To work effectively, play offense, not defense

In certain circumstances, you do need to pay attention to pings in order to prevail. (Image by djimenezhdez)

Starting the workday used to mean opening my email app.

My tasks and activities would be dictated by whatever was waiting in my inbox. Whatever my clients or employees needed, I was there to help.

The volume was such that I was rarely able to get through all of the email I had. That meant that a day was filled with six or seven or ten hours of email and phone calls, with no end in sight. It was a conveyor belt that I was never able to step away from.

There are, indeed, some positions where this type of daily schedule is appropriate. But I wasn’t a receptionist or customer service representative. I was the CEO! I had a lot of stuff to do, and I wasn’t doing it. I was busy all day long, but I wasn’t doing my work.

Things began to change when I started to think in terms of building systems and processes. I changed my priorities so that I began the day with my most important projects. Spending even just an hour or two on the essential was enough to create a shift. I’m grateful that my day is no longer driven by inputs; instead, I focus on output.

I do have a few key team members whose job is to focus on inputs. They are available all day to answer the phone, receive emails, and address the needs that arise from these communications. They handle these tasks capably so that everyone else can do their work with intention. But what does that mean? If you’ve never set your own priorities, you may inadvertently structure your day exactly like a switchboard operator, finding yourself intensely busy as long as calls are coming in.

Waiting for the inputs is a hard habit to break. Many folks take a defensive approach to their day, getting pinged with each new email or Slack message and responding accordingly. In the two minute respite between pings, they might look at their to-do list and get started on something, only to be continually distracted from it it over and over again. There is no room for thinking.

In order to create more value, we have to play offense instead of defense. We need to choose what we want to accomplish and make it happen. Instead of fitting our most important work in between the pings, we must expand our work to fill our time and ignore the pings as long as we can possibly get away with it. In this way, we will end the day with a sense of forward motion, having advanced measurably toward a goal.

When we play defense, we’re trying to prevent bad things from happening. We’re trying to catch everything so that no one can find fault with us. We put the priorities of others ahead of our own.

When we play offense, we run the risk of letting people down when they can’t get ahold of us within thirty seconds. We might make them mad when we put our own priorities ahead of theirs. But our priorities exist for a reason. If we neglect them for too long, we aren’t doing what it takes to make our greatest contribution to our company or to the world. It’s unsustainable. Just as in sports, a strong defense with no offense is not a winning strategy. We’ve got to know what moves are going to make the difference and lead to victory.

In our work, victory doesn’t necessarily mean beating someone else — it means making the impact we seek to make. We get to measure what we care about. We might not know right away what that is if we’ve become accustomed to a notification-driven work style. But it’s definitely worth figuring out what matters most.

Everyone — the boss, the employees, the teachers, and the students — needs to determine what success looks like and create a path toward that success. Whether you’re trying to do research for a project, resolve an interpersonal conflict, or run a handful of errands, you can set up your day and your life so that you have at least a brief stretch of time in which nothing gets in the way. Be the quarterback, not the linebacker; be the email sender, not the email recipient. No matter what your position, be the CEO of your own enterprise. Don’t be surprised if you start winning more often.