Stop wasting time and start managing it

Stuck in meetings all day. Sifting through a flooded email inbox.

Sound familiar?

All too often, working hours (and sometimes even non-working hours) are consumed by routine tasks. Finding time to develop your own leadership skills and keep your team motivated keeps getting pushed further and further down the list.

The truth is―you DO have the time, if you’re smart about how you use it. In the first of this four-part series, we share tips that will help you save time and be a more effective leader.

Tip #1: “L-C-S”

Since we’re all strapped for time, I encourage the leaders I work with to use a simple time-saving communication tip we call L-C-S. It’s particularly effective if you’re working with multiple stakeholders and it allows you to quickly accomplish three critical things with every interaction you have: give information, gather information, and create or maintain accountability.

• L = What you like about the idea
• C = What concerns you about the idea
• S = What suggestions you have to address the concerns

Here’s how it works. Let’s say a colleague suggests to you, “We need to develop additional sales tools to better enable our sales people. And, I think the sales people should help develop these tools.”

Your L-C-S response would be…

• Like = “I like the idea of having additional tools and resources for our sales team. I also like the idea of collaborating on the creation of these tools to establish ownership.”
• Concerns = “I’m concerned that additional tools might be a distraction. They already have substantial selling resources and I want to avoid overwhelming them. I’m also a little worried that the time it takes to co-develop these tools will take away from the time that the sales people are supposed to be selling.”
• Suggestions = “I suggest we survey the sales team members to better determine whether new tools are a ‘like to have’ or a ‘must have.’ Secondly, let’s do an analysis of the amount of time we will require from the sales team, and what the associated cost will be.”

“L-C-S” works great for brainstorming, giving feedback, and best of all, this kind of communication is incredibly fast and empowers your colleagues to share, collaborate, and quickly take positive action.

So, let’s hear from you. Is your team bogged down? Are you wasting time talking in circles, attending endless meetings, and answering countless emails without accomplishing anything?

Stay tuned for the next post in this series, which will cover skillful time management.