Several years ago, I decided to learn more about investing in order to plan for retirement.
I read a few books and took some classes.
It all seemed so confusing at first. But I quickly learned that there are seemingly infinite ways to invest your money. And some options are better than others. You get a much more reliable, and higher return on investment.
Just like investing money, every leader must choose how they invest their time. And like compound interest, these returns become more impactful across the leader’s career.
A leader must carefully select from a multitude of options every day how they will spend their time. Also like a good financial plan, a leader must have an understanding and a plan for how to invest their time before they are bombarded with the barrage of possible things that will fight for their attention every day.
After 15 years leading teams, observing managers, and studying organizational trends—I have found that we often work in way that doesn’t pay big dividends.
Instead, the way we work leads to personal and team exhaustion, turnover, and burnout. And this is a huge bummer given the incredible amount of energy most people put into their work days.
If we can understand what research says about where to invest our precious time and best energy, leaders can make investments that get a better return and that lead to personal wellness, excellent team retention, and high performance.
How we often work…
- Checking email constantly for a quick sense that we’ve accomplished something.
- Back-to-back meetings every day leave us unable to think clearly.
- We take on too many tasks at once and try to “do it all.”
- Putting out fires and handling the most urgent tasks.
- Spending lots of time with the lowest performing team members.
- Spending less individual time with rockstars.
- We delegate less often, and less effectively, because we are too busy or stressed out.
- We rush the hiring process just to fill the job opening.
- We skip good onboarding practices to get people doing the work sooner.
- We don’t prioritize great training that will bring up the next generation of leaders.
- We skip connecting with people or team building because there is too much to do.
- We stop communicating and inadvertently leave people in the dark.
- We skip breaks or vacation days to get the job done.
- Managers may be too busy or fearful of getting feedback, so they never discover obvious problems with the team or personal blind spots that may be holding them back.
- We avoid difficult conversations because we are too busy and exhausted, and end up not addressing problematic workplace behaviors.
If any of these things look hauntingly familiar, consider this an opportunity to stop and choose a new path.
It’s no surprise that these habits lead to exhaustion and turnover.
As human beings, we are far less conscious or intentional than we believe ourselves to be. And according to leadership expert John Maxwell, the first law of leadership is “People do what people see.” We are usually repeating leadership behaviors we have observed from our past managers.
The behavior of leaders catches on like wildfire in an organization, and for that reason, we must change our personal and workplace habits for a healthier and higher performing organization to take root.
How we should be working (according to research)…
- Spend tons of time and effort on strong hiring practices. Take it slow. According to decades of research by Jim Collins in his landmark book Good to Great, the single most effective thing you can do for your organization is to hire great people. All other strategies fall short of this one vital practice.
- Set up an incredible onboarding experience. Have your best people train the new people. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Studies show that a structured onboarding process may lead to 50% higher retention rates for new hires.
- Consistently prioritize high-quality training and career development opportunities. The best team members want to be at the top of their field and learn best practices. Good training has been shown to be an excellent retention tool as well.
- Schedule regular one-to-one time with rockstars. The Google Oxygen Study found that the most effective leaders spend quality individual time with their team members. This was the best overall predictor of manager success. Your return on investment in these people is typically one of your highest returns on your time. It also builds the future of the company by raising up the next generation.
- Select the few most impactful tasks and minimize the rest. Focus is a great leader’s super power. Few people are able to shut out the noise and take on the most important tasks, but this can produce momentous results.
- Take the time needed to delegate effectively. Consider people’s strengths, check for clarity, and follow up.
- Establish reasonable workload. According to burnout expert Christina Maslach, chronic unreasonable workload is a leading cause of workplace burnout. Many workplaces try to keep employees working at 150% week after week, but then lose half their employees every year. Wouldn’t it be more effective to have everyone work at 90% most of the time but eliminate burnout and turnover? Which is more efficient in the long run?
- Communicate, communicate, communicate. According to the American Psychological Association Center for Organizational Excellent, great organizational communication is the substrate of the healthiest organizations. Send emails, make announcements in meetings, keep repeating yourself. A good rule is to overcommunicate since repetition is less of a problem than forgetting to mention something important. People hate being surprised by changes at work, no matter how small.
- Managers ask for feedback regularly. Managers should be conducting anonymous team surveys every year on employee job engagement and seeking 360 feedback on their own leadership habits. This is the best way I know of to make sure employees have input into organizational changes or hold the manager accountable for their leadership habits. Managers who face their fears and allow their teams to assess them anonymously will improve their leadership exponentially more than those that don’t.
- Take breaks and vacations. Countless studies on productivity and performance demonstrate that taking breaks every day and more than 10 vacation days per year improve work performance. See my other articles for more on this topic.
- Have difficult conversations when they are needed. Organizational consultant and author Kim Scott believes that confronting problem issues early and clearly is one of the healthiest things the leader can do for their teams.
- Check email on a schedule 3x per day. Resist the urge to open the inbox incessantly and respond to every message. Studies show that our brains prefer lazy tasks and the quick neurochemical rush that comes with replying to an email. Email is rarely a high impact task. Immediate replies also set a tone that this is the expectation and tethers people to interruptions and low value work.
Turn information into action
We often slip into workplace habits that burn ourselves and our teams out. I have seen many compassionate and well-intentioned leaders with extremely high turnover rates and low morale because of the issues identified above.
I hope for a future where workplaces practice great rhythms of hard work combined with daily breaks, time off, reasonable workloads, more time on hiring and onboarding, and constantly asking for employee feedback.
Take some time this week to score yourself 1-10 on the best practice items with 10 being the best. If you score yourself 7 or below in any area, make that an area of focus for your leadership practices in the upcoming year.
Your team is watching and emulating what you do. No pressure.
Have a great weekend!
Parker
