I am a busy man
An executive with a burgeoning inbox — or so I tell my wife.
This week I…
- Wrote presentations
- Prepared for audits
- Attend stakeholder briefings
- Drafted investment proposals
- Wrote appraisals
- Reviewed budgets
- Socialised information
- Reorganised departments
- Hired new staff
- Brainstormed solutions
- Talked about customers
- Discussed automation strategies
- Visited suppliers
- Defined new dashboards
- Analysed opportunities
- Evaluated proposals
- Answered e-mails
- Held 1 to 1’s
- Planned projects
I’m sure you did most of them too. As managers our bums hardly ever touch our chairs.
The problem
I did all the things I was asked to do but none of it changed the way the organisation works. I spent all week pushing paper.
We only improve our businesses when we bend the pipes. When was the last time you changed something? And what did you learn by changing it?
Or were you, like me, too busy?
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It’s true, James. We do a lot of busy work. We do our day jobs, our assigned tasks, the tasks of our roles.
How do we fix that? How do we get more hours in our days? Or are we waiting for someone to tell us to stop what we’re doing and find a way to do things better?
I guess it is about what we choose not to do Annette, though sometimes that is a very difficult choice
Hello James,
Time, space, practices, and tools. It occurs to me that these are the fundamentals. To change something it is necessary to set aside time, create a space or spaces, embody practices, and use tools. One of the key practices is one I heard referred to as “Existence Structures” – structures that keep something into existence, especially promises and practices. For example, a powerful existence structure would be to:
1. set aside a specific time and place (space) to think about X, Y, Z e.g. improvement, disruption, innovation, collaboration…;
2. make sure that this time and place is booked – in the diary of all concerned;
3. ensure that you have the right mix of people – usually referred to as the ‘whole system’ – in attendance at that time and place;
4. do the work that is involved in moving the game that you are playing (improvement, innovation, customer focus..);
5. follow up – ensure that EVERYONE did what they promised to do, by when they promised to do it, and if they did not then have the necessary conversation to learn (why the action was not taken) and make a decision as to next steps.
None of this occurs by default. By default the day to day business occurs – all of the stuff that you mentioned.
Now the really interesting thing is this: You as the manager are targeted, measured, paid for keeping the machine running well enough. This means doing the kind of stuff you listed. You are highly unlikely to be measured/paid on the change stuff. Same goes for the folks working for you. So by taking time/space/tools out for the change stuff you are decreasing productivity and putting your bonus and career in danger. So only a highly irrational manager or one with “fuck you money” is likely to do anything other than what you list.
All the best
maz
Maz, I think you get to the heart of the matter very nicely. Not too many of us have that attitude.