The most precious resource in your leadership role
Leadership and building terrific teams whether volunteers and/or paid staff can be crucial to the success of any organization or group, large or small. Yet the stress and strain on those leading 5 or 500 can be enormous. Now here's a quick question: What is your most precious resource in leading and building your terrific teams? Most people would answer - my team members. Sorry No! The most precious resource to start with is YOUR TIME (then your team members).
There are time stealers everywhere
Your time is an extremely valuable resource. Without time, you cannot go about building and maintaining a terrific team. But understand there are so many outside sources that will attempt, in all sorts of ways, to take away your time – to steal it!
You must be determined not to let this happen.
To do this you have to stop running around and become aware of how your time is being used. To get you started let's look at 5 of the most low-value uses of your time - some of the biggest time stealers (I'm sure you can add many more):
LOW-VALUE USES OF YOUR TIME
1. Information overload - the greatest time stealer
One of the biggest time stealers today is "information overload". You now have more information heading your way than ever before.
Did you know that there is now more information generated in a 24 hour period than you could take in for the rest of your life? No wonder you are feeling overwhelmed! You have to stop gathering more and more information and learn how to use "just enough information" to make a decision and move on, otherwise you become caught in constant 'analysis paralysis'.
2. Things other people want you to do
Other people will continually try to steal your time. Whether they are managers, volunteers, colleagues or others. It is not always easy and of course there are exceptions, but if what you are being asked to do, does not move you closer to your goals then the word 'NO' - politely said, must become part of your vocabulary.
3. Things that you are not good at
You must focus on your strengths and not your weaknesses. You need to continue to move towards that which you are very good at and find ways to engage others you are better than you in your areas of weakness. This is the most crucial factor in teambuilding and delegation that most people miss. You need to get the 'right' people into your team. Better to have 10 of the 'right-type' of people than 100 of the 'wrong-type' of people. But most people think that having the 'right-type' of people involves the absence of conflict in the team - far from it!
Now for those people in Australia joining me at The Cutting Edge Workshops - I'll show you how to do all this in much greater depth. But to get started with YOU first - sit down and write down the things you do in your job that you enjoy and are really good at. Then begin to move towards doing more of them.
4. Things where you are always being interrupted
Interruptions are an enormous area of stress, particularly if you are in a management or leadership role. Did you know that when you are concentrating on an activity and are interrupted, it can take the brain up to 20 minutes or more to re-focus fully again on that activity? Add up your interruptions in a day and multiply that by 20 minutes - see how hard it is to get anything done. You must eliminate interruptions - you have to make time in your day so you can focus on your most crucial tasks. There needs to be 'concentrated' time separated from 'interrupted' time.
5. Things you do that have a predictable cycle
Many people find themselves promoted or placed in a leadership role because they have been very efficient and a high achiever in their previous role. Unfortunately, it's not that simple - if people perform well, that really only shows that they're well suited to their jobs. In a leadership role to grow your group, organization and team you have to change the way you operate. You have to learn to do less, not more! Anything you are now doing that is routine and has a predictable cycle - answering the phone, doing timesheets, etc is something you need to look at having others do for you or developing processes to deal with this. You just can't focus on growth when you are doing everything else.
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The importance of having management on board
Now removing time stealers and low value uses of your time is not easy but not doing so only results in more stress, strain and ultimately burnout for you! If you are based in Australia and want to learn more ways of doing just that - then join me at the The Cutting Edge Workshops
(see further down the page). But if you really want to increase your success in leadership and building terrific teams - then get your manager along to the workshops with you. Why? Because the strategies and techniques you will learn, they will learn and it is always easier to make changes when you have support from those above - who also understand what needs to be done.
QUOTE ME!
RECOGNITION EVENTS
Recognition of others is an important part of what is called APPRECIATIVE LEADERSHIP. Recognition events can be an effective part of this appreciation.
So if you are planning a recognition event now (perhaps for National Volunteer Week in Australia) or for later here's just a few quick recognition ideas using our inspirational quotes book and mini thankyou cards below (unfortunately our quote magnets are currently sold out). Of course you can spend time designing your own cards etc but remember is this the best use of your time? Or would your time be better spent on..
Here's 4 ways to add more inspiration to your recognition event:
1. Take your mini thankyou cards and write a different inspirational quote from the book on each card (better still have your 'recognition team' do this). Or print out the book and then cut out the quotes. Place a quote on the seat of each person attending the event. When everyone is seated - announce that each person has a quote that reminds you of how inspirational they are. Ask them to look at their quote and share it with the others at their table.
2. If time and numbers allow, an alternative is to have each person stand up and read their quote. This is truly powerful and inspirational. Or if numbers are too large have the table choose a couple of quotes to read out.
3. If you are giving out certificates - 'jazz them up' - add an inspirational quote to the certificate. Its better when they are different quotes - as it adds to the significance. Again you can have each person read out the quote on their certificate or the person presenting the certificate can read it out.
4. And finally, if people know each other very well at the event - then utilize their own appreciation. Give people some mini thankyou cards. Have them write a few positive words on the back of the card to give to each person at their table. For example, "Thankyou...for being such a caring person...or...for your laughter...or...for being a great team player" and so on.
Not having an event? Then you can still adapt some of these ideas to the individual level or get more ideas on how to use these recognition gifts when you click on the icons below...
As always these ideas aim to 'spark' more of your own creative recognition ideas.
