How Are You Doing? — Are You
On Course?
Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.
— Horace Mann
In order to more sharply define the "jugular" target referred to earlier, we turn now to the inventory of our time. Up to this point we have been outlining our responsibilities showing how we ought to be spending our time...and pinpointing opportunities indicating how we could be investing our time for maximum results. Now we look to see how we are actually spending it. Where does the time really go?
This is one of the mythical hurdles said to "separate ... the managers from the dreamers." The loudest wail ever
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heard in the executive corridors is that with which the overworked" manager greets the consultant's decree to inventory time.
Perhaps this is reasonable, or at least predictable. After all, managers are the people Eric Webster described as "spending their time in a flat spin... working up to sixty hours a week, taking work home and then carting it back (often uncompleted) to an office where he'll be interrupted every eight minutes or so — where he'll spend more time talking than thinking — where he'll tend to be run by his job instead of running it — and have about as much mastery over his environment as a table tennis ball."1
But the author of this observation, in another challenging and novel article, advises against the inventory of time. "If Parkinson's Law (work expands to fill the time available) is to be repealed," he argues, "the only way to do it is to eliminate fussy little projects — not add another one such as keeping a laundry list of our activities."2 To support his point Webster observes that the results of such time studies are depressingly similar. They all boil down to the sad conclusion that (1) you work too long; (2) you don't get enough done; and (3) a lot of what you do should be done by someone else or perhaps not done at all.
"Why, then," you may ask with Eric Webster, "must I take time, the most precious element I possess and the resource in shortest supply, to write down what I do? Isn't the one certain result of this folly going to be the compounding of my greatest problem?"
Fortunately, the answer is "Not necessarily." In the life of every manager who grasps for this seemingly plausible argument here can surely be found examples in practice which refute it. Consider one of the more likely situations — as assistant who is a stickler for detail and is now getting further and further behind and missing critical
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deadlines. This assistant is too close to the problem to sense that his or her passion for less consequential detail is now jeopardizing entire projects of far more serious consequence. Though this person is behind, would you hesitate to give the following advice, "Take time out and analyze what you're doing"? If need be, would you hesitate to take time out yourself to help your assistant see the point? Of course you would not. The need for this prescription is usually painfully evident to all but the victim, who has become so immersed in the trees that all perspective of the forest has long since vanished.
True, if we, like Webster, could become vicariously convicted by the experience of others, it is conceivable that we could dispense with the inventorying of our time. We believe, and the great weight of expert opinion strongly supports the conviction, that the painful tasks of changing our habits will require far more conviction than is possible from the experience of others.
Only the amazing revelation that we are wasting great portions of the precious time entrusted to us... that much of our effort is misdirected... that many of the endeavors we seem unable to complete ought never to have been started... only such painful experience can provide the determination to achieve the most difficult of all tasks — managing ourselves.
Not the least of the benefits to be gained from all of this is the automatic correction tendency that sets in immediately. As the inventory discloses abuses of time, the remedies from which are self-evident, we find ourselves taking corrective action instinctively, without waiting for the procedure to run full course. Just as the supervisor, required for the first time to write out a position description, discovers the greatest benefit in thinking through the job, so with the executive taking inventory of time.
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Perhaps the greatest benefits of all lie in the initial discoveries.
Most people are not aware of what actually occupies their time. Yet it makes little sense to attempt to solve a problem without first assessing its nature and extent. And, as an early sage observed, a problem well stated is half solved. So with time. When we discover what we actually are doing with it, our task is half done.
Curiously, most people respond negatively to the time log when it is first suggested. Usually those who resist that idea initially become strong advocates after they experience the benefits.
Most time logs suggested in books and articles allow set time intervals for recording activities While time logs are a good tool, those with pre-set time intervals may not be the most effective. In reality, few actions begin or end in the fifteen-or-thirty-minute intervals allotted on the time log. With these time-log charts the manager is, in a sense, encouraged to "hedge" his or her entries in order to look good. Over the course of a day the variance between the presumed and actual time spent could amount to hours. In addition, the rapid rate of interruptions and distractions which often assail the manager will require multiple entries within a given time frame. These factors make the pre-set interval log less of an advantage than a log without the predetermined time intervals.3
The higher an executives rises, the greater becomes the problem of having adequate time, and the more urgent it is to confine activities to the really important and the genuinely urgent. As Dwight D. Eisenhower arranged his affairs so that only the truly important and urgent matters came across his desk, he discovered that the two seldom went together. He found that the really important matters
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were seldom urgent ... and that the most urgent matters were seldom important.
This discovery has a most interesting application to the area of assumed procrastination. While we are told not to put off until tomorrow what can be done today, the conclusion that the urgent matters clamoring for immediate attention are seldom the most important introduces an element of caution well worth considering. The counter-admonition thus would read: "Do not do today what can be put off until tomorrow." The Christian executive who first called this factor to the author's attention has been so impressed with the effectiveness of deliberate postponement, under appropriate circumstances of course, that he tries always to ask the question, "Would this situation benefit by deliberate delay?"
Behind this intriguing reversal of usual advice lies the well-founded assumption that an analysis of tasks facing the modern executive will reveal plenty of jobs which do require attention today, and are of sufficient import to warrant immediate action. Further, it may be assumed that some of the less important (though seemingly urgent) matters will actually disappear with postponement. So the one Christian executive reported his experience to be. What more efficient disposition of overburdening tasks could ever be advised! The discerning executive need not be cautioned against excessive or injudicious application of this principle!
Dr. Trickett suggests heading four "Activity Analysis Sheets" as follows: (1)"Intrinsic Importance" (2) "Urgency"; (3) "Delegation"; and (4) "Visitations and Conferences." The sheets, with appropriate subheadings, would appear as on the following page.
In the process of transferring activities to these four activity sheets, significant perspective will be gained. The
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ACTIVITY ANALYSIS
(Line Structured Presentation)
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most urgent tasks are separated from the least urgent; the most important from the least important; the conferences and conferees most frequently required from those least frequently required. Under the "Delegation" heading, the names of any subordinates or associates capable of assuming delegated tasks will be listed and appropriate tasks assigned under columns.
At this point make a list of "Ideal Activities" which ought to occupy your time. Theoretically this should be a summary of those items in the left-hand columns of each of the analysis sheets. In addition, of course, you must consider any items from your revised position description whose importance warrants inclusion, even though you may not have done any work on them because of lack of time.
We have now answered the question posed at the outset of this chapter: "Where has the time gone?" We have taken inventory of most, if not all, of the "sixty golden minutes" of each hour and have attempted to answer the critical question, "What results have I actually accomplished?" We have already experienced the built-in tendency to apply corrective action even while the process of discovery was going on.
PICK YOUR BEST STRATEGY
We dare not leave to chance alone the effective utilization of our time. Having tested our resources (by personal inventory) ... reviewed our opportunities (by job inventory) ... and learned where our time goes (by time inventory)... we come now to the strategic problem of how best to apply our resources to our opportunities for optimum results.
Webster defines "strategy" as the science and art of employing resources to achieve objectives. We must
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therefore be certain of our objectives. Both organizational and personal objectives become involved at this point. There are those who hold that it is impossible for both an organization and its key individuals to achieve their objectives. Dissatisfaction, they argue, is inevitable for one or the other. Charles Hughes, an industrial psychologist with Texas Instruments, believes otherwise and in an issue of The Manager's Letter4 strongly recommends that management (1) break down organizational objectives into subgoals stated in terms meaningful to people at lower levels; (2) communicate goals to all employees; (3) work through supervisors to help individual employees set their own goals; (4) allow for some modification of tentative organizational objectives; and (5) recombine and redefine organizational and personal objectives until a balance is reached between them.
Hughes does not suggest that organizational objectives be subordinated to employee goals. His point is that the employees and the organizations must be willing and able to adapt their aims to each other's needs.
Having thus clarified our objectives, and having analyzed all of the tasks facing us as we pursue these objectives, we see the imperative of concentrating on the essentials. The first step of our strategic plan emerges as the need to confine our efforts to the essentials tasks — "essential" meaning those which cannot be delegated or postponed.
We have also reviewed the concept of becoming "opportunity-oriented" rather than "problem-oriented". There appears to be vicious cycle for the "problem-oriented" managers. The more one worries about problems, the more problems arise to worry about; the more one concentrates on remedying mistakes of the past, the less one has time to plan to meet the needs of tomorrow, which thus continue
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to become mistakes because they weren't anticipated. The obvious solution appears to lie in organization of time to plan ahead, which will be discussed more thoroughly in the next chapter. Suffice it to say here that the more a manager can delegate the routine, time-consuming matters, and more effectively apply that "saved" time to projecting ahead, the fewer problems there will be and the greater the probability of capitalizing on opportunities. The second concept of our strategy therefore is to concentrate on our opportunities, not our problems. If we let them, and many of us do, problems could absorb all of our effort. By real effort, our energies and resources must be redirected to maximizing our opportunities so that we become, in a very real sense, "opportunity-oriented."
A third principle of strategy is, while redirecting your efforts toward opportunities rather than problems, also to think creatively about new opportunities which may never have been identified. This maybe a difficult endeavor, particularly for those who have been immersed in their problems for so long that creative thinking has ceased. In industry many variations of this can be observed in such exercises as "brainstorming." A great emphasis on the value of creative thinking is seen in many aspects of industrial management today. As new opportunities are sought, your organizational objectives and particular resources must be kept in mind. It is those particular opportunities which are peculiarly fitted... or which may be made peculiarly fitted... to your objectives and resources, that will be of interest.
Finally, as a fourth possible concept for your strategy, of all the possible courses of action or combinations thereof, which one best suits the objectives you seek ... best utilizes our available and anticipated resources... best capitalizes your present and potential opportunities...
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gives maximum results for effort and materials expended? This should be your strategy.
WORK YOUR PLAN
The eighteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Burns has often been quoted to the effect that even the best-laid plans can go astray. Planning your work, then, is not enough. You must work your plan!
Lest you take this assignment lightly, consider the powerful factors at work opposing its successful execution. Working your plans means cutting out nonessential tasks; it means delegating to others; it means majoring in planning ahead instead of repairing the dikes — in short, it means changing your ways as a manager. This can be the toughest job you've ever faced.
Imagine at the outset that you are examining with a magnifying glass the things you've done on a given day and are asking the questions: "Was this trip necessary? Did this job really need to be done? Could it have been done better or as well by someone else? Could it have been postponed? Did I sense a divine commission in the doing of it? Did I do it because I like doing those things... because that's the department I used to be in myself, and after all, I know that field pretty well?" These can be exceedingly uncomfortable questions... honest answers can come hard.
Confining your efforts only to the essential can mean no longer saving for the right time those things you really like to do... those things generally are least essential! Delegating to others can be most difficult. Fear that the job won't be done as well.. fear that it may be done better... doubts about the appearance of a job that is shrinking rather than growing... all can make delegation difficult.
Problems may be distasteful, but in this area there is
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substance and generally a body of known or discoverable facts with which to work. This can be much more gratifying than planning into the future where conditions must be projected and broad conclusions based on mere assumptions. Instead of a structured situation, this poses ambiguities which can be disconcerting to one who favors working in the former situation.
Thus the matter of "working your plan" may be more easily said than done. Implementation presents a barrier for many managers. Some prefer not to move until the plan is complete in all detail. In areas of advance planning this is not always possible. For others the fear of failure hangs over implementation of any plan. Called by many authors the "greatest enemy of management," this fear must be faced. The atmosphere set by top management can increase or reduce this fear... but it is likely to be present to some extent in almost every managerial situation.
Failure, treated constructively, can be viewed as one of the greatest learning tools available to management. No one questions that we learn much more quickly and lastingly from our mistakes than our successes. (But don't be guilty of making the same mistake twice!) No one denies that virtually all of the great discoveries of history were preceded by failures. Yet we permit the fear of failure to stunt the growth of our executives... to hang like a pal over our organizations... to quench the spirit of innovation and experimentation so essential to growth and new discovery. If we agree that the ability to benefit from failure can lead to heightened effectiveness, then failure loses its stigma. We can view it more objectively and constructively.
Managers who require performance appraisals and interviews that include regular discussion of failures along with successes find that it is possible to deal constructively with
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the problem. Getting it on the table for discussion in a routine, casual way does a great deal to ease the tension which otherwise surrounds the subject. Management is encouraged to let its people know that without mistakes little progress can be expected... that it prefers to see calm lessons learned from mistakes rather than panic-action to prevent future mistakes. A healthy philosophy of mistakes could improve the likelihood of successful implementation of your plan.
It is said of delegation that along with the right to decide must be delegated the "right to be wrong." When a subordinate makes a mistake and is called on the carpet without real consideration of all the factors — including the responsibility of those who should have assisted and supported and ensured complete understanding from the top — such a subordinate is not likely to accept the next delegated assignment with as much enthusiasm. One of the cardinal errors in delegation is taking back the job when something goes wrong, instead of assisting in determining what's gone wrong, why, and what can be done about it. The act of taking back the job destroys the relationship of confidence which must exist for delegation to be successful. Instead of taking back the task, the manager who delegated should ask where he or she failed in carrying out the responsibilities of delegation. These responsibilities lie most heavily on the person doing the delegation.
As with the setting of goals, care should be taken to make the undertaking realistic and achievable. Better to start off bite-size than never to start because of the size of the task. The most important part of any journey, however long or short, is taking the first step.
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REFERENCES:
1. Webster, Eric, "Need More Time?", Supervisory Management, January, 1964.
2. Webster, Eric, "Let's Repeal Parkinson's Law," Management Review, American Management Association, October, 1962.
3. Information on time logs and sample forms are available through Alex Mackenzie and Associates Inc., P.O. Box 130, 88 Salem St., Greenwich, NY 12834.
4. Hughes, Charles, The Manager's Letter, American Management Association, October 20, 1965.
