Business is hard right now.   You need
to find a pace that you can maintain,
because it’s not likely to get easy soon.

I’m having so many discussions with
people who say things like:

We are missing our revenue plan. 
There is a lot of pressure on cost. 
We are re-evaluating our strategy.
I am not sure what my budget is.  We may have another layoff.  I can’t commit to my plans.  Things might change again.  We are expecting another re-org.  My key  initiative has been put on hold.  It’s really hard right now.  Things are going really fast right now…

What if it doesn’t clear up soon?  What if you don’t feel more in-control soon?

One of the things we don’t talk about often in business is the necessity and the value of coping. 

Sometimes what makes executives successful is their ability to come to work again tomorrow! 

If you are frustrated because things are in flux, and you are not making the progress you want:

• Give yourself some credit for coping
• Don’t expect it to get easier soon
• Pick a pace that you can operate at for a long time

Pick your pace

I am a cyclist.  There are some hills that take you to the point of total system failure — you can’t breath, your heart races, your legs are on fire.  The only problem is that that happens after five minutes, and it may take 30 minutes to ride up the thing!

So I force myself to pick a pace, one where even though it is still really hard, I can say to myself “I can do this all day”.  When I get my thinking, my legs, and my heart rate and lungs calibrated to “all day”, then when I finally reach the top I have accomplished the task, and I am still not at the absolute end of my energy. 

If you know the how long the hill is, you can push yourself to get to the top faster. But if you don’t know how long the hill is, you need a strategy so you don’t burn out on the way.

What is your pace that you “can do all day”?  If there is no end in sight to the turmoil, how much physical and mental energy can you invest over an indefinite amount of time so that you can make it to the top no matter how long the hill is, and still have energy to go forward after you get there?

Get ahead of the competition

When the market gets easier and there are more opportunities, you want to have the energy and the resources to jump — to go fast again — while the competition has burned out, given up, or failed along the way. 

It is your job to cope, and to keep going.  It is your job to manage the turmoil and keep making forward progress in uncertain and challenging times.  Otherwise you end up just working really hard, and not really moving the business forward, or getting anywhere personally. 

I have had miserable jobs, and it is always interesting to note how much of the misery I put on myself vs. that which was strictly imposed or required by the job.  You can actually make a pretty big change in how you feel about your job, by deciding how YOU will manage your energy.

Some ways to get up the hill:

• List all the things you are worried about.  Are they all equally worthy of worry?  Budget your worry.  Don’t burn yourself out worrying about things that are not worth it.
• Identify at least one thing you will negotiate “away” and stop doing.
• Pick a single area to ensure success – one thing that you won’t fail at no matter what – and don’t let the uncertainty throw you off course.  Complete that, then do the next one.
• Talk to your team – let them tell you what they think is hard about the current state.  Don’t underestimate the value of letting them talk about this.  Acknowledge the difficulty openly, then focus everyone on something they feel they can control and do well.
• Build your Personal Brand.  How you act in difficult times does a lot to show the world your brand.  Are you positive and in control, or are you changing your mind all the time, uncertain, all over the place? When you are stressed, are you treating people with respect or are you nasty?
• Don’t give up on your aggressive brilliant plans.  I do some of my best problem solving on a long hill.  Keep learning, keep thinking, keep building so that you are ready to jump when the obstacles clear.
• No matter how over-scheduled you may be, schedule some time to think every day.

For more insights on focusing your career energy, join our next monthly webinar on Avoiding Career Hazards, on June 24th.

An interview with Jim Davis

This week I had an opportunity to interview
Jim Davis, CEO of Verified Person,
technology industry veteran, and a
personal hero and mentor of mine,
on my monthy member webinar.

Download a Podcast of this Interview
Download a Podcast of the Coaching Hour with Jim Davis and me

                                                 TOP 10 IDEAS
                                    JIM DAVIS SHARED WITH US

1. People, Process, Profit
People come first because that is how you get things done.  If the people are engaged and interested, it makes all the difference.  Process helps you avoid doing things the hard way more than once.  Profits are an outcome not an activity.  There is no VP of Profits!

2. Listen and Learn
Ask people, “What we should do More of, Less of, Better, or Different?” Ask how you can help them.  Go find the domain expertise you need to solve problems and learn.  Talk to customers and partners.  Build a complete picture. If you listen to people you will know what to do. 

3. Focus & Execute
Pick three things and get them done! You can’t let your organization get overwhelmed by trying to do too many things.  Get three things done, then pick the next three.  The focus is more important than picking the exact, correct three things.   Just get something done.  The customers will tell you what to do next.

4. Be right or wrong, but not confused!
Not everyone will be happy with what you choose to focus on.  You need to have a thick skin. People will argue.  But these will be the noisy few.  Most people just want to succeed at something, and will be happy with the clear focus. Don’t waiver. 

5. Repetition doesn’t spoil the prayer
Over Communicate.  Your organization will watch you closely to  decide whether or not they can push you around.  Once you have your focus, start every meeting with that, start every one on one discussion with that.  People may get bored hearing about it, but they will know you are serious. 

6. Develop People
People with big goals are worth helping because it strengthens the organization.  It’s important to push people to take ownership and responsibility.  If a decision needs to be made, and I’m not there, step up.  Helping people reach their goals has a more lasting effect on  a company than making the next new product.

7. Consequences
You need to let people know you are serious.  It doesn’t take long.  If you make an example of someone who is not performing, others take notice.  If your people see no consequences from you, they will continue to test you.

8. Don’t try and win against your boss
If you have a boss who asks for stupid things to be done, just do it.  Give him what he asks for.  You can’t win a political battle against your boss.  The organization will start to notice your boss, after awhile and you won’t lose.

9. You get what you Inspect not what you Expect
Encourage people to take big things on, but be rigorous about tracking progress.  Let the person propose the measures and the timeline, and then hold them accountable to that.  But they have to prove it.  Acutally inspect the deliverable.  And you need to triangulate by talking to people downstream.

10. Process & Metrics
Process helps us do the same things better. There are many repetitive tasks in business.  You and your staff need a set of metrics that drive your business. You need to attach metrics to key things in the business then measure and improve them over time.

Thanks again to Jim Davis for a great interview!

Download a Podcast of the Interview
Download a Podcast of the Coaching Hour with Jim and me.

Recently, someone that used to work
in my organization sent me this list. 
It is from 1999, when I took the helm of
the HP OpenView software business,
which was about a one billion dollar
business at the time. 

I used this list to introduce myself to my
organization, my peers, my management
and my partners.  

I didn’t edit this for current-ness, or to make it sound smarter.   
At the time, this was my Personal Leadership Strategy. This is what I said:

Patty’s Top 11

1. Teamwork
The team runs the business and we work together as a team to win.
I have an open and inclusive management style.
I believe in straightforward communications and no hidden agendas.
The team debates, then once a decision is made, the team supports the
decision, and we execute.

2. Do a few things well
I define well as 3 H’s – Happy Customers, High Quality, and High Impact in the marketplace.
To ensure success we must align across the organization and in all elements of the value chain. All parts of the organization must be focused and resourced consistently to deliver on those few things we choose to do well.

3. Simplify and Execute
Complex problems require simplified approaches–not equally complex
answers. If we simplify, we allow the entire organization to understand,
engage, and execute.  Everyone must understand what needs to be done
and what’s at stake.  Only if we simplify will we achieve this.
We must assume a long term view, but embrace a short term ability to execute.

4. Leadership, Ownership & Accountability
Clarity of ownership, & accountability are critical.  We each need
to own our area and deliverables, take the initiative to overcome
obstacles, and follow through.
You can expect me to do what I commit to do and I expect the same from you.

Everyone needs to be a leader–not just managers.
No matter what the situation I believe that it is NEVER THE WRONG DECISION to be POSITIVE and to LEAD.  I don’t mean you should bury problems, I mean you should address them head on, positively and by leading.

5. Communication
Open and clear communication across this organization is very important.
I am dedicated to create a consistent communication process so that
everyone in the organization has the information they need about the business.

6. People & Development
A successful business is created by successful, motivated people.
I am committed to development opportunities at all levels in the
organization.

7. Business & Financially Driven
We must all understand what drives the business from a financial
perspective.  We must meet our committed financial plan.
We all must understand how what we do, and how we make investments
and tradeoffs impacts our growth and our profits.

8. External & Competitive Measurements
We will play to win and that means measuring ourselves against our
toughest competitors.  We need to understand how they are investing
and what they are accomplishing, and make sure that we are poised
to be even more efficient and effective.

9. Process Improvement. To grow our successful software business we must manage our process to be predictable and repeatable.  This is the most effective way to deliver on our commitments for promised features on promised schedules.
This builds credibility with our customers and throughout our business.
Software process improvement allows us to be more competitive by
delivering higher quality products, with the right functionality, into the market faster than our competition.

10. Customers Define Success
We must be willing to listen to our customers and understand what
they truly value, even when they want us to deliver things that are
not on our wish list.

11. Sense of humor 
It is important to maintain a sense of humor in all that we do. 
Business challenges are overcome more directly with a generous
attitude and a healthy sense of humor.

What is your Personal Leadership Strategy?

I  talk a lot about the importance of having a Personal Leadership Strategy.  We had a member webinar on Leading vs. Managing, where I brought this up specifically, and this month’s webinar is
on Leading AND Managing.  So I thought this was a good time to talk more about Personal Leadership.

It’s important to stand for something.  It is important to be able to set expectations for how you intend to lead, and how you will manage your team, your organization and your business.

Make a list like this for yourself.  When you are presenting yourself in a new job or in an interview, it’s important to be able to talk about what you care about and stand for, and how you lead. 

I’m am pleased to note, that other than some better wording, mine hasn’t changed much over the years. 

Once you focus on what you really care about as a leader, you can be more consistently clear minded, and more effective in good and tough times.

Good luck,

This is a sequel to my last post on
Customer Cost or Care. 

Several people left comments, and I got even more email with opinions and questions about the real value of keeping or losing a customer, and the real cost, and P&L impact of providing care.

By the way, my husband is still in the UK,
and the bag will need to be checked one more time before I see it!

Let’s start by reviewing the things that we all know.

Getting a new customer is way more expensive than selling more to an existing customer.  Selling more to an existing happy customer is the lowest cost of all.  Having happy customers reduces your marketing costs as it refers you more new customers for free.  Having happy customers also reduces your liabilities – angry customers tell their stories more than 10 times more than happy ones.

Your customer service strategy can not be separated from
your business strategy.

Your decision on how much you are willing to invest in customer care is a big one.  It should not be seen as a peripheral or functionally isolated cost.  How you decide to treat your customers is fundamental to your business strategy.

If you don’t value keeping customers, your cost of customer care will go down and your cost of customer acquisition will go up.  Your overall costs will not necessarily do down, nor will your profits automatically go up — because reduced customer care will almost certainly result in reduced revenue.

And you will also forfeit an advantage that your competition can’t copy and the market can’t commoditize — treating your customers well.

Some ideas for the real world.

I’m not suggesting that you should provide limitless service and not worry about cost at all.  Every business needs to reduce the unit cost of doing business year over year.  It is the only way to stay competitive and fund innovation.  But don’t just squeeze cost out of customer care without considering the holistic value of keeping happy customers.

OK, so that all sounds nice.  But say you manage the service organization for a company who is not focused on customer care.  You would love to provide exceptional service, but you are being told that you can’t afford it, and that margins can’t support it.  You are being pressured cut cost and to increase the profit margin of your service and support business.

Two ideas:

1. Be the voice of the “Customer Value” line in the corporate P&L.

Expose the real cost of losing a customer just so it is clear to the whole organization. Do the numbers.  What is the actual value of keeping a customer in your business?  Be the one to show the hidden costs of losing a customer.  That should drive your customer service investment.

Calculate the actual cost of losing a customer in your world.  Things to factor in:

• Loss of new, incremental revenue/opportunity
• Loss of opportunity to create a “lifetime customer”
• Loss of annualized recurring revenue
• Cost of replacing a customer – marketing cost per lead that turns into a closed deal
• The cost of supporting the sales process
• Cost of viral effect, how many other customers will you lose based on bad referrals?

I spend about $120/month with Verizon.  They seem to have calculated that the cost of losing me as a customer for a few years is a few thousand dollars.  Verizon has on more than one occasion gone around their standard policies to invest $50-$100 in keeping me.  AT&T on the other hand has never done such a thing, and in fact has what I can only refer to as predatory methods for squeezing more money out of people by making mistakes then pretending it is the customer’s fault, and never refunding anything under any circumstances.

It’s really important to associate a specific value with the loss of a customer.

You need to connect the dots between customer care and increased revenue, not just between customer care and increased service cost.  If you don’t you will be inclined to squeeze your service and support organization on margins independent of understanding how it really impacts your business growth and profit.

2: Improve Service without spending more money.

There are a few things you can do to improve service even if you don’t spend any more money.

1. Personally use and test your standard service processes.
Get a first hand experience of how good or bad the level of service is.  Fight your way through your voice menus or website interfaces.  You will never improve it if you don’t have first hand experience. Even things like changing the hold messages, or not selling to people more than once while you are forcing them to hold, can make a huge difference in customer satisfaction.  Bank of America is the worst at this.  They over sell at every moment, (You can’t even activate a credit card without hearing six sales pitches) and they consistently deliver dreadful service.

2. Note what you like, and what embarrasses you.
You will be surprised at how much you can improve service by changing scripts.  How about having someone say, “I’m very sorry I couldn’t help you, would you like me to email you a survey form so you can provide your direct feedback to our company”, instead of the infuriating “I apologize for the inconvenience, can I do anything else to help you?” when you haven’t been helped with the first thing.  Also make particular notes about where your level of investment is creating a negative feeling in what you experience, so you have that as data for future budget discussions.

3. Spend a shift in the call center, on the help desk regularly.
All executives should do this.  Experience personally what customers call in about and how they are treated by your processes.  Get their reactions directly.   I guarantee you will uncover broken processes, mis-cues in scripts or service books, or repetitive or chaotic tasks that degrade both productivity and service.  You can fix many things for free if you just show up and pay attention.

4. Involve the team in cutting cost without degrading service.
Offer an award each month in each region for the most creative approach to reduce the cost of providing service without diminishing customer care. You can accomplish this if you involve the people doing the work to help figure out how.  One call center realized that a significant percentage of their calls were people asking questions.  They decided to make the answers more accessible, and their call volume decreased substantially.

If you don’t give your team a chance to help solve problems, they will have no motivation to do anything other than follow the process you put in front of them.

It’s your choice:

You can reduce the cost of customer service without cutting the care. It’s possible if you start with the strategic decision of providing care first, then cutting cost as a tactic, not as a strategy.

Special Note for People in the Bay Area

This year I am holding only two sessions of my Career Workshops in the Bay Area.

This is a chance for a small group of people to spend a day with me building a plan to manage their career, be more effective, build their Personal Brand, increase their influence, and grow their network.

I have about 4 seats left for June 4th, in San Mateo.

If you are interested don’t wait to sign up.  There will only be one more bay area session later in the fall.

I do this workshop because I like to help talented people get their break-throughs.  It’s been wonderful to hear the stories about the big promotions, and the career and life changing events that people have been able to create for themselves as a result of this workshop.

You can learn more about it, read what attendees say, and sign up here.

I have been traveling to and from the UK
this past week. 

Due to a canceled outbound flight/lost bag
situation, which took more than a week of
phone calls to four different service centers
to “resolve”, I have had an opportunity to
observe various businesses and their attitudes
and strategies for customer care.

It all starts with one executive decision.

There is a single, primary, strategic decision that
every company has to make with regard to how much
“care” their customer service staff provides. 

It’s binary.  Either:

1) You decide to provide customer service as a value
2) You decide to provide a necessary customer service “presence” at the lowest possible cost.

All subsequent decisions, staff behaviors, and customer experiences start with this one decision.  Care or Cost?

What service do you get?

When you are face to face (or phone to phone) with a customer representative, ask yourself, is this person instructed, motivated, encouraged and authorized to actually help me? Or are they being instructed and paid to infuriate me by saying, “I can’t help you.  I apologize for the inconvenience, can I do anything else to help you?” 

If Azzarello Group were a big enough company that we couldn’t answer all phone calls personally, and you phoned one of my customer care centers with a problem, this is what would happen:

1.  The issue would be logged as a “customer disappointment”, not as a “trouble ticket”.  The phrase “trouble ticket” enrages me.  It is an internal, information-free, and motivation-deprived name for a serious, real customer issue.  Language matters.

2. But first you would be greeted with a recorded voice that says:
Thank you for calling Azzarello Group.  You made a good decision to call.  Relax, we intend to actually help you. Please bear with us for ONE list of choices so we can connect you directly to a human who can best help you.  We will not make you to talk to a voice activated system and pretend it’s a benefit for you.  If none of our standard choices address your problem, just stay on the line and someone will answer the phone to learn about what you need, and will do what it takes to help you. 

3. My customer service representatives would be instructed to actually help.  They would have the training to turn a customer disappointment into a customer happiness, and the authority and/or budget to do so.

4. They would be measured on the number of transitions to happy customers, not the number of closed “trouble tickets”.  When you measure closed trouble tickets you just encourage your staff to be not-helpful, but more quickly.

Make sure Technology works!

Another thing that I feel very strongly about is that if you substitute technology for a person as in your service delivery and you want to provide actual, good service, three things need to happen.

1. It has to WORK!!!  Don’t require flash plug-ins that not everybody has, or provide links that don’t go anywhere. Test the hell out of any technology that is used in lieu of a person and make sure it works 100% of the time.  I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to use a website to provide feedback or report an issue instead of picking up the phone, and the online process doesn’t work! If you want people to use your online system instead of calling you, make sure your technology works! 

2.  Technology should never make humans feel stupid.  First it should work, and it should work in a way that makes sense to a human.  Every time I try to use a self check-out at a store, what I am instructed to do is incongruent in some way with what you actually need to do to get it to work.  I always end up feeling stupid AND requiring a human to get involved.  Actually watch what people struggle with, make it work well and easily, as expected, then people will use it.  You will keep customers and you will save money. 

3. Technology should never rob people of their humanity.  Never make a person talk to a voice recognition system.  Nothing is more infuriating than talking to a computer in the first place, then having it respond, “I’m sorry I didn’t’ get that …”.  By the time your customer gets to a human, your automated greeting and routing has made them angry, even if they weren’t angry to begin with.  I would never put one of these systems between my business and my customers.  It breaks all rules of customer care, and it’s only real function is to cut cost.  Back to the original primary decision.  Which is your primary strategy?  Care or Cost?
 
A tale of two customer Service Models

You can determine a company’s customer service strategy based on observing their behaviors and noting thier investment in: Motivation, Systems, Authorization and Training.  It becomes pretty clear how they made that initial strategic decision: Care or Cost?

I will illustrate this using my recent experinece traveling on United, but being re-routed on Lufthansa, and losing my luggage as an example.

1. Motivation - Customer Service Strategies:

Care Decision: People believe it is their job to solve the customer problem
Cost Decision: People believe it is their job to close the “trouble ticket”

(Cost)  On Day 2 in the UK of not having our luggage, the United baggage service rep said, We found the bag. It will be put on the first plane to London this morning.  Once it is there, it will be routed according to the lost bag claim you filed and you will be called regarding delivery.  From now on you should call the Lufthansa phone number associated with your lost bag claim. (i.e., Don’t call me again, “trouble ticket” closed.)

(Cost) On day 4 of not having luggage, we called the Lufthansa lost bag people who told us that the bag had been flown to Munich, and is scheduled on the flight from Munich to London to arrive at 16:55 at which time we will be phoned to so the bag can be “rushed to us”.

(Cost) At 18:00, after not receiving said phone call, we called the Lufthansa lost bag people again, who tell us that they have identified the bag and it is in San Francsico.  Outright lying and making up information about flights to Munich was a new twist for me!

(Care!) Next: Finally thinking to call the United 1K baggage service vs. the standard phone number, I got someone on the phone who was actually motivated to solve the problem.  It is a shame that United has made the actual “care” choice only apply to their top tier customers.  But, the agent, Grace, apologized for the problem, took personal action, got a hold of our bag personally, re-tagged it and got it on the next flight to London – the one she said it was on.  She called the next day to follow up, but once it was in London, it went into Lufthansa’s system. 

2. Systems – Customer Service Strategy:

Care Decision: The systems are quipped to allow credits, upgrades, refunds, make outbound phone calls and allow the person to say “yes”.

Cost Decision: The systems are locked down to prevent any cost incursions no matter what the customer situation. No reason or business judgment can make a difference. The service person is only able to report, “the system won’t let me do that”.

(Cost)  Once the bag was actually in London and needed to be delivered to us, the Lufthansa “Express Bag Delivery Service” was not able to call a US mobile phone number to arrange where to deliver our bag.  So they simply didn’t call.  When we called them, and tried to expedite they said “We’ll send a Telex to our depot“.  A Telex???  Talk about technology investment.  How about a pigeon?  ….  I digress. 

We also learned that their system for their “same day delivery service”, only allowed them to, and I quote,“hopefully deliver the bag tomorrow”.  As it turns out their system also did not allow them to update our contact phone number or the delivery address.  So they ended up not calling, and ultimately delivered the bag to the place we were three days earlier. 

(Care)  This did NOT happen, but an example of a system that allowed for care might have an “harmed customer button”, (that may require a supervisor passcode) to get to a screen that would allow outbound phone calls to any phone number and the ability to route the task to a third party, actual “same day” delivery service.

3. Authorization & Training – Customer Service Strategy

Care Decision: People are trained to listen, think, and make judgment, expected and encouraged to actually solve problems. People are allowed to incur cost to solve a customer problem.
 
Cost Decision: People get fired for incurring cost to solve a customer problem. People are trained to only read what is on the screen and instructed to say “I am sorry for the inconvenience. Is there anything else I can help you with?”  

(Cost)  On my way home a week later (still without the bag, by the way) when I told the story to a United agent about being a 1K traveler whose weekend in the Lake District was ruined do to a cancelled flight, and a bag of being over a week late, and my husband is staying in the UK to collect the bag from where it was delivered to the wrong place said only, “my system will not allow me to upgrade you”.  I think we all know that in this case the agent was using the “system” as an excuse for what was a training, authorization, and motivation issue.

(Care)  I waited a bit closer to the flight time, and then went to the transfer desk inside security.  I told my story again to another United Agent.  I was at this point doing an experiment to determine how many United agents I would need to tell this story to, to find someone who even cared a little.  Turns out to be three.  Finally, Hema Amin, at the transfer desk in LHR heard this story and actually said:

That’s terrible.  I’m so sorry your vacation was ruined.  I can’t upgrade you myself, but I will call my supervisor to get a code to allow me to upgrade you.  I told her that whatever happened from this point on that she was a star for being the first person to care at all, and that I greatly appreciated it.  I did not embellish the story I told her, but she called her supervisor on her cell phone after not getting through on the desk phone, and told a story on my behalf including all the details I gave her and ending in “so things just went from bad to worse, and I think we should upgrade her”.  She got the approval, and I am now typing this in business class, sipping a glass of champagne.

Cutting Costs without Cutting Quality of Service

I’m not suggesting that companies provide limitless service and don’t worry about cost at all.  In the next post I will discuss ways to understand the value of keeping a customer and ways to cut the cost of customer service without cutting the care.  It’s possible if you start with the strategic decision of providing care first, then cutting cost as a tactic, not as a strategy.

Heros and Villains

• Companies who made the Care decision:  Zappos, Verizon, JCrew, Ritz Carlton
• Companies who made the Cost decision:  AT&T, ATT&T, AT&T, Lufthansa, Comcast

What has your experience been?  Leave a comment.

One thing no one ever tells you about executive positions is that a big part
of success is simply surviving them.

You need to cope with the demands
on your time and your life in a way
that you can bring significant positive energy to bear on adding value to the business.

I am posting this blog from the UK. 
It was one of those trips that was
supposed to be a straightforward direct flight from San Francisco to London, but we ended up on a detour through Munich with a standby ticket.  We eventually arrived about 30 hours later.  Our luggage was not so lucky. 

So I thought this would be a good time to share some thoughts about energy management!

Energy management is equally, or more important than time management.

1. As you advance you no longer get paid for your time – you get paid for your value.  And value is proportional to energy.

2. When it comes to the things that renew your energy, the difference between spending zero, and a little time doing them is huge – it’s a much bigger difference than between a little and a lot.  So don’t wait – do something that builds your energy, even if it is for an hour per month.  The psychological and energy gains will be huge.  (More on this in a later post.)

3.  Don’t turn problems into dramas.  We all face big and small problems, nuisances in the form of people, processes, and things.  I recently learned that the physical, chemical response for anger in humans lasts 60 seconds.  After that, it is up to you how long you stay angry.   Anger is a big energy drain.

4.  Exercise – I always force myself to be brief when talking about Exercise because I am in danger of being an annoying fitness evangelist.  So I for now I will keep it to two points.  1. If you want more energy, nothing has a bigger positive impact than regular exercise, and 2. If you are interested in how to get the most benefit from your exercise, you can check out a great article I co-wrote with my personal trainer awhile back.

In this post, I am going to elaborate on the first energy management point. 

It’s not about the amount of time you work, it’s about the value of what you contribute.

The higher up you go in an organization, the less your job is about the work that you do personally and the more it is about the value you add by working through other people, and across and outside your organization.

Your value and necessary contribution is about growing profits, building capability and capacity, developing people, and innovating improvements in products, processes, and communications.

All of these things require real thinking, and thinking requires energy – positive, focused energy.

Some people make the mistake of trying to impress executives by telling them how much time they spent/sacrificed working on something.  This is not impressive.  What is much  more impressive is to say, I got this done brilliantly in 1/10th of the time, and I had a fabulous weekend at the beach by the way.

A real part of your job is to figure out how to optimize your energy.

You need to make sure you are giving yourself the chance to operate at your highest capacity and to add the most value.  Otherwise you are just working really hard and shooting yourself in the foot.

This requires a transition in how you think about your work, like I talked about in a former post – Addiction to Detail. 

When you first start working in an entry level position you are a doer of work.  You write, you code, you create, you deliver, you implement processes, etc.  At that level you are being paid for your time. 

Your work output is directly related to the time you spend at it.  If you take a long lunch, you are stealing value from the company, because the value of your work is based on how much you work.

But as you advance, you need a values change.  What you need to value is your ability to lead and to contribute.  The amount of time you spend working is no longer directly related to the value you add. 

And you are not going to be a good leader and innovator if you are fully consumed by the activities of your job and you are always burned out, pissed off and tired.  

Your job is to find a way to manage your energy, so that you can do the strategic job which is necessary and expected. 

Go to “the Dentist”

My personal example: When I had my first big job managing an organization of more than 1000 people, I didn’t go to the dentist for 4 years.  “I didn’t have time”.  When the topic of “dentist” came of with my assistant, she was appropriately horrified and had me at a dentist within 48 hours. 

I told people at work, “you won’t see me till 11am on Wednesday, I will be at the dentist.”  You know what.  No one batted an eye, and the world did not come to an end.  The lesson. Every once in awhile, tell people, “you won’t see me until 11am, I am going to the dentist.” 

You need to give yourself time to think and to renew.  It won’t happen automatically so you need to do it on purpose.  Schedule it.  You will also get an energy boost simply from feeling like you took control over some of your time. 

You get smarter.  You get better.  You get happier.

I talk to CEO’s all the time, which is a 24×7 job, and they all tell me that if they can get a day or two completely away from work once in awhile, they become much more productive, and they are able to solve persistant problems, that have eluded them for months. 

Or they are able to take their renewed energy and inspire and motivate their organization to focus and accomplish more.  One CEO I know solves her toughest problems on long cycling climbs.  What works for you? Do it!

Here are some specific approaches:

1. Think about what time of day and what day of week you have the most energy.  When do you feel the smartest?  When you are the most focused and motivated?  Make sure you do not do not waste that time doing email, or sitting in a boring meeting.  Schedule 2 hours during that time and HIDE. 

2. You must hide.  Be unavailable.  Otherwise it doesn’t work.  No matter how busy you are you should be able to schedule 2 hours per week to either think or to renew your energy.  Also see Make More Time.

3. Think of an activity that renews your energy.  If you are an introvert it will be something you do by yourself – it could be doing nothing.   If you are an extrovert it likely involves other people.  Plan something this month that will positively increase your energy. 

For me, I can tell you that when I go into work at 10am instead of 7am once in awhile,  sleep in, have a slow breakfast at home, and just give myself time to think, I am way better at my job.  I might end up staying late to catch up on some things, but the company gets way more value out of me than if I just stay on the treadmill endlessly.

Let’s face it.  You are not productive 100% of the time you are working anyway.  So spend less than 100% of the time doing work.  Not only do you have permission to do this, you are expected to do it. 

In these tough times, companies are laying people off and people are fighting to preserve their value.  I can tell you, working longer hours alone is not going to do it.  See also, Be More Relevant and Do a Bigger Job.

If you want to preserve your value, you must add value, and to add value you need your energy and your brain fully engaged. 

If you don’t you will lose credibility and be seen as a tactical and overwhelmed manager, not a leader who is in control are ready for more.