Effective Executive: Volume 1

26th May 2022

• Process everything: all messages need processing. Processing can be as simple as deletion or as complex as a full plan. Nothing gets away.
• Task management is essential: without a task manager, you are lost. For me, it's a mac app: Things. It helps with both time sensitive tasks and 'any day' tasks.
• Email is not a task manager: no description needed
• Prioritise value: time spent on low value tasks is wasted. If they aren't needed, don't dop them. If they are needed, find someone who is better at doing them than you, and delegate.
• Prioritise relationships: helping other people brings rich rewards. This does not mean doing someone's job for them: helping can also be telling them what is their job, and how to be effective. It might be the first time someone's told them.
• You serve your team: they don't serve you. Research servant leadership. Unblock, promote, train and mentor. You can only produce results together.
• Hire slow, remove fast: bad hiring decisions cost you a lot of time. Great hiring decisions can save your sanity. If you make a bad hiring decisions (we all do, we never get perfect) make sure that you find the right place for them in your company, or help them see what might be good for them somewhere else.
• Listen first: two ears, one mouth for a reason. If you don't understand the person with you, you can't help them. See also Covey: 'Seek first to understand, then to be understood'
• Lead people to the answer: telling people the answer removes the opportunity to think and therefore learn the way to the answer, rather than the answer itself. As good questions that you know will lead to a good conclusion (if you know it!)