Recently, my 9-year-old daughter imitated what people do at work with this handy little phrase: "Tippity tap, send.".
With that, she struck an air keyboard, hitting the enter key with a flourish.
Bang on.
Between doing the work I love, I've spent much of the last few weeks wasting time in front of my computer. TIppity tap, tippity tap. Ugh.
According to Greg McKeown, the 'paradox of leadership' is that as we advance in seniority, we become so overwhelmed with new tasks and responsibilities that we lose sight of how we add value.
I often see this with reluctant managers who'd rather be technical experts. They are brimming with expertise, and they can’t help but provide project input, even once they’re in a senior leadership position.
It’s great to care about the details – particularly the accuracy and quality of our work. But when you're a leader, those details can get you stuck.
“What’s most likely to distract us on any given day are the things we have a good reason for doing but not a great reason for doing.” – James Clear
When we're too focused on details, and not conscious enough of the bigger picture:
We work more hours but feel like we achieve less
People who work for us can't learn and grow
Those same people become frustrated by our meddling and progressively disengage until their work turns to shit and they resent us for existing
We work until our synapses short out entirely, then slowly melt into a puddle of cynicism and burnout, forgetting why we wanted to have a job in the first place and plotting a new life as a barista in a small town.
As Marshall Goldsmith writes in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, our success can be more in spite of our behaviour than because of it.
The tippity tap is one of those behaviours.
Spend a whole day with no email and do the job you actually want to do.
Til next week,
AM