When washing machines first became popular, people said, Oh, gosh, you’ve got a washing machine! It’s going to make your life easier, because you won’t have to do the wash by hand.
And, I know that I’m using a very simple example, but it’s really the same with today’s information technology. You start getting all this technology which supposedly makes you more effective and then suddenly you’ve got a 24/7 work week and people are expecting you to be uber-responsive.
Leaders who have historically been very responsive have risen to a certain level of success and people love them as leaders because they are so responsive and they get things done. But, what will happen going forward is leaders are going to have to be very vigilant about what they pay attention to and who the rest gets delegated to
It was really beautifully written by Jim Collins in Good to Great – and I’m paraphrasing here: they start doing less and start figuring out what they can eliminate on their to-do lists and how they can minimize and simplify the things that they’re doing on a daily basis.
People can’t sustain a 24/7 work week for very long, they can for a certain amount of time, but ultimately the only things people are going to be able to pay attention to are the things that matter most and delegate the rest all the while teaching (by example) their people how to do the same. It all comes down to…how many emails are sitting in people’s in inboxes?? I mean, good gracious, how do you get all this stuff done??
And I really believe that today’s leadership is going to be focused on:
- setting priorities as relates to responsiveness
- simplifying and uncomplicating things and
- focusing on what they absolutely need to do so that they can have more relaxation time and/or time for what truly matters
And what matter is peoples families, their well being and taking family vacations.
I mention vacations because people really don’t take vacations anymore. They have blocks of vacation time that they keep rolling over from year to year. Companies used to reimburse them for that time, but they don’t do that anymore. If you don’t use your vacation time, too bad. And, the irony is, the companies really don’t give people the time to take the vacation.
So, leaders have to encourage taking time off, getting away from technology and focusing on what matters. But, it’s not enough to just talk about it, the leaders have to model this behavior themselves.
