Who does your job when you are busy filling in for someone else? My guess is that you had a plan for your day, your week, this month, this quarter and on to a 5 year plan, and it tends to get hijacked along the way. Then you spend the quiet hours after everyone else is gone to do the work only you can do.
What do you need to focus on to change this dynamic? Did you get stuck at planning? Are your systems and processes too time consuming? Are you picking the wrong people or not training them properly, or not giving them the autonomy they need to work at the level you hired them at?
All of the above may be true. If this resonates, maybe there is a systems problem. If you fixed one thing that would make the most difference, what would it be? While you are at it, pick 2 more. They probably all interconnect.
Share this exercise with your leadership team and work on it together. You are all getting what you tolerate.
Perhaps, you remember the exercise where you take an empty glass. In front of you, you have 3 cups. One has big rocks, one has pebbles and one has sand. You can fill the glass many ways. You can fill it all with the sand and have no room for the big rocks or pebbles. If you put the big rocks in first, you can put the pebbles and most of the sand in too. The sand is all the little urgent tasks. The pebbles are important but won’t get you to those big audacious goals. The big rocks take concentration, hard work and uninterrupted time.
So, how do you do what only YOU can do? Set time commitments for yourself and don’t give them away. Then fill in as you have time. You and your team will be happier and the organization will be much more successful.
If you don’t think Vistage peer groups get value at every meeting-from the speakers, the conversations and the input from your peers, don’t click here.