Your time is limited. So don’t spend it living someone else’s life

Steve Jobs

“Congratulations, You’ve been promoted”. You’ve finally heard those magical words that have left you delighted beyond no bounds. After all, this is what we all worked hard for – to see some tangible personal growth and rewards. And the moment has finally arrived. After a bit of negotiation and customary discussions, you finally accept the promotion and celebrate it elaborately since it deserves a party, of course.

After a few weeks of settling in the role, many of the newly promoted managers start to feel a common ailment – there just isn’t enough time in the day to get things done. . It seems like there isn’t enough hours in the day to actually work on anything, besides attending all the meetings and responding to emails. Some of us then start to work late hours or even carry the work home to compensate, which only adds to the misery as it takes away the time one needs to rest and unwind. The smallest of tasks starts to take longer to finish as you are simply not rested enough for your mind to think clearly. Suddenly, the promotion excitement starts to fade and we start questioning whether we are really enjoying the work at all. As a result, some start blaming the company, the training, the manager, the role, the team members and the list goes on – for why things are making them miserable or not as ecstatic as they expected it to be.  Many promotions go through this phase, before they learn and catch up with one key aspect of their journey towards personal growth – time and attention management. 

We live in a world full of heavy stimuli and most of them are designed to attract our attention even if it’s just for a few seconds. Emails, Social Media, Presentations, News – everything around is seeking to gain our attention. An average professional spends 10-12 hours a day in front of some screen or the other – whether it is a smartphone, TVs or Laptops/Tablets. Further, it is 5 times more information intake for our brains than what it was in the 1980s. Our mind is constantly shuffling between these multiple sources of information. In the process, we get exhausted sooner than ever before and feel fatigued by the end of the day. In the long run, this has a serious and dramatic impact on our attention span, unless we consciously control our exposure to each of these stimuli. With growing responsibilities and team size, the amount of time we can dedicate to each activity becomes lesser than before and hence, as a result, the attention span needs to become that much sharper in order to allow us to process more things and keep up with the pace. However, with reducing attention spans, we feel fatigued and grossly misplaced to manage everything that is expected out of us at work questioning the sustainability of the very career that we felt was our dream at some point.  

Many individuals pass through this phase when they are promoted to a role involving a large team management of 5+ direct reports. It is when one first realizes the difference between doing things and getting things done are two very different art forms. Further, how well one has mastered the former (as an “independent contributor”) has little bearing on how well you will master the latter (as “a “leader”). 

The good news is that it is completely within one’s control to change and adapt to the new rules and become great at it with some bit of discipline. There are very few people who are born with an innate talent to manage large teams with ease. Most become good at it as they learn, adapt and change. In order to become great at it, one needs to focus on 3 key aspects:  Managing Meetings, Managing Teams and Managing Self. 

Managing Meetings …

1. Set up a 15 min meeting by default, and only if need be, extend it to 30 mins. A 60 minute meeting is required only for something extremely crucial and a large business initiative that needs to be made or a complex data to be analysed. It seems a bit drastic, but it works wonders when one starts following it. It not only saves precious time, but it also sends out a message to others how we  value time. 

2. Do not invite people to meetings to please them. A meeting is an investment of everyone’s time so invite only the folks necessary to contribute to the cause of the meeting. A lot of people are invited to meetings because we feel the need to “keep everyone in the loop”. There are better ways to exhibit inclusivity than having people idly sit in a meeting without any contribution. A smaller meeting group with key decision makers is a lot more effective in driving productive discussions. 

3. Most meetings should have a predefined agenda and people have had some reasonable time to go through it and prepare their part. If the meeting agenda hasn’t been circulated in advance, ask for one. If you have to send the agenda, do it in such a way that the meeting starts directly by going into what action needs to be taken based on the email/expectations already sent out. 

4. If you are a recipient to a meeting invite in which you don’t fully understand your role – ask. Don’t give away the gift of your time without knowing how it is going to be utilized. 

5. If you don’t see yourself playing a role, learn to respectfully decline the meeting invite. You may inadvertently ruffle some feathers, but it will drive the right behavior in the long run and eventually if you are able to deliver your work on time, you will gain respect in the right manner. 

6. Keep certain days of the week reserved for meetings so that you can go through all of them in a day or two of the week designed for such interactions. It will help you compartmentalise your time and attention better. Naturally, it is not always possible to achieve this as not all meetings are in your control, but it is still advisable to keep a day or two aside for most meetings that you can control and have them finished during the time-frame.

Managing team … 

your TEAM MEMBERS WON’T REMEMBER you BY THE AMOUNT OF HOURS you SPENd MEETING with THEM, BUT BY THE NUMBER OF OCCASIONS you HELPED THEM OUT WHEN THEY really NEEDED IT

1. Generally, the core principles of effective team management starts with three things. This is the bread and butter for any effective team that you are assigned to manage. 

• Setting coherent objectives with a clear process to track the progress  
• Showing how to achieve the goals regardless of how challenging it may sound
• Clearly communicating the benefits for the team should they achieve the goal 

2. It is not entirely necessary to have dedicated 1-on-1 meetings on a schedule. However, it is extremely important that the leader is available to solve a problem when the team needs it. The team members will always remember & appreciate the leader that was available when they needed one.
3. Being resourceful requires one to utilize all the resources available at hand in order to lead your team effectively. There are many resources we don’t successfully tap into, even though they are sometimes right in front of us.  Engaging with peers & colleagues effectively to manage the team, is one such area. It can be extremely helpful to have a set of peers to rely upon where one can bounce off ideas and create strategies to resolve the issues faced by your team members. For example, sometimes we are not the best suited to solve a team member’s issue, however, someone within our network or peer group, can be an effective guide. That way, we can create an additional channel where a team members can freely express themselves and solve the underlying issue effectively.
4. Start guarding the time to work on tasks that require your dedicated time and attention. One way to achieve this is by creating a Reserve Day on calendar that can largely be dedicated to thinking or executing on the initiatives that are crucial. It could be desk-work, fieldwork or anything else. The closer you can guard this, the more effective you will be in reducing that growing pile of work. 
5. It is not always necessary to understand and get updated on everything that the team is working on. As one grows in leading teams, it’s important to shift towards managing by exception, rather than by rule. In other words, one must focus on areas that aren’t working as well as they are expected as that’s where a bigger leadership hand can make the most of the difference, rather than seeking to play a role in all areas, equally. Learn to appreciate how every minute that you spend is dedicated towards driving the maximum returns. Are we better off reviewing the details of all ten priorities in detail, or reviewing the 2 priorities in detail which aren’t doing well and fixing them? For 1-on-1 meetings with a team member, keep it focused on what is not working first, rather than going through everything.
6. Lunch-time and a couple of breaks during regular work hours are extremely necessary for good health – take them during the day to remain mobile. It is important to remain mobile every hour or two and clear the mind, and these breaks effectively do just that. However, what is more important is how one can effectively utilize these breaks to serve a larger purpose. Small office breaks can be a great way to catch up with the team, in a rather informal environment. It is an easy way to know what is important for team members and their likes/dislikes. The more we know them, the better we will get at effectively resolving their problems. Having lunch surrounded by people discussing anything and everything under the sun, is always a better option than having lunch while staring at a smart-screen.
7. Keep away from weapons of mass distraction (Phones, Laptops, Tablets) while you are in a meeting or having an important discussion – they simply don’t help a free-flowing conversation and drastically reduces the ability to concentrate and solve a problem at hand. Listen carefully and attentively to what a team member is trying to explain – we owe it to them. No social media, no emails, no phones. One way to achieve this is also keeping an hour or two aside during the day when you check all your emails, and give yourself a breather to attend your craving for social media. This way one can at least guide a large amount of your focus towards the discussion or the issue at hand.
8. Be a problem solver or a “fixer”: Most people look forward to having a leader that can solve their problems or at a minimum, point them towards a plausible resolution. As the leadership role grows, the decision making ability needs to sharpen and the time one gets to analyse multiple data-points and connect the dots gets shorter. There is no secret sauce to becoming a great “fixer” – it’s a muscle one develops with time and experience. However, there are certain steps that can make one more effective than others:

• Understand the problem and its root cause with active listening and attention.. 
• Layout the possible options to resolve the underlying problem. 
• Assess the constraints under which you need to resolve the underlying problem. 
• Discuss your options with a few key stakeholders and drive an objective discussion.
• Make a decision and monitor the results on whether it solved the problem or not. 

While the above steps seem logical and simple, most people that get them right are the ones who can quickly analyse the options, drive a decision and see it through to solving the problem. The speed and decisiveness with which one moves determines the outcome. If not solved, these problems will keep piling and it will consume an enormous effort to clean up the backlog, not to mention the loss of confidence in the leadership that the team tends to develop. 

Managing self …

save the time at work so that it can be utilized in improving the quality of life & achieving personal growth. If all of it is spent back at doing more work, you are missing the whole point.

The above solutions, if practiced with certain discipline, will most certainly leave you with some spare time at hand than you have had before and feeling more accomplished with what you get done at work even with the expanded role and responsibilities. The key question then, is what will you do with the extra time you have gained, besides investing it back in getting more done at work. I strongly recommend that one should invest time in doing something that leads to a more fulfilling life. 

Cultivating a hobby or interest of choice, preferably something outdoors, can go a long way in making you fitter – physically and mentally. It is important that you save the time to invest in yourself, and live beyond the weekends and vacation in order to stay healthy and focused, even at work. So, if you do end up saving time using any of the above recommendations, do yourself a favour and invest it back in developing a hobby of your choice that makes you happy.  You owe it to yourself and hopefully it is a reward lucrative enough for you to try out some of these behavioral changes and see the changes unfold for yourself in the year to come.