The Tyranny of the Urgent

Bruch and Ghoshal say that “A mere 10 percent of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner.” To improve effectiveness, Bruch and Ghoshal advise managers to think of a focus-energy matrix with low to high focus along the vertical axis and low to high energy along the horizontal axis. Low focus and low energy result in procrastination (30 percent of managers), high focus and low energy result in disengagement (20 percent of managers), and low focus and high energy result in distraction (more than 40 percent of managers).

In my experience, it’s the well-intentioned high-energy but unfocused and overloaded managers that cause the most trouble. That’s because they have a “fire, ready, aim” attitude. They don’t take the time to think things through, and have trouble following through with strategy or just about anything else. These managers are focused on short-term goals, resulting in a constant pattern of starting and then abandoning projects. This develops into CYA (cover your ass) management. But operating out of fear and risk aversion is not a good way to manage a business.

Some people’s personalities lead them to operate this way, but a lot of the time it’s an organization’s corporate culture that pushes people to operate in this manner. In these organizations, managers constantly try to one-up each other on who put in the longest hours or wrote the most e-mails.

 

The Cure for Busyness

If you suffer from busy-manager syndrome, alleviate your stress by trying to be what Bruch and Ghoshal call “the purposeful manager.” These managers are both highly energetic and highly focused on the right actions, so they achieve critical, long-term goals more often, according to the authors. These people know what battles to fight—they don’t major in the minors. They also put limits on their work life and make time for exercise and other leisure activities that refuel their mental and physical resources.

Jim Collins, best-selling author of the Good to Great books, would agree, I think. This is how he sums up his research about why some companies are great and others aren’t: “The point of this entire book is not that we should ‘add’ these findings to what we are already doing and make ourselves even more overworked. No, the point is to realize that much of what we’re doing is at best a waste of energy. If we organized the majority of our work time around applying these principles, and pretty much ignored or stopped doing everything else, our lives would be simpler and our results vastly improved.”

As the quote at left from Antoine de Saint-Exupery illustrates, busy, distracted, and overloaded leaders—the majority of us—need to take a step back and reflect on our priorities. Instead of telling your organization how to build the ship, teach them the desire for the sea.