As a seasoned leader you’ve seen it all and done it all, over and over exhaustively.
But you are beyond tired of putting out fires. It’s the bane of corporate leaders. Not only does it stress you, but your team loses productivity and job satisfaction.
Wouldn’t you love to be more strategic and intentional in your day-to-day work? There is a solution, and the good news is, you’re not alone.
Here’s the typical scenario … I know because I lived it for 20 years.
It’s Monday and you have the best intentions for being productive. But one hour into your day all hell breaks loose, and you spend the rest of the day putting out that fire.
Suddenly, the entire day feels lost. You feel behind the eight ball the rest of the week. And you know that you’ll be working late all week and over the weekend just to catch up.
Sometimes you blame yourself. Your confidence and self-esteem take a hit and you may even wonder if you were cut out to be a leader.
Or you blame your boss, employees, vendors, partners, and clients. No matter what you do to be there for all of them, it’s never enough.
In your head you can hear your boss and their boss saying that all the leaders in the company must be strategic and innovative. But bosses can be the worst culprits for draining away your time on reactive tasks.
If everyone just left you alone for one hour, you might get something done and feel good about your work.
Let it Go
It’s time to let go of the circular thinking – blaming yourself and others and railing against what will never change.
When will you not have bosses, clients/customers, employees affecting you? When you retire. Until then, it’s time to find a way to deal with distractions and barriers to working intentionally and strategically.
So, stop wasting energy on what you can’t control and control what you can.
What is Strategy and What’s in It for You?
Too many times people equate being strategic to just planning. That only scratches the surface.
Strategy is having an end goal in mind to give you and your team a purpose and direction.
More specifically it’s:
- thinking long term
- focusing on how you can help your company serve your customers
- looking outside the company for examples of strategic direction and market trends
- creating a vision for your team’s direction
- identifying a desired achievable outcome
- defining actions to get there
A vision should be about the work your team will do to help the company serve their customer.
You base your strategic planning on that vision. Then tie all your tasks, activities into that vision.
Why Being Strategic is So Beneficial to You and Your Team:
- It aligns all your team into moving in the same direction
- It gives you and your team purpose and commitment. Something to strive for…
- It creates a proactive culture instead of always reacting to events out of your control
- It enables you and your team to better weigh the value of doing certain tasks/activities
- It helps to reduce the feeling of working in survival mode all the time
- It promotes innovation and empowerment with your team
- Being strategic drives real change for positive growth
So How Can You Actually Pull Off Being Strategic?
You will always have unplanned twists/turns in your workday. But what you can plan, is how to work around them. Have you ever heard of the saying “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”?
Some people find they can’t even plan one hour in a week for strategic thinking. Plan 15–30-minute increments of time through the week during times that are typically not as busy.
Put time into your schedule. Don’t just try to do it when you get some free time. You will never get that free time!
Many effective leaders plan a half hour at the start of their day and end of their day. This enables them to feel good about how they are starting their day and how they are ending it.
Set Expectation and Parameters with Your Team and Your Boss
You can’t let anyone, or anything stop you from doing strategic work each week. You don’t let others schedule meetings during that time, and you don’t let emails, texts, etc. distract you.
To be strategic you need to be heads down, in a quiet, creative place without interruptions.
You also can’t be afraid to manage-up. Manage-up means you work to influence your boss on how they manage you and others.
So don’t let your boss’s constantly shifting priorities derail your priority of being strategic and focused.
Once again, it’s up to you to plan how to deal with the inevitable pulls from multiple directions.
It’s Not Just About Time Management, it’s Also About Energy Management
Any effective leader will tell you that you need to monitor your energy, just as much as you monitor your time.
Anyone that has ever done any strategic work will tell you they need the right energy to create strategy. That doesn’t just mean having enough energy, that means having positive energy.
They also need to put themselves in a quiet, calm, creative environment…away from coworkers.
Ever notice how much dealing with employee, client or boss issues can totally drain your energy and take away your drive and motivation? You must stop those energy drainers.
Your ability to be creative (major component of being strategic) is seriously hindered. Being strategic is just like authoring a book. You must be inspired to be creative and innovative.
When someone is in hyper reactive mode, they are stressed out and can’t think clearly. Try to plan to be strategic before the day’s events tire you out and drain your creativity.
Remember, the key to being strategic is nothing more than planning and staying with it. Don’t let anything or anyone stop you from having that ‘heads down’ time.
