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Time as a Competitive Resource

How many time management courses have you attended?

 What stuck as a time habit, what didn’t?

 First of all the whole idea of managing time is a fallacy—you can’t manage time. You can manage how you use it.

 Why do time problems continue to plague and disturb us? Part of it is a mindset of wanting everything faster, better and cheaper. We’re in a habit of rushing. Some of us even claim to do our best work under pressure, or do we? There comes a point that poor use of time so stresses us out that we become less and less productive.

 Everything becomes a crisis.

 I feel that many of us do not use time well because we have not considered the true value of it or how deeply it affects our businesses and lives. Unless you value something and genuinely begin to see how it impacts your life, you won’t make the hard changes to behavior that improve how you use time—and time problems are very individual habits.

 Why is looking at the business value of time so important?

 It’s a level playing field.

Everyone has the same amount of time. One of the key factors in Southwest Airlines profitability is its use of time. Planes in the air make money. If you turn planes around faster, you don’t need as many. If your people can respond to a major event such as 9-11 and still make a profit, you are re-tooling quicker and more effectively.

Southwest doesn’t fly to Denver because getting in and out of Denver is so difficult that it destroys the rest of its routing schedule. Consider Southwest’s success: how they use time and train people to use it are two key elements. Using time competitively makes Southwest an industry leader.

You can only cut materials and labor so far.

Keeping an eye for cost is important. However, carried too far, the impact can actually cost more money. How much does it cost to have labor with no materials? Shaving non-time resources can be a very costly mistake.

Dealing with problems that cost time pay you back immediately with MORE TIME.

It may take more time initially to think through and plan where and how to manage situations that cost time; however, once mastered the payback of MORE TIME is immediate and lasting. Time is the one resource that quickly returns your investment.

 Manager’s use of time creates an extremely large impact.

At the most simple level, think of a process such as scheduling. If a manager does not schedule in sequence BEFORE it is needed, the activity is of no value. Some things, particularly administrative type activities, keep other people working. Do you and your managers do your work so others can continue to work—or is everything a rush and a “walk through?”

 Time can work for or against your business.

 Look at where better time use has high pay-off for you, and work on that—then tackle the next opportunity.

Within the major business systems listed on the graphic on the left, I can think of 27 ways time impacts business profitability. Can you name that many or more?

Making time a competitive resource is a habit and way of thinking.

Four simple ways to better use time:

1. Manage situations
2. Lead people
3. Control things
4. Manage yourself

Manage situations

What situations cost you time? What do you complain about? You’ve just found the symptoms of your time problems.

Many of them are predictable and can be anticipated or better managed. For example, if customer interference and “baby sitting” robs a large chuck of your time, anticipate and manage it from the start. Let the customer know how to do business with you. Show customers benefits to them of working with you in a certain manner. You can’t get their job done if you’re talking with them. Let them see the benefits of working with you.

How could you anticipate and manage your customers so that they feel informed and that you’re working in their best interests?

Could scheduling in advance and keeping customers in the loop BEFORE they call you reduce customer calls and complaints?  Ensure your customers perceive you’re working for them.

What are the common ways you need to spend time each day? How could you plan and schedule these events to better use your time?

Several organizations have found that certain activities take a percentage of their time each day. By keeping time open for “emergencies or events that can’t be scheduled” they have the time to be responsive. If the “emergencies” don’t occur, they are ahead on tomorrow’s schedule.

Lead people

Investing time in people can have a large payoff for your business. What do you need help with to better leverage your time? How do you train, delegate and ensure performance meets your expectations? Taking time with employees, peers and superiors can reap time and more effective productivity. Are you a good or a bad time example?

Control things

Pagers and cell phones are wonderful gadgets. They can be time-saving or time-wasting.  Do you use them effectively or do they control you? Have you had someone interrupt a conversation to answer a cell phone?

Let’s face it, most things are not that urgent.

Manage yourself

If you’re a manager, the impact your use of time has on others is an inverse pyramid. Businesses become mirrors of how managers use time. Moreover, common time symptoms have root causes. Take care of the cause and the time is your bonus. Some symptoms derive from poor habits in use of time. Some come from attitudes that require philosophical adjustments.

For example, you can’t run your business without customers. They can drive you crazy or you can welcome having them. It’s up to you whether you respond or react. It doesn’t mean the customer has to take an inordinate amount of time—it does mean each customer needs to feel your time is spent benefiting him or her.

Your use of time may reflect in poorly defined business processes, products or services. Your difficulties can often be sources of new opportunities for business services or products  if you look at them differently. Instead of fighting customers’ needs, find new ways to benefit from those needs.

An example, a sub contractor employs an inspector who can correct small problems on the spot. It not only reduces customer complaints and pulling someone off the job—it increases customer loyalty and satisfaction. Customer complaints are opportunities.

  Time, a competitive resource.

Start using time as a resource. There are three basic ways to look at time in productivity. You can:

·       -     Increase your output

·        -   Decrease your input

·        -   Or do both for even greater impact

The S-curve applies to any change you make. Upon understanding and re-thinking your process, expect down-time initially when the change is made. Work through the issues as they occur. Your use of time will accelerate at a very rapid speed if you take the time to get it right initially.  Expect maintenance and new challenges.

Remember, deal with quality first, velocity or time second. 

If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, when will you? Trying to improve time without quality is disastrous.

Re-work alone creates many time challenges and opportunities. Understanding and re-thinking your business processes can often yield high and unexpected rewards. Three examples:

·        A specialty contractor re-thought their scheduling priorities and set aside time for “emergencies.” They reaped a 60% increase in billing within eight months.

·        A consignment vehicle dealer involved 23 people and invested 5.5 hours. Within 60 days the six departments involved had cut a the normal ten-day process of closing a sale to 5.5 days—with an increase in cash flow, sales and customer satisfaction.

·        By reducing re-work from comebacks, a service unit cut its man-hours by one-third and produced the same amount of revenue with a 35% increase in profits.

Well-crafted and implemented solutions pay.

Investing in time pays you back quickly.

Choose to tackle your time challenges. If you’d like a examples of thirteen common time difficulties that detail forty possible causes and SOLUTIONS, email  janicescanlan@earthlink.net and request common time wasters.

Janice Scanlan helps organizations that don’t have years to get it right apply practical solutions that work. She is a Certified Management Consultant by the Institute of Management Consultants.