Enjoy a more productive 2016 by setting your rules at the start
Once the initial excitement for your New Year’s resolutions passes — or the shame about breaking those resolutions subsides — it’s easy to let the restrictions meant to guide you toward a better year fall by the wayside. But the news this week shows that if you fight that urge, both you and your business can profit from a well-thought-out set of rules and plans to boost workplace productivity.
Take a social media crisis, for example. A clumsy remark by a leader or even an entry-level employee can go viral any moment, but a recent survey shows that only 20 percent of in-house lawyers from Fortune Global 1000 companies in the US and the UK have a plan to deal with such a crisis. At this point, an embarrassing tweet is all but guaranteed for a company of any size, so it’s time for lawyers to get together with PR and communication experts and hammer out a procedure before the crisis hits.
Transition plans are another thing that’s often put off until it’s too late. When a company is sold or switched to new leadership, most of the time it’s a result of one of the five “Big D’s” — Death, Disability, Divorce, Disagreement, or Distress — according to Barry Goodman, Managing Director of Birkdale Transition Partners. Look at United, where the brand-new CEO just underwent a heart transplant. It’s much more difficult to make good choices in a crisis, so the wisest leaders plan ahead for succession. In fact, the best prepared companies have two transition plans: one for a crisis, and the other for an orderly, planned transition. The business pages are full of news about companies whose CEO was suddenly disabled or arrested. Part of good stewardship is recognizing that you are not immortal and planning for how your company can live on without you at the helm.
Just as other significant business decisions are dictated by strategic thinking, your business plan should also include a strategy for charitable contributions. The exiting head of Mayer Brown's legal assistance program, Marc Kadish, advocates focusing on large pro-bono cases rather than smaller legal matters like evictions. His reasoning — such cases have greater impact and also have the additional value of providing highly relevant training for younger lawyers. By planning for it, Kadish helped Mayer Brown “do well by doing good.”
According to their 2015 Board Index, search firm Spencer Stuart is seeing the plan for building corporate boards start to change as companies adopt these trends:
Recruit new directors with an eye toward the composition of the whole board, not one-off replacements
Communicate about the matrix of skills needed on the board
Set term expectations at the start
Think like an activist and identify board weakness and vulnerabilities
Establish a framework for engaging investors.
Sounds like an excellent plan for attracting top talent and creating a high-performing board.
It’s not just your company you have to plan for, though. To make sure your business is operating at maximum efficiency, you also have to be operating at maximum efficiency. One way to boost your operating power in 2016 is to save yourself from overcommitment with “personal policies.” A musician I know doesn’t accept a gig that requires him to work on the major Jewish holidays. Friends of mine with young children don’t go to networking events that keep them past 6:00. The key is to say, to yourself and others, “I don’t do x.” Research shows that saying “I don’t” is more persuasive than saying “I can’t.”
Most of us have difficulty setting boundaries around our work, especially when we work from home. But research has clearly demonstrated that taking regular breaks from work is critical to both the quality and quantity of your accomplishments. In graduate school I used to take breaks by going to the candy machine right outside my office door. Fifteen pounds later I realized this was not a good tactic. Better ideas here.
