As leaders of people, teams, and functions in an organization, it is our responsibility to ensure the highest possible return on the investment of our most valuable commodity—our time and attention.
Are you appropriately spending your time on things that matter most to your organizational goals? Is your calendar filled with things that requires your direct attention? Are you spending your time on things that have a direct impact to your weekly, monthly, and annual goals? In short, do you have a good “return-on-management” or ROM?
Robert Simons and Antonio Davila defines ROM in their HBR article, “How High is Your Return on Management.” According to them, “ROM measures the payback from investment of a company’s scarcest resource—managers’ time and attention.”
Simons and Davila even have the following equation to describe this business ratio:
Though there is no actual score or number that we can universally compare ROM on, this equation helps us to understand that we need to ensure that the numerator (Productive Organizational Energy Released) is as large as possible, while the denominator (Management Time and Attention Invested) is as small as possible.
Now, you’ll have to think, “How can I ensure that my time is spend to high-leverage work?” Remember that your goal is to have the best positive results possible using the lowest amount of your effort and attention.
There is a universe of conversations, topics, and insights out there to answer this question. It may require a full management weekend retreat to adequately tackle this subject. However, let’s attempt to drive some of the key points in this article:
Plan and Prioritize
In my opinion, the first step to achieving positive output on your ROM is to plan and prioritize. You’ll need to identify which activities have the most impact to your organization’s productivity. With that, you can set specific goals that help measure that productivity.
Once you’ve identified the specific high-leverage activities, you can now use that as a checklist to accept, delegate, or decline work.
Work Through Other People
You will get high returns on your management time and attention if you enable team members to deliver their best work. As leaders, we need to utilize the talents of each team member and help them achieve their highest potential.
Yes, let’s delegate, but let’s get a bit deeper. Don’t just delegate activities and tasks—delegate authority. What’s the point of delegating a meeting or a task (to free up time in your calendar) if that person is not allowed to make decisions? If that’s the case, they’re merely taking notes to bring back to you. Now that’s wasting management time.
If you’re not delegating your team members the authority to make decisions, you’re wasting everyone’s time. Either you don’t trust your staff, you haven’t clearly articulated your goals, or you’re so egotistical (worse, insecure) that you think it must be YOU making all the decisions.
Get over it! If you have any of the ‘excuses’ above, you’re not fit to lead. If you don’t trust your staff to make decisions—why even keep them in your team? If it’s not clear to them what your goals and objectives are—why not make the effort to clearly articulate your vision? If you’re egotistical or insecure that it must be you making the decisions—again, you’re not fit to lead.
Finally, Focus on Things That Matter
Your time is valuable. Be sure that you’re using it wisely. Delegating work (and authority) to your team members is a development opportunity for them as well. You’re creating stronger leaders and individual contributors when you get them involved in such activities. The time you spend daily, needs to contribute to your weekly, monthly, and annual goals. Say ‘no’ to all those that do not.
Plan, prioritize, delegate, and focus. Four simple points to consider to achieve high return on management. Remember, focus on increasing the numerator (positive results), and decreasing the denominator (management time and attention).
What other points do you use today to help improve your return on management?