day, then the time may be viewed differently from when there is only one.
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Like so much discussed in this book, just one additional golf outing does not seem vastly signifi cant, but it adds up. Two golf outings a month might use up the equivalent of a whole day, 5 percent of your working time. You need to keep this in mind. Maybe a larger group of people once a month would work equally well.•
Whatever activities of this nature form part of your working life, think about them not as an automatic part of the way things are, something that cannot be changed, but as time that needs to be utilized carefully just like any other. Then you can make the right decisions and know that time is not being wasted.Everyone has different skills and also different things they get done most quickly and easily. Some of the things you fi nd laborious a colleague may think to be small beer. You can use this fact to save time.
The idea
As pretty much everyone is in this position, it makes sense to swap some tasks. For example, in sales someone has to analyse, document, and circulate sales results in various forms (to show sales progress, salesmen’s targets, results by territory, etc.). If one person is very good at the analysis—crunching the numbers—and another is good at presenting the information graphically—something needing expertise in the right computer program—then perhaps they can collaborate. All the analysis can be done by one, while all the graphic representation is done by the other. The entire job might then be completed more easily and faster—leaving more time to apply to other tasks, primarily dealing with customers.
If such a deal works well, the gain can be considerable. You may want to be on the lookout for suitable swap situations that will help you.
In practice
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Swapping is something that can be done in all sorts of ways around groups of people working together (even in different departments). There is only one possible snag to watch out forbeen allocated to someone in the fi rst place. If a manager expects you to become familiar with a task and build up some sort of expertise in it, then you are not likely to do that by letting someone else do the work.
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Swap arrangements must turn out to be fairly balanced, of course—if one party fi nds themselves with far more work than the other, then the arrangement will not last, as someone will end up unhappy. More complex swaps—for example, two smaller tasks for one larger one—may achieve a suitable balance. Choose well and you may evolve a number of such arrangements all around the organization, each of which saves you time. As long as the network does not become too complicated (it must continue to work when you are away for a while, and deadlines must be compatible), then it is one more useful way of saving time on a regular basis.First, consider the phrase “business lunch.” For most people this conjures up something expensive, lengthy, and substantial. If you add in the time taken to get to such an event, then the total time involved is something to be considered very carefully. You need to think about whether to accept such invitations, whether to issue such invitations, and how often to do either. You may need to meet someone, but there may be other ways to achieve this—does it need to be at lunch?
Entertaining is, without a doubt, important. Some contacts (customers, suppliers, and others) don’t like it if their goodwill appears to be taken for granted. Yet time is fi nite and every deal cannot be cemented by a lengthy meal; each occasion should result from a considered decision and be worth while in its own right.
The idea
Make lunch productive. Your contact is, in all probability, as busy as you are. What simple options are there, and what about lunch just for you and colleagues, without customers?
In practice
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Consider simple options for an important contact—for example, can something be arranged in the offi ce? It must be done well, but, that said, it can be good, not take up excessive time, and still meet its objectives. You may well fi nd this option is welcomed by some of your contacts.•
Now let us consider the phrase “working lunch.” This is more often internal, and can be very simple—an urgent meeting scheduled for an hour at lunchtime with just coffee and sandwiches provided can make for productivity. Similarly, you may opt to go out for a simple snack with a colleague and do so to discuss a particular thing, often one that has escaped being fi tted into your schedule for too long. All this is useful. Sometimes lunchtime needs to be in the nature of a pause, but remember that with around 230 working days in the year, if you took a whole hour at each for lunch, that adds up to more than 25 working days! So it is certainly an area to be thought about extremely carefully.•
A fi nal, cautionary, note: watch what you drink at lunchtime. Alcohol may help the atmosphere during lunch, but too much is not going to help you maintain or improve productivity in the afternoon. I wonder how often when someone is described as “not back from lunch” it really means they are asleep at their desk.Management, especially senior management, can very often become protected and cloistered to the point that it has no genuine feel for how other parts of the organization work. This can waste time when a problem or opportunity arises and research needs doing before whatever it is makes sense.
The idea
The idea here is to ensure that you see and talk to your people regularly and directly. Like so much else, how and when this is organized should be to a conscious plan: one conditioned not least by the time that will be taken up. How do you approach this? This has become a technique in its own right, with its own abbreviation: MBWA—Management By Walking About. However good the management control systems that exist in an organization are, there is no substitute for you going and seeing and hearing fi rst hand what is going on, what the problems are, and what opportunities are present.