Workflow Processing | QuietSpacing

Leveraging Leadership Time – The Waterfall Effect

Sunday, January 8, 2012

(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?

DMV – The Model of Efficiency?

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Going to the DMV ranks near the bottom of things people like to do. We wait until our license plates or our driver’s licenses are nearly expired before we drag ourselves down to the local office, expecting the experience to be both miserable and interminable. Those fears, coupled with our general fear of the unknown, make a trip to the DMV something just slightly more fun than getting a root canal.

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.

Three Ways to KISS – Keeping it Short & Simple

Friday, July 29, 2011

Our workdays are bombarded by endless interruptions and distractions. They cause us to lose focus, feel more stressed, and reduce our productivity. Much of my work centers on ways to create quieter work environments (internally as well as externally) so that people can get more focused, get more done, and get more work/life balance.

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.

Deadline Setting is a Team Sport

Monday, July 11, 2011

Urgent! Top Priority! A.S.A.P. These are the deadlines routinely issued today by superiors, customers and clients. Whether issued in the Subject line of an e-mail, the closing minutes of a meeting or via a voice mail, these mandates suggest that all current activity must stop immediately and that full attention be directed the new assignment.

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.

Manage Time Better. Enjoy Life More.