When you think about it, “time management” is a ridiculous concept. Time always has been, and will continue to be, impossible to manage.
Each of us is given 24 hours a day, and that’s it.
Really, the choice is about how you manage your attention: where you place your focus, your energy, and your effort.
Let me have you ponder the difference between these two questions:
It’s a pretty subtle distinction, but potentially quite crucial. Perhaps I’m the boss and you work for me. When we talk about “this problem,” it’s quite close – something that is within our grasp. When we speak of “that problem,” it’s a little more distant, something which is perhaps out of reach. We both might have a little more ownership of “this problem”, but perhaps be more objective about “that problem” because it’s more distant.
The word “visibility” has gotten a bit of a bad rap inside organizations. I’ve seen it associated with concepts of playing politics, whitewashing, and generally creating a false image.
If your great work speaks for itself, why worry about making yourself visible?
Why bother with a big goal?
That’s an interesting question, actually, because focusing on your life or career goals can be a bit of work. It’s much easier to just exist, to go with the flow, to enjoy things as they come to you – or complain when things don’t work out. This seems to have become the norm in our culture.
The term Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) was introduced by James Collins and Jerry Porras in 1996. It’s a powerful concept.
It’s one thing to have a goal that’s practical. Let’s say that I want to save enough money to retire on – that’s very sensible and, hopefully, achievable.
No matter how much I know I need to do some things, it’s a pain. I have to wash the dishes, but nothing much is going to happen if I don’t do it right now. So maybe I’ll procrastinate for awhile, then a little longer. Pretty soon, it’s next week with a big pile of dishes in the sink.
There’s a number of great ways to get around these mental barriers:
There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about the importance of creating a personal brand. I first came across the idea in an article by Tom Peters in Fast Company Magazine in 1997, but he didn’t originate it.
Here’s the concept: Any powerful brand (Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, iPhone, Facebook) stands for much more than the products that it names. McDonald’s stands for more than just a certain kind of food, it’s also about kid-friendliness, reliability, cleanliness, and value. These attributes are incredibly consistent over the long term, and drive much more visibility and loyalty than just the food they sell.
Here’s the bonus category: Yourself. We’ve spent so much time thinking about other people, we might have forgotten that it’s important how we feel about our own work!
Looking at it this way, you realize that you are independent of your work. So how does the work help you to achieve your life and career goals? How would you LIKE to relate to your work?
I’ve broken out partners as a distinct category of stakeholders, because the relationships are much different than the others in our diagram.
The simple definition of “partner” is someone who works with you to deliver value to their customers and your customers, and to their management and your management. In the case of your teammates, the customers and management might be the same. In fact, that makes decisions much easier, because you hopefully have an environment that’s aligned and supports you working together.
As we travel through the stakeholders, your customers end up being one of the most powerful categories. And the length of this list might surprise you!
Depending on your job, the end customer might seem very distant. My first career out of college was as an engineer, and there were many stages between my work and the people who actually purchased the products I worked on. But as I became more experienced, I recognized that the people who spend money are the most important ones to understand, because that money paid my paycheck. If they didn’t want to spend money, there was no reason for me to have a job.
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