Tempus Fugit

When I was a kid, I was fortunate enough to spend lots of time at my Grandparent's beach-house. One of my countless, cherished memories from those days is of my Grandma's classic Grandfather clock. I can still hear it's quarter-hour chime mixed with the rumble of breaking waves. The face of Grandma's clock was inscribed with the words "Tempus Fugit". It's an old Latin expression meaning "time flees". We often say "time flies", but I like the original translation better because of the mental image it creates: time literally running away from us, almost taunting and teasing us from just...beyond...our...outstretched...fingertips. Sigh...

Now that I've depressed your mental state, let's continue, shall we?

As a leader, I find my time fleeing more often than I would care to admit. And I know plenty of other leaders who could join me in the "Tempus Fugit" hall of shame. Are you one of them?

Why does a leader's time seem to flee? Because, at it's core, leadership is problem-solving. In other words, leadership is responding to (and fixing) urgent situations. It's how leaders are wired (and it's often the birthplace of vision). We are who we are. Time flees from a leader who, by the sheer nature of leadership, spends the majority of his or her time and energy dealing with the urgent rather than pursuing the important. There's more. When leaders get monopolized by the urgent, it's not just time that flees - vision flees as well. Let me give you an example.

Did you ever play the game "tag" when you were a child? Do you remember what it was like to chase the fastest kid in the neighborhood?  You played hard, lurching and lunging with all your might - but you never quite had the energy to tag him "it". Sure, he had good moves, but was that the real reason you couldn't catch him? Or, was it because you exhausted yourself while chasing everyone else? Think about it. When leaders allow themselves to get stuck on the urgent, vision becomes just like that fast kid: always out of reach, and never "it". All the while - you guessed it - time flees. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: vision without action is a daydream, and action without vision is a train wreck (or a bad game of tag).

So then, how do we pull away from the train wreck of the urgent and get back on the track to pursuing the important? After all, urgent is urgent - there are customer needs to respond to, perhaps a personal crisis or financial emergency that requires our immediate attention, etc., etc. A few things can help:

• First, I think it's critical to understand that the urgent will always be with us. Without it, there would be no need for leadership. People are people, and people mess up (yep, even leaders). Learn to live with the urgent by viewing it with a balanced, realistic perspective - and delegate it when you can. If you hired the right people in the first place, you ought to be able to find someone who can take some of the urgent off of your plate.

• Next, keep your vision fresh in your mind and in the minds of your followers. Remind yourself daily of your picture of the preferred future, and talk about it with your followers at least once a month. Send a Vision Email Update, or have a Vision Pop-quiz to make sure everyone understands the big picture of why they do what they do. Be creative and make it fun. Vision is a leaky thing - reinforce it with regularity.

• Lastly, make time for yourself to take vision-specific action. For some it could be an hour a day; for others, an hour a week. You decide what is best for you - decide on it, commit to it. But whatever you do, don't ignore it. Unless you happen to have a Fairy Godmother on speed-dial, your vision won't morph into reality all by itself. Even then, unless you communicated your vision clearly, you could end up with a giant pumpkin instead. Not good.

At the end of the day, perhaps there isn't much we can do to stop time from fleeing. Every leader gets bogged-down in the urgent once in a while. That's our reality, isn't it? But the best leaders find the most success for themselves and their organizations by making time to pursue the important. I'm all for starting right now, and hope you are, too. Now, if we could only catch that fast kid...

J.