Less is More

Many years ago, I was late for a coaching session and ran through the open office landscape to make it on time. When my coach saw me running, he wasn’t impressed by my extra effort. Instead, he greeted me with the words: “Never, ever run in the office again.” He was right.

A leader’s behavior is contagious

As a leader, you’re constantly being watched by your team. I was socialized in an open space office culture at Hewlett Packard, and aside from meeting rooms and rest rooms, there was no privacy. In a space like that, people see how you move and hear what you say. Your tone of voice, manner of speech, a subtle change of body language all broadcast to your team how bad — or good — things really are. If you are seen running down the corridors, the team will internalize your stress. If you instead communicate that you’re late and take responsibility for the consequences, you establish a culture of owning your mistakes.

I’m grateful to have received this feedback early in my career. I’ve been tempted to run at work many times since, but have always stopped myself, aware that such behavior actually creates more, not less, of the very thing I’m looking to avoid.

Running through the office is just one example, or rather symptom, of the much bigger problem I see again and again: Leaders are overwhelmed by their day-to-day tasks, literally, or virtually, running between meetings, with little time for reflection and even less to think creatively or care for their team. In organizations that measure actions and not outcome, it’s possible to constantly push yourself to the limit, while having little or nothing to show as a result.

A leader who never finds the time to figure out the root cause of an issue, will focus on fixing symptoms. These symptoms will keep happening, since the root cause has not been addressed. This creates a vicious cycle of countless daily issues, that keeps people busy and overwhelmed.

A working balance

Seeing this, I developed a formula that could keep me at a balanced pace. Initially, it was 70-20-10. A majority of my time, 70%, went to tasks involved in running the business. 20% were devoted to building a high-performing leadership team. The remaining 10% was blocked off for long-term strategy, setting the overall direction and putting a multiyear strategy in place.

I started to color-code my calendar to track my progress, only to discover that I didn’t live up to my desired plan. But as I continued to measure my time, a rhythm developed, and gradually the formula reflected my actual schedule. Today, in 2020, my color codes show that I’m at 50-30-20. The more senior my roles became, the more time I needed for strategy and building the leadership team. Of course, the numbers themselves hold no special magic. This is all about not being overwhelmed by your day-to-day and focus on what is important. 

Walk the talk

So HOW do we free up time in our calendars for the 30% or 50%? To me, my husband was the quintessential guide. When our three children were very young and I was very busy at home and at work, he challenged me a lot: Do you really need to travel to this meeting? Why does it need to be you? Who in your team could also take this meeting? Do you really need to be on a call at 7 p.m. when we are having dinner? Why can’t it wait? At HP, we had several periods of travel freezes along with highly restricted travel policies. I used to joke that it was much harder to get travel approval from my husband than from any of my bosses at HP. By the time I asked for a travel approval, I was so well prepared from the discussion with my husband, that in all my years at the company, I did not get a single travel rejection.

What my husband gave me, was an invaluable approach. Whenever my calendar overflows, I take a step back and go through these questions. And sure enough, almost always, there are ways to lighten the load. Today, I work with the assumption that every meeting can be delegated. Delegating is my default. Attending, my exception. Not the other way around. This change of mindset had a huge positive impact on my professional life. It helped me create the 30% and now 50% space to work on long-term goals. But equally important, it also empowers and motivates my team, who get access to meetings and responsibilities they were not part of before. This helps them grow and develop, which feeds into my other long-term priority: To build a strong leadership team. In other words, a virtuous cycle.

Corporate firefighting - an illusion of effective leadership

I often hear leaders compliment their team on how great they are in times of crisis. But a crisis is often just a magnified version of the busy day: A team running like firefighters from site to site to address every disaster. This high-adrenaline work can in certain company cultures take on a heroic sheen. “Look how well we work together.” But I’m not a fan of corporate firefighting. I do not award people who are great at extinguishing fires if these are the same people that watched a spark grow into a bush fire. My definition of how well we manage a crisis has more to do with how good we are at avoiding and circumventing the event, or how prepared we are when it happens.

We need to keep sight of our North Star for everyday business decisions. We need to know what good looks like, build a strong leadership foundation and take time to plan for the long-term. When we do, we usually uncover issues early enough to address them while they’re still small. This is how you create a virtuous cycle: There will simply be fewer daily tasks to do.

Elke