Lead-Up Principle #6
BE PREPARED EVERY TIME
YOU TAKE YOUR LEADER’S TIME
As I write this chapter, on my desk is a recent issue of Time magazine with an article about Bill Gates and the Xbox 360 gaming system that Microsoft has been working on. I’m not a video-game player, so that doesn’t hold much personal interest for me. The opening sentences of the article about Gates caught my attention, however, because they highlighted the importance of a leader’s time.
Bill Gates’ time is valuable. There are Microsoft employees who wait their whole career to be alone with Gates for 45 minutes. As the richest man in the world and, arguably, the greatest philanthropist in history, at any given moment Gates could and probably should be off feeding the hungry or curing some horrible disease.1
Every leader values time. British essayist William Hazlitt wrote, “As we advance in life, we acquire a keener sense of the value of time. Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence; and we become misers in this respect.” But what makes the time of Gates, a fairly young man, valuable is that he is a leader who could be using his time to do things that can change the lives of thousands of people.
For all leaders, time is precious. Time is the one commodity that cannot be increased, no matter what a leader does. And it is the necessary component for the leader to do anything. For that reason, you must always be prepared when you take any of your leader’s time. Though you may have latitude in how you spend your employees’ or peers’ time, when dealing with those above you, the amount of time you can spend is limited. If you desire to lead up, you need to act accordingly.
Hopefully, you won’t have to wait an entire career to have a few minutes of your leader’s time, as some people apparently must at Microsoft. But whether you have unlimited access to your boss or you only get a few minutes on rare occasions, you need to follow the same guidelines.
1. INVEST 10X
You show your value when you show that you value your leader’s time. The best way to do that is to spend ten minutes preparing for every minute that you expect to meet. Management author Charles C. Gibbons confirmed this when he advised, “One of the best ways to save time is to think and plan ahead; five minutes of thinking can often save an hour of work.”
In Today Matters, I wrote about the lunch I had with John Wooden, legendary former coach of the UCLA Bruins basketball team. Before I went, I spent hours preparing.
“One of the best ways to save time is to think and plan ahead; five minutes of thinking can often save an hour of work.”
Let me say one more thing about preparing before taking your leader’s time. Most top leaders are good decision makers. (If they’re not, they rarely get the opportunity to lead from the top of the organization.) But many of the times they are unable to make decisions, it is because they don’t have enough information. I know that’s true with me. When my assistant cannot get a quick answer from me on an issue, it’s usually because she hasn’t done enough homework on the front end. That’s not to say that it happens very often. Linda is awesome, and 99 percent of the time she doesn’t even ask me a question until she’s put in the groundwork. She easily invests ten times, putting in ten minutes of preparation for every minute of my time.
The less relational connection you have with your leaders, the more time you ought to put in on the front end preparing. The less your leaders know about you, the smaller the window of time you have to prove yourself. But if you prepare well, chances are you will get other opportunities. British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli said, “The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his time when it comes.”
2. DON’T MAKE YOUR BOSS THINK FOR YOU
Not all bosses make themselves inaccessible. As a leader, you may have an open-door policy that makes it easy for the people you lead to come to you when they need to ask questions. But have you ever had an employee who seemed to ask questions constantly without ever taking the time to think for himself? It can be very frustrating, can’t it?
In a question-and-answer session, Jack Welch talked about how important it is for someone starting out to be a good thinker. He said it’s one of the things that distinguishes a person from the rest of the people on the same level.
Leaders in the middle should ask questions of their bosses only when they cannot answer those questions. Here’s how leaders at the top think when they receive questions from leaders in the middle:
• If they ask questions because they can’t think, then we’re in trouble.
• If they ask questions because they’re lazy, then they are in trouble.
• If they ask questions so that everyone can move faster, then we’re headed for success.
While bad questions have a negative impact, good questions actually do several positive things: They clarify objectives; they speed up the process of completion; and they stimulate good thinking. All of these things will benefit the organization and help you stand out in a positive way with your leader.
3. BRING SOMETHING TO THE TABLE
For years I have used the expression “bring something to the table” to describe a person’s ability to contribute to a conversation or to add value to others at a meeting. Not everyone does that. In life, some people always want to be the “guest.” Wherever they go, they are there to be served, to have their needs met, to be the recipient. Because they possess that attitude, they never bring anything to the table for anyone else. After a while, that can really wear out the person who is always playing host.
People who become 360-Degree Leaders don’t work that way. They have a totally different mind-set. They are constantly looking for ways to bring something to the table for their leaders, their peers, and their employees—whether it’s resources, ideas, or opportunities. They recognize the wisdom found in the proverb: “A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great.”2
As the leader of an organization, I am always looking for people who bring something to the table in the area of ideas. If they can be creative and generate ideas, that’s great. But I also highly value people who are constructive, who take an idea that someone puts on the table and make it better. Often the difference between a good idea and a great idea is the value added to it during the collaborative thinking process.
Some leaders aren’t very tactful when it comes to letting others know that they are not adding value to them in the way they would desire. Several years ago I toured Hearst Castle, the home of media magnate William Randolph Hearst in San Simeon, California. Hearst was well-known for the celebrity guests he invited to his estate. But once he became bored with a guest, he let him know it was time for him to go. The guests who were being asked to leave would find a note in their room at bedtime saying that it had been nice to have them as a visitor.
If you always try to bring something of value to the table when you meet with your boss, you may be able to avoid a similar fate at work. If you don’t, at the end of the day you just may get a note from the boss. Only yours will be a pink slip.
4. WHEN ASKED TO SPEAK, DON’T WING IT
I admire people who can think on their feet and handle tough situations, but I have little respect for people who don’t prepare. I’ve found that the first time a person wings it, people usually cannot tell, but by the third or fourth meeting when a person talks without thinking, everybody knows it. Why? Because it all starts to sound the same. If people have little professional depth, they use everything they know as they wing it. The next time they try it, you hear the same kinds of things you heard the last time. After a while, they lose all credibility.
Former world championship boxer Joe Frazier said, “You can map out a fight plan or a life plan. But when the action starts, you’re down to your reflexes. That’s where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning, you’re getting found out now under the bright lights.”3 If you don’t put in the work, you always eventually get found out.
5. LEARN TO SPEAK YOUR BOSS’S LANGUAGE
When Charlie Wetzel, my writer, and I first started working together back in 1994, I spent a good deal of time working with him to help him understand how I think and learn how I speak. Charlie already had his master’s degree in English and was a good writer, but he wasn’t yet on my wavelength. The first thing I did was get him recordings of the first one hundred lessons on leadership I taught so that he got a better feel for my communication.
Next, I took him on the road with me when I was speaking. After a presentation when we were on the plane or at dinner, I would ask him to identify what parts of the session connected with the audience and where he thought the high points were. We would discuss it so that I could sense whether he was getting it. I would also occasionally pass along a bunch of quotes and illustrations to him and ask him to mark what he thought were the good ones. Then we would compare notes.
All of the things I did with Charlie were to help him learn to speak my language. That was critical if he was to write for me, but it’s also important for any employee, and especially important for 360-Degree Leaders in the middle of an organization. Learning their boss’s language will help them not only to communicate with their boss, but also to communicate with others on behalf of their boss. The goal isn’t to become a yes man, but to be able to connect.
6. GET TO THE BOTTOM LINE
Playwright Victor Hugo said, “Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.” I haven’t met a good leader yet who didn’t want to get quickly to the bottom line. Why? Because they want results. Their motto is, “Never mind about the delivery; just show me the baby.”
When you first begin working with a leader, you may need to spend some time giving insight into the process by which you came to a decision. Early on in the relationship, you have to earn your credibility. But as time goes by and the relationship builds, just get to the point. Just because you possess all the data needed to explain what you’re doing doesn’t mean you need to share it. If your leader wants more detail or wants to know about the process you used, she can ask you for it.
7. GIVE A RETURN ON YOUR LEADER’S INVESTMENT
When you are continually prepared every time you take your leader’s time, there is a good chance that he will begin to see the time he spends with you as an investment. And nothing is as rewarding to leaders who invest in others as seeing a positive return on what they give.
One mid-level leader I interviewed said that every year he writes a list of everything his leader taught him the previous year and gives that list to him. He explained, “[It’s] to document my appreciation and let him know his input was valuable and resulting in growth. I have learned that when I am open about my growth and learning, people are willing to invest more into my growth and learning.”
I mentor about half a dozen people drawing on my thirty-plus years of leadership experience. One of the people I love spending time with is Courtney McBath, pastor of a church in Norfolk, Virginia. Every time I meet with him, in one way or another he says:
Here’s what you said the last time we met.
Here’s what I learned.
Here’s what I did.
Did I do it right?
Can I ask you more questions?
How can a leader not love that?
Recently I received the following e-mail from Courtney:
Dr. Maxwell,
You’ve often commented that the greatest joy of a leader/teacher is seeing their students utilizing what they’ve learned. Last night I had the honor of speaking in a large, orthodox Jewish synagogue for their Sabbath celebration. I was the first African-American Christian man to ever do so and it was a tremendous experience and success. An older Jewish couple told me they wished I could go to their seminaries and teach their young rabbis how to communicate!
Your investment in me has taught me so much about how to cross cultural, religious, and social boundaries and communicate truth to all people. God was glorified last night and you were a significant part of it all. Thank you for being my leader and friend.
I love you dearly, and I’m not just a better leader, I’m a better man because of you.
Thanks,
Courtney
Not only is Courtney always prepared every time he takes my time, but he also takes the counsel I give him and runs with it! What a delight he is to spend time with. And let me tell you something. Because he is so good, when he speaks, I listen. He is leading up, and ours is a relationship where we add value to each other, and that’s what 360-Degree Leadership is really all about.
No comments:
Post a Comment