Too Busy

One of the most common concerns voiced by executives and executive teams is that they are simply too busy.

It does not take too many questions to reframe that concern to explain they are too busy to focus on the things that really matter and admit that they therefore spend too much energy on things that matter less.

One of the most important habits that leaders can exercise, and role model is that habit of prioritisation.   The question is ‘what if we spent 80% of our time and energy on the 20% of things that would make the biggest difference’.  Intuitively, most leaders believe this would be more effective, but like all new habits, it is difficult to learn and difficult to embed.

The first step of prioritisation is to decide what actions create value, and by extension what are the real priorities.

What if we spent 80% of our time and energy on the 20% of things that would make the biggest difference.

Once this has been done, it is important to build a belief that by focusing a disproportionate time on these activities, and delegating or stopping other activities, better results will follow.  This sounds obvious, but the activity drug is a difficult one to kick.  Many leaders have grown up being rewarded for ‘busyness’ and gain recognition from being involved in everything.  Moving beyond this is a key part of building the prioritisation habit.

In my experience, prioritisation brings a significant reward.  I was talking to leadership team recently who described how ‘workload’ had dramatically reduced as an issue in their engagement surveys.  The actual workload had not changed at all, but the perception of it had because of ruthless prioritisation.

How to prioritise is quite an individual thing, and what works for some will not for others.  This is where coaching is important to support building habits to enable focus.  For some this can be based on re-engineering schedules, for some it is about communication, for some it is about capital allocation.  Whatever the routine to drive prioritisation, the key is to follow that path with intensity and frequency.  Like anything, when teams see the boss ruthlessly focusing on two or three key priorities, they soon start to share that focus.

Finally, once new prioritisation habits have been built, the key us to protect them by challenging a new initiative that rear their head.  Being adaptable is important, but any new initiative has to be weighed up against existing priorities because for a new imitative to enter the plan, one has to exit.  Leaders must constantly recommit to the priorities by finding every opportunity to communicate them – every meeting, team briefing, or water cooler chat is an opportunity to reinforce the two or three areas of focus.

As with building any new habit, coaching is key.  It starts with challenging existing beliefs and habits and then building a strong commitment to a different approach.  Once this happens carefully designing and experimenting with new habit loops will provide the opportunity for reflection and iteration.  Supported practice will lead to habitualisation, which will drive a sustained change which is right for you and your context.