Leadership a-z: T is for Time Management

Doing more with less is a key mantra of today’s business context. At the same time, most of us are

Time Management Wordle - Jennifer Britton, 2014

inundated with email.

Consider these factoids:

• Managers may spend up to 40% of their time in managing email - more than 2.5 or 3 hours a day (hamsterrevolution.com)
• You may face up to 56 interruptions per day (read the article from Wendy Cole in Time)
• Information overwhelm - Today an issue of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to encounter in their lifetime during the 17th century (Elaine Biech, 2007)

What are the implications for leaders? A constant barrage of information and communication, and the potential to quickly become overwhelmed with information and communication.

Today’s post provides four tips for time  management:

1. Know where your time actually goes. A lot of us “think” we know where we spend our time, when in fact it many not be representative of really where our time is being spent. A tool I share with leaders I coach is the Time Tracker. For the span of a week (or longer if your schedule varies greatly) track where your time is going. It may be useful to do this in 15 or 30 min increments. Electronically or on paper, note each block and categorize it into common categories (meetings, commuting, email, time with staff, reporting, relationship management etc). At the end of the week, summarize where you have spent your time.

As you review your schedule that week ask yourself:

• What do you notice?
• Where are you spending the bulk of your time?
• What results are you getting from this? (Consdier the 80/20 rule in this context)
• What changes are needed to support you in maximizing your productivity?

2. Prioritize - In a recent post, Leadership A-Z p is for prioritization, I shared four tools for prioritization. We have a fixed amount of time, so it is important to consider what really key in our work. The four tools I explored in the post include:

1. The Urgent/Important Matrix

2. the 80/20 Rule

3. Prioritization Matrix

4. Strategic Issues Mapping

These tools may be useful in supporting you towards more effective time management

3. Delegate - Delegation is critical for any leader’s success. Taking a look at your priorities, what are the things you really need to do and what can be handed off to others.

A recent blog post addressed the topic of delegation - which you can read here.

What tasks do you want to delegate?

 

4. Manage Interruptions: 

  Every time we get interrupted we need to stop what we are doing, refocus, and then start up again. We often don’t factor in the cost of “start up” again. While we may not be able to completely erase interruptions, we are able to manage them more effectively.

Some possible options for managing interruptions include:

- Keep an interruption log - like your time in general, where do your intrruptions come from. Which ones are “really important, and couldn’t be handled any other way”

- Create a dedicated focus time - this may require a change to the way you work. What time of day could you “close your door” for a centralized focus time. Communicating this time to other team members, or instituting it organization wide, can support more focused work, which may in fact shorten the time it takes you to get things done.

- Schedule times when you will check email and/or the phone. Depending on your role, email may be a constant interruption. It may be useful to experiment with creating dedicated email time, and turning it off at others. Communicate this to others so that they are aware that you will not be available or online at certain times.

A 2005 article by Spirex and Feintuch of BASEX estimates that interruptions consume 28% of a “knowledge workers” day, a cost of $588 Billion a year in the US (estimating a 28 Billion lost person hours and a cost per hour of $21/per worker). You can link to their article here.

Consider these questions:

What is the cost of interruptions in your day? 

Which type of interruptions do you face?

What approaches can you use to minimize interruptions?

Which of these four areas is priority for you? What resources would you recommend to others?

Best wishes,
Jennifer


Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices of Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: (416)996-TEAM
Learn more about our retreat and leadership development offerings and support 
Visit our daily tips for teams and team leaders at the Teams 365 blog
 
As an author Jennifer Britton is known for her thought leadership in the area of group and team coaching. She is also a former leader and team builder who spent the first 13 years of her career working within the United Nations as well as the international aid sector. From Boardroom to jungle, beach and forest to mountains, Jennifer has worked to develop teams and leaders in more than 18 countries, and virtually many more. She founded Potentials Realized in 2004 and focuses on leadership, teamwork and coaching skills training.
 

Leadership A-Z: R is for Recognition

As a professional, how much time do you spend recognizing your staff and acknowledging their achievements. The topic of recognition can be a very personalized one, and not everyone is going to value the same things or even find recognition always positive. Consider these scenarios:

* A very introverted member of staff who is extremely shy and likes to stand behind the scenes is acknowledged publicly in a full organization meeting for their achievements and is asked to stand up to take credit. What do you think the impact is for them?
* One of your top performers is given the task to leading yet another special project. This one with high visibility. This comes as they are just winding down a year long other high visibility project, and after they have indicated that they are looking forward to being able to focus more on their core tasks as they have some evolving elder care responsibilities for one of their parents. What do you think the impact is for them?

What do you use to recognize employees? Recognition programs will vary from company, to company, dependent on the industry, size, and whether an organization is unionized or now.

Here are some possible recognition possibilities:
 - Gift cards
- Staff/team lunch, BBQ
- Special sporting event - tickets or participation
- Time off
- Public acknowledgement -  by email, in company newsletter/publication, in a presentation
- Hand written card of thanks
- Note on file for achievement
- Certificate
- Take them out to lunch
- Give them a gift so they and their family can go out

and of course a simple thank you is also important!

What recognition is needed within your team. Where do you want to positively reinforce outstanding behavior?

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPT
Potentials Realized

Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices of Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: (416)996-TEAM
Learn more about our retreat and leadership development offerings and support
 
As an author Jennifer Britton is known for her thought leadership in the area of group and team coaching. She is also a former leader and team builder who spent the first 13 years of her career working within the United Nations as well as the international aid sector. From Boardroom to jungle, beach and forest to mountains, Jennifer has worked to develop teams and leaders in more than 18 countries, and virtually many more. She founded Potentials Realized in 2004 and focuses on leadership, teamwork and coaching skills training.

Leadership a-z: S is for Skills

Wordle Created by Jennifer Britton at Wordle.com (1/14)

Over the last few months I've blogged on a variety of topics as we've moved through the Leadership A-Z - Prioritization to Kick off Meetings, Motivation to Delegation. Today's post is all about the range of skills needed for leaders. This, of course, is the tip of the iceberg. Here is a listing of some of the core skills needed for front-line leaders and above:
from

Team Leadership skills including

• Listening
• Communication
• Conflict Resolution
• Holding Difficult Conversations
• Relationship Building
• Emotional Intelligence
• Building trust and respect
• The ability to work flexibly and compromise
• The skill of influence
• and Collaboration

Check out one of my other projects this year which is the Teams 365 blog - daily tips, quotes and questions for each day of 2014 for teams and team leaders.

In addition to the skills listed above, additional skills for leaders are:

• Strategic thinking
• Technical Skills
• Administrative skills - budgeting, reporting, project management, financial management
• Stakeholder management (which may be part of relationship building)
• Change Management
• Leading through Uncertainty 

Activity:
Take stock of the skills you are using on a regular basis. Consider these questions:

•  What are the top five skills that you would include each and every day or week? 
• Which ones do you use less frequently? 
• As you consider team members or others who are being developed as leaders for the future, what skills do you think are going to be essential in their roles?
• What development activities will support you in enhancing your skills this year (training, studies, readings, conferences, mentoring, leadership, other?)

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)

Potentials Realized  - Leadership and Team Development | Coaching |  Retreats

Supporting teams and organizations through enhanced conversation and skills, more focused results to do their best work.

(416)996-TEAM (8326)

As an author, Jennifer Britton is known for her thought leadership in the area of group and team coaching. She is also a former leader and team builder who spent the first 13 years of her career working within the United Nations as well as the international aid sector. From Boardroom to jungle, beach and forest to mountains, Jennifer has worked to develop teams and leaders in more than 18 countries, and virtually many more. She founded Potentials Realized in 2004 and focuses on leadership, teamwork and coaching skills training.

Leadership A-Z: Q is for Questions

Today's leadership a-z brings us to the letter Q for Questions. Questions form the backbone in any coaching, leadership and/or mentoring conversation. 

In your conversations leaders will want to consider:

1. What is the purpose of the question? To get  more information, background, to support the employee to self-discover or acquire new knowledge?

2. The length of your question. The best questions are often the shortest questions. Notice the impact of shorter versus longer questions. Five to six words may be a good length.

3. Notice the difference in the way you start asking your question:

HOW - questions tend to put people into a thinking, process mode. Not always the best place to start a conversation?

WHY - questions may put people immediately on the defensive if trust does not exist. Once a relationship is formed there can be great power in connecting people with their WHY, or their bigger purpose. Be aware of the distinction between asking someone WHY they did it, versus "What's the Why or purpose driving your actions"

WHAT - What questions are often very good at opening up an expanse for action and reflection.

Visit our site to download 20 questions every leader can incorporate into their dialogue with staff.

4. How open-ended is the question - Open-ended questions invite conversation, exploration, discovery and learning. Closed questions, Yes/No, questions limit this. Be aware of when open-ended questions can expand the conversation.

A great resource you may wish to look at regarding this topic is 

Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions By Knowing What To Ask by Michael Marquardt

Have a great start to your week!

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC

Potentials Realized

Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)

(416)996-TEAM (836)

Leadership A-Z - P is for Priorities

Today’s leadership a-z journey brings us to the letter P for priorities. Prioritization is a critical skill set for

Strategic Issues Map - photo Britton

leaders in today’s business context of ongoing change, and doing more with less.

Priority comes from the Latin root of “ prioritas”,“prior” or former. It can be defined as “ a thing that is regarded as more important than another.”

Throughout each business day we are prioritizing on individual and collective/team levels. In today’s post, I wanted to share with you four prioritization tools you may find useful in your own work and also in  working with others.

Tool #1 - The Urgent/Important Matrix. 

Made famous by Steven Covey and his work, the Urgent/Important Matrix gets us to think about what is really important and urgent in our work. Where are we spending our time? Are we focusing on things that are in the crisis zone of urgent and important, or are we able to be proactive and spend a bulk of our time in the not-urgent and important area of planning, building business relationships. Many professionals may find themselves getting bogged down with the urgent and not important tasks - things like meetings that are not relevant, email, reporting. And of course, the final part of the matrix is the land of the “time suckers” spending time in the not- urgent and not important tasks. Some of the topics in the “time sucker” category include excessive time on social media etc. 

Activity: Think back to where you have spent your time over the last week. What quadrant are you spending the bulk of your time in? What’s the impact of this?

Resource: Steven Covey - Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Prioritization Tool # 2 - Prioritization Matrix

As I was looking around the web for some different prioritization tools I came across a great one from Workshopbank.com and Nick Martin called the Prioritization Matrix. Here is a link to the site.

Using post it notes, it gets teams to identify all of the priorities they have, then rate them regarding their impact and do-ability. From there each task gets plotted on a large piece of paper which everyone can see. 

What I like about reading this activity is the fact that it also is very visual, and stimulates dialogue amongst the team members themselves. An important part of the prioritization process for teams is about sharing information, and also busting assumptions that might be held. This seems to have the potential to be a great structure for facilitating that conversation.

Prioritization Tool # 3 - 80/20 Rule

The Pareto principle, most commonly known as the 80/20 rule is also another useful framework to have in mind when you are considering prioritization. The 80/20 rule asserts that we get 80% of our results from 20% of our activities. 

Teams can benefit from undertaking some analysis of where they are getting the bulk of their impact (whether it is sales, key relationships, customer service etc). Getting clear on these will help us to prioritize them in the larger scheme of things.

Tool #4 - Strategic Issues Mapping

One of my favorite strategic prioritization tools I bring in with some of the work I do with teams and organizations is Strategic Issues Mapping. This too is an exercise to stimulate identification of issues, conversation and sharing across a team. 

Strategic issues mapping (see photo) can be done on multiple levels. You can start by putting the issue in the center of the circle, and having each team member brainstorm and write down all the issues/topics/challenges they can think of related to that topic. Depending on the topic, you may want to label the surrounding circles according to short term, medium term and long term issues OR it may make more sense to label the issues according to impact - local, national, international. One at a time, have people place their post its in the relevant area. From this you may have dozens of issues. 

Depending on time you can work through all issues, working circle by circle. As one of the starting points of these more focused explorations of each circle, I hand out colored dots to each participant and get them to dot the top 2, 3 or more from their own perspective. This provides the team with a snapshot of where the collective sees the priorities, which can then feed into more dialogue,planning, and action.

These are only four prioritization tools out of a myriad of possibilities. What prioritization tools and methods have you used and would recommend to others? As always, please feel free to comment below.

With best wishes,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC

Potentials Realized  - Leadership and Team Development | Coaching |  Retreats

Supporting teams and organizations through enhanced conversation and skills, more focused results to do their best work.

(416)996-TEAM (8326)

Leadership a - z : O is for Optimism and Opportunities

Today's leadership a-z post takes us to the letter o.  Opportunities and optimism were two words that came to mind as I reflected on some of the most powerful leaders I've worked with in the international sector, as well as here, closer to home.


In today's business context it is easy to get lulled into the belief that everything is going poorly. Leadership plays a key role in encouraging their teams to find and sometimes create opportunities.

Optimism is one of the 21 competencies which make up Emotional Intelligence. As research continues to point to, the higher up we move in leadership, the more important our non-technical skills become, like building relationships, managing our emotions, and knowing ourselves. These are all part of the EI framework.

As Daniel Goleman writes in Primal Leadership,

"A leader who is optimistic can roll with the punches, seeing an opportunity rather than a trheat in a set back. Such leaders see others positively, expecting the best of them. An their "glass half full" outlook leads them to expect that changes in the future will be for the better" (Primal Leadership, pp 252).

Part of the skill set of optimism is about being aware of our perspectives around situations and being able to "reframe" how we see these. "Reframing" is a valuable skill, and moves us from a pollyanna-ish outlook where everything is great, to an acknowledgement of the current context, and a reframe in terms of how to view it.

Reflection Questions:
What is your current outlook towards business challenges you are facing?
What opportunities exist?
What topics/isues would benefit from you reframing?

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPCC, CPT
Potentials Realized
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats

Teams 365 Blog for Teams and Team Leaders

Happy New Year! I hope that you had a wonderful holiday season. One of my 2014 projects is the Teams 365 blog for Teams and Team Leaders. You can view it over at my Potentials Realized site here.

Every day this year I will be providing teams and team leaders with a question, tip or resource to help them do better work. As many of you know team development is a central focus of the work I do. With the hundreds of teams I have worked with, and supported, over the last twenty plus years it's amazing to see how similar issues are, regardless of location or industry. Please spread the news to other teams and team leaders who can also benefit from these daily insights.

I hope that you will enjoy the Teams365 blog. You can also follow the daily posts on our Potentials Realized Facebook page or at my Twitter feed.

Here are a couple of the first few questions so far this year:

You can also download your own SWOT strategic planning template here as well.

I look forward to picking up on the Leadership a-z I started in the fall. I'll be resuming regular (weekly-ish) posts on leadership  issues here at the blog later this week.

Have a great start to 2014!

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized - Coaching, Coaching Skills Training, Leadership and Team Development, Retreats
Email: info(at)potentialsrealized(dot)com
(416)996-8326