Musings at Altitude

As I sit here at the end of a typical day in my business life, I can’t help but wonder how effective I really am.  Today I spent almost six hours of my eleven hour business day on the phone.  Of those six hours, five of them were spent with more than five people on the phone at one time.  And most of the hour that wasn’t were one on one calls as follow ups to the calls with all the people on them. 

So since I spent six hours on the phone, I only had five hours in this business day to focus on direct and personal contact with people, which is what I really love to do and what I believe is one of the primary purpose of business leaders.  And of that five hours that remained after the six hours on conference calls, about one hour of that was spent answering emails, another half hour was spent on administrative duties (those must do things like open enrollment forms for our benefits), and another half hour was spent getting from here to there where no meaningful interaction could occur. 

That left three hours for the real business at hand – the “how are you doing” visits; the “anything I can help you with” questions; the “what’s the latest on” follow ups with folks who have been on your mind for a while now; the “I really appreciate what you’ve done” talks; and the “I know it’s been tough, but I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished” conversations.

So, for three hours today, I got to exercise my right to be optimistic, to be appreciative, to be thankful, to bring smiles, to get smiles, to shake hands, to give hugs, to want hugs, to give empathy, to seek empathy, to give cheer, to find cheer, and to find joy.  And I did find joy - by wandering the hallways, by joining special friends for cups of coffee, by getting one on one briefings on the exciting business activities going on, by seeking advice, by giving counsel, and by smiling big time as I saw and heard the excitement of business growth.

In my perfect world, I’d go to extremes to have ten hours of my eleven or twelve hour day focused on finding joy.  Yielding to the need for some corporateness, I’d grant the beast of bureaucracy one hour of my time.  And even that hour would be a struggle, but it would be worth it if I could then guarantee that every other hour in the business day would be spent on people and not process.