Of Time Management, Coffee and Change Agents
March 17, 2006
For change agents, time management is a critical skill. Every senior executive was pressed for time in sharing their stories during the creation of the change agent paper. Speaking to their assistants, you quickly realize that their calendars are packed with meetings and calls, followed by more meetings and calls.
Fortune Magazine this month took at look at how successful people in business and government function on a daily basis. The stories are just startling, and demonstrate an enormous range of behavior. One interviewee gets over 600 emails a day, while others share that they, "don't do email.
Change agents who are Horizontal Thinkers by nature feel the most need for frequent people contact, and Transformational Leaders are generally in the most people- intensive roles. Yet all change agents know that in order to move towards an integrated vision, as Pete Rustan said, "it all comes down to the people you have."
Howard Schultz, Chairman of Starbucks, had one of the most interesting interviews. A friend of mine heads a large Starbucks in NYC and shared with me that Schultz once stopped in un-announced, and instantly had a genuine personal connection with each of the store’s employees. Even more impressive was when Schultz, the CEO of this massive company, dropped personal note to the head of the store following the visit. That's people contact.
Here are a few more anecdotes that Schultz shares with Fortune Magazine about how he manages his day. His last sentence is one that many change agents will likely agree with.
"I get up between 5 and 5:30, and naturally the first thing I do is make some coffee; depending on my mood, it's either an espresso macchiato or one of our Indonesian coffees in a French press. I'll take my coffee, read three newspapers -- the Seattle Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times -- and listen to a voicemail summarizing sales results from the past 24 hours. This has been my routine for 25 years.
There are always Starbucks with their lights on somewhere around the globe, and we open five new stores every day. So I've learned how to leverage my time. In the early morning I focus on Europe. I'll call Greece or Spain or wherever, either at home or on the drive into work, to talk about challenges -- do the numbers make sense? -- or to congratulate them. These personal conversations are very important.
The travel can be brutal -- I got back from China five days ago, and I'm still a little under the weather. The airplane is my time to read, which I do voraciously. I carry a Treo powered by GoodLink, which works well globally.
I'm not a big e-mailer, though; it's a crutch that hinders person-to-person communication."
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