Being connected is great, right until it’s not. How to improve the quality of your connectedness with an expert from the Center for Creative Leadership.
Guest: Jennifer Deal, Ph.D
Center for Creative Leadership
Author, Always On, Never Done: Don't Blame The Smartphone
- Center for Creative Leadership works to help improve leadership.
- Many people said that staying so connected really started when they received their smartphone.
- On average, people in the survey were connected to the workplace 72 hours a week, or 13.5 hours a day.
- Personal tasks done during the workday were accounted for in the research (even people that don’t work these kind of hours still do personal tasks at work)
- One of the biggest complaints was the number of meetings required in organizations.
- A major issue is being invited to meetings and then people realizing that they weren’t really needed.
- Setting clear agendas is key.
- Be explicit why each person is needed.
- Another major complaint was too many people making decisions.
- Be explicit about who has decision-making authority and who needs to be checked with.
- The intentional use of ambiguity as a management tool is also a challenge.
- Sometimes people don’t make a decision so they don’t have responsibility for it, so they leave it in ambiguity.
- Clear agendas and outcomes help prevent this.
- This leads to crisis mode later on.
- What Jennifer does differently because of this research
- She still answers emails early in the morning and late at night.
- Setting better boundaries about having done enough work today.
- Being very specific on agendas for meetings.
- She turns down a lot of meetings that aren’t as high value as the other things she needs to be doing.
- Check out the Center for Creative Leadership for more resources
- Also see episode #128, Four Practices For Leading An Effective Meeting
What have you seen a leader do to encourage quality connections to the workplace?
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