How To Lead the Most Difficult Person in Your Life

Guest article by Zach Clark

There’s a trend in many of the questions I’m asked by leaders I admire most. Most of these questions all have to do with leading the most difficult person in your life: YOU!

One leader in particular whom I admire serves at the national level for Joni and Friends. His questions inspired me to write out some thoughts that I’d like to share with you.

Growing a culture of generous giving is no easy task, and growing your ability to lead yourself well is a key factor in taking things to the next level.

When I think of leading myself well, there are a couple of things to which I’ve devoted careful time and attention because these don’t come naturally to me: successful systems and habits.

A Few Successful Systems

1.  I use the 6×6 approach. I think maybe Bill Hybels is the guy that came up with this one. Every six weeks I establish what’s known as a 6×6: six goals to be accomplished in six weeks. This forces me to clarify six major things that I must accomplish in the next six-week period that will have the most profound impact on the key results for which I am ultimately responsible. It’s quite easy to be doing good work every day and yet not really impacting the key results that you are actually expected to do in your role. The 6×6 is simple. I can review it every day or week, and it helps me constantly have in mind “the most important things” that I’m working on. It’s remarkable how powerful yet subtle this one tool is.

2.  List of My Active Projects and Key Responsibilities. I find that most people, unless they have this system in place, can’t actually articulate or explain the difference between their “projects” and their actual “responsibilities”.  I encourage leaders and team members to have a one-page document that outlines their active projects and key responsibilities. Projects are those things that require multiple steps and either have a start/end date or repeat in ongoing cycles in the organization. Responsibilities are leadership behaviors that actually contribute to the key metrics for success of the mission and vision. For example, a project is “review our quarterly giving reports”.   A responsibility is “grow the long-term financial support of our ministry”.

3. Checklists. This one seems goofy and trite, but I find people are either checklist-types or non-checklist types. I’m a non-checklist type, so I have to force myself to use this system. Challenge yourself to identify every repeatable aspect of your work. If it’s repeatable, you need a checklist. It will help you to block the time to do the “busy-work”, or better yet, train and delegate these repeatable actions/projects to someone else. Every 18 months, if your results aren’t moving forward, you have to find ways to add capacity to yourself so that you are having a greater impact on the results for which you are responsible. It’s hard to add capacity to yourself if you haven’t studied, evaluated, and identified the repeatable patterns in your work. If it’s repeatable, it can be delegated as your results grow and, as a result, your capacity needs grow.

4.  A Stop-Doing List. You’ve probably heard of this one. But, anytime I’m feeling “slippage” on my ability to focus on the best things instead of reacting to “urgent” things, I sit down and create a list of things I can stop doing. Peter Drucker once said that every leader he met could eliminate as much as forty percent of what he was doing without anyone noticing. This always convicts me to dig deep, write down things to eliminate, and then ruthlessly start killing things off. Best of all, Drucker was right…no one notices but me.

A Few Habits

1.  My Weekly review. I’ve been doing a weekly review every Sunday for many years now. I block time to review my calendar, reflect on every meeting in the past week, capture all my notes, identify my actions, review my projects and responsibilities, update my scorecard (another system), evaluate what I’m waiting on from others, delegate actions, etc, etc, etc. Basically, I work through a set of habits designed to help me wrap my arms around everything I’m doing, must do, and need to stop doing.

2.  Asking better questions to everyone in my life. Asking great questions to everyone around me, including my team members, has enabled me to scrutinize myself. Two great questions are:  “What do I do that helps you be at your best?” and “What do I do that causes you to be at your worst?”.   Ask the questions to which the answers scare you the most.

3.  Tracking my time. Scientists tell us that human beings are actually incapable of monitoring the passage of time without external information (sunlight, clocks, sounds, etc.).   So, the only way you can truly know how you are spending your time is to track it.  I’m amazed at how many people give lip service to this idea but don’t actually follow-through.  At least twice a year, I take two weeks and log every 10 minutes of my waking hours.  I also use this habit anytime I feel I’m losing a grip on the impact I feel I should be having.

Anytime I speak, teach, or coach on anything like the topic above, I do like to offer one disclaimer. Some people may come away from reading or hearing my message believing that I must be a naturally organized person/thinker. I can assure you that is not the case.

I find I have to work much harder at successful systems and habits than most people I know. I’ve found that some people truly are just gifted in the areas of systems and organizational thinking. But most of us are not those people, and we end up using our lack of giftedness as an excuse. I have to work very hard to practice these disciplines until they become a part of who I am. For me, this is a painful part of my journey as a leader.

What successful systems or habits would you recommend or share with others?