Busy

You Are Not Too Busy

Being busy seems to be in fashion as evidenced by how proudly many people proclaim they are too busy to get everything done.  News Flash: Just because you have a lot to do, you are not too busy for more work. Got it: you can’t do everything, but you can do the right things. You have to prioritize your work. Being busy is not good in and of itself. If you are performing manual labor, being busy is good; it means that there is work to be done and you will have more hours you can charge. In the realm of knowledge work being busy does not mean you are being productive. You likely have become an unwitting victim of Parkinson’s Law.

Leadership Style

You Don’t Choose Your Leadership Style

There are plenty of people out there selling you books, courses, and quizzes telling you to pick a leadership style. They are well meaning, if incredibly wrong. First, saying there are leadership styles makes it seem as if all approaches are equally good; it is, after all, a matter of style. It as if we are being asked to pick a leadership style the same way we pick out a pair of sunglasses that fits our fancy. If the premise wasn’t bad enough, no one can seem to agree on what leadership styles are out there. Then, once the person has defined their unique list, they stop and declare their job done, leaving the rest of us wondering, “How do I do this leadership style?” Your leadership style is not something you choose ex ante, it is something you develop over time and, more importantly, it is the behaviors you engage in that make you a more or less effective leader.

What Meetings Accomplish

Meetings are the bane of many working professionals. This is because they often don’t accomplish anything useful. This does not need to be the case. Your meetings can be different. You can have meetings that people look forward to attending, or at the very least, that they don’t mind attending. To do this, there are many things you need to get right. The first and foremost is that your meetings must serve to accomplish something. Your meeting needs to have a reason for being.

Post-nominals and Titles

Anyone with a sufficient exposure to the professions have run across people people who have used post-nominal initials. If you are lucky, you have run across only a few people who have decided that their post-nominal initials constitute their personal and professional worth. To include all your degrees and certificates all the time is hardly more than peacocking your certifications.

Delegate Does Not Mean Done

When most people start out learning management and leadership the one thing they have the hardest time learning to do is to delegate some of their work to their subordinates. One common thing I hear from people just starting out in management (the practice, not just the position) is “When I give out tasks they don’t get done. It’s just better to do them myself.” Telling your boss this is a great way to not get promoted ever again (unless you reform). It also displays managerial incompetence to the boss.
Just because you delegate a task to someone does not mean it will get done. Further, it does not mean you can ignore the task. By delegating a task you have shifted your work from one type of work (doing the task) to another type of work (tracking and managing the task).

Ask for a Decision

How many times have you been frustrated because your boss or the executives of your organization seem unable or unwilling to make a decision about an important (at least from your perspective) matter? If you work for anyone with a fair amount of responsibility this has likely happened to you more times than you care to count. But there is something you can do about it: ask for the decision.
I’m not talking about storming into the executive’s office and slamming a point paper on the desk. You should be using the formal decision making process your organization uses, if one exists. You should make it obvious to all at each step in the process that a decision is being asked for.