Are you a productive leader?

1. Are you a productive leader? Sharon@Aresko.co.uk : 07932 641313

2. PRODUCTIVE LEADERSHIP • DEFINITIONS • achieving or producing a significant amount, or results • A position of advantage for someone who commands or precedes a group, team, organisation, country for initiating business progress

3. “If I had more time, I would …” • The omnipresent constraint of any leader is time. Leaders are eternally trying to achieve things: • Faster • Longer • Higher • Quicker • If you had more time in the day, what would you spend it doing? (your answer should reflect that on slide 5 – if it doesn’t, then you are not a leader!)

4. “If my boss had more time, I would like them to …” • What would your staff or stakeholders want you to do more of? • Have you even asked them? • Well, here’s a time saver, without even asking, I bet they would all say ….. “spend more time with us, talking to us, seeing how it’s really like for us”

5. “I would spend time talking to …” • Your answer should, in EVERY case, point to spending more INFORMAL time talking to people, whether that be: • Staff • Stakeholders • Customers • Consumers • Colleagues • How will you find the time this inevitably requires?

6. HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR TIME? • What do you spend your time doing now, which leads to an inevitable reply of: “I haven’t had the time I’m afraid” • Are you aware of what proportion of your time you currently spend in unproductive meetings? • Ideally, that should be zero% • If its not, then you are wasting valuable time in unproductive meetings

7. Meeting Management • EVERY meeting you go to should be productive, you should contribute, and both add and take away something. Otherwise you shouldn’t be there. • PE shouldn’t disappear with secondary school! Adopt the 4PE approach and meetings will be fewer and much more productive, guaranteed: • Plan it • Place it • Participate in it • Pursue it • Evaluate it

8. Plan it – ask why are we having it • Do you need to go or can you delegate it to a more appropriate person? • What point(s) are you going to make? • What do you need to bring out of the meeting? • Who will be there that you need to see for other reasons? • What time does it start and finish – build in time before and after to conduct essential “in the margin” informal conversations

9. Place it – ask why are we having it • What format is this meeting taking? • Video conference? • Telephone conference? • Face to face? • What travel time will it require to turn up ahead of the start? • Where are papers coming from and have you factored in time to review them BEFORE the meeting?

10. Participate in it – know your role • Are you the Chair or a member? Chairing requires lots of Blue Hat thinking – covered previously • What is your role whilst there – you must know it? • What is the purpose of the meeting – is it clear or do you need to make calls beforehand to find out (and perhaps send someone else with more relevance to it) • Turn up early, talk to colleagues, help the group keep to time. • Review actions and decisions • Accept responsibility for your actions

11. Pursue it – make an impact • Follow up and follow through afterwards, by: • Ringing someone who wasn’t there but whom you thought would be – update them on decisions so that they aren’t reopened and revisited next time. When previous decisions are revisited it’s both wasteful of everyone’s time and unproductive. If it was so important to you, you should have been there! Now live with (and own) the group decision. • Undertake your actions and feedback to others the things you brought away • Outputs will be equal to the productivity of the meeting, no outputs = wasted meeting time

12. Evaluate it – make it better • After Action Reviews – make them routine • What should have happened? • What actually happened? • What went well? • What would you do differently next time? • Which bits of it wasted time or effort? • Note that time/effort when it actually happens – we will need it later.

13. Meetings Matrix Know precisely where your time is going now Emphasis in these areas will depend upon what role you are doing Go through your diary and see how many hours you spent in each area over the course of a normal month. Track back 3 months if you have to or if your work is particularly seasonal.

14. Make adjustments • Once you see the amount of time being spent in one area you will easily see where it can be redistributed elsewhere • Clear space in your diary for those informal conversations by: • Booking time out before and after certain must attend meetings • Booking diary time for impromptu conversations with staff/colleagues/stakeholders – make those calls or walk that floor • Be purposeful about it and note the take away information you would otherwise have missed

15. Be seen as the engaged leader • Only by DOING this will it be noticed and appreciated by others • Only by DOING this will you build relationships that go the extra mile, when they need to • Only by DOING this will you learn what motivates or drives those you need to depend upon • Only by DOING this will you really open that invisible office door for others to approach you • Only by DOING this will you plant influential snippets of information into others minds • Only by DOING this will you be in touch and create the nimbleness modern workplaces require from its leadership

16. Making time = Demonstrating Effective Habits • You will see that in taking up 4PE of meeting management, you will be demonstrating all the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and redistributing that time into conducting informal conversations with colleagues, staff, stakeholders etc. • Informal conversations are VITAL ACTIVITY, not something which just happens, or only for those with time on their hands – MAKE THAT TIME!

17. We’d be Delighted to hear from you