...Without Saying No.In our coaching practice with corporate leaders, non-profit leaders, business owners and individual professionals, one of the most common areas of development is priority management. While some still refer to this challenge as time management, we beg to disagree. You see, these leaders aren’t really managing time as it is fixed at 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, etc. What these leaders are managing is what they do with their time such as how they manage their priorities. Prioritization, by definition, means saying yes to the most important (urgent or not urgent) and saying no to the least important. Therefore, learning to say no is a crucial leadership and priority management skill.In an article from the October 2021 issue of Inc. Magazine titled, “Yes, it’s OK to say No”, Fawn Weaver, the founder and CEO of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, wrote about the importance of...

…through Rigor.”January is that time of year where many organizational and individual leaders trot out new goals to advance their businesses and themselves. Their process of setting these goals can be simplified down to basically two steps. Step one: identify the goal itself. Step two: identify the action steps to accomplish the goal. If there were a third step it would most likely look like: hope it works! Sad, but true, in far too many cases.Rarely do I ask a prospect or new client what their goals are first. What I ask first is what their goal planning process is to achieve their goals. This question, which rarely gets a confident and definitive answer, is much more foundational to success than what the actual goals are. Without a process, the goals themselves mean nothing!Because goals are top-of-mind this time of year, I would propose components of a goal planning process that...

…To attain Wisdom, remove things every day.”No matter how much leaders intellectually know about the folly of trying to fit ten pounds of stuff in a five-pound bag, they seem to always go down that path, ultimately leading to frustration and stress. Of the many conversations with speaking engagement audiences, prospects and clients around how they manage their time, we will invariably get to the question, “What are you going to stop doing so you can do these other new things you need to do?” Unfortunately, the most common response, either verbally or non-verbally is, “What do you mean?” This month’s conversation will discuss “What I mean!”I had the opportunity recently to visit Gettysburg National Park with my wife. Being a Civil War enthusiast, we were excited to visit the site of the pivotal turning point in the War. In one of the exhibits, painted on the wall in large letters...

…There are only Priority Management problemsIt seems we hear people lament their latest time management problems no matter where we are.  Typical fare like “I didn’t have time to…” or “I ran out of time to…” packs the airwaves with just enough conviction to get the rest of us to buy-in to their dilemma and potentially offer some level of sympathy to their plight.  Those that know me well will actually refrain from saying these statements or will catch themselves mid-stream, because they know I will challenge them to restate the truth, “I did not make time to…”  The issue here is not about having time because everyone has the same 24 hours to invest, spend, waste or otherwise use to their choosing.  And therein lies the real issue; choosing what to do with our time!How does a leader make these choices and still keep up with the demands of the...

…but always enough time to do it again! During my corporate career, we used to joke that anything that began with “re…” was a bad thing.  Specifically, we were referring to re-engineering, re-work, re-bid etc.  The premise was to keep our focus on doing what we needed to do the right way from the beginning.  While the concept seems so obvious, it amazes me how leaders continue to struggle to avoid the re-peat performance! Based on my own experience with leaders across many different types of organizations, there are three key ideas to address this challenge of getting it right the first time.  They are Dealing with Time Pressures, Making Good B+ Decisions and Understanding the Context of the Business.  Let’s take a deeper look at how dealing with each one helps optimize doing it right the first time. Time pressures are very real!  Gone are the days when we might...

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Does anybody really care? Many of you might recall these lyrics from the band Chicago from their hit song by the same name. As we work our way into the first few months of 2013 we and those in our organizations might be asking "Where did the time go?" or saying "2012 went by so fast!". As leaders, time management is a crucial element of our success, especially at the rate of change in today's business environment. Many of us rely on a myriad of technology to keep us organized. Smart phones that sync to our email systems and integrate with our web or PC-based calendar systems are the norm these days. In spite of this technology as many as 75% of people do not have an effective system to manage their time. Technology, like any tool is only as effective as the people who use them. Success lies in how...