Strategic

CHAPTER 8Time and Calendar

“Think about your time very strategically, because it is part of your strategy. You can't let it be a reactive process that bubbles up from the bottom. You have to manage it from the top down, and you can't delegate it.”

—Tom Gentile, president and CEO, Spirit AeroSystems

One of the most common refrains heard in the workplace is “I don't have enough time.”

Sure you do. Unless you're operating in the fifth dimension of the Twilight Zone, we all have 24 hours per day to use as we see fit. How much of that time do you acquiesce to others and their agendas and how much of that time do you use to drive achievement of your initiatives?

Think of the 1,440 minutes in the day as marbles in a glass jar. It's your jar when you wake up. You, or your executive assistant, opens the jar and determines how many marbles to take out and to whom they get distributed. If you are constantly operating with a “don't have enough time” mindset, perhaps it's time to collect the marbles, close the jar, and rethink your approach.

If you can't effectively use your time and calendar to lead yourself to achieve your goals, it will severely diminish your capacity to lead others. Are you running your calendar or is your calendar running you? Professor Heike Bruch summarized her research on the ability of leaders to match their calendar with their priorities: “Our findings on managerial behavior should frighten you: Fully 90 percent of managers squander their time in all sorts of ...