Leadership Quote: What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent…

 

This month’s leadership quote:

“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”

-Dwight Eisenhower

 

Mother Theresa, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin and other great leaders, past and present, all had the same 24 hours in a day that we do. And, yet we yearn for more time. “If only I had more time,” we say, “I could accomplish so much more. I could do the things I really want to do. I could have more balance.”

What if, instead, we simply paused each day and asked these two simple questions that Benjamin Franklin asked himself at the beginning, and at the end, of each day:

• What good can I do today?
• What good have I done today?

What if we then set out to prioritize our day, according to the Eisenhower quote above. Making immediate time for the urgent/important, saving time for the important/non-urgent, ignoring the non-urgent/non-important and then delegating the urgent/non-important?

How would you feel if you could answer Mr. Franklin’s important question, to your satisfaction, at the end of each day?

Elisa K. Spain

Consensus Gives You Beige

 

When a leader asks for input and then makes a decision, the result is vivid color, i.e. a better decision. It is a better decision for lots of reasons.

First and foremost, your team feels valued when they are asked to participate in the decision process.

Second, there is value in the wisdom of crowds; many times the group will surface ideas that the leader hasn’t thought about. As a Vistage Chair and leadership coach, I see this happen each month during the executive sessions I lead with CEOs and Key Executives. This, of course, is why nearly 20,000 people around the world are members of Vistage – because we know the value of seeking input from others.

Where it all goes awry, is when we seek consensus either from our team or from our Vistage group (or our family, friends, etc). With consensus all the colors get mixed together, resulting in a dull beige, i.e. a mediocre, watered down decision.

Sometimes this may be okay, when the goal is more about participation that it is about making decisions. The key is being mindful of your goal.

So, the next time you are asking for input, ask yourself, “is it vivid color I want or is beige okay?” And, if it is color you want, don’t settle for beige. Make the final decision yourself.

Elisa K. Spain

 

 

Oops, I Wish I Hadn't Said That, I Wish I Had Done This….

 

Back in elementary school, when playing sports, we often were allowed a ‘do-over’. As we got older, coaches and teachers stopped allowing this. The ball had to be played where it was. I suspect the reason for this was to “prepare us for life”. And, so we learned, no ‘do-overs’, if I screwed up or forgot to do something, too late, can’t fix it.

  • While, there must be rules in games (no way to score if there are not), does everything in life have to play by these same rules?
  • What if when we said something we wished we hadn’t, we simply went back to the person and said, “I am sorry, I wish I hadn’t said that, what I wanted to say is this…”
  • What if we wanted to do this, we went back and simply did it?

In short, what if we started with the premise that nothing in life is irreparable or irretrievable, except death. While certainly words matter, see my blog of this same name (Words Matter), actions speak loudly and ‘do-overs’ are a great way to take action and demonstrate intent. Another way to think about it… it’s not what you do, it’s what you do next.

Elisa K. Spain

 

 

Who Gets To Decide?

 

Just about every leadership book and every leadership speaker talks about the importance of allowing people to fail. The concept is: true delegation does not occur unless and until I allow people to make their own decisions, take their own risks and succeed or fail on their own.

Easy to say, hard to do, on so many levels. Some of the common questions are:

  • How much risk should I allow them to take?
  • What if I am certain they are making the wrong decision; a decision that is going to cost me money, put the company at risk, put the person at risk, etc. How can I simply look away and allow the failure to occur?
  • How many failures are okay?

Lately, I have come to realize this question, who gets to decide, applies in our business life and in our personal lives. It applies to our children and to our aging parents. Just recently this realization was brought home to me with the following stories.

The teenage son of a friend is more focused on sports than on his homework, a familiar story. Mom says, “we have to make him do his homework”. Thus ensures a fight between mom and son. Dad says, “let him suffer the consequences if he chooses not to do his homework”. Who gets to decide? Who is “right”?

The 89 year old father of a friend has cancer. His actions indicate he is confused about what he wants. He says he is willing to get treatment, but he misses his appointments. He lives alone and refuses a live-in caregiver, or even a visiting caregiver. Prior to the diagnosis, he was cognitively in fine shape. Son says, “we have to make him go for his treatments”.  Daughter says, “if he wants to be alone, doesn’t attend his appointments, doesn’t return the doctor’s phone calls, it’s his decision to make, not ours”.

Back to the three questions above…

  • How much risk should I allow them to take?
  • What if I am certain they are making the wrong decision, a decision that is going to cost me money. How can I simply look away and allow the failure to occur?
  • How many failures are okay?

Which choice is the more courageous one? Who gets to decide?

Elisa K. Spain