Get tough on time

"My door is always open." As a manager, I really struggled with that concept and felt guilty when it was regularly firmly shut - I had work to do too!

I remember a situation when John, one of my best construction managers, a conscientious guy, asked me to prioritise all the things he had to do. He was clearly stressed out. He looked really upset when I refused and said, "That's what we pay you to do."

I told him he had to work it out (that was his job) and suggested he go away and think about what help and support he needed from me to get it all done. I thought he was going to explode. I also felt incredibly guilty for not rescuing him!

Ask yourself, should I be doing this? you’re disempowering your staff if someone else can do it and they’re not

He came back (to my relief) the next day with an action plan that included the support and resources he needed. We then worked them out together. It would have been easier for me (and a lot less painful for us both) to have prioritised his job for him, although I wonder whether he would have taken responsibility for what he was paid to do. Would I have ended up prioritising for him on a regular basis?

Managers need to empower their staff – they are paid to think too! We need to look at how we use our time. There are no easy answers, but here are some hard-won tips:

1. Focus on effectiveness, not efficiency (do the right thing rather than do the thing right)
   
2. Focus on results and keep asking the question: Is this conversation/action moving me towards the required result?
   
3. 80% of the result is produced in 20% of the time. Review how you achieve the result and then do more of that in the future, cutting out all the rest
   
4. Be mean with your time. It's your most precious (and only irreplaceable) resource
   
5. Be clear about your intention and what result you aim to produce for every meeting, project, conversation, phone call, chat, etc, you spend your time on
   
6. Ask yourself, should I be doing this? If somebody else can do that particular task, then they should be doing it, otherwise you may be disempowering your staff
   
7. Ask yourself, is this necessary? Does it contribute anything?
   
8. Learn to say no
   
9. Get a system to handle your paper. Most of it is unnecessary and probably someone else has filed it all if ever you need to get back to it
   
10. Manage by requests and promises