Return On Minute

I recently heard a story about when Bob Rubin was the US Treasury Secretary, there was this a of mad dash from his team to get all the information they could possibly gather about gold. Then at the end of the day, there was a big presentation and a report. Bob was completely taken off guard. He had no idea why everybody is so into gold. As it turned out that word had spread around the whole organization that Ruben loves gold. Why? Because thinking out loud, he made an offhand comment to the effect of, “Oh, I wonder if gold’s going to become more valuable?” Everybody took that as gospel and a ton of energy and time was spent chasing this down.

The Big Deal

You can inadvertently waste your team’s precious time, by accidentally distracting them from delivering business outcomes with offhand comments. Your job as a leader is to set the direction and make sure everyone moves in that direction. One of the worst things you can do is introduce distraction and confusion into your team, but it happens all the time. Why?

When you become a leader, you haven’t changed. You don’t realize anybody’s going to take you more seriously, but you have this positional authority – a long shadow – that leads your team to all of a sudden follow everything you’re saying.

Fill in the gaps: The best leaders signpost their thinking. 

In my time as a Chief of Staff I had more than one conversation with team members to get them refocused after a meeting. “The Executive said she was curious about this data. So, I need to go drop what I’m doing and get this report to her today.” Uggh!

The best leaders say out loud the assumptions that often otherwise go unspoken. This is an incredibly important skill because in not doing so the team members will create their own story, and that’s how you get 12 different versions of what happened in the meeting. 

Hey, can you talk this through with me?

I had a manager once who did his best thinking out loud.  As his Chief of Staff, I would spend hours as his sounding board, talking through strategy. If you’ve been in the tech industry you’ve probably seen this more than once. It’s why everyone would have a whiteboard in their office.  He would often call me into his office and say, “Hey, can you talk this through with me?” In this situation, the environment often sets the context.

However, as you get larger and larger teams, and as the workforce becomes more distributed and diverse a leader needs to recognize that your team members’ backgrounds, surroundings and approaches to work is likely different than your own. By stating when you are asking for something or that you are just thinking out loud can help create a fill in the blanks for your team.

This means that it’s critical to set the stage. Herer are a few phrases that can help improve team moral and empower your lieutenants:

• “Let me just talk this through.”
• “I’m just spit balling.”
• “Here’s what I’m curious about, but you decide if we need this before we move forward.”
• “Here’s what I need you to do.”

Bottomline

Signposting helps improve your Return on Minute by creating balance, reducing miscommunication, and time spent running in the wrong direction.