Tips For Your Business

It's A Matter of Time

     "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.  If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" said the Queen.
     Lewis Carroll
     Alice in Wonderland

     In today's time crunched environment, many CEOs can relate to the idea of running in place just to keep up with daily demands.  In order to move forward, double time is required to get the products and services to market.  So how does one person do it all?  Faith Popcorn wrote her book, The Popcorn Report about eh issue of time.
     "Time. ' Now there's a fine concept',... It's not just that we don't have enough time.  It's as if time itself has become, well, faster than it used to be.  Immediate is really immediate - there isn't a chance to stop and take a breath... The 'speed of 

technology' brings us the facts of life faster than we can assimilate them.  And information technology not only makes information instantly accessible to us at all times - it also makes us accessible to the information.  We are, often quite literally, 'on the line' much of the time."

     No wonder all of us are feeling like we live life on roller blades.  With technology things definitely are moving faster, so no wonder as we skate through it all it can seem more like a balancing act than a ride in the park.

Clear Vision
     The most important aspects that any leader has within an organization are adapting to change, communicating the vision, adjusting the strategy and empowering those within the organization.  That in itself, is a full time job for any CEO.

Trends to Assist Leadership
     Here's a new idea.  How about just focusing on the vision rather than trying to do everything?  Steve Case of America

Online sums up his philosophy this way:

     "Rather than thinking you have to do everything as CEO, why don't you assume that there's actually nothing you have to do and organize things in a way that the overall company is headed in the right direction with the right people doing the right things.  To me, the perfect week is when there's nothing I have to do; so that I can concentrate on strategy development, people development and customer service."

     There is a new trend in high tech environments to bring in seasoned support to figure out how to bring the desired vision to fruition.  By building a team of people who support the vision, the CEO can deal with the day-to-day demands resulting from a changing marketplace and develop the technologies in time sensitive environments.  The team puts an infrastructure in place to support all that the leader has envisioned.

     Contributed by Ann Estabrooks of Catapulta, LLC

 

  October 2000    BUSINESS LEADER