Time is the biggest constraint on a leader’s personal impact …
There’s an exercise I often suggest to leaders, which you might want to try. It’s four simple questions.
When you look at your job description, assuming you have one, can you summarise in just half a dozen bullet points or less, what “in theory” your job entails?
Now, look back at your diary for the last few weeks, and summarise in the same way what your job seems to actually be, based purely on what you’ve spent your time doing.
Next, think about all the interactions you had over that same period, and all the stuff other people have brought to your door. And summarise what that tells you about what other people might think your job is.
And finally, imagine you could redefine your role to focus entirely on what would create the greatest possible value for your organisation, and summarise those.
If all four line up, hats-off. You’ve just won the “one in a million people” prize. For everyone else, this will tell you something really important.
It will tell you how you could dramatically increase your own personal impact, if only…
If only is the key. Almost always it’s: if only I had the time, or if only I had people who could pick up this other stuff, or, if only other people didn’t keep dumping these things on me. If only I could let go.
All of those are solvable if we’re prepared to get creative.
So, let’s get creative. Imagine you were forced to take a sabbatical. Or do jury duty on a long and complex case. Or maybe you’re invited to join a government task force you simply can’t decline.
Pick your own emergency, but whatever you choose, the fixed parameters are these: you can’t avoid it, it will take at least four days a week, it will last for six months, and it starts in two weeks’ time.
Yes, I’m serious, and no, you can’t argue or magic your way out of it. In a fortnight’s time your working week will be reduced to a single day, for a full six-month period. Them’s the rules.
Try it. What goes into that day? And for everything else, what’s going to be transferred to someone else, what could be done with automation or an AI assistant, and what’s simply going to have to get dropped?
This is a tough exercise, and it might take you a while because there’s no magic bullet.
If it was easy you’d have done it already, and everything comes with trade-offs, especially the AI assistant.
I may be an outlier, but I find it helpful to think of AI agents and assistants as being like graduate-level interns who are incredibly knowledgeable and keen but also have a tendency to assume that what they know is all there is to know. Except in this case, they also have no real-life experience, little judgement, no moral compass, can sometimes be manipulative and are often so eager to please they’re liable to just make things up.
That doesn’t mean they’re useless. Quite the opposite. They can be really useful. You just need to be very careful about the level of influence and autonomy you give them, and you need to regularly check on their truthfulness and behaviour. Very regularly.
But remember, you’ve still got those two weeks of grace to work that out, or to find volunteers or build up the capabilities and confidence of those around you. Perhaps you give them the same challenge: what will they delegate, automate, or ditch in order to be able to fill one of your shoes while you’re away?
Only after you’ve competed the exercise and got your work to fit into that one day a week, are you allowed to open the email that just arrived. The one that tells you your six-month commitment is now cancelled.
And ta-daa. You’ve got four days a week free to focus on all that stuff in the highest-value list you made earlier.
OK, so obviously real-life kicks in here, but if you’re serious about dramatically increasing your own personal impact you’ll go ahead and start dropping and delegating as of now.
You’ll get to work on developing that capacity around you, and you’ll commit yourself to finding two, if not three of those days, every week, to focus entirely on the highest value work that only you can do.
You can do it. And I’ll be rooting for you. As will everyone that you’re here to serve.