132: How to Improve the Quality of Your Connectedness, with Jennifer Deal

Jennifer Deal: Center for Creative Leadership

Author, Always On, Never Done: Don’t Blame The Smartphone

• Center for Creative Leadership works to help improve leadership.

• Many people said that staying so connected really started when they received their smartphone. • On average, people in the survey were connected to the workplace 72 hours a week, or 13.5 hours a day. •

• Personal tasks done during the workday were accounted for in the research (even people that don’t work these kind of hours still do personal tasks at work) •

• One of the biggest complaints was the number of meetings required in organizations. •

• A major issue is being invited to meetings and then people realizing that they weren’t really needed. • Setting clear agendas is key.

• Be explicit why each person is needed.

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• Another major complaint was too many people making decisions.

• Be explicit about who has decision-making authority and who needs to be checked with. •

• The intentional use of ambiguity as a management tool is also a challenge. •

• Sometimes people don’t make a decision so they don’t have responsibility for it, so they leave it in ambiguity. • Clear agendas and outcomes help prevent this.

• This leads to crisis mode later on.

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• What Jennifer does differently because of this research

• She still answers emails early in the morning and late at night.

• Setting better boundaries about having done enough work today.

• Being very specific on agendas for meetings.

• She turns down a lot of meetings that aren’t as high value as the other things she needs to be doing.

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• Check out the Center for Creative Leadership • for more resources

• Also see episode #128, Four Practices For Leading An Effective Meeting •

What have you seen a leader do to encourage quality connections to the workplace? • Discover More •

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