Managing the End of The Year
The end of the year feels like a crisis, with too much happening in constrained time. Don't add micromanagement hassles to your worries.
Leadership Moment: Holiday Time
The holiday season has begun in full force, with Tishri, the month of Jewish observances (Rosh Hashanah, October 7th, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shmini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah), drawing to a close (wedged in there was Thanksgiving in Canada). On the heels of Tishri we’ll come into a month of mostly US holidays: Halloween, Election Day, Veterans/Armistice Day, and Thanksgiving. After that, we get Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s.
Industry events are trying to squeeze themselves into this window, with high profile cybersecurity conferences like SecTor just scheduling over Jewish holidays.
At the same time, businesses are often scrambling to close out 2024 on a strong footing, tactically overachieving on KPIs, while also laying the strategic groundwork to kick of 2025 with high velocity. Both of those needs demand more out of our teams, at the same time that they have less time available to us. Managers scrambling to get key status updates from employees taking time off may create more chaos by demanding real-time updates from colleagues, rather than being willing to wait a few days until a holiday is over. Routine meetings that happen “weekly” may effectively become “every other work day,” drastically increasing the overhead on your already-busy staff.
One Minute Pro Tip: Measure outcomes, not activity
Especially around a holiday party, it’s sometimes easy to check in to make sure people are doing work. This can lead to a downward spiral of productivity: people who are already doing more work than they have time to accomplish have to burn more time doing work to demonstrate that they are doing work.
Start agreeing on outcomes: what will get done, when will it be done, and when will a status be available to make sure it’s on track. If you can focus on making sure you’re tracking the outcomes with the lightest touch possible, you free up your team from doing make-work, to being able to manage their time to deliver impactful results.
Appearances
Recent
Sep 26: Tabletop Scenario Blog, Appocalypse Now, with Miggo
领英推荐
Oct 1: CISO Series Podcast: We’re Lowering the Requirement for Entry Level to Just 8 Years of Experience
Oct 9: ASPM Nation
Oct 15: Video Cameo: When is the best time to blame the user?
Upcoming
Oct 22, 12:00 PM ET: Webinar, CISO Wellbeing
Oct 23, 2:30 PM ET (Gillette Stadium): SIM Boston, The Six Disciplines of Leadership
Nov 1, 1:00 PM ET: Super Cyber Friday, Hacking Your Cyber Brand
Oct 29-Nov 14, I’ll be in Tel Aviv if anyone local is looking to catch up.
This newsletter first appeared on the Duha One substack.
Global Chief Marketing, Digital & AI Officer, Exec BOD Member, Investor, Futurist | Growth, AI Identity Security | Top 100 CMO Forbes, Top 50 CXO, Top 10 CMO | Consulting Producer Netflix | Speaker | #CMO #AI #CMAIO
4 个月Andy, thanks for sharing! How are you doing?
Influencer Recruiter at Kiteworks
4 个月Completely agree! The end of the year is already hectic, and scheduling around major holidays would make things smoother for everyone. Thanks for highlighting this!
I help leaders trust their gut to make decisions and get results. ? Intuition Powered. Results Driven. ? Intuition Strategist | Creator of Corporate Tarot Cards
4 个月What a busy time! When the calendar is full, leaders can be clear with “what” a good outcome looks like… rather than focus on a micro-managing “how” to get it.