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(More customer reviews)Michael C. Mankins is a Managing Partner in the San Francisco office of Marakon Associates, an international consulting firm. He is a co-author of `The Value Imperative: Managing for Superior Shareholder Returns' (1994). This article was published in the September 2004-issue of Harvard Business Review.
Based on the author's experiences with clients, he concludes that the price of misused executive time is high. It leads to frustration, delayed or distorted strategic decisions, missed opportunities and poor investments. In this article seven techniques are introduced which should help management teams make better and faster decisions. The author first discusses where and how valuable time is squandered. This part is supported by a useful graph, which really shows the author's point. But Mankins believes that these problems can be fixed. In order to make the most of the limited time that top management spends together, they should: (1) deal with operations separately from strategy (these "are distinct activities, requiring different modes of discussion and different mindsets"); (2) focus on decisions, not on discussions; (3) measure the real value of every item on the agenda ("successful companies prioritize ... top management's agenda to the value at stake"); (4) get issues off the agenda as quickly as possible ("This practice facilitates rapid decision making and prevents overanalysis."); (5) put real choices on the table ("... management should have at least three alternatives before any strategy should be discussed or approved."); (6) adapt common decision-making processes and standards ("... companies with superior decision-making capabilities use a common language, methodology, and set of standards for making decisions."); (7) make decisions stick ("... successful companies we studied make the strategic decision-making process consequential by tying resource allocation to strategy approval.") It is important to recognize that top management's time is the most precious resource and therefore companies should take steps to ensure that it is used effectively. "It would be a matter of ensuring that the top management focuses on the most important issues, considers all viable alternatives, and makes the best possible choice in the shortest period of time."
Yes, I do like this article. The article is not really about time management, but discusses practices and techniques to stop top management squandering their time. It provides some practical techniques that should be simple for people to implement in their organizations, in particular, within meetings, planning, decision-making, and execution. One criticism, the focus is mainly on top management although most techniques also count for lower management.
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Companies routinely squander their most precious resource--the time of their top executives. In the typical company, senior executives meet to discuss strategy for only three hours a month. And that time is poorly spent in diffuse discussions never even meant to result in any decision. The price of misused executive time is high. Delayed strategic decisions lead to overlooked waste and high costs, harmful cost reductions, missed new product and business development opportunities, and poor long-term investments. But a few deceptively simple changes in the way top management teams set agendas and structure team meetings can make an enormous difference in their effectiveness. Efficient companies use seven techniques to make the most of the time their top executives spend together. They keep strategy meetings separate from meetings focused on operations. They explore issues through written communications before they meet, so that meeting time is used solely for reaching decisions. In setting agendas, they rank the importance of each item according to its potential to create value for the company. They seek to get issues not only on, but also off, the agenda quickly, keeping to a clear implementation timetable. They make sure they have considered all viable alternatives before deciding a course of action. They use a common language and methodology for reaching decisions. And they insist that once a decision is made, they stick to it.
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