even more pressing?

Lazy Deadlining

Lazy Deadlining is what it is.  Work givers using these deadlines at all levels have simply abdicated their responsibility to determine when a specific piece of work must actually be accomplished.

My case for this position is this:  Urgent! Top Priority! A.S.A.P. do not exist on any calendar that I’ve ever seen.  Therefore, they are meaningless when it comes to the effective workflow management.  Moreover, it is this notion of “management” that directs my attention to the giver of work when seeking the culprit.  The responsibility for clear communication nests within the authority to give work.  It is not the responsibility of the recipient to drive a deadline or magically guess at that deadline is (arguments about “managing up” aside).
But I’m just taking orders too! This is often the position taken by those accused of lazy deadlining.  This translates to, “I have no control over my world and I prefer it that way.”  Hogwash.  No one likes feeling out of control or constantly operating in a reactionary mode.  It’s unsettling, stressful, and, more to the point here, inefficient.

The Inefficiency of Lazy Deadlining

I’m a productivity “expert.”  At least that’s what my web site says.  So I approach workflow management issues primarily from an effectiveness (better) and efficiency (faster, cheaper) perspective.  And the problem with Urgent! Top Priority! A.S.A.P. is that it breaks all the rules that result in better, faster, cheaper.  Here are three reasons why:

• Ping Ponging. Whenever these mandates come down, people DO stop whatever they were doing and jump onto the new task.  This can also be called an interruption and we’ve all heard the statistic that it can take up to 20 minutes to get back on track following an interruption.  And, before you jump on me about how important this task is, remember that these edicts are being routinely issued throughout the day, causing delegates to Ping Pong from one conflagration to the next resulting in numerous unnecessary interruptions each day.  This is neither effective nor efficient.
• Urgency Begets Rushing. When everything must be done right now people rush.  Rushing results in lots and lots of mistakes.  The best thing that can happen when you start making these mistakes is that the work gets to be redone.  The worst thing that can happen is that the mistake-riddled end result is delivered to the giver (think: Client or Customer) resulting in a very bad client/customer experience.
• Chicken Little Effect. A long term organizational problem also results from Lazy Deadlining – the loss of urgency when urgency is truly needed.  This happens when an assignment is rushed back to the giver only to linger for days or weeks on the giver’s desk.  We can only claim the sky is falling so many times before people stop looking up.  This is a loss of organizational effectiveness at a fundamental level.

Clarity:  The Simple Fix

Ironically, fixing this problem is very simple – simply provide specific dates and times (where possible) for all work assignments given.  Moreover, for those receiving work that does not contain specific date/time deadlines, simply ask for clarification. (Note, this need to request clarification applies to those who are passing work down the chain.  This is, if it’s unclear when received, don’t abdicate responsibility, seek clarity.)

For work givers, the solution is just as easy as it sounds – put a date and time on all work delegated.

For work receivers, the solution is to diplomatically seek a specific date/time on every piece of work you receive.  For example, “Thanks for the opportunity to work on this project.  In order to ensure I produce a professional the result in a timely manner, do you know if there is a specific date/time this must be done?”  Or, “I’m looking forward to working on this.  You’ve given several other high urgency projects this week, so can we sit down for a minute and line up the dates/times each is due?”  Or, if you’re talking to a client, try this, “We’ll get on this right away.  Can you give me some idea of what’s driving the urgency on this matter?”

The end game is to achieve clarity so that everyone’s expectations are met.  Remember, A.S.A.P. means something very different to me (the recipient) than to you (the giver) if I’m leaving at noon on my long-overdue two-week vacation.

Specific Application

There are several instances where Lazy Deadlining can be stopped in its tracks:

• E-mail. If an assignment is being delegated in e-mail, insert a specific date and time the work is due right in the Subject line of the e-mail.  Not only does it force the work giver to think about the deadline in the process of delegating, it’s also more easily read and found in the undoubtedly full Inbox of the recipient.
• Voice Mail. Similarly, communicating the deadline when first leaving work in voice mail allows both the giver and receiver to immediately determine how to manage this particular effort as it relates to the other outstanding tasks.
• Group/Individual Meetings. Before the conclusion of one-on-one meetings or group/team meetings, the meeting leader can take a minute to confirm all decisions made during the meeting, identify next steps, those responsible for the next steps, and the deadlines for completion or updates on the next steps.  Thus, everyone has an opportunity to weigh in on the deadline setting effort and they leave the meeting with a clear understanding of the expectations placed on them.

Work Doesn’t Happen in Vacuum

This may be stating the obvious, but work is never assigned in a vacuum.  Both the giver and receiver have a number of things on their minds and on their task lists whenever work is passed up and down the chain of command.  Issuing deadlines like Urgent! Top Priority! A.S.A.P. seems, at first blush, to contemplate this reality by their very intimation to drop everything else.  However, as discussed above, when viewed in the broader perspective, these Lazy Deadline actually create more ineffectiveness and inefficiency during the work flow process than they solve.  The best solution is to slow down just a notch and articulate (or seek articulation of) clear date/time specific deadlines for all work.

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

The Call

Me (seeing it’s my mom on caller ID):  Hi!  How are you doing?

Mom:   Not so good.

Me (sitting straight up because (a) this is never the response I get and (b) my father is 86):   What’s going on?

Mom (sounding very discombobulated):  They’re admitting your father to the hospital because they don’t know what’s wrong with him.

The remainder of the conversation covered the events that led up to my father’s admission to the hospital.

The Situation

Turns out my father had gall stones and one had become embedded in his digestive tract causing an infection.  This is a painful condition but not generally life threatening, unless you’re in your mid-80s.

Over the next 24 hours the doctors stabilized his condition and determined that removing his gall bladder via a minimally invasive procedure was the best course of action. Though not a complicated procedure, it is one requiring full anesthetic.  Again, at 86 years of age nothing is simple.

Surgery was scheduled for the next day and Mom was still ping ponging around during every phone conversation I had with her.

Priorities Clarified; Time Management Easy

When your aging parents are in distress, your priorities become very clear quickly.  My next steps were to clear my calendar of all meetings and activities.  Next, I jumped on the phone with Alaska Airlines and Budget Rental Car and made arrangements to get down to them. 

Twenty-four hours later I was with Mom at the hospital waiting for Father to be brought back from Recovery.  The procedure had gone well.  I stayed overnight talking with Mom about next steps and helping her get a firmer grip on her expanding role as the primary caregiver in their relationship. 

The next morning we picked Father up and took him home.  After getting him settled in his favorite chair and confirming with Mom that she was feeling “up to it,” I headed back to the airport and flew home. He continues to recover well and my Mom is feeling stronger every day about her new role.

The Moral

Time management is easy once you’ve prioritized the things you need to get done.  Focus on the prioritization process and stop wasting time by trying to manage it.

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

 Editors note:  This is a guest post by Chris Tuttle. Chris is an avid cyclist who focuses his intellectual property legal practice on cycling and the outdoor recreation businesses.

I just got done with a great read – Hamlet’s BlackBerry by William Powers.  Every page is filled with QuietSpacing® wisdom.  Before sharing specifics, a couple words on terminology.  This book is about the often dysfunctional relationship we have with the “screens” in our lives.  Desktop PCs, handheld smartphones, laptops, iPads, etc.  Any electronic device can be a “screen.”  The unexamined axiom of our times is that we and our screens should be connected as much as possible, all the time.  Connection = good, disconnected = bad.  But when we are connected, there is no quiet, there is no space.  If our lives and screens are connected 24-7, the promise of QuietSpacing (a more productive and happier life) will forever be out of reach. 

The central premise of Hamlet’s BlackBerry is that we need to cultivate distance, disconnection and solitude in order to be truly happy and productive, and to make the best use of the times when we are connected.  The subtitle of the book is “A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age.”  In explaining this philosophy, Powers turns to some of the giants of Western history – Plato, Gutenberg, Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, Thoreau and Marshall McLuhan.

Plato: The principle discussed in connection with Plato is the idea of distance.  In other words, put some distance between yourself and your screens.  Put your iPhone in your desk drawer and take a walk.  Go away for a weekend and leave all of your devices at home.  For those addicted to screens, this will certainly be unsettling at first.  But if you stay with it, a little bit of magic might happen.

Gutenberg: The principle here is using technology to move your focus inward.  Prior to the development of the printing press, reading was an “outward” activity. Almost all reading was done out loud for an audience – at church for example.  Reading quietly to oneself is a relatively new activity, and when we do it with a disconnected mechanism (e.g., a real book made out of paper), it can be an opportunity for quiet contemplation and reflection. And no,  your Kindle does not count!

Chris Tuttle, Esq.

Shakespeare’s principle is to use old tools to ease your information/connection overload.  The author’s example is to carry around a paper notebook in which you jot ideas and other thoughts.  Because the notebook is not connected, you interact with it in a more focused and less distracted way.  The mind is calm and you can breathe and think.  You’re at the coffee shop with your moleskin journal and without your BlackBerry — thus you are temporarily liberated from the Tyranny of Email (book by John Freeman).

Benjamin Franklin:  The principle here is to employ positive rituals in order to improve your life and phase out bad habits.  The example cited in this portion of Hamlet’s Blackberry is to set aside certain times of day when you will be disconnected.  Turn off Outlook for two hours every morning and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.

Thoreau: Walden was a grand experiment in actualizing a disconnected utopia.  But it is important to remember that Thoreau was not a hermit.  Instead, he consciously chose to create a physical environment that was screen-free (screen-free being used more generally here to refer to a setting free from connection to the crowd).  Powers takes this lesson and has applied it in his own home – some rooms are entirely screen free, and serve as places where his family can gather and interact in a more intimate and satisfying way.  This type of enriching retreat allows us to return to our connected lives with renewed energy and purpose.

And Marshall McLuhan: The famous coiner of the phrase “The Medium is the Message.”   The lesson of McLuhan is that we have the ultimate control of our inner mental life.  We control the points of entry and the quantity and quality of what is allowed to enter into our consciousness.  Perhaps you should turn off your television.  Is the information that you’re receiving enriching your life?  Is it making you happier and more productive?

Thanks for reading – pull the plug and see what happens! You can always go back.

Editor’s Second Note:  Chris also provided this link to a related NYT story on children’s attention spans and A.D.H.D.

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

So how can leaders make the best use of their time?  There are a number of small, incremental changes – shifts – each leader can make to their daily behaviors that will assist in keeping both the focus and momentum of the organization pointed in the right direction.

Shifts in Personal Work Habits that Increase Focus

It’s easy to get mired in the details of the day, to get lost in the weeds.  Nothing is more frustrating than getting to the end of the day and realizing that no forward progress was made on the initiatives that matter most. 

This happens because of the non-stop interruptions and distractions that bombard us throughout the day.  Here are a couple of ways to reduce the daily “noise” you experience.

1. Turn New Message Alerts Off.   These self-inflicted interruptions are riddling your ability to focus and be productive.  Instead, check your e-mail, texts and voice mails periodically throughout the day to remain responsive to those who need your attention.
2. Create a Designated Work Space.  Identify a defined physical space – like your desktop – that you clear of everything except the one thing you need to work on right now.  This will help you eliminate the distracting effects of peripheral vision, i.e., the files and other stuff on your desk.
3. Do One Thing at a Time.  There is a growing body of science that proves that multi-tasking is inefficient.  Still skeptical? Try having a conversation with someone who is checking their e-mail at the same time they’re “talking” with you.  Doing one thing at a time means you can be laser focused on that one thing and results in increased personal productivity.

These slight shifts in your personal work behaviors reduce the distractions and interruptions you suffer.  The result will be a quieter, more focused work effort allowing you to get more done.

Shifts in Management Style that Increase Responsiveness

Managing others is a vital, yet time consuming activity.  It’s also an area where getting lost in the weeds is very easy to do.  Try these shifts in your management style to increase both your responsiveness and efficiency.

1. Reduce Meeting Length by 25%.  Work fills the time allotted.  If meetings are scheduled for 60 minutes, they take 60 minutes. If scheduled for 45 minutes, they’ll take 45 minutes.  Shazam!  We just found 15 minutes in the day for everyone.
2. Use Robust Subject Lines.  Descriptive subject lines assist the reader to determine how important your e-mail is in relation to the others already in the inbox.  It also assists their ability to find and file it quickly.
3. No Core Dumping in Real Time.  You have a lot of good ideas, but you also have some not-so-good ideas.  Sharing every new idea you have with your entire staff via a “group” missive is very distracting FOR THEM.  Instead, gather your ideas together, review them periodically, and, if appropriate, share them with your staff to see if additional development is merited.

Time working or meeting with team members is some of the most expensive time spent in any organization.  Maximizing that time is a key leadership objective and these suggestions can help you accomplish that objective.

Shifts in Leadership Perspective that Increase Effectiveness

A key leadership strategy is the development of team member talent.  As your people become more capable, they can take shoulder more of the existing workload and facilitate your focus and efforts on other initiatives.  The following suggestions will help you continuously improve your team’s abilities.

1. Do Right Versus Be Right.  Actions speak louder than words – always.  People watch you – their leader – to determine what is important and how to achieve the results sought.  Knowing when to do the right thing versus when to prove your intellectual prowess is a subtle skill that must be constantly refined for your and their benefit. 
2. Honor Face Time – Be Present.  The most important time you spend with team members is the real-time time.  Be totally present whenever you are engaged in a real-time event with one or more of your people.  Do NOT check our e-mail on your BlackBerry or rummage around looking for things.  Stop whatever you are doing and honor the ”face time” spent with them. 
3. Elicit Versus Give Answers.  If you answer every question your team asks, you’re training them to ask questions.  Try asking questions back instead.  You hired these people because you thought they were bright and capable. Give them a chance to prove it … to you both.

The more you develop the people around you, the more effective and cohesive you all become.  Maintaining a view towards the small things you can do to effect this result will drive everyone to a higher level of ability.

Small Changes Create Large Benefit

The recommendations above may seem inconsequential.  Many may seem obvious common sense.  But challenge yourself to look clearly at how you work, manage and lead to see if any of these suggestions will benefit your organization. 

Each suggested shift in behavior is small, but the aggregate benefit of these small shifts is significant over time.  Find a way to achieve that significance for yourself, your people and your organization.

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Incessant Noise Makes Johnny Less Effective

The most insidious feature of most alert systems is the “snooze” option.  Disguised as a benefit, snooze buttons really only allow us to defer the inevitable.  And, in doing so, distract us from what we were focusing on BEFORE the alert sounded.  This may seem like no big deal, but here’s an illustrative example of why we should stop availing ourselves of the snooze option.

Many people use an alarm clock to wake up each morning.  Most who do set the alarm clock so they can hit the snooze button once … twice … thrice … ?  The oft-stated reason for this is that we can semi-consciously linger in the warmth of our bedding gradually preparing ourselves for the coming day. How idyllic. 

Here’s a different view of that same situation.  Most snooze buttons are set to re-sound the alarm every nine minutes or so. Thus, we if set our alarms for 30 minutes prior to the time we need to get up, we can hit the snooze three times.  In effect, then, what we’re really doing is robbing ourselves of 30 minutes of Good Sound Sleep!  And most of us aren’t getting the recommended eight to nine hours of sleep as it is!

Quit Deferring and Start Commanding Your Life

The message here? Stop relying on snooze.  All it’s doing is distracting you from getting something more important done.  The best practice here is to set the alert time for the “right” time, whether it’s for getting up in the morning or for the pre-meeting time you need to prepare for an upcoming calendared event.

You control many of the distractions you suffer.  Snooze is one of them.  Give yourself a break from the noise and see if you don’t just get more done and enjoy it more along the way.

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.