Karen is a very smart and capable leader, running her own substantial business and recently started Chairing a non-profit organization that she has only been involved with for a few years. She ascended to Chair quickly because of her hands-on approach. While she loves the volunteer work, she is quickly becoming overwhelmed with organizing and taking on more tasks than she expected, while faced each month with a Board that doesn’t readily volunteer to share the load. She wants to figure out a way to not be so task oriented in this work and to focus on strategic matters. My suggestion to her is to stop taking notes.
Depending on the role we are playing, there are certain ways of processing work and behaving. If you are an analyst and the boss calls you into his office, it is important to bring a piece of paper and take some notes that you can place in the folder you created for the project. This will be helpful later to review and reconstruct your ideas. Or you just brainstormed a complicated idea on the white board and you want to get that down on paper for later. But seriously, how often do we go back to our notes?
For the most part, our brains are very good at remembering and synthesizing what is important. And when we rest, our brains continue to sort out the events and ideas of the day by placing them neatly in grey matter for recall later. If a leader is focused on many matters, moving parts, ideas, opportunities, issues, problems, strategies and solutions – they can’t possible write all these things down and file them neatly in folders. Our desks would become warehouses of notes…that you will never go back to.
Leaders, by the sheer volume of information they process become very good at a couple of things: Sorting through what is important and then remembering what is important when the time comes. When they sit in a meeting, they are focused on the person talking, the idea being articulated, and looking for the most salient pieces of information. They may take a note or two, but it is deciphering the puzzle, not writing down the words spoken. Leaders are thinking and processing not recording for later. They are operating in real time, deciding on the spot. What they are also doing is forgetting all the language to communicate the idea and are remembering the idea itself. This is evident when they skillfully take an hour of presentation and instill into it a statement that is crystal clear. The analyst’s job was to provide the detail, citations and data, but the leaders job is to take all this and place it into a memorable concept.
This of course is easier said than done. In order to be able practice this method of remembering, a few ingredients are important.
- The first ingredient is you have no choice. You are drinking from the fire hose and are forced to stop writing everything down. Leaders roles are more encompassing, needing to know just enough about many things and therefore find themselves consuming way too much information, until they decide to sort through what is critical and turn the hose off.
- The second important ingredient is confidence. If you are feeling stressed about being in a role that you don’t feel you deserve, you will be compelled to be the analysis and write it all down. This will limit your potential and put a cap on your capacity to lead. Confidence will come from, believe it or not, letting go. You will discover that if you can deal with the ambiguity long enough, things will start sorting themselves into matters that you can remember.
- You need to trust your staff and fellow board members. Without trust nothing works. If trust is not present, you have to build it. If it is present, then allow the others you are involved with to do their thing too.
- Build engagement. People are generally trying to do a good job and are engaged. However, you want to build Engagement with a capital E. This will happen when they too are faced with a fire-hose of their own. Just as you had to deal with the ambiguity and information, they too need to be fully engaged in the matter so they can step up and do their best. The tendency for good people is to protect others and make sure they have balance, but not to the detriment of the matters you are trying to advance.
- Get over the feeling that good employees take notes. You are not an employee, you are the leader. We need you to think big, clear and bold – not be stuck in details.
Karen took my advice and went to the next board meeting without a notepad or pen. Guess what happened? Everyone else took out paper, volunteered for tasks acted more engaged and solved their own problem. Karen gets to lead again.