When time is scarce (when is it not these days) and the to-do list is endless, prioritizing important projects, deciding where to spend your time and maintaining energy are critical skills for the overburdened executive. Everyone today in corporate environments will tell you that time is the scarcest resource while work volume is increasing. With shrinking budgets, an over-abundance of information, twenty-four seven access on multiple devices and increasing business complexity, leaders must use their time wisely.
This is true for all executives, and for those new to C-levels roles especially, where a leader spends his or her time are the most essential skill sets to build credibility in the first year and beyond. Seasoned executives could benefit from periodic adjustments to their time, energy and resources without apology as well. A key part of this time adjustment is often managing the expectations of others’ about where you will focus your precious time, resources and energy. Although coaching goals for executives are targeted at outcomes, such as increasing revenues, maintaining or decreasing costs, envisioning new lines of business, leading organizational change or communicating with key stakeholders effectively, our coaching conversations often include managing oneself effectively, monitoring where time is spent and recasting focus areas to use that time well. Understanding where a leader currently spends his or her time might sound onerous, however, a quick calendar scan over a two to four-week time frame will illustrate well enough the big buckets of work and time allocated to them. The narrative often goes like this, “I can’t believe I spend most of my time on short- term horizon activities, mostly in meetings, presiding over daily operations and initiatives.” CEO’s should be spending the bulk of their time on mid to long horizon strategies that only he or she can do for the company. Another observation that’s common is the frequency of important impromptu conversations that could potentially wait to be addressed in other venues such as staff meetings, scheduled 1:1 update(s) or handled by others (the direct reports of the CEO). It’s not that open-door policies are bad, in fact, they’re great for preserving or building healthy business cultures, however, executives must maintain a focus on the right work to move the business forward and delegate the rest. As many of the executives I work with are making the transition to C-level jobs for the first time, letting go of the old functional responsibilities is a difficult habit to break. It’s tempting to keep a hand in old functional activities from one’s previous job, instead of fully handing them to other leaders so they can learn. Holding onto perfection expectations can be one reason for holding on to old work or simply that this work is a comfort zone, where one feels competent. One new C-level executive, Jane, had grown up in the company before becoming CEO. When we reviewed where she was spending her time, as much as 40% of her time was spent in lower value activities that could be handled by her successor. Many leaders wait too long to hand work to other senior leaders, and instead are in some way micro-managing this work that now belongs to others in the organization. The question becomes, how deep should one go into functional work versus adopting a new role as coach or advisor to up and coming leaders? Jane was also spending 25% of her time on a significant organization change project by sitting in long weekly change team meetings and attending satellite office meetings where the operational change work was taking place. After evaluating her time, she moved from doer to sponsor in the change work, keeping an appropriate distance while her very capable senior leaders managed the daily tasks. When she became more of the thinking partner to them, she bought herself significant amounts of time to focus on important external community and legislative outreach. She made significant changes in her mindset about the value of her contributions across the company and began to control her work, instead of it controlling her. As a result of her new focus on high priority work, Jane found she had more energy to give to her daily responsibilities. She started to feel energized instead of exhausted. For example, she changed how she utilized transition times before and after work and between meetings or conversations. Jane used to catch up on emails while riding to work on the ferry. Instead of feeling behind on daily communications, she spent her ride time thinking about longer term opportunities for the company. As a result, she would arrive at work feeling more energized and proactive. She made sure that work processes were in place to manage annual planning work streams and delegated this accountability to her head of operations. When leaders would ask her questions about strategic planning deliverable(s) she would refer them to her COO. Jane created what we called micro-practices during the day that would allow her to assess if she was focused on the right work, such as repurposing mornings, when she generally felt fresher, for ideating with her direct reports. She caught up on emails twice a day at specific times that were scheduled on her calendar as uninterrupted desk time. Jane gave herself permission to attend her favorite yoga class every week. She also allowed one late day a week to catch up if needed, otherwise she went home on time to be with her family on a more consistent basis. One of the biggest improvements was testing her assumptions about meetings that had been on the corporate calendar for years. She asked, “do we still need this meeting or could be repurpose this time for something else or just getting work done?” Jane asked meeting owners to provide prereading materials and agendas in advance of each meeting, so everyone arrived ready to have the conversation they needed to have. This practice was about valuing everyone’s time, not just her own. Some meetings were changed to 50 minutes, instead of one hour, so she had time between conversations to relax, breathe deeply, refocus and prepare for the next conversation. Many of her lunch hour meetings with direct reports were shortened as well, and now included a 30-minute walk when the weather was good. As a result of these small changes she found the transitions between meetings more relaxing and centering, and she gained back another 10-15% of her time on a monthly basis. It took some time to get there, but eventually, Jane was unapologetic about spending her time on the highest leverage activities for the company. Modeling this approach, gave other senior leaders permission to test assumptions about where they spent their time. Over time, meetings became much more efficient and they had less of them on a weekly basis. Senior leaders took these approaches to their own teams, so the wisdom of valuing how people spent their time was passed along to others. This approach aligned with one of their company values of delivering high-quality work and excellence in company performance. Jane’s focused time, resources and energy approach and her ability to pay herself first, ultimately paid time forward for everyone in the company.
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What does it mean to be mindful and what does it have to do with reducing stress? I’ve been practicing mindfulness every day for the past few years, after many years of wishing I practiced. To practice mindfulness, I had to separate myself from some of the activities and circumstances that increased my feelings of stress. After a few years of better managing my environment, instead of it managing me, I slowly went back to all activities with a new sense of presence and awareness, with a new ability to notice and respond to my sense of stress throughout the day.
What did I do to separate myself or better manage my environment? In the beginning of my mindfulness practice, I asked myself to simply notice what was causing stress for me? I knew that I hated being late for appointments and that included driving in unpredictable traffic to work every day. I made a simple commitment to not be late for meetings by showing up 10-15 minutes early whenever possible. If I have meetings in the city (an hour away by car) I leave home a half hour earlier than usual. That way, if I’m stuck in traffic I won’t stress about being late and if I’m lucky enough not to be delayed by traffic, I can take a walk, grab a cup of coffee or prepare for meetings before they start. That way, I show up rested, relaxed and ready. Another way I manage my environment instead of it managing me, is to pay myself the gift of space and time in my mornings and evenings as much as possible. This practice requires me to get out of bed a half hour earlier each day to meditate, write, enjoy that first cup of coffee and be present to what my body is telling me it wants today. Sometimes, that means I need a little more time to drop-in, meditate, reflect, write or take a longer stretch to get into my body before the day starts. The days when I can book-end this time for myself, after work as well as before, are banner mindfulness days, even if it’s only ten minutes of extra time for me. I started to notice, not only am I relatively stress free on those days, but I’m much better at my job, more able to attend to clients, intuit more and be a better listener as a coach. What little tricks of space and time can you find in your days to practice being mindful? The mindfulness gurus say we can aspire to live without stress at all. That’s an aspiration that might take a lifetime for me or perhaps I will never find it, however I believe it’s worth trying! Life has felt a whole lot better, with a little mindfulness practice each day, or longer practices that I make time for, so these precious moments are not consumed by other demands. By separating myself from mindless activities that create stress and showing up for myself several times a day, there are some simple tricks that also work for my very busy executive coaching clients. Simple Mindfulness Practices When you move, practice being more aware of the pace you’re moving, either in your car, walking to meetings, running to the bathroom or noticing that you’re racing through lunch or not really attending to the needs of others. Conversely, my wrist watch reminds me to move, if I’ve been sitting too long at my desk or in meetings. This helps me to center my attention or take an essential deep breath or stretch, to bring my attention back to the present moment. Again, these reminders are about the pace I’m moving or not moving that allow me to get back to myself and into my body. I keep a sticky note at my desk to remind myself to slow down, just a little, or a perhaps a lot! This reminder has helped me to notice when I’m holding my breath to get through a few dozen emails before a next meeting, or to regain awareness that I can choose how fast I’m going, knowing that no one else can or will do that for me. A reminder on my phone every two hours says – what is (actually) here now? This short phrase supports me to stop what I’m doing and be mindful in the moment. The text reminder jars my attention back to my breath, so I can take a few deep ones, to regain a sense of myself that I can so easily throw away when responding or reacting to the world around me. These simple practices may seem remedial or unnecessary, however, in utilizing them to kick-start a mindfulness practice, I’ve extended my ability to be aware and present for many months instead of dropping the habits entirely. One of my favorite practices is to remember to pause whenever I’m making a transition in time or place, such as entering a room for a meeting, getting out of my car, stopping at a traffic light in my car, preparing for my next conversation or readying my head and heart to give my next activity or person the full attention it (he/she) deserves. These transitions between times or activities are what I call “white spaces” that offer moments to practice, take deep breaths, set intentions for what I’m about to do next. Paying attention to the multiple transitions we make throughout a day can relieve stress or lower anxiety that might be held in your body as you move from one moment to the next. These many invitations in a day have become the barometers for how I’m feeling and what I might need in this moment. They are small gifts of time that are ours for the taking. I think of them as training wheels in my mindfulness practice. The practice of mindfulness for stress reduction is a way of living and moving throughout our days. The reminder that, “we are what we practice,” is what stress reduction is all about. It’s about being simply present throughout the day for ourselves and no-one else. A selfish act perhaps, but well worth the investment for the payback we and others receive from our deliberate practices. It’s all about feeling and being great! There’s no doubt the conditions for leadership have changed in today’s volatile, uncertain, constantly changing and ambiguous (VUCA) world. An essential capability for leadership success is emotional intelligence (EQ) - the capacity to recognize our own feelings and those of others, and the ability to regulate our own emotions and effectively manage relationships with others (Daniel Goleman).
A lot has been written about the power of emotional awareness to impact business results and to create the conditions for employees to be engaged in meaningful work. Goleman’s research shows that EQ has double the impact on business performance, compared to IQ. In fact, 67% of competencies essential for high performance are related to EQ and it is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining 58% of success. In times of constant change, when employees experience even more stress than usual, managing the emotional context of work becomes even more important. The EQ capability of self-awareness is essential - being able to recognize our own emotions, especially under stress or change, being open to feedback from others and being open to understanding our impact on others. It makes sense then that demonstrating emotional awareness and flexibility when our everyday work environment is ambiguous, allows us to self-regulate or demonstrate higher levels of self-control while remaining open to new ideas and being empathetic to the experiences of others. The resulting ability to manage work relationships effectively makes it possible for everyone to do better work in times of ambiguity. Managing the turbulence of VUCA business environments, allows a higher range of openness to relationships and new ideas, and the ability to consider multiple perspectives, experiences and possibilities – skills required for continuous improvement and large scale innovation. The very good news is that EQ can be learned through practice, by developing self and other awareness, and learning to self-regulate our own emotions to effectively manage our relationships with others. In my coaching work with leaders, EQ practices build these capabilities as leaders learn to pay attention to emotional triggers, understand the assumptions they hold and ask for feedback from others about their impact. When under stress our key relationships can be compromised by emotional volatility or reactivity, and our openness to new or alternate perspectives and possibilities becomes limited or shut down as we revert to what we know. Curious leaders that build their EQ capabilities set a higher bar for business performance and innovation, setting the conditions for people to ask questions, test assumptions, create experiments that will inevitably fail and enable the organization to learn, even or especially in VUCA conditions. Emotional Intelligence is the Essential Fuel for Innovation and perhaps the most important capability for leadership success. |
AuthorI founded The Red Rock Consultancy for the specific purpose of working with C-level executives, senior leaders and their leadership teams as an integral leadership development resource. Blog Posts
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