19 February 2008

Managers: Are You Controlling Events? Or Are Events Controlling You?

“Am I controlling events, or
Are events controlling me?”

This is the Transcript: Your Mission As A Leader, 26 March 2007

An Excerpt from the 2 day seminar Managing Management Time tm

Our Mission Statement for managers:

To control events.

In order to control events we got to be able to do a number of things simultaneously on the job

First, we’ve got to anticipate future events and their impact on our organization.

Now trying to anticipate the future in fraught with minefields

The future has three characteristics

1 It’s getting here on time — whether we’re ready for it or not

2 It’s going to get here sooner that we think

3 And is not going to be like we think it’s going to be

If you’re looking at your crystal ball and you’re trying to anticipate something like the future with those characteristics, even with a good battling average, it’s going to be pretty poor numbers wise, correct?

So we’ve got to be able do something else: We’ve got to have in ourselves arranged for the mental flexibility and organizational flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances in the present.

Because people strike out at that, what have we got to be able to do? We’ve got to learn from out own mistakes and the mistakes of others. Now in order to anticipate, adapt and learn we got to be able to do two things:

1 Make the necessary judgments, and

2 Exert the necessary influence.

When I say influence, what am I talking about?

Well it is the molecule of management.

When you see that molecule, you are going to see a nucleus. It says ‘You.’ When you see ‘You,’ that is you. This is not the group you. Not the Cross Functional Team you. Not the Bowling league you. Not the lovey dovey collective you. That is you, right now where you are seated, in the organization.

When I see that ‘you’ – I think of my self — I want you to think of yourselves.

Now, if you or I were on a desert island growing tomatoes and we had no boss we were accountable to no one; no peers we had to coordinate with and no staff we had to lead, we could do what we want, when we want, where we want, correct?

But the minute you and I are a nucleus in an organization, our time is not our own. Any one of those electrons can with an inconveniently timed memo or email phone or phone call – screw up our plan for a day, the week, the month, correct?

There is a formula that goes with this — Your Mission:

Competence plus Support equals Performance

If this were a vocational or technical seminar, the formula would be competence equals performance.

But the minute you get in a management or leadership position, your performance is the sum of two items: support and competence. Your personal competence and the organizational support you are getting.

If one of those two elements has to go to zero, not that I recommending this, but if one of those two items has to go to zero, either competence or support, which had best never go to zero?

Support.

You can be an idiot and still move to the right on the formula and get equal to get to performance. But if you are a Ph.D. and every one hates your guts then you are dead in the water. You won’t be contributing to anything.

Oncken’s first law:

What you know
Will not get off the ground
Without the active support
Of who you know

And to pull all this off we have to have discretionary time. To make the judgment we are paid to make and directing the influence we are paid to exert.

What are the enemies of discretionary time?

What can chew up our time on the job before we even think about managing that time?

Well, if I get micro-managed by my boss – that’ll chew up my time.

If my internal peers on whom I dependent for support wrap me up in red tape, queuing, and politics,

That can chew up my time.

If my staff is upwardly delegating tasks that they should be handling – Is that going to chew up my time?

And if all that’s happening, what about the external peers on that chart – the customers – Are they going to be ambushing me with customer complaints? Are government agencies going to be investigating me and I didn’t see it coming. You Bet.

And then life is not worth living.

So what is my first priority?

Ahead of any other priorities seen on the chart – it is to maximize discretionary time. And how do I do that?

By getting control of the relationships on that molecule – because of the positions they hold – rob me of that time.

Thank for listening to this except of Managing Management Time – I look forward to hearing your comments, and look forward to presenting the rest of this leadership philosophy to your organization, the seminar, Managing Management Time.

19 February 2008

Managers: Are You Controlling Events? Or Are Events Controlling You?

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