LEADERSHIP-THE BOTTOM LINE
Monthly Leadership Session Follow-up!
Time Management & Organization!
Delegation & Coaching!
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“Surround yourself with the very best people you can find, then delegate
responsibility and the authority needed to get the job done, and then don’t
interfere.” — Ronald Reagan
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Wednesday,
July 29, 2009
What a productive month this has been. The sessions around the country during July have been great! I can say with regard to the month overall that we have not only been efficient – but we have also been quite effective at moving the ball down the field and accomplishing the goals we set out to achieve this month.
Do you remember our discussion regarding the need to be both efficient and effective? It takes both if you are going to be successful at not only managing your time profitably but achieving your most important goals in the process.
Again, we would like to thank you for your participation in our monthly leadership development session during the month of July, 2009. Our two topics this month were time management & organization, and also delegation (delegation from a coaching perspective). Let’s invest a few minutes together as we touch on some of the most important points we made in our session.
Time Management
We agreed that our time is absolutely our most precious and valuable resource, that without it we have ‘nothing’. We discussed the fact that as precious as we say that it is, there are still a good number of people who would tend to waste it, kill it or spend it, rather than invest it, protect it and ultimately cherish it.
We discussed the fact that the primary difference between achievers and non-achievers, when it comes to the issue of time management, is the fact that achievers have a tendency to be ‘well thought-out’ when it comes to their awareness of who they are and what’s most important to them in their life. They know what they want and why, and they have charted a course designed to lead them to the success they desire.
They are what we referred to in our session as ‘priority thinkers’; they have developed the intuitive ability to always know what the single most important thing is they should be doing at any given moment. They manage their time based on their priorities. Do you remember what determines their priorities? You’re correct! It’s their goals. They’re typically focused on their goals and their game plan for achieving their goals. They allow their plan to determine their priorities, their decisions and their actions.
They are typically successful because they are clear in their thinking and they’re committed to succeeding. They plan their work and they work their plan; and they’re willing to do the things that unsuccessful people won’t do in order to take control of their time and resources. It’s this ‘mind-set’ that keeps them in the driver’s seat and makes it possible for them to typically achieve twice as much as most other people.
Keys to Effective Time Management
On page 7-6, we discussed four simple but extremely important keys to effective time management. These keys are critical to our ability to not only accomplish all that we have to accomplish each day but also to our ability to achieve success in our career and live the fulfilling life that we all want for ourselves and our family.
Do you remember the four keys?
1. Place a high degree of value on your time!
We discussed the fact that the value you place on your time reflects the value you place on the quality of your life. We also agreed that the degree to which we value our time will influence how much others are going to be willing to value our time – which is important when it comes to our ability to manage interruptions, conduct efficient meetings and get things done in our department.
2. Know what you really want and why!
We discussed the fact that when you are committed to achieving important goals in your life, they become the basis for the decisions you make, and they make it possible for you to determine if what you are doing is really what you really should be doing with your time at any given moment. They’re also an important source of motivation, especially when it comes to the discipline that will sometimes be required of us where our focus – and our time management is concerned.
3. Develop and follow a strategic action plan!
It’s your game plan for achieving your goals that helps you recognize what your priorities need to be each day. Your game plan makes it possible for you to plan ahead and to be able to make important decisions as you are working through each of your workdays.
4. Condition yourself to achieve success!
This fourth key is often overlooked. This fourth key is all about us developing the ability to manage ourselves and our environment as we are working through each of our days. It is not enough to have goals and a workable daily plan, I have got to develop the discipline necessary to be able to remain focused until the task is completed and not allow myself to become distracted or fall prey to procrastination. In addition, I’m going to need to learn to effectively manage the inevitable distractions that interrupt all of us as we are attempting to achieve our daily tasks.
The key to your success will always come down to your own
self-management; (mental toughness and self-discipline).
Top Time Wasters
It was during this part of our session that we focused on what are considered to be the most common time wasters faced by business professionals in the workplace today. You will remember that on pages 7-7 and 7-8, we gave you the opportunity to determine for yourself what your own greatest time wasters tend to be; the idea being that until you are able to clearly recognize where the challenges lay, you can’t really do anything about them.
It was on page 7-8, that you were given the opportunity to narrow them down to your top three most costly time wasters – which represented your greatest time waster in each of the following three categories:
1. Planning & Organizing
2. Organizing & Managing Yourself
3. Organizing & Managing your Environment
Top Ten Time Wasters – Statistically
On page 7-10, (and in our video presentation), we then focused on what statistically is considered to be the top ten time wasters in the workplace generally speaking, and we discussed some of the most effective options we have available to us when it comes to overcoming these time wasting (time stealing) challenges.
By the way, the top ten time wasters were-are:
1. Crisis Management causing Shifting Priorities
2. Interruptions: Telephone & Drop-ins
3. Lack of Goals, Priorities & Planning
4. Personal Disorganization
5. Lack of Self-Discipline
6. Meetings
7. Paperwork & Red Tape
8. Incomplete or Delayed Information
9. Confused Responsibility & Authority
10. Attempting Too Much, Inability to say ‘No’
Our team and group discussions yielded some very interesting and unique ideas when it came to the ways that many of you suggested you would approach overcoming the various time wasters that you determined were your most costly. I can hardly wait to hear what some of the outcomes will be.
Let’s Get Organized!
On page 7-13, we discussed adopting a perspective and establishing an important pattern, when it comes to keeping ourselves – and our environment – organized to insure both efficiency and effectiveness.
Plan Your Day
For example, we determined that it’s ultimately going to be best for us to plan for our ‘tomorrow’ at the end of our day ‘today’ while our goals and objectives, and the progress we have or have not made today is fresh on our minds. We agreed that having a well-thought-out game plan prepared and waiting for us there in the morning would make it possible for us to get a much more successful start on our day; and it would increase our odds of achieving more by the end of the day for all of the reasons we discussed in our session together.
By planning tomorrow today, you in essence end up with a timed check list to follow the next day. Simply follow your plan, stay ontask, minimize interrupts by learning to deal with them effectively and remember to factor in enough time to allow for all of those interrupts that could be considered just another part of your ‘job description’.
Organize Your Desk
We discussed that a cluttered desk will usually reflect a cluttered mind and that it’s tough to really focus in an unorganized, inefficient, messy environment. We agreed that typically we want to have only the following three things on our desk at any given time which are:
1. Our Daily Planner
2. Today’s Game Plan
3. Our Current Project
Manage Your Paperwork
We also discussed two very important ‘rules of thumb’ when it comes to managing the paperwork that tends to get stacked up in and around our office such as separating stacks of paperwork into categories based on their priority and handling paperwork only once to the degree possible.
Daily Time Log
Probably the most interesting discussions in all of the different meetings centered around the challenge that was issued to keep a daily time log for at least a week to allow us the opportunity to see first hand where our time is really being spent, invested or wasted.
Is our time being wisely invested, spent on low-priority tasks or being wasted entirely? That’s the ultimate purpose of the Daily Time Log. We had a few folks suggest that they were too busy to even think about keeping a time log but when we asked them if they were truly happy with the amount of work they felt they were typically able to accomplish each day, they had to respond in the negative. So the general consensus in the majority of the meetings was that you ultimately couldn’t afford not to go through the exercise if you were really sincere about being as productive as you could possibly be in your position.
In our discussions, we actually related the concept of a daily time log to gathering the information necessary to prepare a financial budget designed to move us from the ‘red’ to the ‘green’, this based on the fact that back on page 7-3, so many people had chosen ‘Time is Money’ in our discussions. Example . . .
If I am in financial trouble and want to determine why, and what it’s going to take to get me out of that trouble, the first thing I’m going to have to do is to begin logging where my money is coming from and where it’s going. Once I’m armed with that data, I can then begin to make some wise decisions with regard to positioning myself to be able to start accomplishing my financial goals.
Managing our time is no different than managing our money. If you think it is, you are only fooling yourself. In both instances, you have to begin by determining what is most important to you and what you are going to want to accomplish, and then develop a strategy for moving yourself from where you are to where you are going to want to be, in whatever time frame you have established for yourself . . . and it all begins with you taking stock of where you are right now – hence – the Time Log.
Time Log Form
The actual Time Log form is on page 7-15. Your goal will be to make enough copies of the form to be able to keep an accurate log of your activities for at least one 5 day period – Monday through Friday. The process is really much more simple than it might at first appear once you get the hang of it. We have a number of participants now who will check themselves with daily time logs at least once a quarter or annually at the very least – and they have nothing but very positive things to say about the benefits they experience.
Daily Time Log Reminders
The easy directions are there for you on page 7-16. Participants who have gone through the exercise in the past have suggested that you briefly review the directions each morning for the first few days until you get into the flow of keeping your daily log. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did – it will keep the process easy for you and you will greatly appreciate what you will learn about yourself.
Analyze Your Daily Time Log
At the end of your week, you will want to spread all five of your completed time logs, (Monday through Friday), across your desk and then begin analyzing them one log at a time based upon the steps and questions you will see on page 7-17. I promise you that you will definitely be surprised at what you are going to learn.
Once you are able to spot the ‘trends’ and you begin to recognize what your time wasters really are, you will then want to move on to the next page to begin thinking through an action plan.
Daily Time Log – Follow-up Action Plan
What action plan am I talking about? What steps are you going to begin taking on a daily basis to begin establishing some new habit patterns in your life? Habit patterns designed to help you get back the one, two or three hours of time that your time wasters have been stealing from you.
Again, just follow the prompts. The steps are easy to take, however, keep in mind that if you need any assistance at all, that’s what we are here for. Just contact us through the information listed below or just click here.
Time Management Benefits
We ended our segment on time management by discussing the many benefits associated with you completing the time log exercise and you beginning to manage your time in the manner that we discussed in our session together.
The benefits are important for you to understand and believe in because human nature would suggest that we won’t invest the effort required to make needed changes in our life unless we are really sold on – and excited about – what will be in it for us when we succeed.
My encouragement would be for you to slowly and introspectively review each of the benefits listed on page 7-19, and ask yourself what the ‘benefit’ of each benefit will be to you personally. That’s where the needed change needs to start!
We Are Here to Help You
We already have a number of people who have followed up with us to schedule an opportunity for a private ‘one-on-one’ coaching session to walk them through the process of getting started with their logs because of their genuine desire to be able to take back control of their time.
As a matter of fact, why don’t you send us an email and/or just give us a call and we’ll schedule a convenient time to walk you through the process of getting your logs started, and we will also be happy to help you set up an effective time management system while we are there with you if you would like. Our contact information is listed below.
Do it today while you’re thinking about it!
(This is a very valuable resource your company is making
available to you – plan to take full advantage of it!!)
Delegation (Selegation!)
In our second segment, we began to discuss what ended up representing a major paradigm shift for a lot of those participating in the session when we began discussing the genuine leader’s approach to delegation, which by the way, is quite different than the typical manager’s approach to delegation.
We began by defining delegation as entrusting responsibility, granting authority and creating accountability for specific agreed upon results. We stated that the real purpose of delegation is to not only achieve a successful outcome with regard to the assigning of a task or project, but its ultimate purpose is to give someone an opportunity to stretch and to achieve some success and thereby be given an opportunity for real growth.
We also discussed some of the main differences between a typical manager’s approach to delegation vs. a genuine leader’s approach to achieving measurable results though others while developing his or her people in the process. We listed a number of those differences toward the bottom of page 7-25. Ultimately, it’s all a matter of style, intent, good people skills and having a well-thought-out process to follow.
Remember:
No genuine lasting success is ever achieved
as the result of just shooting from the hip!
With that in mind . . .
Selegation Process
We discussed the fact that effective ‘Selegation’ has a whole lot to do with moving your team member through a process designed to empower him or her to take genuine ownership of the task and to take pride in achieving a positive outcome with it for all of the right reasons.
On page 7-27, we discussed the fact that the process really needs to be broken down into four important stages – which are as follows:
1. Preparation (Steps 1-3)
(Prior to meeting with the employee.)
2. Explanation (Steps 3-5)
(You are doing most of the explaining.)
3. Creation of Involvement (Steps 6-9)
(You are asking open-ended questions and listening.)
4. Implementation of the Task (Steps 10-11)
(You are in a support mode at this stage providing needed assistance.)
On page 7-26, we discussed our way through the actual steps involved in the complete process – which are as follows:
1. What is the project?
(You are preparing for a successful meeting.)
2. To whom am I selegating?
(Who can benefit from achieving some success in this area?)
3. Describe the project!
(Make sure they understand everything necessary regarding the project.)
4. Explain why they are being selected!
(Build their confidence and empower them to succeed.)
5. Describe how they will benefit when successful!
(Get them excited about what’s in it for them when they succeed.)
6. Ask how they plan to approach the project!
(Listen to their responses, don’t interrupt, allow them to take ownership.)
7. Ask them to develop a plan of action!
(Allow it to be their creative ideas for buy-in & commitment.)
8. Ask how they plan to implement their plan!
(Ask questions to stimulate creative thinking process.)
9. Ask how they will measure their progress!
(Allow them to create their own accountability factors – just listen.)
10. Record strategic dates on your calendar!
(Take notes and record dates in your own time management system.)
11. Provide follow-up!
(Provide on-going coaching, support, and encouragement.)
Opportunities for Selegation
On page 7-28, our objective, after developing an understanding of the selegation process, was to consider the ways that we have traditionally approached delegating assignments in the past, in light of the new and potentially different approach we discussed in our session – and then ask ourselves what we might have done differently – and what, if any, different outcomes might we have achieved.
We also discussed what we liked about the more leadership-oriented approach to delegating and what we liked about the process. A lot of the answers centered around the process being much more people-oriented. Many participants really appreciated the opportunity for greater involvement on the part of the person who the task is being delegated to – and the fact that it represented a very clearly defined, easy set of steps to follow.
Preparation for Selegation
Your challenge now is to set yourself up to benefit from the process by following through and using it next time you have a need to assign a project or task to one of your team members. You being able to really benefit from the process will be very easy!
All you will need to do will be to turn to page 7-29, and begin reading through, thinking through and then following each one of the prompts listed on the page. Be sure and take a few notes and remember that proper prior preparation really will prevent pitiful poor performance!
Once you have used the process a few times – trust me – you will love the impact it has on team members and the results it produces – and it will just become your normal way of approaching assigning tasks or projects. Not only will you like it – but your team members will really appreciate you taking that approach with them because of the very healthy impact it will have on them and how really empowered they will feel by the end of their meeting with you!
Enjoy!!
Secret to Successful Selegation
We summarized the whole philosophy of Selegation on page 7-30.
We agreed that it essentially comes down to the following:
1. Leadership!
2. Salesmanship!
3. Ownership!
4. Job Satisfaction!
5. Pattern of Successes!
. . . and remembering to never tell anyone anything you can ask them!
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July Application Projects
1. Review the material we covered in this month’s session on Time Management. Set up your own personal Time Log. Keep it for a minimum of one week in an effort to determine specifically how you are utilizing your time on a regular basis.
2. At the conclusion of your first week, following the guidelines outlined in this month’s printed materials on page 7-17, carefully analyze your Time Log to determine what areas you might improve in. Focus on how many hours you will be able to regain by taking back control of your time.
3, Set up your own Personal Action Plan for improvement and begin to implement your plan on a consistent basis in an effort to make the improvements you desire. Use the form on page 7-18.
4. Plan to turn in a photocopy of your completed Personal Action Planwhen you check in at the beginning of next month’s session. Note at the top of the page how many hours you feel you will be able to regain by implementing your Personal Action Plan.
5. Review the steps to successful Selegation we covered in this month’s session. Plan to utilize the process with a minimum of one (1) person between now and next month’s session.
6. Answer the questions on page 7-33, regarding how you implemented the process with one or more of your people, and plan to turn in a photocopy of your completed project when you check in at the beginning of next month’s session; Be prepared to share your most successful Selegation experience with the class at the beginning of the session.
5. Call the student services number below for personalized, one-on-one ‘on-site’ coaching assistance with your application projects, or for assistance with any other ‘people issues’ you may be faced with.
You can reach us directly at (800) 955-0109, or via email.
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Great Idea!!
Why don’t you go ahead and follow through and get started on your application projects now while the content and all the concepts are still fresh in your mind?
As a matter of fact, once you get started, you’ll really enjoy thinking through the processes and succeeding! Your people will enjoy and appreciate it too!
Remember:
Please feel free to email or you can give us a call if you would like any personal assistance and/or coaching when it comes to completing your application projects this month.
You can call or email! (See Below!)
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Coaching!
Let me remind you once again to plan to take full advantage of your opportunity for individual ‘on-site’ coaching in any of the areas that pertain to the application of the concepts, principles and processes we cover in our monthly sessions. In addition, we are always happy to assist you in any areas pertaining to everyday ‘people’ issues. We can assist you by phone or at your location. Just email or give us a call and we will go to work on scheduling a convenient time for us to get together.
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Next Month . . .
Make sure you join us again next month as we take an interesting look at the ‘mechanics’ of motivating employees and also how to conduct the kinds of productive meetings that employees actually look forward to and don’t fall asleep in!
All kidding aside – we’re going to take a look at some methodologies that will make meetings much more interesting and productive for everyone. These will be two very valuable sessions you will not want to miss. I’ll tell you more about what to expect in the August email newsletter & monthly reminder.
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One Last Thing . . .
If you get a minute, go to the end of this article and leave us a comment, and be sure to include some feedback regarding this month’s session. We always appreciate and enjoy hearing back from you. Have a great month and remember . . . .
“The will to win is worth nothing
unless you have the will to prepare.”
See you in class!
Sincerely,
Jim
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The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it. – Theodore Roosevelt
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Contact Information . . .
Jim Abbondante
President, Director of Training
Direct Line: (817) 304-2225
Leadership Institute
Main Number: (817) 405-0012
Student Services Number: 1-800-955-0109
(Personal and/or Executive Coaching, Misc. Needs, etc.)
E-Mail: Leadership.Team@LeadershipInstituteUSA.com
Web-Site: www.LeadershipInstituteUSA.com
