Focus (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series)

8

Your Team’s Time Management Problem Might Be a Focus Problem

By Maura Thomas

My team has a time management problem,” leaders often tell me. Executives might say, for example, that their teams aren’t moving the needle on important projects, yet staffers seem busy and stressed. “Time management” becomes a catchall solution to this problem, and they want to hire me to offer tips and techniques on things like prioritizing and using their calendars better.

What we soon uncover, however, is that the root of the team’s problems is not managing time, but managing attention. And these attention management issues are due not to a skills gap on the part of the employees but to a wider cultural problem unintentionally reinforced, or at least tolerated, ...