Time "Management"

You can’t manage time. It keeps passing at the same rate for all of us.

What we can do is manage ourselves in the context of time. If productivity and goal achievement is what we are after, then time “management” is always about PRIORITIZATION.

It’s about doing the most important high value thing first, and staying on it. If that means lower priority tasks do not get done now or at all, then so be it.

What is the most important thing you could be doing right now relative to your most important goal?

Save one hour a day…

If we can find ways to save one hour a day, that equals six extra work weeks a year!

You can do a lot in six weeks – out work a competitor, build a great team, invent something new, overhaul any department…

Can you cut out one hour of stuff you really don’t need to be doing each day? 

Getting a team to mesh

Employees who eat together in groups are 36% more likely to communicate outside lunch hours.

How about saying “Today we seven employees are having lunch together.  I have a table ready at 12:00 in the cafe.”

(If they leave the building to work for the day, you could do breakfast.)

When people like, trust and understand each other, they make a better team.

What day? Who? Announce it! (and have a little fun!)

We win, you_________.

In sports, there is the winner, and there is the loser.  This common metaphor implies that win/lose is the way the world works.  But what about business?  Can we use the metaphor there?

Sure, if we get the business, another business in our industry did not.  So I guess it’s applicable there.  But even then, in a free market if the second best provider gets the business, the customer loses out on something better. Free competition will produce more winners than losers.

But we can’t use win/lose when it comes to us and our customers, or us and our employees or suppliers.  If any of them loses, we can’t win – at least not for long.  

In business, we want as many winners as possible in our transactions and daily dealings.  Losers have an interest in seeing us stop. Winners want us to keep going.  

Are you leaving winners in your wake?

The day that changed everything.

The department leader stood in front of his team.  It was his day to get this change started.  He had thought a lot about it and he had prepared.  Still, he hadn’t done this before.  Some guys were new, and some had been here for years.  How would they respond?  It didn’t matter.  It had to be done.  It was the right thing to do.   

Deep breath…

“Ok guys, we are trying to do something special here…we don’t want to be average…..we want to be different – a different place to work than any other, a different kind of contractor than any homeowner has experienced before, and we want you guys to all be very proud of what you do and where you do it.  It turns out that to accomplish this it doesn’t require working any harder, although working hard is what we do.  It requires thinking different and doing things a little different.  It doesn’t take any more energy to be exceptional than it does to be mediocre.  It’s an attitude, it’s communication, respect, and a love for what we’re doing. It’s doing the job with the intention of making the customer smile and comment positively on what they see we did.  We want them to say ‘Wow!’ if we can.

We need to have higher standards than others, and build the team that will trust and support each other so we can rely on each doing his or her part to make this happen.

Nobody wants to be below average.  And I don’t think anyone even wants to be average. Who wants to look in the mirror each morning and say ‘Hello Mr. Average’?  

Who wants to be above average?  Who wants to be exceptional?”

A few hands shot up, a few others were half up, and there were some audible positive responses.  

He had broken the ice, but he wasn’t there yet.  His own words energized him.  He had to go for it now.  He felt it well up in him, and there was no turning back now.  

“Guys, I’m serious.  I want to build a team of winners here.  A team of brothers and sisters who can rely on each other.  A team known as being the best at what we do.  Why not us?  If there is going to be anyone in our business who is the best, it’s going to be us.  Is anyone better than us?”  “No” they replied.  “Are we going to accept mediocrity and let them beat us?”  “No” they said in unison.

“When we go home, do we want to tell our families stories of how we are part of the winning team?”  “Yes” they shot back, the energy in the room palpable now.  “Are we willing to learn new things, try new things, invent better ways, and get out of some of the routines of the past to get to the top?”

“Yes” they said, with a little less energy than the response before, realizing that this will take some work.

“Look guys, I have never done this before.  I may make some mistakes.  But I need your help to get it right. I will fight alongside you, if you fight alongside me.  We can turn this company from a good one to a world-class one.  To the best one that anyone in our industry has ever worked at and the best one any customer has had work for them.  And I make you this promise.  As the leader, I will do my very best every day.”  

His voice went low and slow and firm.  “And I will not give up on you, if you don’t give up on me. I am asking for your commitment.”

He paused and surveyed the wide-eyed faces staring back at him.  “Who is with me?”

He looked at the energized team with a combination of gratitude and resolve.

“Let’s get to work, right now.  Let’s get started talking about how we can do this…”

You fool!

Words we don’t want to hear people thinking when we are a leader. But if we’re afraid of that, we don’t have the courage to be a leader.

A leader leads their team and organization to new places. They do things that have not been done before here. They are experimental. While they learn and think and understand and try to limit failures to some extent, there is no guarantee they won’t make a dumb call or have their project fail – and look like a fool.

Leaders must be willing to look foolish. If they make a mistake, they learn fast, fix it fast, and while they all are still laughing and whispering, they’re on to something that does work, pushing off the stepping stone of your failure.

Be courageous. Lead.

Are you willing to do it different than you have?

Your commitment to creating something different than you have created already is what will make tomorrow better.

You’ve already done what you knew how to do, right?  Now you have to do something you don’t really know how to do.

Yet.

Will you be a true leader?

For an entrepreneur to build a fantastic business, he/she has to be willing to be the leader – a true leader.

Failure to take on this responsibility in full, will lead to realizing the business potential in part.

Are you willing to take on the leadership role in full?

Do you REALLY need to be doing that?

What are the things you INSIST on doing yourself in your business?  

Let’s challenge that.  Do YOU really need to be spending your time doing that?  

Can you delegate it?  Split it?  Stop it?

Reinvent your job as a leader, one activity at a time, one sacred cow at a time.

Get help.

We only know what we have learned based on our limited experience and education.  And for most of us, we have gone about as far as that knowledge can take us. To go farther, we must get outside influences. Someone to challenge our assumptions, beliefs, opinions and world we have built.

We have to have someone else to help us rise above what we are doing and see ourselves. I have those people in my life and I hope I can be one of them in yours.

None of us can do this really well alone.  Do you seek help?