Leaders need to be available.

Leaders need to be available..... Are you, my boss, available today to help me? It’s not like an emergency, but we need some guidance. The response…..OK as its urgent, 7.30am next Thursday, that’s the first slot.

Diaries follow Parkinson's Law; the work expands to fill the time available. In corporate life we seem to have created this availability treacle and then we observe that decisions take a long time. Smaller companies and those designed around small, empowered teams move faster.

I chose to challenge this. I imposed on myself, a 10 o’clock to 4 o’clock day with a two-hour lunch between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. I made my calendar available a mere four hours. At the time, I was running and transforming a 2,500-person operation across a dozen locations.

The first set of actions was on me. I brutally cut my attendance in meetings.

I moved weekly 1–2–1s to monthly and cut to 30 minutes. Previously they had consumed 8 hours a week.

I exited every standing meeting in the business. I spent 16 hours a week in trading, governance and board meetings. I waited for complaints regarding my nonattendance and negotiated with my boss to attend 2 hours a week.

I set every meeting to half an hour. Why do we assume every meeting takes an hour and then fill that hour?

I made it clear that meetings needed to immediately get to the point. Tell me what you want upfront. Nobody ever goes to a senior leader’s office without wanting something.

What a great feeling it was to then open the two hours at lunchtime for urgent or off-the-cuff meetings. I was always available. There was never a day when somebody couldn’t get to see me. I could also be visible.

I also had time before 10 and after 4 to do some actual work such as managing e-mails! See previous post.

I have done this now for 10 years.

Decisions get made quickly. Stuff gets approved quickly. The machine moves at pace not at snail’s pace. If you start to do this you will deliver better results faster and maybe those around you may consider changing their ways too.