Many of us spend far too much time in pointless meetings that we don’t need to be in, or add limited value to. This is not just about the opportunity cost of lost time, it takes time for us to get into that mode of thinking needed for our best ideas to come to us. These often come in the middle of sleep, or going for a run or taking a shower (the 3 B’s bed, break, bath).
That fuzzy, subconscious mode that gets us to real creative thinking around problems only happens when our executive functioning is offline. This is impossible when our days are a series of interruptions and we end up deflated and lose our passion for problem solving.
The great news is that rebalancing “managing” and “making” is absolutely within your gift. With full ownership of your calendar and a healthy dose of pragmatism, you can re-focus your energy around what’s important.
What is my role as a leader?
Protect your team’s time for making and help them create space
Lead the creation of a repeatable working rhythm that saves energy (eg clustering all necessary team meetings together, to give you real time to think in between)
Set the culture - reassure your team that an “always busy” mode is not valuable for the organisation and encourage them to give themselves space to make
As a leader, you are in the unique position of not only being able to rebalance how you spend your time, but also to influence those around you to do the same.. You can role model and give permission for your team to make the changes that will have a dramatic impact on how engaged and productive they feel at wor, as well as how much value they create..
