To Master Your Goals, First Master Your Time 🕰️

Here’s a question for you: What is endlessly abundant and yet incredibly scarce?

Budget? You’ve never got enough money to do what you need, right?

Well, there’s some truth there, and it’s a common complaint we all have and will always have. But that’s not it.

People, right? There are 9 billion people on the planet, but I can’t find anyone to hire. Close, but no cigar.

It’s Time.

Yup, you read it right; it’s time.

Something that is free and abundant, the contradiction being in business terms, is all too scarce!

This is a serious matter, but what is the root cause, and how might we get more of it?

The Algebra Of Work Time Is Not In Your Favour

Sales pressure x budget ÷ time = compromise.

The pressure to deliver is immense. Your employer wants to see tangible results yesterday and will likely compromise on quality, even budget, but rarely time; why is that?

Simply, the longer it takes to show a tangible result, the more pressure there is. This pressure cascades downwards until it reaches your front door.

This pressure on time is driven by monthly and quarterly reporting, as well as internal and external factors within the business itself. Your role in the process is viewed through the lens of those who can and those who can’t.

Welcome To The C-Suite Paradox

You’re in! It’s your first day after your orientation, and the honeymoon is over already; time to deliver.

You discover that the company values contradict the company’s reality. The shine wears off that new job quicker than when a child loses interest in their newest toy. Plus, to add insult to injury, the coffee sucks.

Sound familiar?

Meanwhile, two floors up (or across the hall), your new CXO, has come in from a different industry. They’ve been given time and space to diagnose the market and think about what they want to do. Which way will they point the bow of the ship?

Fair? No. Reality? Yes.

Not delivering is not an option. But what if the world’s most abundant resource, by contradiction, is in short supply, and you need more of it to do your job properly? Take former GE CEO Jack Welch’s advice.

Eat Whilst You Dream

You need to do strategy; there are no tactics without it. Unfortunately, too many businesses go to market way too quickly without investing time in strategy.

Unsurprisingly, most will fail.

Why? Because they failed to make time. Time for a market-oriented approach and a proper diagnosis of their market to inform strategy.

But Jack Welch’s advice to eat whilst you dream, in essence, is a rallying call for a two-track plan:

• Eat. Do the required business to put food on the table.

• Dream. Build for the future in parallel.

Strategy (and dreaming) takes time. But if the hamster wheel we call revenue is turning simultaneously, you can buy yourself time.

You will not be able to walk into any job and say to your boss, “Hey, I need six months to work this shit out”.

If you are a new starter, these days, the honeymoon period is over before it starts. So what do you do? Make a two-track plan. That’s what you do.

Establishing quick wins and constant tangible and visible deliverables will earn you the ‘luxury’ of time. Time to think and research those OKRs deeply and prepare for the next round of business planning so it’s not a turkey shoot.

Put the building blocks of strategic insight together. Send out for some decent coffee.

Plan And Defend Your Time Like Your Life Depends On It

Being aware that this most abundant resource will be scarce before you can even look at your iWatch. This is your starting point.

Regardless of what you are told, if you plan for the worst case, you may just surprise people by getting to a winning position quicker than expected.

A solid 30/60/90 plan never goes a miss.

If you don’t plan and defend your time, you’ll drink from the firehose with near-immediate effect, and your chances of recovery will dramatically reduce.

Your Six-Step Plan to Create Time and Success:

1. Accept the reality that you will never have enough time.

2. Accept it’s not fair.

3. Start on your two-track plan. Immediately.

4. Eat - Identify the quick wins that propel the business quickly and bathe in the organisational acknowledgement that you are someone who gets tangible things done.

5. Dream—In parallel, take more time to identify the strategic initiatives that drive longer-term value. Plan them in your next OKRs. Book the organisational credit for being a thinker.

6. Be kind to yourself. No amount of pressure or unreasonable expectation is acceptable; it’s not your fault.

Being accepting of a business-oriented injustice, such as not having enough time, is not the same as liking it. I’m not suggesting you’ll like it, but you will have to deal with it.

But that does not automatically mean you can’t succeed. You can. I know you can, even if the coffee is terrible.

Keep on rockin'!

Harvey.

🎯 Master Your Goals? I Can Help

As a PMA Top 10 Product Marketing Consultant, I’m always thrilled to help individuals and organisations master their goals.

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