The Change Dude’s Blog

Caution: Distracted Leadership

Flying home from a client meeting yesterday I read a piece in USA Today about distracted driving.  When I finished it reminded me of so many business leaders today that lead by exception as a result of the multitude of distractions around them.  Email, mobile phone, desk phone, personal commitments, professional commitments, blogs, dogs and personal logs.  With all these distractions it’s so easy to forget to actually lead an organization.  Way to busy being distracted.

Driving distractions like eating a full 3 course lunch while racing down the freeway at 70 MPH, or doing your nails, or the most common culprit- texting,  can cause some serious accidents to happen. 

Leaders do similar things.  Responding to emails while staff present their latest and greatest innovation, walking away from a conversation about a serious customer issue as the cell phone rings, or my personal favorite – “can’t deal with that business issue right now I have a technology problem with my smart phone”. 

Although multi-tasking is a critical skill to master as a leader, so to is prioritizing.  Stephen Covey talks of the urgent versus the important.  So often today because of the connectedness of society we instinctively prioritize the urgent over the important because the important takes too much time to resolve.

In pursuit of reducing the number of distracted leaders and the multitude of rework costs wasted as a result I suggest the following:

1. Email is a communication tool that replaced the infamous ‘memo’. Treat them that way.  Read and respond to email when time allows.  Email reading does not prioritize over listening actively to the conversation or meeting you have committed to participate in as an active member.  This results in fewer follow-on meetings to rehash what was missed while answering erroneously urgent ‘memos’.

2. Face-to-face beats mobile phone ring 90% of the time.  Wish I could say 100% but there are some calls where urgent does equal important.  Each cell phone ring should not equate to an instant answer, hence the ignore button.  Overall result, fewer scheduled meetings to review what was being discussed when distracted by your pocket ringing.

3. Establish distraction boundaries. Select time in each day where everything gets turned off, other than the wet-ware (your brain) to think through a truly vexing challenge to conclusion. 

In my work I am privileged to assist executives in overcoming complex business challenges.  Challenges significant enough to seek outside counsel.  Throughout the work day I see leaders so distracted by the urgent they fail to solve the important challenges right in front of them.  Don’t be a statistic.  When leading, lead without distraction.

September 29, 2010 - Posted by thechangedude | Uncategorized