You Cannot Microwave the Process
by Robert Hackman
Picture by Serge Von Neck on Unsplash
Too much of everything is just enough
One more thing I just got to say
I need a miracle every day
From the song ‘I Need a Miracle’
By the Grateful Dead
‘We cannot have or do it all. If we could, there would be no reason to evaluate or eliminate options,’ declares Greg McKeown in Essentialism, his foundational book on leadership.
Do you agree with his assertion? What do you believe? More importantly, what mindset do your behaviors reflect? If you find yourself on a non-stop treadmill of activity and continually in demand, chances are you think you must do it all.
I implore you to stop trying. When attempting to tackle everything, you unwittingly act as if you must conjure miracles daily and relentlessly pressure your people to make them occur—becoming disillusioned when they fail to materialize and subjecting everyone to burnout in the process.
What are the costs of confusing the urgent with the vital? What happens when you try to microwave your process? What becomes possible when you slow down?
What are the costs of confusing the urgent with the vital?
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘You are what you think about.’ Therefore, the most critical choices you make are on what you spend your time, energy, and focus. The same goes for everyone in your organization, individually and collectively.
Consider how you allocate your time, energy, and focus. How much do you and your team devote to what is urgent compared to what is most vital? Can you imagine the overwhelmingly positive effect of flipping the ratio and committing to staying with the essential first?
What stops this from occurring?
What happens when you try to microwave your process?
You never take the time to determine your essentials.
When everything is vital, then nothing is. Thus, you do not identify your priorities; even if you do, you do not stick with them.
I am betting at least one reason is you do not have enough time. You have too much on your plate.
It feels better to dive into action, gain the satisfaction of getting things done, and cross them off your list. Doing them yourself is faster and easier than delegating them to someone else. At what cost?
Leaders frequently tell me how exhausted they are. Rather than change, it can be more comfortable doing things the way you have always done them, regardless of how frustrating or ineffective they are. Being busy and in demand is the mark of a leader and a form of status in its own right.
When organizations succumb to the tyranny of the urgent, they short-change their leadership and management decisions and the time and effort required to integrate them. Thus, the company’s essentials are not met consistently.
Management adopts command-and-control approaches to fix it, mandating that associates adhere to checklists, relinquish agency, and remain undeveloped.
Consequently, organizations lose leverage, forgo their chance of competitive advantage, and growth slows. Meanwhile, everyone succumbs to unwanted and unnecessary stress.
The precise results leaders profess they do not want.
What becomes possible when you slow down?
When leaders allocate time to think strategically, they shift from working in their business to working on their business.
The most aware leaders understand they cannot microwave the process of identifying the foundational fundamentals – let alone what is required to operationalize them throughout their teams and organizations. Core strategy formation, leadership development, and culture change require sustained focus and effort from leaders over time.
Slowing down invites new perspectives. They recognize working on the most pivotal decisions and action plans does not happen on its own. These decisions take time, deliberation, and iteration. They require pausing, relinquishing immediate rewards, asking a lot of questions, and sticking with resolving them.
What is our culture? What culture do we want? How can we bridge the gap between them?
What is our current go-to-market strategy? How do we support it? In what ways do we undermine it?
Do our culture and strategy complement one another? How can we strengthen them?
What are the capabilities of our people and technologies? How well do they work together? How can we develop and improve them?
Which of these questions do we need to focus on right now?
Research consistently illustrates narrowing points of emphasis to one or two down from three to four or even more significantly ramps up the chance of success.
Consequently, honing is a substantially undervalued and underappreciated core competency for leaders. The most effective ones winnow their initiatives to only a critical few at any given time. The best leaders resist the temptation to act before investing the requisite time to explore, reflect, and evaluate.
In our have-it-all, do-it-all society, it is a challenge to defy the demand to take on too much and refrain from expecting your reports to do the same – focusing instead on ascertaining the highest leverage activities that provide disproportionately positive lasting impacts.
Choosing the essential focus areas at any given time is a primary leadership function. Executives who relentlessly drive the execution of only a few priorities distinguish their companies in crucial ways.
Worthy contemplations:
- Do you unwittingly act as if everything is crucial? Do you find yourself responding to the urgent instead of the vital? If so, how can you change that?
- Have you identified the few essential determinants of success for yourself, your team, or your company, or do you try to microwave the process? What are the impacts of your choice?
- Do you consistently commit to scheduling sacred time to explore, reflect, and evaluate core elements before proceeding? If not, what do you lose by not taking this vital time?
- To what do you hold yourself and others accountable? Do they represent what is essential? How do you know?
- Do your associates know their indispensable priorities and how to align themselves and their team members with them? What would be possible if they did?
If you want to discuss ways to develop and grow your leadership to benefit yourself, your team, your family, or your organization, please reach out to me. I welcome the connection.
Robert Hackman, Principal, 4C Consulting and Coaching, helps people live and lead with fewer regrets. He grows and develops leaders through executive coaching consulting, facilitation, and training of individuals, teams, and organizations. He is committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He facilitates trusting environments that promote uncommonly candid conversations. Rob is also passionate about the power of developing Legacy Mindsets and has conducted over 50 Legacy interviews with people to date.
A serious man with a dry sense of humor who loves absurdity can often be found hiking rocky elevations or making music playlists. His mixes, including Pandemic Playlists and Music About Men, among others, can be found on Spotify.