Leadership Sculptorself-management | Leadership Sculptor

Time Management: Why it is futile

cj — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:30:10 +0000

Time management is a topic that will always be with us. In a recent leadership workshop, one of the participants, a professor of physics, asked me about it. I thought that the wise words of Lewis Carroll, the pseudonym of Oxford mathematician Charles Dodgson, on time management might appeal to him. They did. They illustrate the futility of classical time management. Carroll’s insight, almost 150 years ago, is that we’re better off making friends with time, than trying to manage or beat him (not it). Here is the passage, from Chapter 7 of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, that sums up the futility of attempting to manage time.
Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time”, she said, “than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers.” “If you knew time as well as I do”, said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.” “I don’t know what you mean”, said Alice. “Of course you don’t!”, the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to time!” “Perhaps not”, Alice cautiously replied; “but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.” “Ah! That accounts for it”, said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just in time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!”

If you can drop the illusion that you need time management, what perspective does that open up for your day? How could you make friends with time?

Photo: eBooks@Adelaide

The Power of Time Off

cj — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:00:19 +0000

Many thanks to Kati Järvinen, a colleague in the Enneagram in Business network, for bringing Stefan Sagmeister’s TED talk to my attention.

In it, he describes how he made a conscious decision to take a one-year sabbatical every seven years and the impact of this decision. Conceptually, he took five years out of the retirement phase of his life and interspersed them through the career portion. The effect on his creativity has been enormous, as he illustrates through the talk. The seven years following his first sabbatical was fuelled by ideas that sprang from the year off.

I’ve experimented with shorter breaks and found them beneficial, both to me (I recharge my ideas bank) and to my customers (who benefit from these). Sagmeister’s talk has set me wondering, what would it be like to take a longer break … would the benefit be even greater?

Make sure to watch the entire film, the final sequence is a peach.

How much initiative do you want?

cj — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:52:08 +0000

When discussing with clients how to lead subordinates, one question that arises often is, how much initiative should my people show? In their classic HBR article, Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey? Oncken and Wass lay out a five-level scale of managerial initiative (1 – 5 in the figure). My clients’ staff are more resourceful and so I’ve added two more levels to the original model, 0 and 6.

Level 0 never made it onto their scale, yet it seems to have been a beloved strategy in the financial services industry in recent years. The presence of Level 0 is a sign that a company needs urgent organizational developmental help.

Level 1 describes behavior you would prefer to eliminate from your own working habits, as well as those of your subordinates. People who indulge in this have no control over their time or the content of their work – it increases the chances that the working day turns out to be full of (stressful) surprises. Leaders who encourage this behavior get what they ask for: overworked, poorly motivated yes-persons.

In classical management (and the scale was written in 1975), Level 2 is also a candidate for banning. Oncken & Wass recommended that managers never indulge in this behavior, since it can surrender control over the content of one’s job. However, understanding of leadership has developed over the past thirty years, so we need to be careful here. An unthinking, “what do I do now, boss?” deserves to disappear. However, thoughtful questioning to elicit understanding of a problem and to identify possible next steps belongs in any leader’s toolkit.

Many managers, when they first see this scale, state that it’s impossible to get subordinates even to Level 3. In practice, it’s not too difficult: As long as you have basic mutual respect, you only need to make a habit of asking people for their suggestions to get them into the habit of bringing suggestions to you, and not just a problem for you to solve. They’ll get the hang of it and save themselves the routine question.

As trust and understanding of how each other works develops, subordinates will naturally arrive at Levels 4 and 5 over time. Part of this development involves exposing people to your thinking processes in decision-taking and values, so that they have a good idea what’s expected; they won’t get it by osmosis or telepathy. I recently spoke with one senior manager who was frustrated that his secretary was not screening his e-mails adequately. It turns out, he expected her to know which ones deserved his attention, which ones should be diverted to other people, and which ones binned. He has now scheduled some time with her, so that they can go through his in-box together and she can understand how he would like her to deal with his mails.

At first, many people don’t see a problem with Level 6. Indeed, when managers are suffering from data overload (too many mails, messages, meetings), it can be tempting to allow staff to drift towards Level 6. However, you lose the overview of what’s going on, which impairs your ability to lead. One client, Director of Sales & Marketing, was delighted about how much initiative his staff showed. It was only when his department began to miss its targets that he realized his sales team was neither sharing important customer information with him nor each other. During their next meeting, they looked together at how their enthusiasm and independence was turning counterproductive, and moved back to Level 5. Sales improved in a tough market.

Where are you – or your staff – on this initiative scale?

The Art of Hosting

cj — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:22:02 +0000

Approaches such as Open Space support the emergence of leadership in organizations. Some people think it’s enough to apply Open Space’s simple structure and wonderful things will happen. This is not always the case, the intention behind the method is important.

I worked with a client in July and we used Open Space for part of the organizational development process. It was their first experience of such a meeting. They were impressed with how much work they got through in a relaxed atmosphere (“We worked like bears!” — the phrase works in German), and the quality and quantity of the results produced. Since then, they have implemented almost all ideas developed during the workshop and have started to use Open Space themselves in their own leadership team meetings.

If you would like to explore more about the intention and attidue that helps when holding space, there is a wonderful set of videos on theArt of Hosting’s TVchannel. So, make yourself a cup of tea or coffee, put up your feet and learn. Here’s one to get you started:

The benefits of keeping a cool head

cj — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:56:46 +0000

In my leadership development work I meet many managers who are suffering from too much pressure in their lives and are unsure about what they can do to relieve the pressure. When I suggest a simple form of meditation or related form of relaxation, I am often met with scepticism or quizzical looks. It’s as if they are waiting for the sales pitch for some sect or other organisation. Such practices run the danger of being labelled “esoteric”. Therefore, I was delighted to come across an article Mind over Matter in the Guardian today that previews a new book by Dr Shanida Nataraja reporting on the neuroscience of meditation. Her findings show the beneficial effects of meditation on stress levels, heart and thinking capacity.

After the break …

cj — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 09:26:54 +0000

I’ve taken a break from blogging since my last entry just after our architect’s suicide. It was a good way to process the emotions and keep my energy for the important day-to-day tasks in maintaining my relationship and running the business.

Behind our house a garden has lain untended for years. We have negotiated a lease on the space and yesterday we started with the help of two gardeners to prepare the garden for use and enjoyment. We unearthed (literally) a terrace, freed-up the hortensia and discovered a rose.

Five hours spent with a total focus on the next step, in touch with nature. Ideas flowed. More importantly, I tanked energy. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be complicated to recharge one’s batteries. It reminds me of how my father used to spend an hour in the garden after returning from a hard day’s work – he was onto something!

When it stops raining, I’ll take and post a picture of how the garden looks after our work.

The $650 Billion Question

cj — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 07:29:46 +0000

Today’s New York Times reports on the latest research findings on multitasking and workplace interruption. Neuroscientists have a better idea of how much efficiency is lost when people attempt to handle even two tasks at the same time, so even that hands-free set for your mobile phone is no help when driving. It seems like Gerald Ford was ahead of the curve when he claimed to be unable to talk and walk in a straight line at the same time.

Common-sense workplace tips start with, check e-mail at most once an hour. (Aside: one of the more annoying habits I have come across is when people call me and ask me if I have read their e-mail. When I hit the download button, I notice that they sent me the mail about two minutes before they called!) My mail is already configured to download once an hour, so it’s nice to have some data to support this practice.

To find out why all this is worth $650B a year to the US economy, read here:
Slow Down, Brave Multitasker, and DonÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t Read This in Traffic

Values and health

cj — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:02:37 +0000

Values represent deeply held beliefs and show facets of identity. It’s not possible not to have them, it’s very possible not to be aware of them! They impact our health: positively, when we can live and work in alignment with our values. Negatively, when we are asked to conduct ourselves in ways we don’t value.

A friend of mine joined an organisation where people valued deceit. (He hadn’t seen this facet of the organisation during the hiring process.) Since he placed an extremely high value on integrity, it wasn’t long before he showed side effects of stress. After a few months, he couldn’t take it any more and quit. His health recovered almost overnight.

I’ll venture a prediction: neuroscience research will establish a significant correlation between values alignment in the workplace and good health, and between misalignment and poor health.