You’re smart. You’re
hard-working. You have a good business
model. You have the necessary resources
and good employees. Yet, you feel as
though you get nothing done during the day. Most of the time, you feel off balance and
pulled in a hundred different directions.
Your business isn’t necessarily in trouble, yet you spend more time than
you’re comfortable with, feeling unfocused and wondering if you will get
everything done.
When looking to increase business productivity, many leaders
often look at the structure of their business, employee performance and
engagement, and work processes. And these are excellent places to tweak to
make sure the business is hitting on all cylinders. However, an often-overlooked productivity
leak can be the leader’s own personal productivity. You typically aren’t taught
that in school.
Leaders underestimate the impact they have on their
employees, not realizing that their personalities, habits, values, and focus
radiate throughout their businesses or areas of responsibility. For this reason, any productivity gains from
improving company-wide work processes and employee performance can be hampered
by a leader who hasn’t examined his own ability to be more personally
productive.
Being personally productive doesn’t mean you need to be pitching
in and doing the work that is assigned to and more appropriately done by others. Rather, it requires you to do your own work as
leader effectively. To maximize your
personal leadership productivity, start with these three ideas:
1. Design your calendar to reflect business priorities. Your business purpose and current goals should
be reflected in the strategic plan. In
turn, the strategic goals and priorities must be intentionally reflected in
your weekly calendar. If your company is
aiming to increase revenues by 10% over at 24-month period, you must schedule
appropriate weekly activities for yourself to make sure you are doing your part
to achieve that goal. Do you need to
recognize employees who are going the extra mile toward the company goals? Do you need to meet with management to
monitor progress toward the overall goal?
Do you need to work with a team to help them determine how work
processes can be improved to help achieve the goal?
It seems such a simple concept. Yet most leaders get caught up in the daily swirl
of “administrivia”, losing track of the next steps they must do or follow up on
to keep the larger goals and initiatives moving forward.
Be sure to consciously carve out 10-12 hours per week for activities
that further important business goals. The
remaining hours of your weekly calendar will reflect the routine activities
that normally consume your time – meetings, phone calls, email, keeping up on
industry trends, reviewing financials, board business, meeting with key
customers, processing through the information that lands in your office, etc.
2. Create a personal workflow system. Consciously and intentionally dedicate time everyday
to process through the information coming into your office via your physical inbox
and email. Prioritize items to do,
again, based on your strategic plan.
3. Delegate more. Many leaders fail to fully utilize their
administrative assistants and other professionals in their businesses. Delegating to others will free up time for
you and give those who have the skills and expertise opportunities to take on
work that can help them develop. Delegate
it’s not critical that you do it and if it’s appropriate work and
responsibility level for the position you want to delegate it to.
Many leaders find that putting these simple steps in place
keeps their minds clearer and more focused and reduces stress by creating a
support structure that helps them keep their most important work activities in
perspective.
