Leaving Space for Agility
Early in my career, I worked at the local chapter of the Boys & Girls Clubs. My role was to help develop and implement a new strategic plan. Because we had a lot to do—and I didn’t have any responsibilities outside of work—I typically worked well past 5 pm.
One evening, the head of HR came by my desk and asked, “What are you still doing here in the office?” After hearing my unconvincing answer, he told me to leave for the day.
For the life of me, I cannot remember his name, but I remember his advice. Reflecting on his long experience as a corporate executive, he said, “In any given year, 60% of the value you’ll create will come over just two weeks.”
Those two weeks are the moments that matter—the crises and unexpected opportunities that create meaningful opportunities to shape the organization's direction. He said, “Your job is to make sure you have enough energy to handle those two weeks whenever they come up. If this is not one of those times, go home.”
I was reminded of that advice when reading an article on responding to unexpected events in the latest Harvard Business Review.
In the article, former HBS dean Nitin Nohria writes, “Many CEOs I advise struggle with the fact that unexpected events consume such a large chunk of each workweek. They worry that they’re spending too much time in reactive mode and feel that their days have a Sisyphean quality to them. Yet they can’t seem to break out of this pattern.”
In my experience, it’s not just the CEOs!
The article provides practical advice on responding to unexpected events—essentially, if it will be a big deal down the line, deal with it; else, don’t get drawn in.
But if half the battle is better responding to these events, the other half is about how well we prepare ourselves for them.
This was the point about reserving energy outside of the two weeks that really matter. If you run at 100% capacity all the time, there will be nothing extra to give when the time calls for it.
Fortunately, the start of the year is a great time to experiment with strategies to manage our energy throughout the year. Before the calendar gets filled with obligations, we can block off vacation time, periodic three-day weekends, or whatever else we need to reliably be at our best!
We can also proactively organize our calendars to leave space for the unexpected. Indeed, the only thing expected is that something unexpected will happen! For teams, this means holding common space for the team to be responsive. Otherwise, the only way to respond to events will be late evening meetings or significant disruption (when a leader suddenly reschedules meetings, it causes a ripple effect throughout everyone else’s calendar).
Beyond the productivity hack, these calendar strategies can overlap with our mental and emotional preparedness for unexpected events. For example, I’ve long had a practice of avoiding meetings before 10 am.
The tactical driver for that practice was leaving space to get any individual work out of the way early. What I found, however, was a more important benefit: It increases my presence during the rest of the day. Rather than sitting in meetings thinking about everything I have to get done later, it enables me to be more grounded and listen more intently. And when an unexpected event happens—when events are out of control—it occurs within a context of feeling in control.
Leadership Wisdom
“I always keep in mind a lesson taught to all young infantry lieutenants: ‘Don’t run if you can walk; don’t stand up if you can sit down; don’t sit down if you can lie down; and don’t stay awake if you can go to sleep.’”
– General Colin Powell, in It Worked for Me