Management Insights

Got Game?

Happiness comes in those rare moments of effortless concentration when our sense of time becomes distorted. I most frequently achieve this state when I'm skiing. Maybe for you it occurs when you are playing golf, running, or some other activity. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyl refers to this as "flow" in his book by the same name. He states that "the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it."

So, why isn't work more like this? For many people, work is a form of punishment from which they can't wait to escape at the end of the day. In fact, the whole premise of "Theory X" management is that employees hate work so much that they need to be coerced into doing it. Some managers respond by being authoritarian while others think that they need to become corporate cheer-leaders. But what if people were fulfilled by their work and didn't need to be motivated by others using the proverbial stick or carrot?

When we consider those activities that totally engage us and provide us with the greatest satisfaction, they have a number of things in common:

1. Challenge - They provide a challenge at or just beyond our current skill level forcing us to perform at our best.
2. Boundaries - They provide clear rules of the game including objectives, responsibilities, and next steps.
3. Feedback - They provide frequent and unambiguous feedback on how you are doing and when you've been successful.

If you think about it, this sounds a lot like most games or sports. If you've ever seem a child absorbed in a video game, or lost a night of sleep playing one yourself, you'll recognize that they are an extreme example of this. Like most games, once people have learnt how to play, they need time to practice and build critical skills. And once they've become proficient, to keep things interesting they need to periodically mix things up to avoid predictability and rote repetition.

While I'm not advocating treating work like a game, I do encourage you to consider how you can make work as engaging as a game.

First Things First

Every day I awake refreshed from 8-hours of sleep. I then spend an hour working out in the gym. I then put in a productive 12-hour work-day. I then enjoy a few hours with my friends or doing one of my many hobbies. I then enjoy a few quality hours with my family before going to bed early. I am also a BIG FAT LIAR!

If you are like me, you are constantly wrestling with the demands of work and home life and there never seems to be enough time to do everything. I am not going to tell you that I can create more days in the week (although the ancient Greeks did have an 8 day week) or that I can make some hours longer than others (although until 1873 in Japan, the length of an hour did change from day to day since there were always 6 hours of daylight in a day). Instead, I would like to share some straight-forward and practical ideas on how to make the best use of your time.

1. Focus on Effectiveness. Most time management gurus focus on how to cram more stuff into less time. I think they are missing the point. The issue is not how to do stuff faster; it’s figuring out which are the important things to do in the first place. It doesn’t matter how fast you can do something if it was the wrong thing. Make sure that you are doing the things which will help you achieve your goals and move you in the right direction (for the engineers among you, Work = Force x Vector). Secondly, focus less on quantity and more on quality. A few things done well are better than lots of things half-done, or done poorly. Finally, remember you will be measured on your output, not your input. 
2. Learn to Prioritize. We are overcome by an addition to urgency.  Urgency makes us feel important and reinforces our often mistaken belief that we are being productive.  You’ve heard it before, but it’s true – learn to put “first things first”. Start your day by reviewing all of the activities on your TO DO list (you do have one don’t you?).  For each activity determine whether to DO, DUMP, or DELEGATE it.  Then schedule the one or two most important (not urgent) activities first.  This way you’ll be sure to get round to them and you’ll also be at your most creative and energized early in the day.
3. Get Organized. Think of being organized like brushing your teeth: You don’t wait until the end of the week and then do one extra-big brush...do you? The trick to being organized is doing a little bit often. Set-up a system that works for you. It really doesn’t matter what system you use, as long as you have a system and you use it consistently. Try the one-minute test: If it takes you longer than one-minute to find a critical file or a telephone number of a team member, then you need to get better organized.
4. Maintain Your Greatest Asset … You! I’m sure you know the fable about the goose that laid the golden egg. Well folks, you’re the goose and all that great work you do are golden eggs. If you just focus on the golden eggs (work) you’ll end up killing the goose that lays them (yourself). Learn to prioritize the things that enable you to be productive: little things like sleep, eating right and exercising. Think sleep is for wimps? Experts recommend 8.5 hours sleep per night for the average person (don’t kid yourself … by definition, most of us are average). Studies have demonstrated that reducing sleep by one hour from 8.5 to 7.5 hours results in a 20% reduction in productivity. Exercise as if your life depends upon it – it does. Again, time invested in exercising not only promotes well being but also increases productivity. Finally, we all need to re-charge our batteries, so take time to do nothing and relax. These are not just nice-to-do’s. These are all essential activities which should be planned into your day.

With that, I’m off to work on my goals, pump some iron, enjoy a healthy meal, and then go to bed early … no really!