Leadership

I went out for dinner with a friend last night. We ended up talking about leadership and time allocation (I know, we’re wild right? 😉 ). Observing how a leader spends their time is often the quickest way to see how effective they are.

I’m going to focus on talking about leadership roles which involve managing managers or managing a function. And for that, I’ve settled on a framework called 1/3, 1/3, 1/3.

A third of your time should be spent in conversations. Leadership meetings, 121’s with direct reports, project meetings and various other 121 meetings. Meetings tend to get a bad wrap, but they’re often the glue that holds everything together. They are your vehicle to steer things, communicate, influence, get visibility, coach and make decisions. This is how you work through others.

A third of your time should be spent on your own work. Whatever leadership role you’re in, you will have your own priorities and things that you’re directly responsible for. You need the time to be able to focus and do those things well.

The last third of your time should be ring fenced and unallocated. You should use that time for thinking, speculative stuff and recharging.

This balance of conversations / meetings, doing your own work and unallocated time is critical for a leader to be effective.

If you feel unable to achieve this balance, I’d usually put it down to one of these three things:

• Something is wrong or dysfunctional in the business. The most common culprits are being over-committed or some type of organisational health issue (weak leadership, weak talent, org design etc.). You owe it to yourself and everyone around you to find the root cause and solve it.

• You haven’t made the mentality shift needed for the level of leadership that you’re at now. You’re likely micro-managing, interfering or trying to do others’ work (or all of them!)

• You’re disorganised and have poor time management.

In these scenarios, I have two suggestions which might help.

Firstly, seek out a coach and get some help. That could be your manager, someone else in the organisation or someone external. But find someone who is operating well or has operated well at your level in the past and let them help you.

Secondly, pick up a copy of The Leadership Pipeline – it’s a fantastic book. I read it early in my career and it was a big inflection point for me. It made me aware that there’s both a set of capabilities, but also a mentality shift that needs to happen to be effective at the next level of leadership.

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There’s no shortage of opinions on what leadership is, and how it differs from management. You can find whole books dedicated to the topic.

I think of leadership as three things:

• Setting and communicating future direction and goals (including the why)

• Attracting and retaining the best talent

• Creating an environment in which people can be successful.

I appreciate there’s alot that sits under those three things. But, ultimately, whatever the level of leadership, it leads back to these three focuses.

For example, if you’re a CEO, it means setting and communicating the overall vision and strategy of the company. You then have to help everyone connect the dots between the near term priorities and the end goal. It also means building a leadership team who will hire the best talent and run the company in a way which gives it the best chance of success.

If you’re managing a small team, it means making the long-term priorities of your team clear and showing how they fit with the company’s overall vision, strategy and goals. You then have to help the team connect the dots between their tasks and the team’s long-term priorities. And lastly, you have to make sure your team has the best talent and is able to get their work done to a high level.

Like I said, there’s a lot of detail that sits under the above three things. But, if you ever feel yourself getting a bit lost in the detail, you’d do well to come back to these three things to help guide what you focus on.

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I’ve worked with some great operators over the last 20 years. And there seems to be a common thread amongst them.

It comes down to how they’re able to think across three different time frames. Importantly, how they’re able to perfectly balance the time they spend in each of these time frames.

Inversely, bad operators tend to spend their time almost exclusively in just one of these time frames. Either that, or they don’t balance the time they spend in each one very well.

The three time frames are:

Now

This is what’s right in front of you. It’s your immediate goal and priorities. Usually it’s about 4-8 weeks in front of you.

One step ahead

This is the logical phase or set of priorities that come after what’s right in front of you. It’s what you’ll need to start working on, once you’ve nailed what’s immediately in front of you.

The end goal

This is what you’re ultimately working towards. It’s what success looks like over the long term.

Great operators tend to perfectly balance the time they spend in each of these three time frames.

They start by thinking about the end goal. They get clear on what they’re trying to achieve over the long term. This means that they can push forward with a clear purpose and direction. Not doing this, is almost the definition of being unstrategic.

But, they don’t get too caught up trying to lock down the end goal in fine detail. They know it will change as they work towards it. They do enough, to have a clear sense for where to head – and then they step back from it.

After that, they spend most of their time in the now. They get on with their immediate goals and priorities. The things that need to be done this week, and next week. They start building momentum.

Here is the tricky part. They have to get stuff done, but in parallel to that, they also need to have an eye on what comes next (one step ahead). They will do preparation work, so that they can seamlessly transition into the next logical goal or phase of work. When this isn’t done, you risk completing what’s in front of you, but then being unprepared for what comes next. This causes you to lose time and momentum.

Last of all, they take a step back from time to time, to think about the end goal. They think about what they’ve learned from completing what’s in front of them – and from planning for the next logical goal or phase of work. The end goal is re-shaped if necessary. What they don’t do, is get too stuck thinking about the end goal. They get back to what’s in front of them.

As you can see, it’s a tricky balance to keep these three time frames in your head.

You probably need to spend 70% of your time working on what’s in front of you (now). In parallel to that, you’re probably spending 20% of your time planning for the next logical goal or phase of work (one step ahead). And then roughly 10% of your time is spent taking a step back and thinking about where you’re heading (the end goal).

This is what good execution looks like. Great operators will naturally think like this. They don’t miss a beat.

What you’ll also notice, is that great leaders and managers do this with their teams. They develop a vision for the team to work towards. They help them focus on what’s in front of them, but also encourage them to plan for what’s around the corner.

Common Operating Mistakes

Problems arise when people spend their time almost exclusively in one of the time frames. Either that, or they don’t balance the time they spend in each one very well.

For example, let’s look at spending your time almost exclusively in one of the time frames. Let’s say, all you think about is the now. Sure, it will look like you’re getting stuff done – but in reality, it’s a random effort. You’ll lack a clear direction, and will often get surprised by things that are one step ahead. Rarely does this result in impactful or transformative work.

Another good example is spending too much time thinking about the end goal. It becomes paralysing, and you never really get into execution mode.

The other mistake, is not balancing the time you spend in each one very well. For example, you might start to work on the now, but then become too distracted by worrying about what comes next. Or you worry too much about what the end goal should perfectly look like. This also becomes paralysing and gets in the way of execution.

A recent example

To help give some context, here’s a recent example of having to think like this.

I joined Bossa Studios earlier this year. One of the things on my radar was recruitment.

We were doing some things well, but we were also doing a bunch of things not so well. Overall, we weren’t in a great place.

First up, we had to spend some time thinking about what the end goal looked like. Where did we need to ultimately get to?

We needed to work towards a strategic, and approved hiring plan. We needed a people and talent team who had the capability and capacity to source and hire great candidates. And we needed a robust hiring process, from beginning to end.

That was enough for me. It was clear what the end goal was.

Then we had to switch to the now. We knew the foundation would be having a strategic, and approved hiring plan. This would drive all of our work. So, we got to work on building this with the senior leadership team.

It took about 6-8 weeks, but we finally got there. We had in front of us a strategic, and approved hiring plan (many of the roles are live here). We also established an approval process for any new hires. This would keep the hiring plan tight.

In parallel to this work, we had to have our eyes on what would come next (one step ahead). We knew that once the hiring plan was in place, we would need to execute against it – and pretty quickly. We didn’t have the team or process to be able to do that well enough.

So, whilst we were building the hiring plan, we overhauled our recruitment process. We also started to build out the people and talent team. We made two very strong hires. A permanent senior people manager, and a fixed term recruiter.

If we were 100% focused on the hiring plan, we’d have been screwed at the end of it. We would have a nice hiring plan in front of us, but no chance of being able to execute it.

Now, I’d love to say we seamlessly transitioned into executing on the hiring plan. Things rarely go that perfect 😉

Whilst we made two very strong hires in the people and talent team, they aren’t due to start until August. So, we’ve been incredibly stretched for the last 4-6 weeks executing on the hiring plan the best we can. It’s messy in places, but we’re keeping our head above water and I’m proud of that. Luckily, we’re not far from those two key hires joining us, and things settling down.

We already have our eye on what’s next too. It’s great we have a hiring plan, and soon a team capable of executing it. But, now we need to focus on significantly strengthening our candidate pipeline. We’ve done some prep work for this already, but need to double down on it over the coming months.

As you can see, it’s a constant balancing act of the three time frames. You have to mostly focus on what’s in front of you, but also spend some time planning for what’s around the corner. And from time to time, you have to take a step back and think about the end goal.

When you do that, the results tend to flow.

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If you’re in a leadership role, you will have to deal with hiring people at some point. When you do, it’s inevitable that you will wrestle with the decision to promote from within – or hire from the outside.

I have a lot of experience with both (getting it right and wrong!) and wanted to share some of the pro’s and con’s of each.

Promoting from within

I went through a phase of almost exclusively promoting from within. I think it was because I was given a shot at doing something I was unproven at, early in my career. It played a big part in me wanting to do the same for others.

There are some strong benefits to promoting from within.

For a start, you can often fill the role faster. The recruitment process can be streamlined. You can also re-organise people where you need them quicker.

They also tend to get off to a quicker start than external candidates. They already know how the company works (culture, processes, who is who etc.) and most people in the company are familiar with them. It’s also easier and more natural for the hiring manager to work with someone they know. It’s easier to set expectations, give feedback and establish how work should be delivered.

It also sends a fantastic signal to the rest of the company. It highlights the opportunities for career progression, which should never be under-estimated. It might even be the biggest factor in how long people stay at a company.

However, there are some risks to promoting from within and they have bitten me hard a few times. Particularly when I was learning the basics of leadership.

If you misjudge peoples potential to perform in the short term and most importantly, to be able to grow into the role at the pace the business needs – it can be disastrous. A huge amount of effort and time is wasted. Focus and execution suffers and relationships can be ruined. Everyone goes through a stressful and crappy time (particularly the over-promoted individual).

It can often result in the over-promoted individual leaving the business (their old role isn’t always available – and sometimes they’ve just had enough). And because they were usually promoted because they were very good at their previous role, you’ve just lost a star.

I’ve definitely been successful in getting the individual back into their old role (or another suitable role). But, often the relationship and their work is never quite the same.

Lastly, remember that signal you wanted to send to the rest of the company? It’s not a great view for people watching to see someone struggling and fail. Even if you manage the situation fairly, some people will assume you under supported or unfairly removed them.

There are a few things you can do to help mitigate the risks of promoting from within.

It’s really important to spend time thinking about your expectations for the role and person. What level do you need them to perform at now?,How will the role and your expectations evolve over the next 6–18 months? Are they a good fit for both?

You need to feel comfortable that the person can handle it. Have an open conversation with them and be honest with each other about how it could pan out. There is no shame in it not being the right time for them.

You should also identify what training and support they will need — both now and down the line. You need to be confident you are capable of giving it to them (this is easy to underestimate).

A 3 or 6 month trial can work well. Holding their old position as a fallback option can be a good idea too. This makes it easier to undo if things don’t work out. But, only a little bit. Be careful about this. This type of set up can have it’s own unique problems and in my experience it’s best to go ‘all in’ or not at all. You either believe they can do it, and will support them with that in mind – or you don’t.

Promoting from within can be wonderful when you get it right. But it can also be tricky. If you get it wrong a couple of times, it’s easy to lean towards playing it safe and hiring from the outside. This was true for me at one point.

Hiring from the outside

Hiring from the outside has some big benefits also. The biggest is that you can bring someone in who’s been there and done it before (or several times before). In fact, often they will come in and open your eyes for how things need to be done. You can end up learning a lot from hiring senior, experienced people.

Having a fresh set of eyes on something can be powerful too. It’s surprising how blinkered you can become when you’re in the weeds — or simply just used to your own environment. This is why new people tend to have a big impact in their first 3 months. They can see things you are overlooking.

Like promoting from within, it can also send a different, but also powerful signal the rest of the company.

Hiring an experienced external candidate shows your ambition to assemble the best talent. The fact that a very experienced individual wants to join the company, can help raise confidence on the future for the company.

As you would expect, there are some risks to hiring from the outside.

Unlike promoting from within, you don’t know who you are working with. Sometimes you only get to spend a few hours with the individual before making the decision to hire. Smooth talkers can exaggerate their previous achievements. What you get, isn’t always quite what you thought you were getting.

Whether the individual can fit into the culture of the company is also a big question mark. Of course, you can get a feel of this throughout the interview process, but you can never be 100% sure. I’ve seen some people let go in their first week due to a complete misfit of values.

The best way I’ve found to mitigate the risks of hiring from the outside is to get several people into the assessment process. This is critical. I’ve felt pretty good about some individuals, only to find that some of my leadership team picked up on things I didn’t. It then led to a decision not to hire.

You should also do your homework and search out people who have worked with the individual before. Ask some direct and discreet questions. If you can find someone in your company who has worked with them before, this is best. You can check supplied references, but you should be sceptical of these, as they will likely be biased.

I’ve also been bitten hard a couple of times when hiring from the outside. Ultimately you have to exit them from the business. If you find yourself in this situation, be fair and generous to the individual. A decent amount of responsibility lies with you for hiring them in the first place. So, parting ways in a positive way (or at least neutral) is always best.

So, hire from within or hire from the outside?

I don’t think it’s quite as simple as one being better than the other.

There will be times when hiring from the outside is always the preferable option. For example, when the gap for internal people to jump is too big. The other time is when the role is needed to either transform part of the company or be part of an entirely new function for the business. Often the skill set here is specific and there won’t be any experience of it within the company itself.

As I mentioned above, my preference swung to hiring from the outside due to a couple of internal promotions not going well. I think this was a mistake and since then, my risk profile for promoting from within has shifted. I’m now willing to take a few more risks with it, dependant on the specific situation I’m trying to fix. That’s the key. It has to be an intentional, well thought out decision to go outside or inside.

It all comes down to your judgement on their potential. Do they have the capability to grow into the role at the pace the business needs? Also, can you commit to providing the right coaching and support.

If I have a role with a few good external candidates and a promising internal candidate (right attitude, eager to prove themselves, self aware etc.), I’m much more likely to give the internal candidate a shot. The positives for promoting from within, outweigh the unknown with an external candidate for me.

The closing point I want to make is that building a culture that develops internal talent and regularly promotes from within is hard. It requires the company to consciously make it a priority and consistently work hard at it.

High potential individuals need to be flagged early. There needs to be conversations about their ambitions and any support they need as early as possible. These conversations need to be ongoing.

Considering what peoples future potential is at the recruitment stage is also important. This will help people grow into their roles and subsequent roles in the future more easily. Forecasting what types of roles you will be looking for in the future and doing succession planning for key people is very important too.

Having a great people / learning and development function really helps. They can often drive a lot of the forward thinking and structure for developing talent. However, ultimately it’s the responsibility of leaders in the organisation to think about this, and make it happen. They should be having the right conversations with people, and using the L&D function for support.

It’s about identifying what the business needs going forward. Then, being very conscious and organised in how people might move around the company in the future to fulfil these. It’s also about doing everything you can to prepare them.

Companies that do this well should be very proud. It isn’t easy and takes a ton of effort and some talented people to pull it off. But the rewards are massive if you get it right.

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