The ‘tyranny of the everyday' makes it hard to rise above the pressure and create time to think clearly. Executives we coach know intellectually they need thinking time, but from where?

It seems impossible as you dash between problems. You know you should delegate - but last time things were screwed up, so you took the task back. With more time spent ‘managing', there's less time to enjoy life. You suffer, your family suffers. Welcome to the heart attack. 

Not content with your own stress you infect your management team, who take the stress to their staff, who take it on to customers.  Stress hits the whole business.

A simple model to understand activities

We've created a simple model of business activity that's easy to understand and apply. Using colour-coding, we've found a way to analyse activity and ensure the business is balanced for growth.

While we use this model to help whole organisations, we regularly coach senior leaders to achieve more at a personal level - achieve more, but avoid increased stress levels.

‘Oh yes, I'm managing,' often translates into simply becoming busier and busier without much to show for it - and probably not the business growth you might have expected from all your personal efforts.

People know instinctively something is wrong when they say, ‘I'm overloaded.' Our model coaches leaders in how to identify where their time is spent:

• managing costs - administrative tasks (red activity)
• managing cash flow - sales and marketing (blue activity)
• managing growth - strategy (black activity).

Leaders soon see where today's emphasis on activities, often red ones, is unbalanced and leading to fire-fighting. You may have the title ‘CEO' or the role of a senior executive, but in reality you may be doing a ‘red' job based on your outputs.

Balancing time effectively

Some CEOs run themselves ragged trying to create more growth during a business downturn. The tendency is to focus on cutting costs, but forget about sales and marketing. Or they see-saw between cutting red activities and emphasising blue ones.

Black output is the crucial growth factor, but don't overdo it. Too little black activity means no future growth, while too much can lead to tomorrow's growth at the expense of today's cash flow.

Time is of the essence, but not to keep fixing things like spinning plates. Taking stock of your personal activities and creating the right balance will help the business grow without employing a coronary care unit.

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brianc, over 2 years ago

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