Being Efficient as a Senior Leader

Posted on May 6, 2024 Updated on May 4, 2024

This post is based on a presentation I give entitled “Being Efficient as a Senior Leader.” The handout from the talk will be at the bottom of the post.

How to Be Efficient as a Senior Leader

As you ascend the leadership pyramid and assume more responsibility, being efficient will be critical. In order to be efficient, you’ve got to manage four things:

• Your boss
• Your people
• Yourself
• Technology

Your Boss

You have got to manage your boss to maximize your efficiency. Most senior people have a reputation. Perhaps you’ve worked with them before. Do everything you can to gather information about them, how they work, and what it is like to work for them. If you have not worked with them, talk to those who have. What hours do they work? How many days a week? How do they communicate (text, e-mail, phone, in person)? How demanding are they?

For example, my first Commander during my Deputy Commander/Director/Executive Officer (XO) tour was someone who I’d worked with before. She had unmatched work ethic, worked longer hours than anyone, and her life was running military treatment facilities. It was going to be impossible for me to arrive at work before her (she usually arrived around 0530) or leave after her (She tried to leave around 1930). Luckily, I had worked with her before, and I knew how she rolled and that we got along very well. There is about 5% of the world’s population who thinks I’m hilarious, and luckily for me she is in that 5% and has a good sense of humor.

Once you gather info about your boss, you’ve got to book a meeting with them. If there are issues you anticipate may cause problems, they need to be directly addressed right up front. For example, I knew work hours and communication were going to be a huge issue. As a result, I booked a meeting on the first day I was her XO.

In that meeting, we discussed work hours and established that she was good with me arriving after her (usually by 0700) and leaving before her (usually before 1800). I told her that I’d jump back on e-mail, if needed, in the evening after I ate dinner. This was almost always necessary, but usually I could handle things with my phone only and did not need to VPN in.

We also discussed communication. She wanted lots of information, so we decided the easiest thing for all involved would be for anyone communicating with us via text or e-mail to just include both of us. It was a little unconventional, but it was the only way it was going to work efficiently for all involved.

The first night I was an XO, I got 27 text messages. The Skipper had a superpower I did not possess. She could wake up to a text notification, respond, and go right back to sleep. I have no idea how she does it, but she does it.

The next day we had another meeting about text messages. Unless she had an alternative idea (which she didn’t), I was going to turn off my text notifications when I was asleep. My wife and I could not endure 2+ years of nightly text message notifications. If people needed me at night, they would need to call me. Otherwise, I would respond to text messages in the morning when I got up (usually around 0500).

While she was hesitant to agree to this plan, we went with it. It allowed me to get sleep for 2+ years as an XO. I only received 1 emergent phone call for 2+ years that I remember.

What’s the message? Learn about your boss, figure out issues you think need to be addressed, and have a meeting to directly address them.

Your People

Your people have the greatest potential to both optimize as well as adversely impact your efficiency. As a result, you have got to provide guidance for them. Tell them what you want explicitly. For example, here is my “XO’s Guidance” I used as an XO at Portsmouth. I handed it out the first day I was there:

Feel free to use my guidance as a template you can modify for your own purposes.

In addition to providing explicit guidance, you need to delegate tasks whenever possible. The more senior you get, the less likely it is that you should be in charge of a project or producing a work product. If you do want to be the lead on a project, it should either be something you are passionate about or something that you feel is a no-fail mission. That said, I have found that 99% of the time I delegate something my people don’t let me down. Even when they do, we can recover almost all the time. Don’t be afraid to delegate tasks/projects.

Meetings with your people should be avoided whenever possible. If you do have to have a meeting, always have an agenda and start on time.

Finally, we have assumed a culture of leadership by Powerpoint. Do what you can to unburden your people and yourself from this. Avoid long Powerpoint slide decks whenever possible. Try to limit them to a single quad chart with backup slides or 1-2 page executive white papers or summaries. There is a reason flag/general level officers (FO/GO) frequently do this. It is because it is efficient. Don’t wait until you are a FO/GO to move to this policy.

Yourself

You have go to find a way to optimize the use of your calendar and to-do list. Personally, I do not like Outlook and prefer to use Google Calendar so that all of my business and personal things are on one calendar. I admit, though, that there are other ways to do it. Do what works for you.

My to-do list is also on Google Calendar. I just make anything I put on my to-do list an all day event on Google Calendar.

You need to be deliberate and plan your work week. Every Sunday I take a look at the calendar for the upcoming week. I spread tasks on my to-do list evenly across all workdays, biasing toward having more early in the week than at the end. This provides space for things that will inevitably crop up on Monday or Tuesday.

Another strategy I recommend is that once a day starts, do not add tasks or events to your calendar unless it is absolutely necessary. This ensures that once the day starts, you are always moving in the right mental direction, with less and less left to accomplish. If a new task pops up that can wait, add it to tomorrow or another day. Don’t add it to today.

Find a way to cognitively unload things that need to be tracked. For example, at Portsmouth we have something we call the “tasker tracker.” It is an Excel spreadsheet maintained by the command suite staff and is reviewed at the Command Executive Board (CEB) every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I know that by adding something to the tasker tracker, I don’t have to think about it. I won’t forget about it, and it’ll get done because it is reviewed 3 times a week.

Most people arrive at work and the first thing they do is open their Outlook e-mail. Do not fall into this trap. The first thing you should do after you arrive at work is tackle the things on your to-do list that are most important. For example, I usually arrive 1-1.5 hours before my first meeting (which as an XO was at 0800) so that I can knock off most of my to-do list before the day starts.

You also need to batch repetitive tasks and only do them at whatever frequency works. For example, I don’t approve DD200s (the form for lost equipment) whenever they roll in. I do it monthly. I don’t approve NSIPS leave requests or retirement/resignation requests every time they roll in. I create an Outlook e-mail rule (another efficiency tip that invaluable and will be discussed below) that dumps those e-mail notifications automatically, and I have it on my calendar to do it weekly. Yes, occasionally someone will put in a leave request that can’t wait, but most of the time they can.

You need to develop a strategy for tackling distasteful tasks. We all have them. For me, I hate reviewing instructions and building Powerpoint slides. If I have to do these things (or anything else I’m not looking forward to), I just break it up into manageable bites and do a little bit at a time. Read 1-2 pages of an instruction…go do something else…come back to the instruction again later. Or delegate the task to someone else.

Everyone will have a different way to tackle distasteful tasks, but you need to develop a deliberate strategy. If you don’t, you’ll be prone to procrastination, and that doesn’t usually help.

Make sure you don’t get into the habit of reviewing things multiple times. Tell your people you only want their best/final products. Do not tolerate the Friday afternoon “here’s my draft for you to review before I go home for the weekend” strategy you will frequently find. That is a recipe for ruining your weekends. If you read something someone gives to you and you find multiple spelling errors in the first paragraph, send it back, demanding better. Do not read multiple drafts. Try to read things only once.

Finally, limit clutter. It is 2024. Go electronic. Most things can be filed away and located again with electronic search functions.

I strongly recommend the filing system described in the book Getting Things Done. You create 26 folders, 1 for each letter of the alphabet. And you just file things in the folder that makes intuitive sense to you. For example, you get an e-mail from me. When you think Joel Schofer, you think of the MCCareer.org blog, so you file it in the M folder. Maybe you think of my last name, so it goes in the S folder. The point is you put things where you first mentally bucket them. Then when you need them again, you go to the M or S folder and search for “Schofer”. There the e-mails are!

Avoiding paper keeps your workspace clean and tidy. Do not underestimate who much this can impact your workflow.

Technology

Managing technology can help you sink or swim as a senior leader. You need to use it to maximize your efficiency.

Automate repetitive tasks whenever possible. For example, when this blog post goes live, it will go to multiple platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.). That will happen automatically. I don’t do it manually.

Use Outlook e-mail rules to minimize the size of your e-mail inbox. Even as the XO at Portsmouth getting hundreds of e-mails a day, my e-mail inbox was almost always at or near zero, which would blow people’s minds. It isn’t that hard if you develop a system.

Repetitive e-mail notifications should be turned off so when e-mails arrive they don’t distract you. You don’t need a pop-up or sound every time an e-mail arrives. Turn them off.

Use Outlook e-mail rules to divert e-mail you don’t need to read. As discussed above, all the e-mails from NSIPS about retirement/resignation requests are auto-dumped with a rule into my R folder. I have weekly task on my calendar to review them all. All e-mails about leave requests are auto-dumped to my L folder. I review them weekly. When I was a LCDR, I created a rule so that any e-mail with the word “urinalysis” got deleted. The one things I could guarantee was that if I was on the urinalysis list, 12 people would tell me before I even got to my desk.

E-mail has already been discussed to some extent, but it needs to be deliberately managed. It should not be the equivalent of texting. E-mail should be used for issues when a response by COB the next business day is sufficient, or when no response is needed. If you expect responses COB of the next business day, you will tie your people to their Outlook inboxes, reducing their efficiency and ability to lead at the deckplate. You don’t lead from your Outlook inbox.

When an e-mail arrives that is not automatically diverted by a rule, you need to have a strategy to deal with it. If you can deal with it within a few minutes, do so. If you can delegate the response, do so. If you cannot deal with it in a few minutes, file the e-mail away in one of your A-Z folders but create an item on your to-do list, preferably for tomorrow.

You should also deliberately plan your time on e-mail versus other tasks. For example, I can catch up on e-mail while in meetings or while on the move on my work phone, so I commonly spend time in my office on other tasks like signing correspondence that I can’t do in meetings or while out of the office. For example, there was a monthly meeting at Portsmouth called Shipmate of the Month. During this meeting the CO and CMC were in the front of the auditorium, but I was not. I routinely used it to catch up on e-mail on my phone.

Finally, I strongly encourage you to only have one phone that you use as a phone. Having multiple phones to answer voice and text messages on would reduce efficiency. Pick one phone to use for all voice and text messages. There is nothing wrong with using your command phone as an e-mail/calendar device only. For 2+ years I did not know the phone number of command phone, when it rang I never answered it, and I never responded to a text message. The “1 spouse, 1 house” financial rule should be expanded to “1 spouse, 1 house, 1 phone.”

Resources

I you are looking for references that can help you get organized, I’d recommend these books in order from most to least recommended. They are all good, but GTD is my favorite with 4-Hour Workweek a close 2nd:

• Getting Things Done (Allen)
• The 4-Hour Workweek (Ferriss)
• Extreme Productivity (Pozen)

The Handout

Here is the handout I use when giving this talk: