Managers Work on What is Urgent, Not What is Important

There is a direct link between the profitability of your business and your manager’s focus on what is important – the quality and quantity of time they spend actively planning, communicating and following up on the key drivers of profit – but the odds are against you.

Studies conducted with well over 1,000 managers reveal that a typical manager spends only 23 seconds per employee per day actively managing the business. Additionally, a typical manager will spend better than 90% of his day in meetings or behind the desk – not at the point of execution where profits are won or lost. Where does the time go?

It is rarely the manager that is to blame. In nearly nine hours of daily work, a manager will spend 50% or more of his time fighting fires that relate to urgent needs of the business; fires that start as a result of weak or ineffective processes, a lack of appropriate planning, or a lack of measurement on the drivers of the business. Add meetings and administration to the day and there isn’t much left for proactive planning, assignment and follow-up.

Management by urgency is extremely common in all types of businesses and can be attributed to four main causes:

  • The best fire-fighters are recognized and promoted
  • The process lacks appropriate controls
  • The planning and results measurement is weak
  • There is no time for continuous improvement

Managing what is important requires careful planning of the key drivers of profit, a clear communication to employees of what the expectations are, a set of tools to manage the predictability of the process, and a systematic behavior pattern that will remove obstacles before they become urgent.

Who is Carpedia?

We are a tactical resource used by high performance organizations interested in step change performance improvement. With no capital investment required and using only the assets already deployed, our teams are imbedded within an organization fulltime to get the job done on predetermined timelines and cost. Our clients see the Business Case before they engage us. Engagements are selffunding in the first year, typically with multiples.

We do not write reports, we get results. We work in multiple industries with world-class organizations such as Alcatel, NAPA Rayloc, Ritz Carlton, H.J Heinz, Manulife, and The NY-Presbyterian Hospital.

Results

“In the past, supervisors spent most of their day fire fighting and working on reports and e-mails, while placing little focus on closely managing their direct reports. Today, these supervisors lead their teams to reaching aggressive [expectations] and they understand how to remove obstacles to enhance the performance of their team.” President Client Company

 

Learn More

To schedule a meeting please call:
Mr. Greg Peacock
Executive Vice President
Direct Phone: 713-248-2148
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.carpedia.com