The workload leading up to and immediately following a holiday season is notoriously stressful, part two of The Advisory Partnership’s guide to operational efficiency provides some tips on how to stay focused and effective when you’re up against excessive communication.
In Part 1, we looked at some of the challenges faced by international project managers trying to steer their way to success through an environment of unrelenting communication. Here we're focused on the communication challenges that face every manager at every level. What we all have in common is the requirement to be efficient, effective and to contribute the the growth and stability of our businesses.
So what do we do to win the battle against the bottomless inbox? Here’s how I managed to stay sane and effective as a General Manager in the 24/7 connectivity cycle.
Step back in time – Pretend it’s the 1980’s! We no longer have the luxury of starting work at 9am and switching off at 5pm but we don’t need to be glued to our devices just because someone somewhere in the world may choose to send us a message.
The ability to communicate with us is unrelenting and there may be an expectation that we respond immediately but most of the communication that we receive can wait. Schedule your day as if mobile technology didn’t exist and separate your online time from your thinking time so you can stay productive and undistracted.
It’s better to have a considered response than an immediate response so take your time to respond properly in a time that suits you.
Get a Room - Passive thinking is a great way to solve problems and to plan innovative solutions to grow your business but you can only do that when you have some distance both physically and mentally from your daily operational commitments.
Find a place to formalise this thinking time and book it in to your diary. Take an office if you can or find your own space, free from disruption. Alternatively, if you can, work from home for the first two hours of the day and avoid distracting 'water-cooler' chat.
Adopt a closed door policy - If you have an office, the ‘open door policy’ is over-rated and can be destructive to your effectiveness. Avoid walk-ins and unscheduled meetings whenever you can. These casual interactions are often reactive and emotional without a clear outcome. If you schedule your meetings, it will force attendees to prepare and should have some clarity on an expected outcome.
Your time is valuable, try not to undermine it by agreeing to spontaneous meetings which may add unnecessary weight to your workload.
Sleep on it - The best way to ‘switch off’ is to do just that. You can’t sleep and work at the same time so turn your phone off late in the evening or before bed to ensure you're not disturbed.
There are few issues in business that have a ‘life or death’ outcome so they can wait until you’re fresh and can respond appropriately. Many decisions are best made when we’ve had time to process all the implications so try to do as little as possible towards the end of the day so that you can be as productive as possible during business hours.
Communication is viral - The more that you respond to your inboxes the more messages you receive. Fact! Make every outbound message count and don’t reply for the sake of replying. Take your time to respond with clear actions for others that will produce results rather than generating additional questions.
If possible, consolidate groups of messages and respond with a clear summary of actions or tasks for your team. This approach will substantially reduce the number of incoming messages you receive with the benefit of generating progress on your projects and growth for your business!
Restrict social networking time - Don’t spend your day on social networks (tempting though it may be). Social networks are essential to modern business but they can be addictive and can hijack your day. Keep a content calendar and schedule your posts. Try to restrict your social media responses to specific times of day. Most importantly, remove push notifications in mobile apps so that you are not distracted from the main projects that need your focus.
Don’t be a control-freak - Delegation helps you work less and lead more so allow your team to manage their own projects and guide them to filter and escalate problems to you for straightforward decision making.
Your team will learn and benefit from the added responsibility and you’ll have more time to focus on more important issues.
Ok. There’s no such thing as a perfect, time-managed operation. Disruptions and interruptions are a natural part of working life.
How you manage these interruptions is the difference between effective, innovative decision making and a creeping ineffectiveness that leaves you overwhelmed and unable to deliver the business-changing initiatives that you need to grow your business.
Contact The Advisory Partnership to discover how we assist our international clients with operational effectiveness reviews that remove the barriers to business growth.
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