Prioritize Your Priorities

Managing your life’s activities and consequently how you spend your valuable time is controlled by no one other than yourself.

Of course, its easy to let circumstances overcome your personal power and, as a result, you can fall into the trap of “feeling like the world is conspiring against you.”

For the most part, the reality is that we, as individuals, are responsible for the choices we make.

Having dealt with employees, bosses and/or clients who have expressed their discontent with how their lives are at the apparent mercy of others, I quickly remind them that they are in control of their schedule and destiny.

A simple starting point is to begin every day with your personal game plan, allowing some time for the unexpected surprises and time-bandits that WILL occur, and then implement your personal discipline to ensure that your day is spent the way that YOU had intended.

Empowerment – The First of the 4 E’s

Simple question: can you get more done by doing it all yourself…or…by enlisting your entire team and giving them the ability to utilize their talents, make decisions and help move your organization toward it’s objectives?

Unbelievably, I’ve seen many managers fall into the trap of thinking they must perform many tasks on their own, believing they can do it quicker or more efficiently.  Perhaps in the short term, but in the long run, this creates constricted and limited performance.

Leaders must understand what each of their people does well, and then DELEGATE to, and EMPOWER, every individual to go EXECUTE.  Not only does this improve operational efficiency, but it provides growth and self-satisfaction opportunities for the employee.

Throughout my career, when subordinates came to me with questions, I wanted to challenge their abilities.  I would often ask them “What do you think you should do?”.  Unless their thought process was completely out of bounds, I would tell them to go do it, and let’s see how it works.

95 % of the time their solution was just fine, and the other 5%, we learned from it!

People will surprise you with their results if you just tell them what to do, and let them figure out how to do it.

Don’t misunderstand.  Leaders must still “inspect what they expect“, monitor progress and course-correct as needed.  However, they don’t have to do it all on their own.

Heck, the results from the empowered person will often turn out better than what the leader would have achieved!