Allow time for keeping your desk tidy

Build large projects up slowly, with one doable task at a time

Choose your team members effectively

Delegate everything that someone could do at least as well as (if not better than) you

Exercise for 30 minutes every day (sharpens brain activity)

Find people who are great at the jobs you hate and let them have fun!

Gather all the information you need before you start a project

Handle each piece of paper only once

Introduce flexible working and lead from the front – do it yourself too

Jump around tasks much less – do one thing at a time

Keep some time for yourself each day, just to chill

Lock your door when you want to concentrate

Meetings must be focused and produce value for everyone

“No” always creates space in your day

Open up delegated tasks by telling them ‘what’ you want and leaving them alone to work out ‘how’

Prepare a contingency plan when things don’t work out

Quit doing anything that is not 100% effective (or value-creating)

Recognise and reward the good work of others

Set SMART goals

Talk less, listen more

Unclear communication wastes more of your time than anything else

Take holidays without fail

Worrying never did anyone any good

Xerox ideas from anywhere and use them where you can

You must learn what’s important and what isn’t (not always what you think…)

Zero in on whatever (or whoever) wastes your time

“If you are not focused, you will not meet or exceed the duties and responsibilities of your position”
Frank Alley, CEO, The Brooklyn Hospital Center

It’s so easy to get bogged down in the seemingly vital everyday minutiae that face you when you walk into work each day.

The ‘busyness’ of the manager’s day never seems to go away, to leave the breathing spaces vital for focusing on results, let alone growth and development.

So, it’s really important to make sure that you do the things that you – and only you – can do best, within the context of what’s most important in your business. Whilst enabling others in your business to get on with what they are great at too.

Many managers take their eye off the ball and consequently lose the focus on where to spend their own business time to best effect. They choose to get on with what’s ‘nice to do’, and miss the point – the vital stuff – that makes their business tick.

And it’s such an easy trap to fall into, because it sneaks up on you slowly and silently. Businesses that become comfortable, run the very real risk of losing direction which can be very dangerous indeed.

As a manager, you lead from the front and need to show your people that you above all are on target, dealing with the things that are critical to success. So it’s worth checking in with yourself, once in a while, that you are doing the most important things first, before you start amusing yourself.

Then, the right things get done when you need them to, leading to the reward of a focused business performance that will deliver the results that you want.

Your people will see the best focus comes from you, leading them to discover, through your example, what is most important to the performance of the business.

Your personal capacity to focus on the key issues will lead them to develop and fine tune that most critical of skills for themselves as well.

Many companies use teams to help improve quality, work processes, or customer service. When a company is beginning the team-building journey, the leaders need to understand what sort of team they want to end up using the most in the organization. Although many use the terms self-managed and self-directed interchangeably for teams, there are differences in how the teams are used and operate. Listed are characteristics of the two sorts of team to consider when developing work teams in an organization.

Characteristics of a self-managed team

• Team receives goals from leadership and determines how to accomplish their goals.
• Builds employee commitment and increases morale.
• Team members must get training in holding meetings, problem solving, project planning, and team skills.
• Team designs job procedures and determine their work processes and assignments.
• Although little supervision is required, this can be time consuming for leader as the team progress and direction may need to be monitored.
• Requires open communication from leadership on company goals and objectives.
• Team can increase customer satisfaction through better response time in getting work done or answers to problems.

Characteristics of a self-directed team

• Team determines own goals and determines how to best to accomplish them.
• Creates environment of high innovation, commitment, and motivation in team members.
• Team members need additional training in decision making, resolving conflicts, and advanced problem solving techniques.
• Can be high cost since it is time consuming to build team and conflict will occur.
• Less time consuming for leader, but is harder to track progress and verify team is going in correct direction.
• Requires a system that provides two-way communication of corporate strategy between leaders and their teams.
• Teams can reduce cycle time because they solve any work problems as they arise and make informed decisions on how to proceed.

In reviewing the characteristics of self-managed and self-directed teams, the differences in how the teams may operate and which may best be used in a particular organization or situation may be easier for management to understand. With this understanding, companies wanting to use teams to help improve quality, work processes, or customer service may get a better idea how to determine which sort of team may best fits their situation and desired outcomes.

Shirley Fine Lee, author of “R.A!R.A! A Meeting Wizard’s Approach”, has worked as a training and development specialist since 1986, and an independent consultant since 2000. She has extensive experience, helping organizations with their team building, training development, meeting facilitation, presentation delivery, and other communication needs. This work involves developing productivity tools, presenting workshops, and writing. For instance, she has authored numerous training manuals and guides, on a wide variety of topics. Her programs include time management, getting organized, problem solving, and team building. Find out more about her and options she provides on her website. http://www.shirleyfinelee.com