Lean Leadership
29 April 2021
How to delegate well, as a true Lean Leader
29 April 2021
Much more often than we might think, we are not aware of things happening around us. Focus, understood as the ability we have to concentrate, can be a great help, but it can also hinder us.
Imagine, for example, that you go to a nice party bringing with you a camera with which you would like to film everything that happens: once you arrive you turn it on, but after a while you inadvertently forget it on a table. Throughout the evening the lens will film a couple arguing intensely. The next day, curious to relive the pleasant moments of the evening, you go to review the footage, but you will not feel like you were at a fun party, since only the scene of the two boys arguing was captured.
Let’s find out about our Gold Activities
So how often do we do many activities at the same time forgetting what relationship exists between impact and activity? In other words, we spend the same amount of time on activities that have different impacts. The result is giving them all the same attention, sacrificing activities with great impact, and giving too much attention to some activities that would not need it.
If everything is important, nothing is more important.
The flattening of levels of importance is one of the greatest risks encountered in business today and risks losing value instead of gaining it.
Personal excellence is about achieving one’s highest potential, and this is only possible if we focus on value-added activities, for ourselves and for our company.
But what are the meanings that the word value can take? We create value, for example, when we do something important for those who receive it, or when we are in the presence of something deeply meaningful to ourselves; therefore, achieving personal excellence means being able to create as much value as possible, and this is achievable only if we become adept at selecting our Gold Activity, i.e., the preferred lane for value creation.
Gold Activities enable you to grow both personally and on a corporate level: to do so, you need to be able to distinguish service activities from value-added activities, and this is only possible by starting with yourself. In addition, they enable both strategic vision and progressive team involvement through the use of delegation of “non-gold” activities, consequently increasing team strength and effectiveness while simultaneously reducing stress and waste.
How to Recognize Gold Activity
Each of us has possibilities, but we must train ourselves to recognize them; very often we do things because we have become accustomed to doing them that way, not because we have consciously chosen to do them that way.
How do you look for Gold Activities? First by falling in love with the old Pareto law that is still very valid today: “Always choose the 20 percent of activities that give you 80 percent of the results.”
This is the first rule to always keep in mind. Then there are key factors that must always be looked for to make sure you are always in the Gold Activity “zone.”
- IMPACT
Asking what is the impact of one activity versus another will help to deselect non-value activities that act as ballast. - ABILITY
To persist in doing something we are not skilled at, to burden ourselves with things we do not know how to do, exposes us to the risk of having many weaknesses and few points of excellence. - PASSION
An activity will never be Gold if it is not liked; it is difficult to achieve excellent results by doing things that are neither liked nor stimulated. - CHALLENGE
Do not stay in the comfort zone. The concept of challenge is necessary for continuous growth, to overcome daily limitations and grow simultaneously. - TIME
Have you ever wondered about your perception of time? The ancient Greeks distinguished it into two categories: Kairos, God’s time, where something special happens, and Chronos, chronometric time, objectively ascertainable through an instrument for measuring time. When we are in Kairos mode we feel as if time flows differently, almost as if it stands still. In Chronos mode, on the other hand, time flows quickly and we are unable to fully appreciate the moment we are experiencing-this is a sign that we are not in the Gold Activity “zone.”
Thus the traditional concept of productivity also changes: it should no longer be understood as doing more things in less time, but doing the right things, ed with greater impact, in the time available.
Real productivity
So it is important to disengage from the notion that the outcome depends on the volume of things you do.
Gold Activity brings us to a concept of real productivity rather than forced engagement. It is always better to be productive rather than busy, learning to choose the things that grow your value, the group and your company.
Energy and time are not infinite; if you do not learn to prioritize the important things, you risk filling your diaries with many superfluous things, with few opportunities to give expression to your best talents.
The question to ask, then, is:
Would you rather be overcommitted to so many things, or create value and become excellent at what is really important
