“Call me tomorrow afternoon”, said another startup CEO. I was trying to set up a phone call with this person to discuss a possible partnership with a startup I’m involved with. Upon calling the next day in the “afternoon”, I was told that the CEO was in another meeting and that he would call back. I asked for a time when I could expect a call – that wasn’t forthcoming. I also couldn’t get a convenient time for me to call back at. I received a call late in the evening that day from the executive apologizing profusely and that his day had been very busy. It took a while to schedule a meeting thereafter.
The two examples are symptomatic of a larger malaise in our society. The near absence of time management, task prioritization, planning and scheduling. Of course, a visit to a government office or indeed any interaction with a government department showcases these issues in all their starkness! Speed of movement and its obverse namely, time management, is a source of enormous competitive advantage in a startup and by not taking advantage of this resource, a startup loses. Unfortunately, startups in our country aren’t immune to these problems.
So what are some of the things that a startup founder can do?
- Start by taking notes in any meeting. Capture the key points, the actions expected, timelines for completion and note the person responsible for those actions. Send out the meeting minutes to all. Subsequent meetings should start with a review of the actions decided on in the previous meetings. Our oral traditions seem to have permeated into our DNA and therefore the creation, assimilation and dispersion of information and knowledge isn’t our strong suit.
- Delegation. Learn to trust key team members with responsibility. Give them the freedom to execute. Provide resources to the extent possible. Review performance based on deliverables, quality and time commitments. Let the concerned individual or leader take decisions. You should not be the bottle neck for decision making. Don’t penalize failure but penalize lack of learning from failure! This will enable the team around you to learn and grow, thereby enhancing organizational capacity. Don’t micro-manage and second guess.
- Plan your day. Schedule review meetings. Schedule external meetings. Attempt to reduce interrupts to the minimum. Have a daily (whatever else works) morning briefing session with the team on what’s expected, make sure everyone understands what needs to be done, understand the challenges ahead and try and get the team’s inputs on dealing with these challenges. Every phone call doesn’t need to be responded to eg when in a meeting, don’t take a call unless it is from a customer! Respond to missed calls after the meeting.
- Don’t waste time on chat / SMS when in a meeting. Multi-tasking isn’t quite technically multi-tasking – it is actually a deployment of sub-optimal attention to any one task. Research has shown that multi-taskers, while looking impressive and important, aren’t quite as productive.
- Prioritize! Customer meetings and interactions always trump every other interaction. All meetings or tasks aren’t equally important, they just seem that way. Learn to distinguish between the important, the urgent, and the “can-wait-and-the-sky-won’t-fall”.
It is said that the busiest man has the most time. The next time you think you are busy, think of this statement and the points above. Paraphrasing the great by-line from the advertisement copy of the now defunct HMT watch, If you have the inclination, you will find the time!
What do you think?
