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This looks like it might well be worth a try. Upsides – simplicity, low cost. Potential downsides – not going to work well to develop ‘To Do’ lists for specific environments.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF1ngJAyD_s&eurl=http://www.markforster.net/autofocus-system/&feature=player_embedded]
Video is about 9 minutes and needs sound.
Or you can just check out the website – with some really simple getting started instructions here.
“Mike, everything you are teaching us makes so much sense. We can see how it could work. BUT WE DO NOT HAVE THE TIME TO PUT IT INTO PRACTICE. WE ARE JUST TOO BUSY FIGHTING FIRES.”
This is a line that I hear just about every time I train! There is without doubt an issue of time management going on here – that the Drucker quote below might shed some light on. However I think that what they really believe, perhaps sub-consciously, is,
“Mike, we are in a routine here. We like to moan about it – but we don’t want to (or feel that we can’t) change it. It is convenient to us to blame our performance on others (senior management, funders, customers, governments) because that means that I NEVER have to become fully responsible.”
So on to the Drucker quote….
“Time is also a unique resource. Of the other major resources, money is actually quite plentiful. We long ago should have learned that it is the demand for capital, rather than the supply thereof, which sets the limit to economic growth and activity. People — the third limiting resources — one can hire, though one can rarely hire enough good people. But one cannot rent, hire, buy, or otherwise obtain more time.
The supply of time is totally inelastic. No matter how high the demand, the supply will not go up. There is no price for it and no marginal utility curve for it. Moreover, time is totally perishable and cannot be stored. Yesterday’s time is gone forever and will never come back. Time is, therefore always in exceedingly short supply.
Time is totally irreplaceable. Within limits we can substitute one resource for another, copper for aluminum, for instance. We can substitute capital for human labor. We can use more knowledge or more brawn. But there is no substitute for time.
Everything requires time. It is the only truly universal condition. All work takes place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique irreplaceable, and necessary resource. Nothing else, perhaps distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time.
Man is ill-equipped to manage his time.”
Peter Drucker – The Effective Executive
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Prem Rao writes a great blog and one of his recent posts identifies 7 barriers that prevent managers from coaching their team members as much as they ought.
Now I spend a lot of my time teaching managers how to coach and while I agree with all of Prem’s 7 I would have to add a few more barriers that I regularly encounter!
One is the perception that coaching takes a along time and is expensive. While coaching can take several weeks to really improve performance it is usually used to address a problem or an opportunity that has existed for months! Taking 6 -9 weeks to make real progress on an issue that is important but not urgent has to be a great use of any manager’s time.
But this brings us to another barrier to coaching. Coaching is a classic Quadrant 2 activity in Covey terms – it is itself an important but seldom urgent part of the work of the manager – After all you can always postpone coaching for another day without the wheels falling off. Secondly the issues that require coaching tend to be Quadrant 2 in nature – they are important but seldom urgent. So we are caught in a double whammy – not only can we afford to postpone coaching we can also postpone addressing the issue that coaching would be perfect to address.
Another barrier is the perception that it will take up a lot of the managers time if they start to coach – in fact it will nearly always save time – especially if used in partnership with delegation.
Then there is the association of coaching with under-performance. The perception that coaching is something that is done (certainly at middle and lower levels in the organisation) as a last resort effort to address under performance. This makes it awkward for managers to broach the subject of coaching with high performers.
Finally I think that many managers fight shy of coaching because they are insufficiently secure in their own technical competence and believe that their own short-comings might be exposed if they start to coach.
The solution?
Set an expectation that every manager will coach every member of the team every week. Train managers how to coach. Hold them accountable for this expectation and reward those that deliver!
Not only will you see progress in terms of performance and value creation, you will also start to develop a culture where you really do ‘invest in your people’.
Still the biggest barrier I find to helping clients to implement best practice approaches to people management is that ‘we do not have the time’.
‘But Mike I have 4 people in my team – are you really saying that I need to find 2 hours a week to invest in their 121s? Don’t you understand how busy I am?’
It is a bit like a motorist saying ‘I haven’t got time to check the oil and the water and to fill up the petrol tank – because my car keeps breaking down’.
Except that the latter is statement is clearly ridiculous – while the former often passes for management wisdom!
When we choose not to invest time in managing staff what are we really saying?
‘I can create more value by spending my time elsewhere’ – this may be true but managers are paid to create a return on investment by managing people;
‘If I invest time in my people I may not get a good enough return on that investment’– this may be true but then you are not a competent manager;
‘if I spend time on managing people I will be operating outside the cultural norms of my organisation’ – this may be true but then I question the long term future of your organisation. Unless we can harness the intelligence, passion, creativity, drive and energy of all our employees then we are, AT BEST, likely to achieve mediocrity.
Often what managers are really saying is that they actually quite like the adrenaline, energy and status that they get as a mole whacker, a problem solver, a crisis crusader.
Willing volunteers outperform conscripts and mercenaries every time. They are more innovative and creative as well more diligent and disciplined.
Volunteers have bought into a mission and a purpose rather then been bought into it.
Much of the private sector is struggling with how to turn salaried staff from conscripts and mercenaries into volunteers. Finding ways to engage them in the work of the organisation. To provide them with fulfilling and rewarding work.
Much of the public and third sector seems to be taking almost exactly the opposite path. It finds ways to turn passionate and caring volunteers (people who have bought into the mission) into conscripts and mercenaries. This is achieved by:
It is a strange paradox that many private sector clients are making genuine efforts at developing employee engagement in pursuit of profits while so many third sector and public sector organisations are developing processes and systems that alienate employees and volunteers in pursuit of efficiency.
