In an always-on world, the demands heaped on today’s leaders make it seem like their time is unlimited. But a leader’s time is finite, and too often leaders get frustrated by constantly needing to put out fires, get backlogged on email, rally the troops or devote their attention to external stakeholders. Most executives stuck in one rut or the other fail to balance their time and priorities, and long term strategic goals and projects fall by the wayside. How does the satisfied executive spend their time, and how can leaders disrupt the organizational roots that lead to a lack of respect for time and structure?

Contributor

• • John Baldoni, Chair of leadership development N2growth, a global leadership advisory firm & Author of 13 books… newest is MOXIE, The Secret to Bold and Gutsy Leadership, None

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Transcript

Sanjog Aul [00:00:26]:

Hello, and welcome to CIO Talk Radio. To learn more about the show, please visit www.ciotalkradio.com, and as always, we invite you to join the discussion on Twitter, #CTR live, and look for this show as #leadership and #productivity. Today’s topic is, Is A Leader’s Time Limitless? And our guest for today’s show is John Baldoni, who’s a leadership educator, executive coach, and the chair of leadership development practice with N2Growth. He’s also the author of his forthcoming book, Moxie, the Secret to Bold and Gutsy Leadership. Hello. How are you, John? How’s life treating you?

John Baldoni [00:01:07]:

Good morning to you, Sanjog Aul. Things are very good with me, and I appreciate the opportunity to come on and have a nice conversation this morning.

Sanjog Aul [00:01:15]:

Oh, the honors all are. So now we live in an always onward 24/7, and as a leader or an executive, it’s easy to feel you always have to be on the top of your game constantly putting out fires or responding to other stakeholders, and it can seem like there are endless hours in the day. Now either stakeholders expect the world of you or your employees do, and it can lead to some important things suffering. So the topic for today’s conversation is looking at the productivity and time management of a leader and how to be truly satisfied in the role plus, of course, create a culture so that we are given the opportunity to spend the time where we are most effective as leaders. So looking at the time management and productivity, yes, there have been number of blogs being written and articles and books, etcetera, etcetera. When you look at the leader as as they grow into the role of a leader or an executive, what do you think changes, in the way their time is supposed to be managed versus how typically it goes?

John Baldoni [00:02:28]:

Well, Sanjog Aul, I think you hit the nail on the head in the first words when you talk about the commitments and expectations from various stakeholders. Employees want a piece of your time, and rightly so. Your boss wants a piece of your time, and rightly so, and your colleagues need you too. The more authority you have, other people want to share in that and get your opinion and your bounce and your distributed power, if you will. So you’re being bombarded from all angles, and, of course, we now are in a 24/7 type culture. I hate saying that, but that’s the reality and part of that’s due to globalism. I know executives in global companies that come in at 6 in the morning and leave at 6 or 7 in the evening, which is a 12-hour day, which I think is pretty long and then go home and work, and the reason they come in early and stay late is because they’re managing meetings and they open with what’s going on in China and then they close with what’s going on in Australia or wherever it is, come in early for Europe or stay late for Asia, and so you never really get a hold of your schedule, and it’s very, very you can do that for a short period of time, but after a while it takes a lot out of you, and when you’re being pushed and pulled from different sectors, especially out of your office, you are shorting the people around you who are looking for you, but also you’re not giving yourself time to think and to process. So it is a real conundrum, and I don’t know, there are some techniques we can talk about what you can do, but time management is a significant challenge, but those who succeed have found ways to master it.

Sanjog Aul [00:04:13]:

See, all of this that you just mentioned almost gives away this notion as if a leader or becoming a leader also makes you a victim of these circumstances which you are bound to agree to and submit yourself to any and every demand that’s placed on us, but would you say that we have to learn to say no for the right reasons? And if it is explained properly, then the ecosystem can be arranged in such a way that we don’t fall into this never-ending grind if you will.

John Baldoni [00:04:48]:

Absolutely. It’s important that leaders limit their time because as an answer to your question, is a leader’s time limitless? The answer is no. Because if you are stretched too thinly, you will serve no one, including yourself, and you simply will suffer from burnout, but no, leaders and executives need to learn how to say no in a way that is complementary to the organization. A leader, in many ways, has his or her most precious resource, certainly personally, which is his or her time. They have to use that time judiciously. So learning to limit oneself is important. Now what happens in times of crisis, when there’s a situation of all hands on deck, then people do have to jump to the floor and schedules go out the window, but really those situations shouldn’t be the norm. Too often, and I think one of the most overused words in management today, is urgency. Everything becomes urgent. Lunch becomes urgent. That’s of course ridiculous, and if everything is labelled an urgency or a high priority, what does that really mean? That nothing’s urgent and nothing’s a priority, because it all blurs together. So it is important for leaders to get a handle on what’s important. How do I ration myself and my time to apply it in the best possible way?

Sanjog Aul [00:06:19]:

Now a president of a country, I’d not name who that person is, but he quoted that if a person says I cannot get my job done in 8 to 10 hours, then they are to look at the way they have been managing their time and the way they have been delegating. Because that is basically a good benchmark. Because if you are not getting the work done in those 8 to 10 hours when you’re most productive, then you’re unnecessarily making it as a snowball effect that you’ll work 20 hours today and then you’ll be even worse tomorrow.

John Baldoni [00:06:53]:

Absolutely. I mean, we can work in short bursts on deadlines, but not over the long haul, and we, as you rightly said, limit our own productivity. You’re just simply not at your best. So by limiting what it is you do, then you can tackle more, and you raise something about delegation, and that’s a whole other matter, but where leaders get in traps, and this is an organizational issue, is they feel they don’t have the people to whom they can delegate. Well, that’s an organizational issue, but it falls on the executive’s lap because he or she is managing people who are not capable, and what that means is the executive picks up the slack, and that’s an unhealthy situation. In that instance, the executive needs better trained employees or different employees who can actually do the job, and at the same time, that executive can take time to train and grow and develop those people, but then that becomes a different priority. So it is not easy. I believe firmly every successful executive is an expert delegator, and they’re the ones that can say do this. Not only do they delegate, but they also give responsibility and authority to do the job, and everybody knows what the parameters are. It’s a divide and conquer process, and tasks are assigned and done and managed, and everyone knows who’s in charge, who’s responsible, who has authority. Now that’s an executive function. So that is a way to certainly get a hold of your schedule, but if you don’t have anybody to delegate to, then you’re up against it, and that’s a tough situation for an executive to be in.

Sanjog Aul [00:08:47]:

So if you were to look at a person the way a leader let’s say a person versus a leader. Person means someone who’s been assigned a job, but a leader is supposed to figure out what they do on a given day, and they are the masters, if you will, of how a day goes by. Would you say that they are supposed to become available to people because that’s when they are supposed to be a leader? Because traditional definition is a leader is always available to their people so that they can help overcome the obstacles and also spend time in developing them. If they do that, then where is this time pressure coming from? Are there also tasks that they’re supposed to be doing beyond developing people and beyond removing the roadblocks for them?

John Baldoni [00:09:34]:

Well, sure. You’ve given a good definition of leadership, which I really can’t quibble with, but let’s understand that there are very few instances of a pure leader. Certainly in an organizational structure, a leader is first and foremost a manager or an executive. So he or she has his or her own competency, whatever that is, be it accounting, logistics, management, marketing, or a CEO for that matter. So they have to get things done. They have responsibilities to do. Along the way, they’re expected to be leaders and do all of the things you talked about, which is to develop their people, put people into positions where they can succeed. That becomes part of being an executive. That becomes, you know, putting in people to delegate to. That’s part of your management/leadership equation, but there are limits to what a leader can do. You can overburden a leader so that he or she cannot function because the task is too enormous, but after a certain situation, leaders need to take control of their situation and find ways to manage it. So it’s a byproduct of both management and leadership.

Sanjog Aul [00:10:55]:

See, we take small business or an entrepreneurial approach to how a person could manage time. If the person can bill at $125 an hour, and if they can pay someone to book their travel for $10 an hour, some people fall into that trap that let me do it because I think I can do it better. Do you think leaders also fall in that trap? Because they could very well identify things which are, yes, they can do very well, but that’s not the best utilization of their time, and those are the time wasters, and that’s where the traps are.

John Baldoni [00:11:27]:

Absolutely, and there’s two things going on in there. The first one is what we talked about earlier where if you have to do it yourself because you don’t trust the people you have, and that’s a real serious management issue. In that instance, the manager, the executive needs capable talent, and so he or she has to address that by developing that talent or going to find it somewhere. There’s another issue, which is if you don’t trust your people because you cannot let go, that’s another issue, and that often happens to young rising executives who have been promoted on their level of competency. We get promoted to management not because we’re managers, but because we’re good at a given skill, be it IT, logistics, what do you name it? When you achieve that first rung on the ladder, you have to learn to let go of what got you there so that you can become a true manager and an executive to help the organization run efficiently. So if you cannot let go of tasks and you have capable people, that’s on you. That’s on the leader. He or she is not letting go and as a result is overworking himself or herself. At the same time, they are underutilizing the talents of their individual employees and thwarting the development of those individuals and additionally not helping the organization because those people are capable and can do the job and they are good thinkers, good doers, and the organization needs capable people, but if they’re micromanaged or overmanaged, then they’ll never blossom, and what will happen if it’s a talented person, that talented person will simply leave.

Sanjog Aul [00:13:29]:

So if you look at a leader, they are essentially human beings first, and in order for them to feel fulfilled, they need to be able to feel fulfilled on 4 fronts. One is the work. Second, home. Third, community, and fourth is self. If they are to spread themselves in these areas and create time for themselves so that they can contribute on each of these areas to feel fulfilled, typically, work takes over, and it cannibalizes the other areas.

John Baldoni [00:14:03]:

Right.

Sanjog Aul [00:14:04]:

Do you think we are at a point where people are even struggling to handle their work and that’s why these other 3 things fall way behind? And in fact, that is what is causing leaders to become less and less effective because they somehow feel a void.

John Baldoni [00:14:21]:

Well, I think what you say has merit. I do know that if there are different domains in your life, work often becomes a priority, and that’s not necessarily an evil, but you need to learn how to manage it and how to cope with it and how to handle it appropriately. If work takes over your life, that’s not a healthy situation, because it’s all work and no play, and there’s no regeneration, no outside world with friends and family or even taking time for yourself. Then you’re never regenerating. You’re operating always in the reserve category. After a while you’re overworking yourself so much that you really aren’t productive nor capable anymore. So yeah. I think work does dominate and so getting a hold of that work equation, how you can manage your work life, is critical, and it starts with managing your time appropriately.

Sanjog Aul [00:15:40]:

Would you say that a person who’s a leader requires third-party validation or external validation for them to feel like a leader? Because if they say I cannot even handle my own 4 quadrants of my life, and here I go, I’m trying to prove to somebody else that I’m a good leader. Do you think people fall in that trap and that’s why they try to somehow meet other people’s expectations as a leader and that’s where the downfall begins?

John Baldoni [00:16:09]:

Well, I think this may be true of rising executives, those who are just getting their first management roles; they may be uneasy in it. As human beings, we all need validation. It doesn’t matter who we are at any level, but if the self-expectations are so high that you can never achieve anything, that’s an issue too. Raised self-expectations are good because they become a catalyst to achieve, but if those expectations are so high, then you can never derive happiness or satisfaction. Consider it the perfectionist complex. You just never feel satisfied. People like that tend to be micromanagers, tend to overwork themselves, and may even overwork their subordinates. So it’s a vicious cycle and there’s no enrichment from it. Overly raised expectations can be harmful for the individual. No question about it.

Sanjog Aul [00:17:22]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back, and let’s explore the different ways in which leaders could get caught in traps of time, and what are the different, and then based on the kind of, ways they spend the time, like, as leaders, does that define them to be different type of leaders? Let’s explore this when we come back. Please stay tuned.

Speaker 0 [00:17:50]:

HP is proud to sponsor this program. Find out how the HP as a service solution for SAP HANA can help you gain instant impactful business results without capital investment by logging on to hp.com. Transform information into intelligence and a competitive advantage with a full spectrum of SAP HANA products and services from HP, a global SAP hosting partner.

Speaker 0 [00:18:20]:

Bosch Software Innovations is proud to sponsor this program. Visit www.bosch-si.com/connectedmanufacturing to find out how Bosch can help you improve your operational performance and become a manufacturing industry leader in a connected world. Change the way you predict, manage, and produce outcomes. Bosch connected manufacturing.

Speaker 0 [00:18:52]:

HP is proud to sponsor this program. Tap into our expertise, innovation, and services to bring your most important workloads to the cloud. You are listening to CIO Talk Radio with Sanjog Aul. To learn more about the show, please visit www.ciotalkradio.com. If you have a question or comment, call toll free at +1 (866) 472-5790. That number again is +1 (866) 472-5790. Now back to the show. Here’s Sanjog Aul.

Sanjog Aul [00:19:37]:

Welcome back. So, John, what are the different ways in which leaders get caught in traps of time, and who are the different type of leaders based on how they primarily spend their time?

John Baldoni [00:19:52]:

I think it’s not so much different types of leaders, but executives get caught in the expectations of stakeholders. If your boss wants something, your employees want something, colleagues want something, usually we default to whatever my boss wants, I will deliver it. That becomes the highest priority. Should it always be? Probably not, but if your boss asks for something, you will deliver it. So that ends up and then there’s no time for oneself. So that’s where the traps come in. Leaders who manage their schedule are ones who put limits on things. They’re very tactical and practical. You put time limits on meetings, you run tight agendas or you dispense with meetings, you handle and learn to handle things more efficiently. There’s a lot of time wasting that goes on in offices and in organizations, not because people are willfully wasting time, but because tasks get added in and they become value detractors. There’s optimization and efficiency efforts to try to take those things away, and that can help maximize people’s time, but what you want is, do people have time to think about their job and actually perform it? That’s what you want to strive for. So that’s the challenge.

Sanjog Aul [00:21:29]:

Would you say if somebody already got the label of a leader and which is not typically people will just call themselves leader, maybe they have earned it. Do you think they are beyond this challenge of being able to handle their time effectively?

John Baldoni [00:21:43]:

Well, I think managing one’s time is always paramount. You can get wrapped around your own axle because situations arise, and the other thing to understand is that certainly at the top of an organization, leaders don’t get to choose their own issues. So for example, if you become a CEO and you’re in charge of something, if you have a product recall or a disaster, a lot of your energy is gonna go into helping to manage and mobilize resources to manage that recall or handle that crisis or that disaster. So that’s going to take you away from your day-to-day management leadership role. Ideally, that crisis will have a finite timeline and you can get beyond it, but as I said, not choosing the issue means everything can pop up. So all of a sudden everything is going along smoothly and boom, if there’s a blowout in the Gulf or a product recall, all hands on deck to manage that particular crisis. So everyone’s time becomes compromised. At the same time, you manage differently in a crisis than you do day to day. In a crisis, it’s moment to moment, hour to hour. A leader is looped into the process, might be huddling with executives on an hourly basis. On a day-to-day level, that’s not going to happen. The time frames are more longitudinal. You have more time to think and act. However, if you get caught up in the urgency of the moment and manage everything as if it’s a disaster when it truly is not, then you are wasting people’s time as well as your own time. So that’s where you find that balance.

Sanjog Aul [00:23:52]:

Would you say that most of the time when a leader is approached, people are not literally looking for those people to roll up their sleeves and start managing. Perhaps they want most of the time their viewpoint because of the broad perspective they bring and the level of experience and the clear line of sight they have typically in terms of where the issues could lie and how to best handle versus having to jump in. So do you think an expectation can be set for the rest of the organization that when you’re approaching me, number one, bring your due diligence with you so that there are some options and don’t expect me to give you a solution, and then, I could at most provide you an objective input or evaluation or some analysis, but with minimal time commitment required from my side. Do you think it is seen as a person doesn’t want to work, or is it seen as a strength where a person with minimum amount of time will get people to do the best they can do, and they will be able to help move the ball forward. Would that be seen as a better sign of leadership and not a time waster then?

John Baldoni [00:25:05]:

Without question, and that’s the situation you just described is the way true executives operate. Now here’s the challenge. If you take over a function where you don’t have people trained or certainly not aware of how you’re going to manage, you need to hand hold them for a little while and say, when we have our meetings, this is what I expect and these are my expectations. I’ve worked with a lot of executives who have come into new organizations or taken over departments which are not operating efficiently, and it’s up to that executive to instill a new way of doing things. So saying that starts with time. We have a limited amount of time to do this. When we come in a meeting, I want our meetings to be more decision based. Tell me what you’ve done. Here’s what we’re gonna do, and we’ll go forward. I will give you my input and you’ll give me your input and we’ll make a decision that way. It may take some educating, and it often does, but it’s a matter of bringing people up to speed. Those are my expectations. That’s exactly what good executives do.

Sanjog Aul [00:26:23]:

And you’re saying the fact that we are even discussing this topic where somehow leaders are not able to utilize their time and someone starts thinking maybe above them or below them that the person can be approached anytime and they can take as much time as they want, then that executive is not doing the job. Is that what we’re saying?

John Baldoni [00:26:44]:

No. I believe very firmly that executive leaders need to have an open door policy so that people can talk to them. At the same time, there have to be limits to that because if everybody’s coming in all of the time and just chatting or wanting developmental type conversations, the work is not going to get done. When we say an open door policy, we mean, if you have issues, I want you to be able to bring them to me, and we will set up a time where we can discuss them. So you prioritize that and you put that on your calendar and you schedule it. On the other hand, if you have an employee who is popping in and out of your office to ask you questions about the work that he or she should be doing, that person is not secure in his or her own job and needs additional training, or the executive certainly needs to say, Look, Jane, I expect you to do this job. I have confidence that you can do this job. You don’t need to come to me with questions. Just do it. Sometimes you may have to do this with new hires, and that’s part of the maturation process we all go through in a new job, but if that person continually does that, then that person’s probably not right for that position, and you have to consider what your options are.

Sanjog Aul [00:28:12]:

So one is to have the leader fend for themselves and try to figure out how to manage resources, etcetera. If you were to stand, as part of the executive team and or any of the worker who reports to that leader, how would you see, or how would you act or react or behave with the leader so that that leader is allowed to do the best they can based on their background and their experience and the role that they’re playing?

John Baldoni [00:28:42]:

Every leader needs to set priorities for his or her function, his or her role. This is what I’m going to achieve, and this is how I’m going to achieve it. At the same time, I’m going to work with my people to help them; they’re going to work out the how. I’m not going to figure out the how for everything. I’m going to have them figure it out too. So that’s a delegation move right then and there. At the same time, you’re going to have some flex in there because there are always going to be issues or time commitments that come up and you’ll have to do something, something urgent or a request from one’s boss. You have to respond to that. That’s going to take you out of your normal schedule so you won’t be able to do things, but prioritization is very important. Look at all the functions and all the tasks that you do in a given day. What can you take off? What can you stop doing? What meetings can you not attend? What emails can you eliminate? Set up priorities where please don’t reply all on every email, or simply don’t answer those types of emails, because that clutters up a lot of people’s inboxes and takes time to process through those things. How are you going to handle that? It starts with the leader making a prioritization. What is it that I need to achieve? What is my job really to do? And go from there. Everything else should be subservient to: is this helping me do my job? If it’s not helping me do my job, it’s not helping the organization, then I’m going to stop doing it. We can clear our schedules if we stop doing it. One of the challenges when I work with executives on time management, I say give me a time sheet of what percentage of time you’re spending on certain things. Then we talk about it when we see it. Then you’ll go, you’re spending 55% of your time training other people. If you’re not a trainer or that isn’t your function, then you have a management issue. How can you get your people trained? Or how can you find new people who can help you so you don’t have to spend your time training and educating them all of the time? Initially, yes, but not throughout a product cycle. You have to find that optimal thing. So look at your schedule: where am I spending my time? Where can I take from? What can I add to it? That’s a matter of getting a hold of your schedule.

Sanjog Aul [00:31:24]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners. When we come back, let’s actually look at how can a leader diagnose their own productivity problems and how these problems manifest throughout their organizational design. Because sometimes we might be thinking we are doing well, but if we take a pause and look at whatever I’m doing, is there a possibility of improving it? And besides, of course, helping with that helping themselves, how would that impact the organization? So what is the type of diagnostic that a leader can perform on themselves and also on the organization that they lead in order to remove these issues, which is causing a limitless time syndrome in the organization? Please stay tuned listeners. We’ll be right back.

Speaker 0 [00:32:18]:

HP is proud to sponsor this program. Tap into our expertise, innovation, and services to bring your most important workloads to the cloud.

Speaker 0 [00:32:30]:

Bosch Software Innovations is proud to sponsor this program. Visit www.bosch-si.com/connectedmanufacturing to find out how Bosch can help you improve your operational performance and become a manufacturing industry leader in a connected world. Change the way you predict, manage, and produce outcomes. Bosch connected manufacturing.

Speaker 0 [00:33:01]:

HP is proud to sponsor this program. Find out how the HP as a service solution for SAP HANA can help you gain instant impactful business results without capital investment by logging on to hp.com. Transform information into intelligence and a competitive advantage with a full spectrum of SAP HANA products and services from HP, a global SAP hosting partner. You are listening to CIO Talk Radio with Sanjog Aul. To learn more about the show, please visit www.ciotalkradio.com. If you have a question or comment, call toll free at +1 (866) 472-5790. That number again is +1 (866) 472-5790. Now back to the show. Here’s Sanjog Aul.

Sanjog Aul [00:34:04]:

Welcome back. So for the listeners, John, what do you think a leader can do to diagnose their own productivity problems and the fact that there could be an impact on the organization, how these problems are manifesting throughout the organization?

John Baldoni [00:34:20]:

I think the way to diagnose it is to sit down and think and ask where’s my time? That’s why I suggested earlier doing a time sheet. Where is my time going? How much time am I spending on email? How much time am I spending with my employees? How much am I spending with my boss? How much time am I spending with my colleagues? How much time am I spending learning about our business? How much time am I spending with our customers, learning their needs? There’s a lot of different aspects to it. Doing a time sheet is not the most innovative thing to do, but it’s a way of getting a handle on how am I spending my time. Unless you sit down and do a time sheet, even roughly where your time is going, you don’t really know how you’re spending it. It’s like doing a budget. You’re not going to know where your money’s going until you do a budget. Same thing with your time.

Sanjog Aul [00:35:23]:

Now you and I both have seen, and I’m sure the listeners also have seen, many organizations where everything is to be done yesterday, and there is fire after fire, and that is part of the organizational design, the way expectations are set with the way the leaders lead and the managers manage. What is it that needs to be fundamentally changed in order for that to go away so that people in an ideal world, within 8 to 10 hours, get the best work, most productive work done, and then they are doing things with other aspects of their lives versus saying work is 20 hours a day?

John Baldoni [00:36:11]:

Right. I think it’s a matter of the tyranny of urgency. Everything becomes urgent. I have to have done it, as you said, yesterday. If you’re a firefighter, you have the immediacy of putting out the fire, but then you have downtime where you clean your equipment and get it ready for the next challenge, but if you’re always fighting fires, you never have time to regenerate yourself or take care of your equipment. A lot of organizations run on the firefighter mystique. It’s this high-adrenaline stuff. It can be intoxicating after a while. I call it people become adrenaline junkies. They have to learn that they can’t be doing this all the time. If you want to do that, there is a special role for you in a team, but you’re not going to be an effective senior leader if you’re always jumping from fire to fire. A savvy manager will ask why we always have fires. What is it in our organization that’s provoking disaster or emergency after emergency? Can’t we manage ourselves more effectively so we can handle things in a more measured manner, so we don’t provoke crisis? Will there be challenges? Will there be crises? Of course, but if you have 10 crises a day, then really you don’t have any crises, or your organization is run in such a slipshod manner that you have serious organizational issues. You don’t have the right people in place, you don’t have the right resources, you don’t have the right manpower, you don’t have enough time to do things. So it also gets back to sitting in and asking how is our organization running? What can we do to optimize things more effectively?

Sanjog Aul [00:38:11]:

And the terms that you use, optimize and how it’s running, do you think other than that leader who’s coming and leading the pack there, nobody else recognizes where it is. Is that mostly a systemic problem? So if a leader was to save themselves from getting sucked into it, they have to hold it by the horn and basically get going in terms of bringing a solution and executing on it in order to make this happen so it doesn’t come and bite them where they get sucked in again. So that said, a leader who is working in an organization where their own time is seen as limitless also is automatically going to be in an organization where everybody thinks that they are going to be working 24/7. So if they had to solve it and if you had a playbook to share, what would they do as leaders to turn this place around?

John Baldoni [00:39:14]:

Well, it comes with an organizational diagnosis. Why are we the way we are? The first step is to have a conversation. Talk to the people who are actually doing the work. Tell me about your job. Tell me what you do. What would you like? How could it be better? How could we make this better? Take all that data, all that input, and optimize the job, streamline things. Part of that will require taking things away. Sometimes employees do things because they’ve always done them, but they’re really not necessary anymore. They become value detractors. At one time they may have had value, but they no longer do. This comes from understanding the job: how can I do it better? It begins with a conversation with the people doing the work and you go up through the levels, the managers who are doing it, and ask how can we optimize this task? How can we make things work better? That’s the principle behind lean thinking: doing more in a logical systemic way that enriches human beings to work at an optimum pace with less waste and do it more judiciously and with more thinking power. Those methodologies will help people prioritize what needs to be done and how you can manage your time. Time can also be used as an excuse. Sometimes that can be a good thing if you have to say no. You can simply say, I’d like to but I have a scheduling conflict, which is a soft no. Also employees think they don’t have any time when actually if they reconsider their schedule, they could do it if they really wanted to, and they may not know they can because they’re burdened by tasks which are not enriching, not adding value to the organization, but rather detracting value. That’s how you optimize your time: by thinking what can we take away and what do we need to add? How can I put my people in a position where they can use their time and resources most effectively?

Sanjog Aul [00:41:41]:

Now would you think that sometimes the leaders who just are in, they picked up an area, an expertise, a job, which they simply love, and for them, time doesn’t matter, and unknowingly, they send a signal out to the rest of the world that my boss is working literally around the clock, so I should do too. Otherwise, I would look bad, and then people start following suit. Do you think that could be an unintentional message that we could be sending out?

John Baldoni [00:42:14]:

People follow the leader. Absolutely. Do as I do rather than do as I say. That’s the principle. The leader casts the shadow. People will follow the lead of a leader, and if they see a leader not doing what he or she professes to do, then they’ll say, well, he or she’s not serious, and that’s going to erode their belief and trust in the leader. They will be less willing to invest their time.

Sanjog Aul [00:42:51]:

So if you are to look at a leader who has been in a given company and we feel that organization where he or she has tried to do their best and still the results are not as stellar, and people are really getting burnt out, and the person is not asked to go, so the person is there and they are struggling. What should be done so that we bring some structure to the madness? Is it someone again the person who has not been able to help solve this problem for the last 3, 4, 5 years, do you think the person will suddenly get that light of wisdom and the person could turn around? Or how do you think such situations are handled or should be handled?

John Baldoni [00:43:38]:

If a leader’s not aware that he has a problem, that’s a problem. Leaders have to go looking for problems. It’s a matter of understanding what’s going on. A person who is unaware of the issues is a person who’s not in tune with him or herself or, more especially in an organization, not in tune with the needs of individuals. A moment of awareness probably would come from a moment of crisis, like, oh my gosh, I never realized this was happening. Then the second thing is, do I have the impetus to change? Do I have the wherewithal to make that change? A person who rallies to that and responds becomes a more effective leader, but not everybody can do that.

Sanjog Aul [00:44:31]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back, and let’s look at how the people who do it well do it because there are folks who have aced the art and perhaps they keep improving on it, but what are some of those best practices? I’m not sure if that’s the right way to approach it. There’s nothing like best practice. It works for different people in different ways, but if people have been successful in building a good balance and are able to manage their time well, build a good culture, what are some of the things they have done that could be tried by you as the listener in your respective organization to bring some positive result? Let’s listen to John when we come back. Please stay tuned, listeners.

Speaker 0 [00:45:17]:

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Speaker 0 [00:45:49]:

HP is proud to sponsor this program. Tap into our expertise, innovation, and services to bring your most important workloads to the cloud. HP is proud to sponsor this program. Find out how the HP as a service solution for SAP HANA can help you gain instant impactful business results without capital investment by logging on to hp.com. Transform information into intelligence and a competitive advantage with a full spectrum of SAP HANA products and services from HP, a global SAP hosting partner. You are listening to CIO Talk Radio with Sanjog Aul. To learn more about the show, please visit www.ciotalkradio.com. If you have a question or comment, call toll free at +1 (866) 472-5790. That number again is +1 (866) 472-5790. Now back to the show. Here’s Sanjog Aul.

Sanjog Aul [00:47:04]:

Welcome back. So we, of course, discussed what people can do and some of the different techniques. Now let’s look at where we have seen results, where we have seen success. Those leaders, what are they doing? What have you seen? So let’s talk facts so that we can maybe emulate, if not imitate, what they have been doing in order to get where we want to.

John Baldoni [00:47:28]:

Okay.

Sanjog Aul [00:47:29]:

So what would you say are some of the things that you feel the successful people you’ve seen established a pattern in the way the people who are satisfied leaders who are doing a good balancing act and they are helping create value for their business and also other areas of their life. How are they handling this whole time management thing?

John Baldoni [00:47:53]:

Well, I think that first and foremost it begins with a question: how do I add value to the organization? Understand what my job is, not simply my job title, but what is my responsibility? For example, if I’m a CIO, that’s my title, but what does it really mean? In my words, position my company to take advantage of technology so that we optimize our operations and do the best for our customers. Boil it down. So as a CIO, what is it that I must do? What are my responsibilities? How do I add value? People who are successful in this area are highly disciplined. They run a tight schedule, but not so tight that they’re inflexible. They have high expectations for themselves, and they radiate those expectations to others. When you work with me, this is what I expect. Over time you develop a shorthand for meetings: decision meetings and discussion meetings. Decision meetings will be, I want you to come to me with the solution to this problem, and we’ll say yay or nay. If we have a discussion meeting, that’s a broader topic. Come with talking points to hash out. Also, successful people understand where their best value is to an organization. Where do people need me? My boss needs me to do X, so I do this. My team needs me to do that, so I’m with them. How do I decide what my value proposition is, and how do I deliver value in very specific ways? How can I ration my time and my presence so that I’m doing the best job I can for my people? That’s a discipline. It comes down to understanding your value and applying discipline to it. Also important is time for reflection. I’ve coached executives who have a dedicated time for reflection in their week. They’ll tell their administrator, block out Wednesday afternoon for me because I need every Wednesday to think and reflect on what’s going on. Good managers hold to this. Now does that Wednesday afternoon get taken at times? Of course, but it’s the practice of setting that time aside. A good reflection exercise I borrowed from a combat situation is to ask: what’s happening, what’s not happening, and what can I do to influence the action? What’s happening with our team? What’s not happening? People are not completing their tasks or they’re demoralized or customers aren’t working with us, and then third, what must I do to influence the outcome? How do I get on top of this problem? To whom do I delegate things? Do I bring more resources to my team? Do I challenge people to address the problem? Do I spend more time in the field? Do I spend less time in the field? Do I delegate others to do this? It’s a holistic reflection: what’s happening, what’s not happening, and what can I do to influence the action? Those are practices of good executives.

Sanjog Aul [00:51:59]:

Do you think, in order for people to get a better handle, they should be thinking of ways to handle what’s coming their way or fundamentally shift the way they lead their life and work and deal with community and themselves, which will allow them to be more at peace with themselves and create a better overall outcome?

John Baldoni [00:52:22]:

I think it comes down to self-awareness and situational awareness. It’s a topic in my new book under the heading of mindfulness. You need to understand yourself. The most effective leaders understand what they do well and what they do not do well. What they do well, they practice; what they don’t do well, they find help in those areas. They’re always open to feedback. You will not know how effective you are until you’re getting feedback from others. That feedback becomes a diagnostic process: how am I doing? What could we be doing better? Bosses and executives need to make it safe for people to speak frankly. What’s working? What’s not working? What could we do better? The most self-aware leaders are also situationally aware because they ask other people what’s going on and what their opinions are, and they listen to the answers. Can they do everything an employee wants? Of course not. Just as you can’t do everything a customer may want, but you find a balance. It’s a process of testing your assumptions, executing on them, being open to feedback so you can move forward. Will you always get it right the first time? Of course not. Maybe the tenth time you’ll get it right, but it’s a process of continual self and team improvement. That’s what effective executives do.

Sanjog Aul [00:54:04]:

One of the last questions I’d like to ask you: the advice that people get from many is to try to find tactical ways of handling stress and their time management and stop working around the clock. The world we are living in today is not getting any simpler. Do you think the strategies that we have discussed today will remain relevant for the times we are expecting tomorrow?

John Baldoni [00:54:40]:

That’s a fair question. Let’s not confuse complexity with inability to simplify and get to the heart of issues. We will always need people who are good, sharp, critical thinkers who can weigh the options and make good decisions, whatever the complexity is. Will the challenges of tomorrow be greater than the challenges of today? I don’t know. We have pretty challenging times today. We had challenging times in Rome during the Roman Empire. What’s changed between then and now is the pace of change. That’s where your equation of time comes in. How do I manage my time? I can only do so much, so I must ration my time and optimize it so I can do my best for my team and my organization and deliver value to those we serve.

Sanjog Aul [00:55:50]:

On behalf of the show and our listeners, I’d really like to thank you, John, for sharing your thoughts on how a leader can get out of this mode of their time being seen as limitless, where they’ve helped an organization to have everyone spending time where they’re supposed to and also giving the leader the leeway to remain most effective every day when they come in. So I really thank you again, John.

John Baldoni [00:56:17]:

Well, thank you, Sanjog Aul. I thought we had a good conversation today. Your questions really challenged me, and it’s a rewarding experience. I appreciate this opportunity.

Sanjog Aul [00:56:29]:

I’ll look forward to your upcoming book, Moxie, the Secret to Bold and Gutsy Leadership.

John Baldoni [00:56:34]:

Thank you.

Sanjog Aul [00:56:35]:

And listeners, please like us on Facebook, search for CIO Talk Radio, and be sure to follow us on Twitter. Thank you again for listening to CIO Talk Radio. This is Sanjog Aul, your talk show host. Till next week, take care and God bless.