The apparent reality that we cannot do all that is committed to us within the time that we have, haunts us daily. This can also be overwhelming that we almost want to give up on our responsibilities. The daily hours available at our disposal remain the same, 24 hours per day. In it we have allotted some, at default, to rest, get ready for the day’s job, commute in Lagos traffic to the office, if you are not working from home, then picking up office responsibilities and deliverables for each day. We also have the distractions that comes from external forces on the day’s job especially if you are a manager who is responsible to oversee other people’s assignment. They might want to cross check with you intermittently in fulfilling and delivering their own task thereby delaying you or slowing down on some of your own core assignment. With this there is a need to seek out ways to balance all this demands, on our time.
We can’t afford to be seen as inefficient, not meeting deadlines, delaying on deliverables, or not even getting enough time for the family. As we increase on the ladder of responsibility and career growth, it’s important that we consider very strongly the need to appropriately delegate some responsibilities to other people. First, you need to consider what other people can do for you in which they are appropriately empowered and adequately resourced to be able to carry out such assignments for you. It makes all the sense to delegate such assignments to them to carry out for you while you focus on items that appear strategic and cardinal to your career and personal growth for the season.
There are also many resources that are available on the internet that can aid performance, increase speed and delivery. It might be good for you to take trainings on such computerized programs and system aided resources that can be deployed in achieving some assignment faster, making you work smart. The time deployed to master the use of this resources is gained back as you compare it with the eternal time used in running it in the old ways of doing things that routinely takes away your time and leaves you every day behind targets.
The core of this write up is to encourage delegation and mastering of techniques that can aid efficient performance. You must keep seeking for better ways of doing things in order to avoid burnouts within a short time.
Meanwhile, you must also keep at mind that while you delegate to others, you are ultimately responsible for the outcome of their work. Therefore, there is a deliberate need to have an helicopter view of the delegated task so as to be ahead of them, knowing areas that you would need to come in to ensure that desired result is still achieved. In other words, controls must be in place at appropriate junctions of the task, to ensure that they do not lose track of the intended purpose. Competencies must also be appropriately assessed to know what people can do for you with little or minimal supervision while you major on the things that are best done by personally by you.
In this age and time, we are left without any other option than to work smart. There will be deliberate logs that are stationed on our path, to consume our time and to distract us if we would allow, hence we must fight for concentration on the things that matter putting them on weight by our own personal judgment. The rule is that whosoever is available to be engaged and so to speak, distracted, will sure be used up. Therefore we must ensure that we follow after, those 20 things, using the 20/80 rule, that matter for success to be achieved. It is our responsibility to highlight the 20 things from the list of 100 variables that seek for our attention.
INTEGRITY IN BUSINESS