Effective leaders have the ability and discipline to weed through busy activities, identify how they can make the best contribution to the purpose of the organization, and then focus their time, energy, and resources on that contribution.  ~Kathryn Scanland

We all bemoan and complain about not getting enough done, not making it through our to-do list, and not having enough time.  It’s not difficult in nearly any job, profession, or position to create busy work and maintain a high level of activity.

Effective leaders have the ability and discipline to weed through busy activities, identify how they can make the best contribution to the purpose of the organization, and then focus their time, energy, and resources on that contribution.  In my work I’ve run into numerous clients who have ideas, many of them good ideas; however, they frequently don’t know how those ideas will contribute to the purpose of the organization.  As I frequently say, it’s an idea without a strategy.

It can be as simple as creating a brochure highlighting customer success stories, but not knowing how it will be used or what results might be achieved by having this brochure.  Buying a new software application or program to organize contacts, but not knowing what results we might hope for given this new way of organizing contacts.  Even acquiring another organization, but not having identified our expectations for what we’ll be able to achieve with this specific organization that is now a part of our larger organization.

Until we identify what contributions we’re making by all this activity, all we’re really doing is staying busy, but not necessarily contributing to the purpose of our organization.

In The Essential Drucker, Peter Drucker provides an illustration.

Nurse Bryan was a long-serving nurse at a hospital.  She was not particularly distinguished, had not in fact ever been a supervisor.  But whenever a decision on a patient’s care came up on her floor, Nurse Bryan would ask, “Are we doing the best we can do to help this patient?”  Patients on Nurse Bryan’s floor did better and recovered faster.  Gradually over the years, the whole hospital had learned to adopt what came to be known as Nurse Bryan’s Rule; had learned, in other words, to ask, “Are we really making the best contribution to the purpose of this hospital?”

Making the best contribution to the purpose of their organization separates the effective leaders from the leaders who are just busy people.