Zoom meetings, email and chat forums have been a fabulous way to stay connected and informed. However the feedback I receive as an Executive Coach is that leaders are overwhelmed. We are asking them to cope, be flexible, pivot and be agile and as a result they are being driven to the day to day demands of their email and meetings at the expense of themselves.
Leaders need to move from the majority of their time in reactive response to others demands, to proactively thinking, driving the business and supporting and coaching their people. It’s a strange logic when a major objective is to decrease costs and increase outcomes, that it is often the leaders generating the 1-hour meetings and wanting an instant response to emails. Leaders seem to know the cost/impact of emails and meetings but seemingly are stuck in a culture of reactive, working into the night to complete the email backlog after a long day of meetings.
Here are some tactics for executives to experiment with to see what works for them and navigate this complex, chaotic world on a weekly basis. There is a need to focus and decide/choose how leaders invest their mind, energy and time and if possible, influence the culture to support and role model proactive behaviours.
Clarity – who why what how - moving to proactive. Get clear on what’s important to the leader’s business.
· Start the week planning, thinking about how to invest their mind and time.
· “For this week to be successful – how do I need to move my business, team and self forward?
· What do I need to be driving? What do I need to be improving? What relationships do I need to be developing?”
· Review how their meetings help to deliver on their why, what, how – then decide/choose whether to attend or not.
· End the week with reflection. What worked /didn’t work? What should I do differently next week?
Chunk – schedule time weekly into their diary for deep thinking, coaching, relationship building, doing, email reading, health and wellbeing
Emails - it’s not about coping with an increasing number but decrease the number of emails and answer the right people more promptly. Email behaviours are entrenched in habits that will take many months to change - so keep trying and don’t give in.
· Don’t let emails be the first thing people do each day. This gets them into ‘reactive’ and sets up the wrong agenda for the day.
· Work on decreasing emails - spend a couple of weeks getting off general external junk, lists, CC’s lists.
· Don’t have emails open on the desktop all the time – work them into the day as 4 lots of 15mins.
· Advise your team and relevant stakeholders that if they want a prompt response to put in the subject box- decision required or action required.
· Change rule of CC’s to move directly to a file set up for this purpose. Then read on a set day each week e.g. on Friday’s only.
· Educate - Talk to the team about limiting emails and stakeholders about the best way to inform or get a decision from them.
Meetings – the right decisions with the right people in the right forums. A key leadership capability is to know when they need to be decisive; or facilitate the collective wisdom; or delegate the decision.
· Start the week reviewing “what are the meetings that drive my business, organisation and team success?” What meetings can I decline or give an email response on my view or decision? Do you/others need an opinion on everything?
· Say ‘No’ to more meetings. Is the organisation’s meeting culture about confusion on the word collaboration/buy-in or lack of clarity/fear on direction/strategy/accountability?
· Start the meeting with “what are we here to decide?” Have a 15mins discussion then stop and move to 15min for a decision.
· List all the regular meetings and analyze the benefits. Take control and decide who needs to attend.
· Make rules around own meetings e.g. 15min quick meetings on Wednesdays; 30min internal meetings; 45mins external meetings; no meeting Wednesdays; 2-2.30pm on Tuesdays/Thursdays team time; 10min questions; Experiment - see what works. Change what doesn’t work. Start on time - always. Build the habits consistently.
· Be respectful of others personal time. Set organisational boundaries and don’t schedule internal meetings after 4.30pm.
· When in a meeting - focus and attend! Don’t work on other things or don’t attend. Establish these ground rules clearly with teams.
Team meetings - Are notoriously non-productive as we whip around to hear the laundry list of activities so that leaders feel everyone is informed but often realise that few are listening. Don’t confuse team meetings as a tick to the team being connected or resolving team conflict.
· Regular team meetings should only be 30mins - starting with the leader’s focus - their 3 key priorities to drive or fix this week.
· If more than 6 people in a meeting, people tune out of going around to hear everyone - maybe use the breakout function in zoom.
· As the leader, start with a clear objective on what/how the team needs to be moving forward and how collaboration, information may assist. That leads to a much clearer and more effective question they can ask at the start of each meeting such as – what is their most important deliverable this week? “What one thing do they need support on this week from me/others? What are they most concerned about delivering? What one thing would they like to stop doing? What is something I can involve them with this week? On a scale of 1-10 how confident are they about delivering xx?
We at Peoplemax can work with Leaders to coach them on how to move into proactive so they have a rhythm to their week that includes using their capability to be curious, think, listen, analyse, coach and facilitate solutions to deeper challenges.
Stay safe
Sue Wilde
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