Attitudes to time affect us all in a variety of ways and can be a source of stress for many people. Sometimes it’s one person’s attitude to time that inflicts stress on others. For example, I’ve often found myself hanging about the foyer of the Royal Shakespeare theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, waiting for my best friend to arrive. She’s nearly always late.

I realised early on in our friendship, that in most situations there was no point in getting upset about her turning up late. We wouldn’t be friends if I got stroppy every time she did that. But the theatre is a context where you just can’t be late. If you miss curtain up, you can’t just stroll in late the way you can in a cinema, for example. So it’s really important to be on time. We’d usually arrange to meet 30 minutes before curtain up. But she’d still be late, arriving with just 5 or 10 minutes to go.

The first few times it happened, I got really stressed, annoyed and resentful. I was so focused on the danger that we might miss the start of the play, that I wasn’t thinking about anything else. Then she arrived, equally stressed because she was late and resentful of me being annoyed with her. Our different attitudes to time were causing each other stress. Those evenings didn’t get off to a good start and detracted from the enjoyment of the play for both of us.

So I started thinking about it. This is what I do now: I make sure that I have the tickets, so if she’s really late, I can take my seat and leave her ticket with the Box Office. No matter what happens, I’m not going to miss curtain up. So I can relax. If she misses curtain up, that’s not my problem. (It took me a while to get that one!) So I can relax. I can even look forward to the play.

Now, when my friend arrives, I’m relaxed and looking forward to the play. If she’s stressed about being late, I can help her to calm down, just by being in a good state myself. Do you think this has helped our friendship? Do you think it’s helped our enjoyment of our evenings at the theatre?

Now, which side of this story do you relate to most, mine or my friend’s? Are you the one who stands around waiting, looking at your watch every 10 seconds and feeling annoyed and self-righteous? Or are you the one who decided to ‘just make one more phone call’ or ‘just tidy the office’ or ‘just…’ before leaving the house and then spent the whole journey stressing about being late, arriving in a storm of apology, guilt and defensiveness?

It all has to do with how you represent time in your mind. If you’re like me, you see events in your mind’s eye as movies. Continuous processes that evolve from one another, each taking up an amount of time that can’t be occupied by anything else. This is often referred to as a ‘through time’ representation. If you’re like my friend, you’ll see events as single snapshots, none of them taking any time at all. This is known as an ‘in time’ representation.

This difference in how we see time can be the underlying cause of lots of mis-communication, frustration and stress.

If you find it easy to keep track of time, that doesn’t actually make you morally superior to people who find it hard. So be generous and work with your ‘in time’ friends and colleagues to agree time scales and plans. Plan in some small activities that you can take care of if you find yourself waiting for a meeting or phone call to start so that you don’t waste your own time and energy on being annoyed if someone else is late.

If you find it hard to be on time, cultivate your ability to plan by paying attention to how long it really takes to do some of those jobs that you think of as taking ‘no time at all’. By tracking the time you spend on routine tasks you’ll be able to get more realistic about how much you can get done in a day. Or in that last ten minutes before you leave to go somewhere.

A distinction that I think is particularly useful and relevant for most of us is to look at is the difference between people with a ‘procedures’ preference and an ‘options’ preference. This relates to how you go about doing a job.

Someone with an options preference likes to experiment with different ways of doing a job. They won’t always do it exactly the same way; they’ll vary things to see if they can get different results, to see what works best and so on. Someone with this preference is likely to find it quite hard to follow an exact process that someone else has specified.

By contrast, someone with a procedures preference works on the principle that there is a best way or a right way to do something. They want to know what the best way is and then they will always do it that way. I’m sure you can imagine that people with those opposite preferences can drive each other crazy!

It’s also sometimes a source of tension in a relationship between a manager and members of their team. When you give a task to someone with an ‘options’ preference they usually respond best if they’re told, ‘This is the end result: you work out how to make it happen.’ That’s great if you’ve got an ‘options’ preference because you can experiment a bit, but for somebody with a ‘procedures’ preference it might feel as if they’re not being given the whole story. They might really want to know exactly the best way to do the job, so they can do it that way.

I had an example of an ‘options’ boss who had a ‘procedures’ member of staff and the boss kept saying to me, ‘It really irritates me because every other member of the team is quite happy when I
tell them the end result I want and they just go away and work out and make it happen. But this
one person keeps coming and asking me, “How do you want me to do it?”’ and she said, ‘I’m beginning to think that maybe this person isn’t up to the job.’ But then, when we looked at the situation more closely, it became apparent that it wasn’t that the person wasn’t up to the job, the real issue was just that the ‘procedures’ person had an assumption that the boss knew the best way to do the task and just wasn’t sharing it.

Of course, which of these is the more suitable preference will vary from role to role. I’m sure you can imagine that in some jobs having a preference for ‘procedures’ is really helpful, especially where there are legal procedures that have to be undertaken and certain things have to be done in a particular way every time. Somebody with an ‘options’ preference might find that overly restrictive and might get rather bored.

However, if you are looking for continuous improvement, somebody with an ‘options’ preference, who is willing to experiment a bit and look for ways to improve things, albeit in small ways, would be a really good person to have. So again, both of these preferences have their place, they’re both useful in different circumstances, but they can also both have a downside.

The reason I think this is important is that it accounts for some of the differences in the way that people approach tasks. It also accounts for the differences in the way that people talk about what they’re doing. If you asked two people, one with each of these preferences, ‘How is your project going?’ the ‘options’ person will probably just say, ‘Oh, it’s fine. We’re on track, we’re working on this at the moment and everything is going well.’  

On the other hand, the person with the ‘procedures’ preference represents things in their mind in a way that they see the whole process. So they’ll start at the beginning and they’ll tell you everything that’s happened up to today so that you can understand why they’re saying that everything’s okay today. For them, it would seem like incomplete information if they just told you the end result, so they have to give you the beginning and paint the whole picture.

Similarly, if they were on the receiving end of just, ‘Yes, everything’s  fine,’ the person with the ‘procedures’ preference could get quite frustrated because they might feel as if you’re not telling them everything that they need to know.

The next time somebody starts right back at the beginning of the story and tells you everything that they think you need to know, just bear with them because it isn’t that they’re doing it to bore you, it’s just that for their process inside their mind, they need to do that. That’s how they know that they’ve told you everything that matters.  

If you manage people, it can be very helpful to understand the preferences of each person in your team for options or procedures. It will help you to decide how to allocate work and what to expect when you ask for a progress report. It will also help you to adapt your own communications to connect with your team members’ individual ways of thinking.

How many times have you heard someone say "I don’t do politics", meaning they are averse to any kind of manoeuvring or manipulation in pursuit of success at work. I’ve heard it lots of times and my view is that the people who say this are very well-intentioned – but a bit naïve.

Let me explain…

When you hear the phrase 'office politics' what do you think of?  Bad decisions being made for the wrong reasons? Poor performers being promoted because they tell the bosses what they want to hear? Good projects getting diluted because of overlap with someone else’s pet initiative? Do I need to go on?

Yes, all of these phenomena can be attributed to office politics. But so can the reverse kind of experience.

The 'employee of the month' goes to someone who has never been recognised before but has just managed something outstanding and the right person became aware of it at the right time. The budget was reshuffled or re-prioritised to find the funds for a brilliant new initiative because someone made a persuasive presentation about it. The right person was promoted because someone insisted on a full assessment centre.

These are also examples of 'office politics'.  Done well.

Do you see yourself as someone who is ethical, moral and honest; someone who has the organisation’s best interests at heart? 

If you do, you can’t afford to ignore office politics. You can’t afford to leave the management of perception and information to people whose ethics you doubt. You can’t afford to stand back while others canvas support for one course of action when you know it would be wrong for the business.

You see, most of the time when office politics go wrong it's because someone is manoeuvring and manipulating to achieve a particular result that is in their own best interests, rather than the interests of the organisation. If you get involved in protecting the organisation’s best interests, you can help avoid the kind of travesty I described above. If you refuse to 'do politics' you are actually helping the people you mistrust.

What we call politics at work is, ultimately, about managing information, perceptions and priorities. It’s about influencing other people and pursuing a specific goal. And the larger the organisation, the more information and perceptions need to be managed, the more people need to be influenced.

If you’re a Senior Manager or Director, it’s your job. If you aspire to a role at that level, you’ll need to learn to do it.

And if you still don’t want to 'do politics', how about 'doing' Perception Management or Psychological Strategy? That’s what I do.

These are some things you might feel tempted to say, some you might even on occasion have actually said, but trust me, these are things you should never say to your CIO – even if you are a Board Director yourself!

1.  I’m having trouble with my email/laptop/phone… can you fix it for me?
Your CIO is not a one-person technical support service.  He or she does not attend Board meetings in order to sort out your personal technology issues. He’s there to work on the business strategy – aren’t you?

2.  I’ve forgotten my password… again
Let’s get something straight. Your password is your responsibility. People who continually forget their passwords are the bane of any IT Support team. It’s not funny. It’s not endearing. It’s a demonstration that you can’t be trusted with their precious technology. The CIO is tired of the Help Desk grumbling about unknown people who keep on needing their passwords re-set. Keep your head down…

3.  Why is it taking so long? I can download a new app onto my pc at home in less than an hour…
Your pc at home is under your control. Your pc at work is not. Had you forgotten that? Well I suppose if you can forget your password you can forget anything. That shiny new app you want for your team has to be checked out – we don’t want to crash the whole network do we? It also might be way down the priority list compared to other ‘business critical’ updates, innovations and installations.  Organisation-wide technology is a complex beast – that’s why we have Enterprise Architects. (What do you mean you’ve never heard of them?)

4.  If your guys can’t do it this month I know a company who will take it on.
Nooooooo! Every IT department has a constant battle to keep control of the technology being used.  And the suppliers. You may think it’s no big deal to bring in your personal contacts to run up a few web pages or install a new CRM programme, but to your CIO it’s a nightmare. What if your external supplier hacks into something he shouldn’t? What if the new installation conflicts with another app? What if the whole network goes down? On second thoughts, perhaps you should say it, and then he’ll know who to keep an eye on!

5.  Any reference to those ‘geeks and freaks’ in the IT department.
They may seem like geeks and freaks to you, but they’re the CIO’s own geeks and freaks and he loves them. Furthermore, it’s likely he used to be one of them. And if you stop to actually speak to any of them you’ll probably discover that they’re not freaks at all. They’re just cleverer than the rest of us – and quieter. They don’t need a bomb putting under them. They don’t need to ‘get out more’. They just need some well-earned respect for keeping us all provided with the vital technology to do our jobs.

…and for enabling you to read my on-line blog!

I’ve been working in Management and Executive Development for over 20 years now and I’ve never been more convinced of the importance to businesses of having capable leaders. In challenging times, we all want managers and leaders who can deliver results.

What I’ve realised recently is that the key is not in the capability of our managers and leaders but in their credibility. And these are two entirely different things.

Capability is about what you can do and what you can achieve. It relates to potential and perhaps to
past history. Credibility is about what other people believe you can do and believe you will do. Credibility is what inspires other people to follow your lead, not capability.

Ok, it’s not easy to get credibility without capability. I’m not saying we don’t need capability. It’s just that capability alone won’t change anything. The epitome of this is the Senior Manager who spends several years of valuable time studying for an MBA, writes a superb dissertation and does absolutely nothing different with all their new knowledge.

In fact, acquiring extra capability and not using it can detract from a person’s credibility quite dramatically. Think about it – do you really respect the person with the MBA if you don’t see any change in what they do after the course?

Come to that, it’s not just about the MBAs. If a person attends any kind of training programme and no increase in results is visible, it can be damaging to their credibility. And yet, lots of managers and leaders shy away from doing something different, because they are afraid of receiving a barrage of ridicule and cynicism: “Been on a course, have you?”

Is this why some Senior HR Practitioners think that leadership and management training doesn’t work? Well, it’s true that not all training makes an appreciable difference to leadership behaviour.

Could that be because the trainers don’t have sufficient credibility to inspire leaders and managers to do something new?

Credibility comes not just from having the capability to do something or from a string of qualifications, but from the choices we make, the actions we take and from the results we achieve.

The manager who avoids difficult situations or who waits too long to tackle a problem will lose credibility very quickly. The one who acknowledges the problem even if he doesn’t have an immediate solution will gain more credibility than the one who seems to have his head in the sand.

In difficult times we don’t just need managers who can get things done. We need leaders we can believe in.

“It’s like pushing water uphill.” How many times have you heard yourself or one of your colleagues say that?

Usually it refers to the introduction of a new process or system and the difficulty of getting people to actually adopt it. So you push hard and it looks as if you might be getting somewhere then suddenly it all drops back to where it started. Just like trying to push water uphill!

The problems with trying to push water uphill are numerous. Gravity, for a start, but that affects anything you might try to push up a hill. The biggest problem with water is its ability to change its shape and get out of so many of the things you might try to push it in.

Likewise your change project. It will be harder to succeed if your project has a flexible shape and isn’t
contained in some way. It will be impossible to succeed if you ignore ‘gravity’, that is the forces that
are pulling against all progress. To succeed there is a simple formula that can be applied to any task or project, large or small.

1. Label it
2. Give it shape
3. Make it yours
4. Contain it
5. Apply anti-gravity
6. Check out the consequences

1. Label it

Firstly, write down the end result of your change project. Write it in terms of getting what you want,
rather than not getting what you don’t want. For example, write ‘At least 95% satisfied customers’
rather than ‘Complaints less than 5%’; ‘Computerised billing operational by year end’ rather than ‘No more manual billing after year end’. The situation described may logically be the same, but the language is important. The language is important because it triggers images and thoughts in our minds. However, we can only make images of what is – it’s almost impossible to make a picture in your mind’s eye of the absence of something. Try it – make an image in your mind of ‘no more complaints’. Either you get nothing – and ‘no customers at all’ is probably not what you want – or you get an image of happy customers. So it’s easier to start with ‘more happy customers’ and probably more accurate in terms of the images that get associated with the words. Your positive statement of the outcome should be brief and easy to remember.

2. Give it shape

The next step is to write a description of what your change project really means in terms of evidence to others in the organisation. What will they be able to see that‘s different? What will they hear that’s different? Is there anything they will feel that’s different? For example, ‘orders shipped every day’ rather than ‘more shipping’; ‘more space in the office’ rather than ‘fewer filing cabinets in the office’. Focus on the benefits to employees, customers or suppliers in describing the results of the change. If you can’t think of any, why are you making the changes?

3. Make it yours

It’s your project. You’re going to make it happen. Other people will be involved, but you are the one
who will make sure it succeeds. If there is any area where you can’t make it happen unless someone else is involved, you have to be confident that you can have enough influence to ensure their contribution. Identify the areas of the project that are not directly under your control and where your task is to influence others to do their part. Realise that your influence is crucial to the success of the task and allocate time to it. Where you need other people to do something, you still have responsibility for making sure that they do it. That is true even if the person who has to act is the CEO.

4. Contain it

Put some boundaries around your project. In some cultures this involves producing ‘terms of reference’ for the project. If you haven’t been given or been asked to produce such terms of reference then it’s still a good idea to be clear about what’s in and what’s outside the scope of your project. Have clear time frames, accurate budgets and be realistic about what can be achieved with them!

Okay, so far so good. You’re probably thinking that most of this is just ‘common sense’ – although
common sense isn’t necessarily common practice. Now we get to the bits that, in my experience, make the biggest difference:

5. Apply anti-gravity

Gravity is what drags the water back down the hill. Anti-gravity is what keeps it going. In real terms this means identifying the factors that will get in the way of your project and countering them. The reason why most organisational change is so painful is that too often people are aware of what they have to give up for the change to succeed. What they have to give up can include the security of working with a familiar system; the enjoyment of doing a seemingly insignificant task that is about to be streamlined or removed from the process; it could be telephone contact with customers or colleagues; or it might be simply having a good excuse for problems and failures. To identify the ‘gravity’ ask yourself the following questions:

• What will we have to give up in order for the change to succeed?
• What have we got invested in the status quo?
• What’s good about what we’re currently doing, that must be included in the new practice?
• What do people enjoy about the current practice?

The purpose of answering these questions is to identify the factors that will act as gravity on your
project, holding it back and bringing you back to ‘square one’. Once you know the things that are
valued in the present you can incorporate them into the change, or compensate for them, in order to
make your change project succeed. For example, in making the transition to a Help Desk service by the IT Department you may find that the users resent the loss of direct contact with IT technicians. They want to talk to their friends and get their IT support as a personal favour. By making sure that Help Desk staff get time to build relationships in all departments before the new system goes live, you can maintain that feeling for users that all they have to do is ‘phone a friend’.

6. Check out the consequences

Finally, to make sure your project is really a success, consider the consequences of making the planned changes. Look at all aspects of the operation and check out the wider implications of your project. What will be the effect on staff? On customers? On suppliers? What will be the effect on other activities? On budgets? On scheduling and planning? By fully considering the impact in all areas you can ensure that there are no conflicts of interest, no nasty surprises and no excuses for delay.

Change can be uncomfortable for many people – that’s why it has to be managed. If it is managed
intelligently and compassionately then change can be rewarding. After all, the reason we change our
organisations is to improve them, isn’t it?