Pres. Eisenhower’s Gift to Managers

If there is one thing General Dwight Eisenhower learned during his military career it was this simple fact: the only person responsible for getting the job done, no matter what that job may be, is you!

That’s why “Managing Yourself” is Skill 1 in The 8 Essential Skills for Supervisors & Managers. If you can’t manage yourself – your workload, your projects, your tasks . . . then how can you be successful at managing others?

Long before he become Supreme Commander Allied Forces Europe prior to D-Day 1944 he began to use what eventually became called “The Eisenhower Box.” When Stephen Covey modified it in “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” he called it the “Four Quadrants”

Whatever you choose to call it, the Eisenhower Box has two Axis: Urgent and Important. Using this matrix you can classify nearly everything you have on your plate as falling in one of four categories:

• Urgent & Important – Things you must do – critical issues that command your attention
• Urgent & Not Important – Things you can delegate to someone else
• Important & Not Urgent – Thing you must decide about – who & when?
• Not Important & Not Urgent – Things you can delete; not do; forget about

Eisenhower used this matrix every day, listing the issues he had in front of him on this form. Then he used this approach to help him manage himself every day, whether he was General Eisenhower or President Eisenhower.

Give this simple yet powerful tool a test drive for a couple of weeks. Where would you place all the projects and tasks on our plate right now? What are you committed to accomplish in the next week? What could you delegate to someone else on your team who is read for a new challenge? What could just be dumped in the circular file as not worth the effort? After all, it’s up to you to determine what you will do today, tomorrow, and beyond.

Paul

 

 

A Great Simple App

I’ve been a fan of David Allen’s philosphy for more nearly 30 years. I think so much of his research, teaching, and writing on personal effectiveness that I’ve used it as a fundamental part of Managing Yourself (Skill 1) in The 8 Essential Skills. Beginning when I brought David to Kalamazoo and WMU’s Fetzer Center back in 1985, I’ve used and taught his ideas with our clients. In the 1980’s and afterward the state-of-the-art tool for effectively keeping track of all those commitments, tasks, projects, and information was the vaunted Time/Design “system.” Then came the Palm series of PDAs, which were sure an improvement in portability. Until the iPhone (and its offspring and clones) the Palm was the way to go.

Ever since the iPhone showed up, I’ve been looking for an App that will let me do what the Palm almost did; make simple lists to track the task and project part of my system. Then I found a brief story onTapTask, and decided to give it a try.

As I said in my review on the App Store, “I’ve bought, used, and discarded all the complex list-making Apps. Waiting in vain for a simple yet flexible ways to replicate my lists from the Time/Design-based loose-leaf “system.” Finally, along comes TapTask. The new iPad version works great without trying to be super-slick. No colors, only two font options, no complex multi-tap menus just to get something written down. This App just flat out “works.” . . . this fills a big hole in the App Store. Hat’s off to Sonny Fazio and the folks at Sonster Media. A Great App!” And with the iPad version it’s easy to have my lists sync via iCloud so both the iPhone and iPad are always up to date. I like it!

For those using other tools, please pardon the digression. For iPhone etc. users, Yea!

New Toys & Tech

Skill 1 – Breaking in a New Tool

I’ve long been a fan of David Allen’s approach to Managing Yourself – what I call Skill 1. And since I’m also a long time fan of new technological tools (OK – toys) I keep an eye out for ways to streamline my own self-management “system.” A key ingredient to any effective system is to have a comprehensive overview of all the things on my plate (my commitments, projects, and next actions) and all the things on my radar screen (things I’d like to have, learn, or do at some point, just not right now).

Once AT&T was able to offer service in our semi-rural area we jumped at the chance to switch from our Palm TXs to iPhones after making sure the iPhone could sync with MS Outlook. I checked the Internet to see what ad-ons might be available to help manage and sort Tasks (the iPhone operating system ignores Outlook Tasks). It looks like 2Do from Guided Ways Technology may well be the answer, but we’ll see as we go along.

Being effective at Skill 1 means always looking for ways to improve your personal management system. Fortunately, for me that means trying out new toys and tech. Unfortunately, it takes time and mindshare to do that.

What self-management tools are you using these days?  Drop by and leave a comment; I’d love to know what you use and what works for you.

For more information on Skill 1 and Managing Yourself, order your copy of “The 8 Essential Skills” from Amazon.com. today! You’ll be glad you did!

And while you’re at it, stop by our web site and learn more about our approach to Personal Productivity.

A Tweet from David Allen

The 8 Essential Skills got a nice bump from longtime friend, colleague, and client David Allen. His Tweet yesterday generated some more buzz and a batch of orders on Amazon.com. With 1.4 million people following David on Twitter, it bodes well for future sales. His Tweet follows:

Long-time friend Paul Knudstrup has a book out on mgmt & supervisory best practices. Good stuff. http://amzn.to/dqZzzB

David also provided a great testimonial when I sent him an advance copy. He said:

“The simple definition of management as the allocation of limited resources belies the incredible number of factors that contribute to doing it well. In this book Paul has done an extraordinary job of identifying those factors and providing a practical toolkit for working with them effectively. This is a terrific manual for professionals new to a supervisory role and a great refresher for those of us who’ve learned that managing others successfully is a lifelong challenge. Bravo!”

 Thank you David!

If you are not yet acquainted with David’s teachings and his Getting Things Done (GTD) approach to self-management, you owe it to yourself to  find out; we are big fans of his here at Midwest Consulting Group and MCG Press. I make frequent reference to his ideas in Skill 1 – Managing Yourself section of The 8 Essential Skills.

What do you think?

Why Managers Fail – 6

Recent posts have described five reasons why 40% of the superivors and managers moving into a new position are likely to fail within the first 18 months in the job. The sixth and final reason is:

Maintaining an Inappropriate Work/Personal Life Balance

Having balance in your life is generally viewed as desirable. It means taking time to build and nurture your family and other personal relationships as well as your professional network. It might mean volunteering in your community for a cause you believe in. And, yes, it means actually taking vacations. Balance means working hard but not becoming a workaholic. Research has shown that if your workweek regularly goes beyond 52-55 hours, your ability to be productive and make good decisions goes downhill quickly – something that no organization wants. Routine 60-70 hour workweeks are a recipe for disaster.

There will be times when a long week (or even a few long weeks) might be necessary, but you can’t effectively sustain that kind of schedule without paying a severe price personally. A failed marriage, missing your children’s lives as they grow up, and generally not having a life other than work are the results of inappropriate balance. At the same time, if your boss can’t count on you to be at work regularly because you are always gone with a family emergency or crisis, you’ll be viewed as someone who isn’t reliable. In the end it is, after all, a question of balance.

How’s your work/personal life balance?

Skill 1 – Managing Yourself

Your ability to be successful in your organizational role begins with how well you manage yourself, and that’s pretty much up to you. But understanding yourself is the first step if you want to become truly effective personally and professionally. Self-knowledge is the first requirement of self-management. And the ability to manage yourself is indeed the first essential skill – Skill 1 – in becoming a successful supervisor and manager.

What do you think? Of the 8 Essential Skills, it seems to me that you can’t manage others well if you can’t manage yourself. If you’ll play along for a minute and accept that Managing Yourself  is one of the 8 Essential Skills, then what do you think is involved in successfully managing yourself?