Productivity Secrets of Bigtime Leaders

I subscribe to Fortune, but have not found many articles that interested me. They all seem so tired and obvious. This article called, Secrets of Greatness: How I Work, caught my attention. Fortune writers interviewed several senior leaders in diverse fields and asked them which daily habits or tools help them keep up with and manage their huge work loads. The article is in the March 20th issue (on stands now) and can also be found online here. Here are a few secrets of success that I found interesting:

Wynton Marsalis -Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center

I've never sent an e-mail. I have a computer but haven't plugged it in. I do have a cell phone. I just learned how to text on it. I do everything longhand or talk it out with my staff, and then they type it.

John McCain - U.S. Senator (R-Arizona)

I read my e-mails, but I don't write any. I'm a Neanderthal -- I don't even type. I do have the rudimentary capability of calling up some Web sites, like the New York Times online, that sort of stuff. No laptop. No PalmPilot. I prefer my schedule on notecards, which I keep in my jacket pocket.

Hank Paulson - Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs

I've never used e-mail, but I'm a huge voicemail user. I do a couple hundred voicemails a day. And I return every call right away, whether it's a client or someone in the firm. There are positives and negatives to this. I don't have a lot of time for small talk.

I find it amusing that these three busy leaders have not given their time to email (lots of time on the phone, it seems). Imagine all the "real work" or "real connecting" they do that the rest of us can't get to! Yes, they have staff members to write their emails for them, but it is still interesting. There were an equal number of people who said they were addicted to email, but I did not think of this as news.

I also found these two examples interesting:

A.G. Lafley - Chairman, President, and CEO, Procter & Gamble

The other piece of the Corporate Athlete program is spiritual -- things you can do to calm the mind. I've tried to teach myself to meditate. When I travel, which is 60 percent of the time, I find that meditating for five, ten, or 15 minutes in a hotel room at night can be as good as a workout. Generally, I think I know myself so much better than I used to. And that has helped me stay calm and cool under fire.

Bill Gross - Chief Investment Officer, Pimco

The most important part of my day isn't on the trading floor. Every day at 8:30 A.M., I get up from my desk and walk to a health club across the street. I do yoga and work out for probably an hour and a half, between 8:30 and 10. There's only been two or three times in the past 30 years when someone has come across the street and told me I should get back to the office. One of them was the 1987 market crash.

Check out all the examples highlighted in this interesting Fortune cover story. Another theme I picked up is that they all have extraordinary right-hand men or women - talented people to help them out and make them look good. One leader mentioned that she had two assistants - one that worked 7am-4pm and one that worked 4pm to midnight. This article offers good evidence that we all need to find the methods, tools, and habits that work for us and augment our weaknesses with talented partners and assistants.

Comments

[bbebop]

It's interesting that these leaders rely on networks of employees, customers, suppliers, etc. that heavily, and increasingly, leverage email and other technologies. As you point out, they also have the personal staff resources that allows them to operate as they do. They also are, shall we say, older than the people who work for them.

Their approaches are reflections of their ages, their experiences and their personalities. Marsalis, for example, is a famous jazz-luddite, having criticized Miles Davis and others for their use of electronic instrumentation.

So I wonder how their strategies apply to middle managers who can't possibly avoid using email. And how about younger knowledge workers who have grown up with the web, cell phones, IM, etc, and who are comfortable with blogs, wikis, social networks (e.g., linkedin.com).

I do agree we need to manage around our weaknesses. I dare say if I were CEO of Goldman Sachs, I wouldn't spend much time on email either...

[Lisa Haneberg]

Bill:

Yes, there certainly is something is there about age and coming from a different time. But I also think that there is room for a range of possible approaches for middle managers. Can they ignore email and take two hours in the middle of the day to do yoga? Likely not. But can they rely less on email and more on phone or in person conversations - I think there is some room for differences here.

I have never met a GREAT middle manager that felt pressure to do things a particular way. If we get results and do great work, that's acknowledged and the ways in which we achieve postitive results are respected (and when I say GREAT, I mean great, not getting results while leaving dead bodies in their wake).

Another point - as the baby boomers will be sticking around in the workforce for many years, we will have lots of middle managers that are from "an earlier generation" technologically speaking.

Middle managers may not have two assistants, but they too have the opportunity to utilize the talents of their teams to get results.

I also noticed that the majority of these senior leaders get a very early start each day. I bet they did that as middle managers, too.

Great managers do what others don't or won't.

I am not suggesting that we throw our personal lives out the window. It is interesting to note, however, what breeds success in today's complex and demanding world.

[Lisa Haneberg]

One other theme from this article. Many of the leaders noted that they get back to people right away - even with their busy schedules and large number of people to get to.

Responsiveness differentiates great vesus not so great managers. People don't like dealing with those that are not responsive. It gives us an uneasy feeling.

Personally, dealing with unresponsive people drives me crazy. I would much rather work with a clueless and responsive person than a bright and unresponsive person.

[bbebop]

Thanks for amplyfying. Those are all great lessons that apply to all managers, all successful people. And they apply regardless of the use or avoidance of technology.

I remember my last bigco management gig when I would get an email message I considered problmatic. I'd frequently write a quick response. Then save it or toss it. Then pick up the phone or walk down the hall to have a personal one-on-one conversation. And I almost always found that that approach resolved the matter faster and more successfully than email might have.

[Rosa Say]

Lisa, it strikes me that this post relates back to your previous one about conversations (and yes, I’m reading everything at one time so my thoughts are a bit singular right now). With email in particular we have gotten to the point that we are broadcasting and not conversing.

Frankly I prefer email for my own productivity - I do now, and I did when I was a VP in the thick of corporate life, AND while ‘Managing with Aloha,’ but I force myself to pick up the phone instead every time the urge to write a long email strikes because I don’t want to soap box. Our voices are just more personal, and we have to be more careful in choosing our words.

And the responsiveness thing - absolutely. One of the best things I ever did for myself and my team was when I bought one of those Brother labelers, and made a strip that said “people first, tasks can wait” and stuck it onto my mousepad. As I stared at it, I then made a few more copies and passed them out at one of my staff meetings. Maybe I’ll change things up now, and make another one that says, “who is waiting to hear from you?”

[Lisa Haneberg]

Rosa - that's a great idea and this is one case where reminders and posted messages can help. Most of us MEAN to be responsive, but some of us let time slip away.

What helps me is knowing that any unfinished business weighs on me. If I have not responded to someone, it is stuck in my mind and gets in the way of my thinking in other areas. Amplify that by 10 times and it would be a miracle if I got anything worthwhile done at all.