I’ve been very fortunate over my career to lead teams that produce results. Often you’ll find me spending time thinking about how to better lead them to continue achieving, and hopefully surpassing our agreed upon goals. Much of the success is based on focusing on people and process. On people – hire competent people, provide an environment for them to succeed and get out of their way.

 

In this post, I want to focus more on the process. I work at an organization that runs Internet advertisements on a global scale 24/7. Nearly 500,000 people land on our web pages in 26 languages on a daily basis. We are data driven which means that we have to take time to see what the data is telling us, think about what changes we can make to increase performance, and then implement them.

 

Let’s talk then about how to give ourselves the space to do this in the midst of all the other “work” that has to be done. It’s starts with how you plan out your week. I divide my week into two parts: “operations” and “strategy.” Operations is managing today, today, while strategy is planning for tomorrow, today. Think of it like this: you’ve got to spend time working “in” the business and time working “on” the business.

 

With data coming in over the weekend, I like to spend Monday and Tuesday focused internally. This means that my meetings are focused vertically inside the organization. On Mondays, I review what is happening with those who report directly to me. On Tuesdays, I meet laterally with those on the leadership team and with my leader.

 

I try to hold off on external meetings and conversations for the first two days of the week and push them to Wednesday and Thursday. I love Wednesday’s and Thursday’s because those are the days we dream. I’ll often meet with different people throughout the organization asking “what if” questions. You’ll see me writing on the writeable walls and brainstorming about new opportunities.

 

On Friday’s, I like to focus a little more on myself, the manager. I like to spend Friday mornings focused on reviewing our strategic projects, and my calendar for the next week. I’ll look at the meetings coming up and make sure that I’ve got my ducks in a row before they arrive so that they are as fruitful as possible. Then, we have Friday afternoons. This is when I spend some thinking time by myself. I’ll read some articles on leadership, strategy, technology, innovation, etc and see if there are a few opportunities for me to implement what I’m reading. It’s also a way not to sprint into the weekend, but to ease into it.

 

What about you? How do you get it done?