Are You Protecting The Ways You Own What You Do?

I had a recent thought about something I was asked to do almost 35 years ago.  I have mentioned this specific experience once before.  I remember how much it caught my attention when I first came across its path of notice 35 years ago.  It was such a large discovery back then that it still pops up in my mind every once in awhile.  I am occasionally reminded about how some experiences in life are never remembered and how others are never forgotten.  When those memories first happened, it is sometimes amazing which ones get remembered and more amazing how some of those experiences we thought would be remembered become forgotten forever.  This one particular experience was one of those that I never guessed would stick forever, but it did.

I plainly remember this event as if it happened yesterday.  It shows up in my mind every single time exactly the way it appeared to me 35 years ago.  I first see his watch, he takes it off and sets it down on the corner of his desk.  He props it up so he can see the time it shows from the face of its hands.  He looks to me and says, "You have five minutes."

I can still see my store manager's image sitting at his desk.  This was the man who had made a serious effort to begin to mentor me in the mid 1970's.  I was too young, too wrapped up with myself and too arrogant to recognize his move.  In retrospect, however, I see all of the signs he expressed to take me down a great path of wonderful business lessons.  I was too inexperienced and too filled up with my own rotten egotistical ways to become a good follower.  My window of opportunity soon closed.  I truly think I missed out on a lot of great lessons early on in my business career.  I can think back to how and when he finally pulled away.  Those patterns are very clear to me today.  Unfortunately, I did not recognize them in the 1970's like I do today.  They are exactly the same kinds of things I warn other business owners to pay closer attention to as they develop their own winning ways, today.  Get help.  Pay attention to those who are taking their winning skills and placing them over us to offer us helpful hints on how to win more often.  Drop ourselves just long enough to see how help can deliver more wins.  Winning is far more important than protecting the way you own what you do.  It is a very tough concept to wrap our heads around.

That image of that boss setting me down to teach me how to win more often still remains clear in the memory banks of my mind.  I can still see his unique John Lennon glasses, his parted hair line and his perfectly pressed white shirts and tie.  I can still see his gold watch get placed on the left hand side of the large desk he had in his office.  I can still see him look at his watch as he set it down and turn to me to say, "You have five minutes."  I remember the long stare on his face as he waited for me to begin.

At the time these things were happening I could never imagine I would remember these things in such great detail as I have.  They did not appear to be one of those great memorable moments my life would see.  Yet still today, over 35 years later, I can see that moment as if it happened ten minutes ago.  It is funny how things like that happen in our lives and paths.  This was one of those defining moments in my business time.

I had recently expressed my unhappiness for having too much to do and not enough time to do it in.  I shared that expression with this boss.  He listened to my complaints about that exact thing earlier in the week.  This was the time he specifically asked me to come to his office to share with him how my time was being robbed.  He started off the discussion by taking off his watch and telling me I had five minutes to share.  Then he said, "Go."

That five minutes seemed like an hour.  He showed me one very interesting lesson.  He defined how he manages his time so well.  This lesson was delivered to me well before "The One Minute Manager" was ever produced.  I have read several of Ken Blanchard's books.  His work is worth reading.  I have some of his books sitting in my library at home.  I go back to review some of the segments he produced.  I truly recommend his work.  If you are a business leader, go check out some of his work.  You will gain some advantage to what you do.  My boss could have written that book.  He was the perfect example of how a one minute manager performs it well.  Years later when I read Ken Blanchard's book I pictured my previous boss all the way through the book.  I could see Jim on every turn of the page.  I think Ken was following Jim around before he wrote his words.  Jim was one of the successful ones Ken writes about.  I was too young and too stupid to follow his lead at that time in my life.  I missed it.

Managing your time effectively is the most important challenge each leader learns to face.  The ones who actually practice the art of making their work respect this technique are the ones who develop the best results.  Hands down.  It is the first magical trick to producing highly effective management results.  It is the best way to eliminate too much 'busy work.'

I love 'busy work.'  So do you.  Unfortunately, 'busy work' does not produce the kind of results that deliver our highest returns.  In fact, most 'busy work' steals away valuable time chips that could otherwise be used for producing higher results.  The problem most business leaders have is that they do not effectively respect how their moments in time are better used.  Most of us permit our time chips to be stolen away by trying to manage the things that do not matter.  We grow our bad habits doing the things we ought not to be doing.  We also learn how to protect those ways.  We developed these bad habits of how we use our time so we quietly take ownership of them.  Since we developed and own these bad habits, we protect them with extra energy.  We waste valuable time doing the things we ought not to be doing.  We work hard on protecting the ways we own what we do.  Our work eventually becomes tired and lazy.  Our effectiveness drifts to the side of the ledger that does not produce efficient results.  Our habits become protected and run unchecked by the watch sitting on the top of the desk, monitoring how we spend the hands that are going around.  We magically lose our time.  It goes away without a trace.  We go away each day with too much necessary work remaining to be done and we used up all of our time doing our work.  My boss gave me that pure lesson in those five minutes nearly 35 years ago.  I still remember it to this day.

I have used his technique of charting his daily path once in awhile to see if my work was being effectively performed.  Jim showed me his technique back then.  He brought me into his office to share with me how he personally manages his valuable time.  He had been managing big businesses for over 30 years when he shared this process with me in that office during those simple five minutes.  He took out his little spiral notebook from his shirt pocket to reveal what contents it contained.  He flipped it over to the front part of his desk so I could read what was on that page.  There were brief markings on the left hand column of the notebook lines.  Those markings recorded the times he changed the activity he was doing.  I could see the number 9 on the left hand side and next to it was my name, Terry.  He said when I leave his office he would jot down the time and next to that time marking, he would place a single word that describes the next project he would do.  I could see the earlier ones he had already placed above the appointment we were having.  He was recording a log for the work he was doing.

I asked him if he did this kind of thing every single day.  He said he did not.  He said he has asked his personal secretary of twenty years, Regina, to surprise him once each month by telling him this was the day she wanted to have him track his work log.  He said he never knows what day she selects.  However, when she chooses the day he is required to trace the steps he works, he compiles and turns in his daily log.  She reviews his work and makes her usual comments about how well he used his time.  He described how much this little exercise helps him to 'keep to it' on the stuff that matters most.  It was his way to place a check and balance method on the kind of disciplines he needed to inject into his daily pattern of work.  During our lesson he stopped out of nowhere and said, "Times up."  He grabbed his watch and told me to start tracking my change in activities for the next five days.  He tossed me a small spiral notebook and a really cool ink pen.  He said, "Don't loose that pen.  It is a special one and did not come cheaply.  You can have it."

As I was leaving his office he said, "Bring your results back to me on Friday.  I will call you up to my office when I get a moment then."

In the beginning, it was a very hard thing to remember to do.  I often forgot to pull out the notebook to record the changes of the activities I did.  On the first day I went home and took the notepad out to see what I had posted.  I discovered only a few recordings in the book.  I could think of many other things I did during that day but had not recorded in my book.  I added them into my book as well as I could remember when they were done and how much time I spent doing them.  It was not as accurate as would be required, and I knew that.  Each day I got better at remembering how to record the change in duties I was supposed to be recording.  By the end of the week, I was recording my activities very well in my log.  I was now noticing where my time was being spent.

When the time came for me to return back to the office of my boss, waiting to review how I processed his project request, I was already prepared to justify what I had done.  I was loaded to prove how effective I was.  When we met that Friday afternoon, he did not look at what I wrote.  He said he had two minutes.  That is all I got...two minutes.  He never removed his watch this time.  He only looked at it when we started.

He gave me my next assignment.  He asked me to go make a list this weekend of the most important things I am supposed to do in my job.  He said he wanted me to place that list in his mailbox first thing Monday morning.  He said he would review what I wrote and get back to me later that same week.  He also told me that I did not need to track my activities anymore.  I was relieved.  However, I kept on tracking what I was doing each day.  I was quietly amazed at how much time I was wasting on the things that did not matter.  I was burning my daily clock as if I could earn the best results from doing the worst things possible in my non-productive ways.  I did not need my boss to pull me in to show me these ways.  I could see them all by myself.  His silly seven minutes became the best example of how I changed the lifetime of my future work.

I do not own a watch.  I do not wear one.  However, I do always know what time it is and how much time I spend on everything I do.  I also make lists like anyone else.  My brain of memory lays listed on every note I make.  I do work just like everyone else does work.  Then once in awhile, I stop to track how well I use my productive time.  Jim used to have his secretary perform that random exercise at least once each month.  I can remember him saying, "Twelve simple times each year I review how effective my work habits have become.  It keeps my level of good production running at its optimum."  He said he has learned how to protect the ways he owns what he does.  He said it has become one of his best secrets to how he works more effectively.

He practiced what he preached.  That is why I am sure Ken Blanchard followed Jim around before he wrote his book, "The One Minute Manager."

Until next time...