Every week I am reminded of how leaders get bogged down in busyness and how much it affects business. In today’s guest post my friend Mark Miller encourages us not to confuse activity and accomplishment. See if you can relate …
Are you busy? Me too. Unfortunately, activity is not the same as accomplishment, For some reason, I seem to forget this over and over again. I think busyness may be one of the most insidious and disruptive things leaders must guard against. Why is activity so dangerous? Here are a few reasons.
Activity can be addictive – Like other addictions, the previous level required to get a high no longer creates the needed buzz. So, we up the dose. What used to be exciting must be replaced by something even more exciting, demanding, or challenging. If we’re not extremely careful, activity will beget activity… and we’ll love it!
Activity can be distracting – If we’re busy, we may not be aware of more pressing issues and challenges. The harder we work on the wrong things, the greater the danger. We’ve all heard about the airliner that crashed while the crew was focused on a 10-cent light in the cockpit that was malfunctioning.
Activity can be counter-productive – I’ve written about this phenomena before in a post entitled, You Get No Credit for Doing the Wrong Things Well. The more diligent you are at the wrong activities, the further you are from your stated goals and objectives.
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Activity can cloud our judgment – If we’re busy doing, there’s a fair chance we’ll be too busy to think. Or, as is my case more than I want to admit, I do think but not deeply. I still believe a leader is paid, in large part, for their thinking. For me, my best thinking requires time and focus. Activity can be the thief in the night. We never really know what happened to our time to think – it’s just gone.
Activity can mask pain… for a while – Activity can serve as a painkiller for some leaders. The thinking goes something like this: If I stay busy on random things, or even good things, I can avoid the painful thing that screams for my leadership attention. This approach is like most pain medication – it ultimately wears off.
Activity can create a false sense of accomplishment – This is what trips me up all the time. I can assume I’m doing my job well because I’m exhausted! I can rationalize the tasks undone by counting all the activities I’ve checked off my To-Do list. The problem with this thinking is we only get credit when we invest our time on the right activities.
I think leaders have to be very careful not to get confused regarding what success looks like. Success is not a full calendar – our goal should be the productive use of our time to enable others to grow and accomplish predetermined outcomes. Non-strategic activity wars against our success.
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Category: Personal Effectiveness
This week’s Friday post comes from Mark Miller. His practical post surfaces and solves the greatest problem most of us have. See if you can relate.
I Think I Know Your Problem…
What do you struggle with as a leader? Based on countless conversations with leaders, I think I know. I didn’t have language to capture all these conversations until recently. Here’s what I think… the number one issue facing many leaders is forgetfulness.
Now, this is an easy topic for me to relate to… I’m at the point in life I can hide my own Easter eggs. However, forgetfulness in a leadership context is no trivial matter. It can have catastrophic effects.
Let me explain my moment of clarity on this topic; it came just a couple of weeks ago while listening to Michael Gerber. If you don’t know about Michael, he is most famous for a book, actually a series of books, around the idea of the E Myth.
Michael was the first guy I know who popularized the powerful concept that leaders need to work “on” their business not “in” their business. He contends most business owners (and many leaders) are technicians who succumbed to an entrepreneurial seizure and started their own business.
He believes his “on the business” mindset is their way to escape the trap they are building for themselves. I think there is a lot of truth in Michael’s premise, but that’s not what caught my attention.
Michael was talking about why so many leaders get caught in the day-to-day tactical activities of their business. He contends they forgot what they wanted to build from the outset. He went on to say, a leader is someone who can remember what they set out to create.
Really? Could that be true? Let’s try to test his theory:
Do you know any leader who set out to build a team, a department, or an organization that when fully orbed would suck the life out of them? I don’t. Yet, that’s what so many leaders are actually doing. I guess they forgot the original vision!
Many leaders are creating a structure and a system in which they are indispensible to day-to-day operations. When leaders get trapped in the heads down activities of the daily grind, they forfeit the opportunity to build something bigger than themselves.
If leaders don’t invest time to work “on” their team, department or organization, they will become blinded to the truth they are not creating what they set out to build: an organization with ever-growing capacity for influence, opportunity and income.
The prescription I have shared with leaders to escape this trap is simple and yet, for many it is so painful it is just out of their grasp…
Invest time outside the four walls of your organization thinking, planning and working to build what you’ve always dreamed of creating.
[Tweet “”Invest time outside the four walls of your organization thinking, planning and creating.””]
Unfortunately, only time on task can bring the future into reality. Until then, you will be a prisoner of your current situation. All you need is some time to begin planning your escape. Don’t let the tyranny of today steal your future.
Start this week. Find 2 hours to work “on” your organization.
Your First Assignment: Working away from your office, write out in great detail what it is you are trying to build. And then, tape your description to your bathroom mirror for 90 days. Or, put it anywhere else you would like so it can serve as a constant reminder. To succeed as a leader, you must be able to remember what you are trying to build.
If you need any inspiration regarding what type organization you may want to build, that’s the topic of my book, Chess Not Checkers.
The fourth quarter every year is always challenging for me. Not because of year-end deadlines or goals I’m striving to nail before the annual clock strikes midnight – the challenge is preparing for the upcoming year.
Every great leader is on a journey – a long, never-ending quest to serve and grow. Have you ever given much thought to yours? If you have, and you are like most of us, you realize your path has been challenging, exhilarating and even frustrating at times, but it has certainly not been a straight line.
People do not follow leaders they do not trust. If you and I are trustworthy, we’ve jumped a significant hurdle on the path to effective leadership. It we are not seen as trustworthy, no amount of skill will suffice. If your heart is not right, no one cares about your skills. Today’s Challenge question is… How do you build trust?
We don’t control outcomes or opportunities – we do control our readiness for the challenges and opportunities we encounter. This core belief creates a passion in leaders to learn and grow. The New Year is a perfect reset moment. Our process of preparation can have a huge impact on our readiness and our success.
Categories
How to Make 2016 Great!
Only 60 days until Christmas – only 67 days until the New Year. Are you ready? If you’re like me, you aren’t ready for either, but we can be! Ready or not, we all have a fresh start waiting for us as we begin 2016. What are you doing NOW to ensure next year will be the best year of your life as a leader?
“Finish the drill” is a phrase many athletic coaches have adopted to remind their team: victory lies at the end of the activity. This mantra not only helps sports teams, it can help me and you have a more fulfilling and productive life. Today’s Challenge question comes from a leader who asks: How do I follow-through (finish) on my goals?
Conventional wisdom says, “10,000 hours of deliberate practice will make you world-class.” A recent study from Princeton debunks this theory. I believe this is great news for leaders.
The extent to which we can overcome Resistance in our lives will determine the impact we have on the world.
Inspired by Stephen Pressfield’s classic book, The War of Art, in my last two posts, I shared some of the ways Resistance can compromise our life and our leadership. Today, I want to tackle the bigger question: How can I combat resistance?