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 Effective leadership focuses on doing a few things right. Trying to do too much is a recipe for failure.

How a leader spends time and money reveals what matters to them, it reveals their focus. . . or lack thereof. Effective focus requires that you understand the outcome you’re looking to achieve. So, a key leadership question then becomes, “can you describe the outcome you looking to achieve in clear, concise and simple language“? Without a clear understanding of your outcomes you will struggle to lead effectively.

“I can’t be involved in 50 or 75 things. That’s a Noah’s Ark way of investing – you end up with a zoo that way. I like to put meaningful amounts of money in a few things.” – Warren Buffett

What’s your focus and is it clear? As Warren Buffet rightfully points out, a leader who is chasing many things, end’s up with a zoo! A leaders most precious commodity is their time and attention. Leader’s should focus on putting meaningful amounts of time into a few key things. The things that matter.

I liked the approach taken by the top selling author of “Built to Last” and “Good to Great”, Jim Collins who maintains a disciplined focus to ensure he gets the most out of each day. In an interview with the New York Times, provided in the article “For This Guru, No Question Is Too Big”, Mr Collins provides the following insight into how he manages his time:

“….in a corner of the white board at the end of his long conference room, Mr. Collins keeps this short list:

• Creative 53%
• Teaching 28%
• Other 19%

That, he explains, is a running tally of how he’s spending his time, and whether he’s sticking to a big goal he set for himself years ago: to spend 50 percent of his workdays on creative pursuits like research and writing books, 30 percent on teaching-related activities, and 20 percent on all the other things he has to do.

These aren’t ballpark guesstimates. Mr. Collins, who is 51, keeps a stopwatch with three separate timers in his pocket at all times, stopping and starting them as he switches activities. Then he regularly logs the times into a spreadsheet.

He has a good jump, too, on another overarching goal he’s set for himself: to produce a lasting and distinctive body of work.”

In addition to maintaining a focus in his purpose and on relentlessly managing his time, he also understands when to say “no” to the good to focus on his personal great.

“Mr. Collins also is quite practiced at saying “no.” Requests pour in every week for him to give speeches to corporations and trade associations. It could be a bustling sideline, given that he commands a top-tier fee of $65,000 to dispense his wisdom. But he will give only 18 speeches this year, and about a third of them will be pro bono for nonprofit groups.…. Book tours? No. Splurging with the millions he’s earned from his books? No, too….

This orientation — a willingness to say no and focus on what not to do as much as what to do — stems from a conversation that Mr. Collins had with one of his mentors, the late Peter F. Drucker, the pioneer in social and management theories.

“Do you want to build ideas first and foremost?” he recalls Mr. Drucker asking him, trying to capture his mentor’s Austrian accent. “Zen you must not build a big organization, because zen you will end up managing zat organization.”

Therefore, in Jim Collins’s world, small is beautiful.”

It’s clear that Mr Collins is focused on his purpose and manages his life accordingly. In an HBR blog post he goes on to say that…

“As a great teacher, Rochelle Myers, taught me, you can’t make your own life a work of art if you’re not working with a clean canvas,”

And elaborates further in an article on his website…

“Rochelle spoke to me repeatedly about the idea of ‘making your life a creative work of art.’ A great piece of art is composed not just of what is in the final piece, but equally important, what is not.”

So, how about you? How do you manage your time? Consider the following questions:

• Do you have the clarity of purpose and the discipline of execution required to ‘make you life a work of art? Or are you just trying to keep up with the frantic pace of 21st century life?
• What are your key focus areas? How much time should you be spending on each?
• What should you stop doing? Discipline requires you discard that which does not fit!

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1. Agility Means Simple Things Done Well, Not Complex Things Done Fast
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“Leadership Matters: Appreciate GE’s Immelt” by Todd Thomas makes the following insightful observations after observing successful leaders such as Jeffrey Immelt CEO of General Electric, John Stumpf CEO of Wells Fargo and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.

Courage: Each of these leaders, and those around them, exhibit the courage to make the decisions they feel they need to make regardless of the immediate and short-term reactions of the market, media or public. They know in their heart-of-hearts that they are making the right decisions for the right reasons based on the information they have available at the time.

Focus: Each of these leaders has also shown an ability to narrow their concern and their attention to a nearly single-minded focus. Whether it is integrating an acquisition, staying true to their roots, or forging a new corporate culture, each of these leaders knows what he is trying to accomplish and is not swayed from the overall future.

Engagement: The other interesting aspect of these leaders, and leaders like them, is that they are not going it alone. All three of the leaders mentioned above are known for their efforts to engage other leaders and employees in the future of their organization. Companies do not magically deliver results –the work of the employees within those companies makes the difference between success and failure. Effective leaders today do not leave out those who are below them in the hierarchy but depend on their involvement, ideas and engagement to make it in the future.

These three attributes of leadership are essential. Courage is necessary to bring about the change necessary to navigate the future, focus ensures that we keep our attention on what’s important for today to shape the future and engagement ensures that the change is sustainable over the long-term.

• Decide what next bold action you need to take today.
• Do you have a narrow focus on the few critical actions you need to take to shape the future?
• Are you taking people on the journey with you?

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2. Learning from Successful Leaders
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“The hardest thing about the job is staying focused” – President Obama talking to Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes

“How the best bosses find focus” provides three great insights into how leaders keep their leadership focus:

1. Know what you’re not good at. “Over lunch last week, a senior executive at a top Fortune 500 company told me that when she’s interviewing candidates for jobs (yes, she’s actually hiring!), she notes whether the prospect knows what his or her talent is not. “Most people don’t know what they’re not good at,” she said. She generally turns away these folks and chooses the self-aware ones who know how to channel their energy.”
2. Know what not to do. “Anne Mulcahy, who brought Xerox (XRX) back from the brink and ranks No. 4 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list, told the New York Times on Sunday: ‘It’s sometimes hard to make choices about where you invest; it’s equally hard to make choices about where you don’t invest and what you eliminate.’”
3. Find a focus and stick with it. “No CEO is better at identifying, communicating, and sticking to a vision than A.G. Lafley, the CEO of Procter & Gamble. Besides his mantra, “the consumer is boss,” Lafley’s big idea is: Reach outside for ideas.… Do you realize that Lafley has been beating this drum since he took the helm at P&G nine years ago?”

Keeping focus is a constant leadership challenge. One that needs constant attention on a daily basis.

• How do you keep your leadership focus?
• What advice can you give to help others in keeping their leadership focus?

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Take some time out to think and reflect on what your busy with, your purpose and on what are you striving to achieve. Then ask yourself, is what I’m doing directly contributing to my purpose? To remain on track 37signals suggest that to stay effective that we need to regularly question our work, by asking the following:

These are questions we ask each other before, during, and sometimes after we work on something. That something can be as small as a couple-hour project or as big as something that takes a few weeks or more. Either way, it’s important to ask questions like this in order to make sure you’re doing work that matters.

• Why are we doing this? Ever find yourself working on something but you don’t know why? Someone just told you to do this or that? It’s pretty common I think. It’s important to ask yourself (and others) why you’re working on this. What is this for? Who benefits? What’s the motivation behind it? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you better understand the work itself.
• What problem are we solving? What’s the problem? Are customers confused? Are we confused? Is something not clear enough? Was something not possible before? What problem are we solving here? Sometimes when you ask yourself this question you’ll find that you’re solving an imaginary problem. That’s when it’s time to stop and reevaluate what the hell you’re doing.
• Is this actually useful? Are we making something useful or are we just making something? It’s easy to confuse enthusiasm with usefulness. Sometimes it’s fine to play a bit and build something that’s cool, but it’s worth asking yourself if it’s useful too. Cool wears off, useful never does.
• Are we adding value? Adding something is easy, adding value is harder. Is this thing I’m working on actually making the product more valuable for people? Can they get more out of it than they did before? There’s a fine line between adding value and subtracting value. Sometimes adding is subtracting. Too much catsup can ruin the fries. Value is about balance.
• Will this change behavior? Developers have a tendency to add stats to a screen just because they can. Counts, totals, sums, averages. Numbers can look cool, but do they change behavior? Does it matter if someone knows there are 38 of these instead of 42? Does it matter that someone knows it took 0.08 seconds instead of 0.02? Sometimes it might, but it’s important to constantly ask yourself: Will knowing this information change someone’s behavior? Can they do something useful with this information? Will they make a better decision because of this information? If not, pull it out of the interface. Data without purpose is noise.
• Is there an easier way? There are lots of ways to do things, but for simplicity’s sake let’s say there are two primary ways: The easier way and the harder way. The easier way takes 1 unit of time. The harder way takes 10 units of time. Whenever you’re working on the harder way you should ask yourself is there an easier way? You’ll often find that the easier way is more than good enough for now. Most people’s problems are pretty simple — we just imagine they are hard.
• What’s the opportunity cost? What can’t we do because we’re doing this? This is especially important for smaller companies that are more resource constrained. Limited time makes prioritization more important. If we work on feature A can we still do Feature B and C before April? If not, would we rather have B and C instead of A? Is A really worth the opportunity cost? Ask this all the time.
• Is it really worth it? This one should come up all the time. Is what we’re doing really worth it? Is this meeting worth pulling 6 people off their work for an hour? Is it worth pulling an all-nighter tonight or could we just finish it up tomorrow? Is it worth getting all stressed out over a press release from a competitor? Is it really worth spending $1000/week on Google Adwords? Is it really worth…?

It’s too easy to rush into, work without taking time to consider the why, the what and the cost of the work. Corporate culture today rewards action and results, rightly so. However, in our haste to get results, we often act without taking the time to consider the consequences of our actions or the most effective way of producing results. By stepping back and questioning our work, we can make informed decisions about where we should be investing out time and energy. Yes, action is necessary to produce results, however purposeful and thoughtful action produces far better results and often with half the effort.

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3. Book Review: How to Make Collaboration Work

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“Time is limited, so I better wake up every morning fresh and know that I have just one chance to live this particular day right, and to string my days together into a life of action, and purpose.” – Lance Armstrong

The survey of nearly 1,200 managers and directors by the UK-based Chartered Management Institute has found more than eight out of 10 struggle to prioritise their work, with conflicting demands pulling them in all directions. Effective time management begins with vision and purpose….

It’s astonishing how many leaders fail to use their time effectively. Research by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal discussed in the Harvard Business Review article “Beware the Busy Manager” found that “a mere 10% of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful and reflective manner” . In their article they research found that focus and energy  are critical elements required for purposeful action. They describe these two elements as follows:

“Think of focus as concentrated attention – the ability to zero in on a goal and see the task through to completion. Focused managers aren’t in reactive mode; they choose not to respond immediately to every issue that comes their way or get sidetracked from their goals by distractions like e-mail, meetings, setbacks, and unforeseen demands. Because they have a clear understanding of what they want to accomplish, they carefully weigh their options before selecting a course of action….. Think of the second characteristic – energy – as the vigor that is fueled by intense personal commitment. Energy is what pushes managers to go the extra mile when tackling heavy workloads and meeting tight deadlines.”

Effective managers and leaders have high levels of focus and energy which the article refers to as purposeful managers. As illustrated in the energy – focus matrix illustrated below, describing the four types of managers.

• How focused are you? Do you have a clear vision and goal?
• How much energy do you have? Have you made a personal commitment to the goal?
• Where are you located on the energy – focus matrix?
• Are you making effective use of your time…..?

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1. Where Are You Spending Your Time and Energy?
2. Steve Jobs: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life”!
3. Leader as the facilitators of meaning and purpose