A Drop in the Ocean

Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Go, go, go.

Do, do do.

Meeting, meeting, and more meetings.

Our lives as leaders are packed to overflowing with expectations, challenges and complexity. Some say it comes with the position. Other’s say it reflects a unique time period in corporate leadership. But most of us just wonder if all of this level of work ever really makes a difference. Right now, we all hope that busy and drained is not the new definition of successful leadership.

When I become discouraged and start to question the work load and effort it takes to manage all that comes across my desk, I remember the following words of Mother Theresa:

“I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one . . . So you begin -- I begin. I picked up one person, and maybe if I didn’t pick up that one person I wouldn’t have picked up 42,000. The whole work is only a drop in the ocean. but if I didn’t drop in, the ocean would be one drop less. Same thing for you, same thing in your family, same thing in the church where you go. Just begin. . . One, one, one.”

I hope as we enter this holiday season that all of us will focus on “one, one, one.” I believe it is a good place to start and that it will make a difference.

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257

Busy is the new normal

“Good morning,” I often say when I answer the phone. “How are you today?”

Recently, the most common response is “Busy.” For many executives, it is a feeling and an action all wrapped up in one. The feeling is being full to very overwhelmed. The action is engaged and pushing forward. I have come to the conclusion that busy in the world of leadership is the new normal.

On one hand, I am not too surprised by this frequent response. We live in a society now that measures life by seconds and minutes, calendars and appointments, twitter feeds and text-messages. The more we have the better we are supposedly doing.

Furthermore, some people believe that the more running around we do the better we are as a leader. Managing by wandering around is so 1980’s. Now is the time for speed. The new role model for leadership in this decade is the fast and the furious. Multi-tasking at warp speed is expected by all.

Yet, today, I am thinking about an African quote I recently heard: “Western people have the watches; we have the time.” We forget some days in the midst of our hustle and bustle that watches, cell phones, and text messages do not always make life better. They do not save time. Instead, they absorb it.

This is particularly true as we enter this new month. More and more executives report to me that they are caught up in a reactive problem solving mode. The crisis of the moment consumes all energy. Furthermore, many employees are managing everything up the chain of command. They do not want to take the risk of making a decision and getting blamed for poor results or outcomes. And with many leaders operating at full capacity, there is little time for thoughtful dialogue and meaningful interaction. Most report to me that they just make a decision and rush to the next issue. In short, there is only time for busy.

From my perspective, it is time we reclaim our time as leaders. We need to get out of feeling overwhelmed and back to a feeling of balanced engagement. We need to not live a life so full of appointments and meetings that we can not think thoughtfully and plan gracefully. We need to incorporate into our lives thoughtful reflection and meaningful dialogue. We need to give ourselves permission to recuperate from extended periods of busy and develop a greater degree of resilience. From one who has learned this personally and from one who has seen this happening more and more in executive coaching sessions during the last ninety days, living busy for an extended period of time means living on empty. And empty is does not generate clarity, commitment, buy-in or ownership.

For us to reclaim our time we need to reclaim our perspective. The faster we go the more we become absorbed in the minutia of the moment. Tunnel focus is a reality that comes with busy. It can cause us to miss the greater context and the greater strategic direction of our lives and our organizations.

We must also accept that speed is addictive, busy is numbing, and full is draining. But we can change this. We can lead our lives. We can lead our organizations. We can regain a sense of balanced living. The first step is to no longer accept busy as an acceptable way of living. The second step is to redefine our priorities, especially our definitions of what is urgent and what is important. The third step is to take charge of our calendars and block out time for more in-depth dialogue and reflection. The fourth step is to give ourselves permission to rest when rest is needed.

When asked “How are you?” this week or next, I recommend you find a new answer, one that shares a feeling more than an action. We are, after all, human beings, not just human doings.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates # 319 - 643 - 2257

From Overcrowded Living to Personal Balance and Excellence - part #1

THEME: Spring 2010 From Vision to Action Roundtable Report

FOCUS: From Overcrowded Living to Personal Balance and Excellence - part #1

Monday afternoon: June 7, 2010

Dear friends,

Recently, I have been working with a young woman executive who is being prepared for senior leadership within her company. We visit on a regular basis and explore critical issues on a deep level. Recently, she explained to me that her life was already full. With children and a working husband, her reality was living busy, drained and overwhelmed all day and every day. She said to me “being a senior leader is just going to be more rather than different.”

I explained to her that there are two stages in life. One is called before children and the other is after children. For all the books, workshops, advice and counsel we are given, when we live in the land of before children, we can never fully comprehend the land of after children. What is theory on one level quickly changes when it becomes reality.

Nevertheless, there are lessons to be learned from others who have traveled the road before us to senior leadership. The first two lessons comes from Peter Drucker who wrote in an article called “What is Our Business?” from the June 2001 issue of Executive Excellence magazine. As he explained, “The executive’s time tends to belong to everybody else.” He notes that everybody and anybody can move in on your time and eventually does when you become a senior executive. Second, “Executives are forced to keeping “operating” unless they take positive action to change the reality in which they live.” As he reminds us, we can let the flow of events determine the priorities we hold or we can define what is important in spite of the flow.

The next lessons learned comes from Margaret J. Wheatley from her book, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time, Berrett-Koehler, 2005. Here, she explains that “... humans usually default to the known when confronted with the unknown,” and “new leaders must invent the future while dealing with the past.” Both are excellent observations.

However, living busy, drained and overwhelmed is not living well and not the goal of most people. This past winter into spring the most common question I got asked by people who had moved into a senior level position is the following: How do I find a sense of balance? The real answer is difficult but important to digest. The long and short of it is that you will not be able to achieve personal balance in the sense that everything will equal out when you become a senior executive. There are days when you will have way more work than time and way more family expectations than time. It comes with the power of the chair and the territory.

Still, there are solutions. First, now is the time to move from a focus on success to significance. Rather than striving for the next rung on the ladder and more external definitions of success, realize that the best place to start living a more healthy lifestyle as a senior executive is to rediscover what gives your life meaning and to schedule time for this on your calendar. As Stephen Covey reminded us many years ago, when we put first things first, then we have time for the people and events we want to focus on.

This week, rediscover what gives your life meaning and make time for it on a regular basis.

Much joy to you and yours,

Geery

P.S. For those who enjoyed the following book: Loehr, Jim & Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, Simon & Schuster, 2003, the author, Tony Schwartz, has a new article out, a summary of his new book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Nees That Energize Great Performance, The Free Press, 2010, in the June 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review called “The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less”. As he explains, “Human beings don’t work like computers; they can’t operate at high speeds continuously, running multiple programs at once.” Instead, he explains that “people perform at their peak when they alternate between periods of intense focus and intermittent renewal.” The key to success according to Schwartz is the following: “Employees can increase their effectiveness by practicing simple rituals that refuel their energy, such as taking a daily walk to get an emotional breather or turning off e-mail at prescribed times so they can concentrate.” Furthermore, he notes that “if companies allow and encourage employees to create and stick to such rituals, they will be rewarded with a more engaged, productive, and focused workforce.” When you have the time, check out the article and if it speaks to your condition, then check out the new book, too.

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257