Today’s work environment is characterized by ever changing information, adoption of the latest technologies, and fast reactions to political and environmental changes.
The chart below shows the amount of data being produced every single day. This data is measured in zettabyte. “A zettabyte is a digital unit of measurement. One zettabyte is equal to one sextillion bytes or 1021 (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) bytes, or, one zettabyte is equal to a trillion gigabytes.”
Wow. I find that hard to grasp. What an incredible amount of data!
And it’s not just the amount - the increase per year is staggering.
What does this volume of data mean for your job as a people leader?
How do you decide which data is relevant, reliable, and impactful for your decision making?
How can you keep an overview of all the tasks, people, information, and budget decisions that are within the scope of your work?
The current way of work is mostly based on devices such as iPads, laptops, and phones. Most devices provide you with an overdose of new information; emails, updates, news flashes, social media notifications, and so many more.
All of these invite you to get distracted from what you are doing at the moment and they destroy your focus (if you managed to be focused until then that is!).
The outcome oftentimes is:
You cannot pay full attention to what you were doing
You cannot finish what you had started
You cannot fully focus on the current meeting, discussion, or even worse the feedback conversation you are having
And ultimately: at the end of the workday you are not satisfied with your output. That might lead you to adding additional hours of work. But even if you do; are you fully focused then or will the distraction continue?
So let’s take a look at a few (very different) approaches that might serve you well here.
The technology – your servant
Yes, I mean that. Technology has been built to serve the human, not the other way around.
Looking at today’s general behavior that people let go of everything else the moment their phone buzzes or makes a sound makes me wonder how fulfilled a day can be when the number one activity is to serve your phone.
When you attend to your phone, how many times is the outcome actually useful for you? How many times is the new information you just received contributing to what you were just doing? How many times is an update relevant to your current situation? Your answer to these questions might not satisfy you.
It might be the same for your other devices; desktop notifications, push notifications of your iPad, your smart watch, etc.
So I am asking;
First off, how can change the settings of your phone to filter irrelevant data and/or to change the frequency of push notifications?
How can you replace time spent with irrelevant data for time spent more meaningfully?
How can you identify the platforms/ channels/ groups that might not be the ideal use of your time (right now)? What are your quality criteria?
How can you change the dynamics – and let your devices serve you and not vice versa?
The why – your purpose
Once you are identifying which data or piece of information is relevant to you and which is not, having an overarching direction to follow is very helpful.
What are your criteria to select information?
What is the information supposed to do/ support/ feed into?
What is the bigger goal you want to achieve as a leader in your organization with your team?
Answering this question and being clear of what you want to achieve is to be aware of your actual purpose – the why. Being a leader there are multiple dimensions of purpose.
One is the purpose of the organization you work for. Why does this organization exist? What is their reason for being in the market?
The next dimension is your purpose as a leader. What does being a leader mean for you? Why did you become a leader? Which impact do you want to have as the leader you are?
And lastly, the purpose that you have as a person. Ideally this dimension of your purpose is somewhat linked to the first two. The more aligned the dimensions are, the more authentic you can act because the criteria of all dimensions are at least similar.
What is your purpose in life? Looking back on the last day of your life, what do you want to have lived for?
Going back to data, you can start with simple questions around your purposes.
Why do you do what you do each day? What do you want to achieve and how can you and your team(s) get there?
Simon Sinek wrote a fantastic book about finding your WHY and giving your business purpose – and with it more direction and clarity.
It is not just your professional but also your personal gain when you identified your purpose and you are starting to live by it. Especially for leadership there are numerous advantages:
Your team(s) will notice that you give a direction, a vision with your actions. They can relate to that and can build loyalty towards you and the organization.
Once you defined your purpose, you will be consistent in what you do and people around you will become aware of what you believe in. And this results in authenticity.
Your customers will notice that you draw a bigger picture; it is not short term, but long term and most of all the emotional reasoning is now available.
Your peers will notice the clarity of your daily activities and will get inspired.
Your friends and family will notice that you have a different energy level and a different motivation.
Having defined your purpose is a wonderful way to have clarity on what you need to do – and which activities will not serve you well. That entails the management of data, the handling of different devices, and the style and frequency of communication.
Knowing your purpose for yourself will not be enough though. You stakeholders need to be aware, so that they understand why you act the way you do.
The direction – your expectations
This is where expectations come in. Be clear around the expectations you have towards yourself and towards others so that time can be used the most meaningful way – a mutual awareness of priorities and agreed results to work towards will help eliminating distractions and potential waste of time, money, and energy. Related to the amount of available data this also means that you ask yourself what you want to expect of a day and how you want to spend your time.
Sheryl Strauss Einhorn published a wonderful article in the Harvard Business Review around the importance of expectations and their effect on our actions.
Putting your own expectations to the test and challenging in how are they are realistic, meaningful, and fair is an exercise everyone needs to do on a regular basis.
When leading a team, being transparent on your expectations towards your team members is key. Your staff is most likely unable to read your thoughts. Making clear what you are looking for makes it much more likely to get the results you seek.
Unless you provide this clarity, people will do what they think is right or needed – and that might not be matching your understanding of the same.
The multiplier – your team
The struggle that you feel when you are overwhelmed by information and data is the same for your team. Each member has different approaches of how to receive, how to sort, and how to digest data.
Help them gain the same clarity that you have created for yourself.
Once the goals and the overall direction are clear, and you have shared all relevant information with your team, you have options to maximize productivity:
You can delegate parts of your work and focus on those parts that really require your skills and expertise.
You can make current projects and tasks as well as their progress transparent for the entire team and thereby create accountability
Your team can develop more ownership when they feel that everyone is working together and dependency is equally shared. This will boost motivation.
You can install regular team check-ins to celebrate milestone successes and to praise team members who did particularly well.
You might wonder why you should engage in these activities.
Employees want to feel trusted and enabled by their manager. Trust can be built by transparency and also by respect and appreciation. Allow them to do the rights things in the right way, acknowledge their work and let them trust you. This will build a healthy relationship and a work environment of motivated and productive people. Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini wrote an inspiring book about the effects of appreciation and acknowledgement in organizations called “Humanocracy- Creating Organizations as amazing as the people inside them”.
“Recognize employees for their contributions: This is the most cited challenge for employers that have leadership trust issues (54%).” says the Culture Fitness - Healthy Habits of High-Performance Organizations Report of i4cp.
To conclude, the amount of available data is increasing very day. This bears both opportunities and threads.
There are multiple ways to deal with the data, a few of them have been named here.
The one thing all four options have in common is that it starts with YOU. With your perception of your current situation, and with your mindset. As a leader, you are also responsible for the people around you. Be aware of this responsibility and ask yourself what you would be expecting of yourself if you were in your team.
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