Last week we talked about how many CEO’s are really behaving like Chief Whack-a-Mole Officers. The same problem keeps popping up over and over again and they keep whacking it to no avail. And I shared some important questions you should ask yourself if you self-identified as a CWO. Your answers should begin to help you stop your futile habit of solving systemic issues within your company by applying the same old whack.
Now for part two. The winner of whack-a-mole goes after those pesky moles the fastest. That reminds me of checklist management.
Don’t get me wrong, I love, love, LOVE it when I knock off all my “to-do’s” for the day. Sometimes I even write down silly one-minute tasks so I have something more to cross off the list. Yes!
So, how much time was allocated on that check-list for the important project that needed 2 hour of your quiet thinking time today, to push the project just a little bit forward? Did you block off any time this week just to ponder the world your company is operating in? Or, to analyze what the competition is doing? Oh, and by the way, did you even use your calendar to allocate your most precious resource-your time?
What are the tasks you would like to get off your list? I recommend to my Vistage Members that they track their time for 1-2 weeks and then pull out the highlighters. Use blue for the things you love to do. (They may not be the most important). Highlight in yellow the time spent that was strategic and important. Use pink for things you don’t want to do or that someone else could do. Immediately delegate the pink. Take a look at the blue. If you love to do it, is it because you are SO good at it? Is anyone else on your staff good at it, too? And, the reason you are the one doing it is…tell me again?
So put that mallet down and consider time…it does matter how you slice it.