Executive Time Management

Executives most precious corporate resource is not revenue, profits, cash flow or even people, but rather time. Without enough time nothing else is possible.

There is Not Time Enough

Time places limits on everything. The decisions we make today about the future are constrained by time. No matter how hard we try, there is no way to get more than 24 hours in a day. Executives often believe that they can be effective during the 8 to 10 hour work day. They cannot. Most executives have at most 2 to 3 hours of real time to accomplish the most critical objectives. Peter F. Drucker was more generous with his estimate of 4 hours. The rest of the time at work gets consumed by people, implementation, and unplanned events. An executive’s time is often consumed by these items with no guarantee of the type of results it takes to create new competitive advantages in a changing world.

Executives often focus on performance metrics to save time. There is a sense that if performance metrics are being met that time is being used wisely. This is a false assumption leading to a false sense of security. Mistakenly, we all want to be efficient with our time. However, efficiency is not effectiveness (Drucker, 1986). Efficiency is doing the right thing; where effectiveness is doing the right thing correctly. As an executive you know that the market only pays for doing the right thing correctly. Time has a way of changing the focus on decisions and their market relevance. What worked last quarter or a year ago is likely to prove insufficient for the future.

Most executives run out of time, because of poor management practices. These include failure to delegate, misplaced priorities, lack of decision making skills, and poor organization structure. These failures manifest themselves in symptoms other than wasted time, because we always feel busy.

Fixing the Time Problem

The saving of time is a myth. Time cannot be stored or saved, only utilized. The best an executive can do is to utilize their time effectively. Fixing the time problem starts with time awareness and priorities, not planning. Start with mapping where your time goes. If the map changes every day radically, then you are interrupt-driven, too busy to accomplish anything meaningful or strategic. Next, priorities should be set by the market you serve, not internally. Exploiting market opportunities, innovating, and producing a products/services are the priorities of an executive. All else can make you more efficient, but not necessarily more effective. Organizing priorities does require some measure of planning. But planning is not about the future; rather it concerns itself with the futurity of current decisions. Plans are used to make sure that you are placing the most important resources on the most important time sensitive objectives. This maximizes tactical time, leaving more of it for strategic activities.

Unfortunately, tactical utilization of time is what preoccupies most of our day. These are the periods used to implement, execute, and deal with the unexpected. An effective management organization structure minimizes time-wasters leaving more time for dealing with strategic issues. Effective leaders do not let tactical time management dominate their schedules. Too few executives concern themselves with the concept of strategic time. These are windows of time to apply scale and leverage to opportunities that should be exploited, not problem solving. The market only pays for capitalizing on opportunities with your time. Effective time managers are practiced at delegation, as well as spotting opportunities that markets are willing to pay for.

Summary

Budgeting time deludes us into thinking we can control time and events. We cannot. We can only control our actions when dealing with them. Time utilization awareness and focused priorities are critical for managing time. The world is messy and unorganized, but it must be dealt with to be an effective leader. It is important to divide your planning into tactical and strategic blocks of time that focuses on exploiting opportunity, rather than the continuous demands for problem solving. Eliminate the time-killers and wasters by focusing on the most critical priorities, then focus on strategic time for building long term company value. Managers should stop thinking about how to become more efficient with your time, rather focus on time effectiveness. Given the time...... you can generate revenue, profitability, and better cash flow, as well as hire talent to keep it all going.

Hiram Willis Ph.D., Finance