Almost every leader I coach is concerned (note my gift for understatement) that they are too reactive and not proactive enough in all aspects of their role. They spend their weeks feeling overwhelmed, unfocused, and unable to do the most important work they joined the organization to do. They get a lot done, but there is a nagging feeling that it was mostly urgent and not important.
Being proactive should be an Olympic sport for a few reasons:
In leadership roles, there is no boss telling you what to do. Instead, you have lots of people telling you what they need and want from you. And they want help prioritizing their workload.
Saying “yes” to many of the issues that are thrown at you helps you feel like you have accomplished something – they are immediate, not notoriously hard to wrap your arms around, like strategy.
You want to exude confidence in dealing with your board and leadership team, no matter how you feel in the moment, no matter how uncertain you are.
So, who takes care of keeping you on track and aligned on the key priorities?
You. That’s who.
Sorry. That may not be what you wanted to hear today.
And yet, it’s the cold, hard truth. You figure this out on your own, all while magically building trust in your leadership and a clear and compelling vision for the organization.
Working as a nonprofit executive director, once I woke up to this reality, I experimented with and then landed on a few effective ways to allocate and organize my calendar over the course of my tenure.
To begin wrestling this ornery issue to the ground (note Olympic sport reference above), exercise #1 was how to best categorize the demands on my time. Should it be:
Internal / External – maybe it was about the time I spend on operations vs. network building and fundraising?
By Group – should the allocation be by staff, board, donors, community partners, other nonprofit leaders, etc.?
By Function – would it be better to divide my time according to talent, equity, advocacy, fundraising, program, finance, etc.?
With these three frameworks in mind, I tried a few approaches:
The 50% Rule
As a starting point, this approach invites you to balance your attention evenly between the internal (staff, programs, operations) and external (relationship building, resource development, brand building) demands of the role.
This rule is a tried-and-true maxim – that leaders should spend 50% of their time externally and 50% internally. Note that I put external first. In my experience and the experience of most of the people I coach, the most persistent demand is to focus internally and support the team. As a result, the external facing aspects of the role risk being undernourished. After all, external partners are not knocking on your virtual door (emailing, Slacking, texting, calling) or your real-life door on those days you brave entering an office and meet some of the people you work with face-to-face.
A question naturally arises here for many: Is managing the board internal or external? Boards straddle the internal/external divide with some operations-supportive functions – like financial monitoring – and external-supportive functions – like network building and fundraising. (By the way, when you feel like your board isn’t focused on the right duties, this may be a framework to use in thinking through their time and attention with your board chair).
Managing an internal vs. external focus is one of those tensions that makes leadership an exciting game or an enervating ordeal, depending on how you choose to view the situation.
Here’s an idea for operationalizing this approach and then deciding whether it works for you:
Color code your calendar (I used red for external and yellow for internal)
Each Friday, look at your calendar for the coming two weeks to see if either area needs more of your attention
Block time on your calendar to attend to that area
The 50/50 allocation is a tried-and-true maxim, not a hard-and-fast rule. It's not right for every size organization or at all times in your leadership but starting there and regularly evaluating your time will help you make this an intentional decision, amid all the demands that are placed on you.
The Functional Approach
So, 50/50 sounds nice and all, you say, but how do you divide up the internal responsibilities then? There are so many! The precarious cash flow, the cranky database, the grueling grant reports, the inconclusive evaluation, the demanding yet somehow lovable team, the strategy (wait – that’s that thing you never get to think about!).
In the face of all those demands, the simple internal / external framework may not feel like the whole solution.
I felt that too and set off on another exercise.
Keeping the overarching 50/50 framework, I looked at the various duties of my role, putting them under internal or external, while acknowledging that many external demands have internal implications):
Internal
Programs
Finances
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB)
Talent and Culture
Operations and Technology
Internal-facing board Functions
External
Fundraising
Thought Leadership and Advocacy
Community Relations
Communications
External-facing board Functions
Faced with allocating about 50% of my time for each category, I lined these responsibilities up against our strategy (we did have a strategic plan that I never got to think about for more than 10 minutes at a time, after all – why not use it?).
I then repeated my capacity mantra three times. “Everything feels important, but there isn’t time for everything.”
I started assigning some key priorities (like board and finance) their own color to make sure I gave them the amount of time I intended each week. It was easy to look at my calendar and see that it was decidedly too purple, devoid of green, in need of a touch more yellow.
This approach played out as a more effective alternative than the internal/external divide in the long run.
The challenge was to set the right level of detail – ensuring I didn’t end up with 14 colors, one for each job duty, and a weekly, hour-long categorization process. This was meant to save me time and increase my focus, right? Still, I was haunted by the sense that I was standing at the entrance to a rabbit hole that would leave me feeling more anxious about my calendar than in control of it.
The Stakeholder Approach
Enter the stakeholder approach – allocating your time intentionally to the various members of your organization’s network – the players in your values-driven orchestra that make beautiful mission music when you conduct them just so.
I started this exercise like I did with the functional approach, but this time I listed out all the groups that wanted and deserved an opinion about how our impact should be realized (staff, board, donors, communities we serve, key partners, the public, etc.).
I then drew a big circle and divided up the pie before me with the percentage of time I would ideally allocate to each group. Again, the 50/50 maxim served as a good overlay on the pie. Was I spending 50%+ time on my external audiences? How much time could I reasonably spend externally, and still have a significant portion of my time to be available to the team?
Turning this Plan into Action
Whichever plan you use, write out your ideal allocation – whether internal/external, functional, or stakeholder. This is a visual for how you want to spend your time. Please make sure you can always see this. It should haunt your dreams.
Next, watch yourself for two weeks. See if you spend your time the way you think you should or where there is clear misalignment. In the face of the misalignment, decide if this happens regularly or occasionally. If it is an ongoing issue, work with your team to delegate where appropriate or reprioritize all that is on your plate. Eventually, I made this a quick, weekly Friday afternoon exercise - a little calendar chiropractic adjustment to align myself for the coming week.
Remember that being intentional about your time also serves everyone in the network well by ensuring that your time is allocated strategically among the network that benefits from and contributes to your work. Every group and every function will get your attention strategically rather than being driven by whoever is yelling the loudest at you in the moment.
This will all change a bit week to week (or day to day sometimes) but understanding your ideal approach and then adapting as needed can give you a greater sense of controlling your calendar, not your calendar controlling you.
I now work with many clients to focus their time where they want it to go proactively rather than allowing their network to push them where it will. I can see how much more focused they are and how much more progress they make.
Don’t spend the next week, month, or year reacting to what gets thrown at you. Make a plan for how you will lead, how you will manage, and where you will focus. I promise you will feel better.
To learn more ways to focus your time and attention and manage the many demands of leadership, follow me on LinkedIn or Facebook, or email me at gary@garybagley.com to learn more about my executive coaching and consulting practice.
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