Today’s PRIORITIES Give Me Focus
What would you do if you suddenly found yourself independently wealthy and the owner of a successful multimillion-dollar business? That’s the question Howard Hughes found himself facing when he was only eighteen years old. Hughes’s mother had died during surgery in 1922 when he was sixteen. When his father died of a heart attack less than two years later, the young man inherited the Hughes Tool Company.
Hughes’s father, Howard Hughes Sr., had built his company from the ground up. Born in 1869, he worked in the Missouri zinc and lead mining industries in the 1890s. When he heard about the major petroleum discovery near Beaumont, Texas, in 1901, he recognized it as the opening of a new industry offering great opportunities. (In one day of production, the first well had produced half the United States’ cumulative oil production.) He soon moved to Texas and started a drilling business with partner Walter B. Sharp.
For seven years they worked successfully. But then they were unable to complete jobs that involved drilling two different wells because they could not drill through especially hard rock. To solve the problem, Hughes Sr. went off and invented (and patented) rotary bits to do the job. The equipment revolutionized the industry. Within five years, his bits were being used in eleven states and thirteen foreign countries. Between 1908 and 1924, he obtained seventy-three patents and became wealthy.1 He is reported to have said about his drill bits, “We don’t have a monopoly. People who want to drill for oil and not use the Hughes bit can always use a pick and shovel.”
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
When the senior Hughes died, his son became a millionaire. He hired a management company to run the Hughes Tool Company, and then he thought about what he wanted to do with his life. As a boy, he had loved all kinds of machines. He had built a radio and talked to ship captains when he was in his early teens. And he had gotten a barnstormer to give him flying lessons secretly when he was fifteen. He was intelligent, and the whole world was open to him.
He decided to go into the moviemaking business. After marrying a Houston socialite, he promptly moved to Los Angeles. Biography writer Michael Sauter says, “The impulsiveness of the move would become typical of Hughes, who repeatedly threw himself into expensively risky ventures like a boy obsessed with a new hobby.”2 Soon Hughes was producing movies and buying theaters in which to show them. His work got little attention until he made an aviation movie called Hell’s Angels, which he also directed. He later went on to produce The Front Page and Scarface, both hits. He was in a position to build a major studio and become a force in Hollywood, but by then he had lost his focus. He seemed to be more interested in pursuing glamorous Hollywood actresses than in making movies. His wife divorced him in 1929.
In the late 1920s, he turned his attention to aviation. He received a pilot’s license in 1928, and soon he was experimenting with aircraft design. He started his own aircraft company in 1932: Hughes Aviation. He’d buy a plane, strip it down, and redesign it for speed. Then he worked as his own test pilot. For several years he set many of the world’s airspeed records. For a decade, he repeated the pattern of redesigning planes and pushing them to the limit from the cockpit.
Then in 1940, when Trans World Airlines was in need of cash, Hughes was invited to invest in the company. He didn’t just invest; he bought a controlling interest. At that time he decided he wanted to make air travel more popular, so he engaged Lockheed to build planes for TWA according to his specifications. The next year, he opened a large aircraft manufacturing plant of his own in Los Angeles, which supplied parts in support of the war in Europe. Meanwhile, Hughes continued to dabble in the entertainment business, producing and sometimes directing movies.
In September of 1942, Hughes added another major activity to his agenda. He was awarded a contract from the government to construct prototypes of flying boats. He agreed to deliver the planes in 1944 for a cost of $18 million. For the next several years, he worked on developing the planes. But by 1945, he still had not delivered any planes to the government, despite having spent over $800 million, including the construction of a huge hangar for $175 million.3 His lack of focus not only prevented him from succeeding in that venture, it also led to a mental breakdown (one of three he experienced).
Anything Goes
Howard Hughes went on to buy RKO Pictures, several small airlines, television stations, and numerous hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. No matter what got his attention, he was able to do it thanks to Hughes Tool Company, which bankrolled his pursuits. But nothing seemed to maintain his attention for long, and nothing seemed to satisfy him. He got married again in 1957, but he and his second wife drifted apart. In 1966, he moved to Las Vegas without informing her, and despite numerous attempts, she was never able to see him again. A few years later, he left the country. By then he was becoming more and more eccentric. The rumor was that he lived like a hermit, was phobic about germs, and had succumbed to drug addiction. In 1976, he died while being flown back to the United States for medical treatment.
There are those who would call Hughes a success because of his wealth; he was the nation’s first billionaire and at one time the wealthiest person in the world. But when I read about Hughes, I see a broken life of unfulfilled potential. He was unable to sustain any long-term relationships. His marriages didn’t last. He had no children. And the only companies he owned that thrived are the ones he either never ran or eventually relinquished control of. He transferred ownership of Hughes Aircraft to the nonprofit Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1955, drove RKO Pictures into bankruptcy in 1958, and relinquished control of TWA when it neared collapse in 1960. In 1971, he signed away control of the remainder of his empire. He died alienated and alone.
Why Priorities Matter Today
Business consultant and author Michael LeBoef says, “Devoting a little of yourself to everything means committing a great deal of yourself to nothing.” That aptly describes the life of Howard Hughes. Focused concentration is one of the keys to success. To have focus, you must understand priorities. Here’s why:
“Devoting a little of yourself to everything means committing a great deal of yourself to nothing.”
—MICHAEL LEBOEF
TIME IS OUR MOST PRECIOUS COMMODITY
Given the choice, would you rather save time or money? Most people focus on dollars. But how you spend your time is much more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can often be corrected, but when you lose time, it’s gone forever.
Your priorities determine how you spend your time, and time is precious. The following statements may help you put time in perspective:
To know the value of one year . . . ask the student who failed the final exam.
To know the value of one month . . . ask the mother of a premature baby.
To know the value of one week . . . ask the editor of a weekly newsmagazine.
To know the value of one day . . . ask the wage earner who has six children.
To know the value of one hour . . . ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To know the value of one minute . . . ask the person who missed the plane.
To know the value of one second . . . ask the person who survived the accident.
To know the value of one millisecond . . . ask the Olympic silver medalist.4
Your time is priceless. As Ralph Waldo Emerson advised, “Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”
WE CANNOT CHANGE TIME, ONLY OUR PRIORITIES
Have you ever found yourself thinking, I need more time? Well you’re not going to get it! No one gets more time. There are 1,440 minutes in a day. No matter what you do, you won’t get more today.
Sales consultant and author Myers Barnes says, “Time management has nothing to do with the clock, but everything to do with organizing and controlling your participation in certain events that coordinate with the clock. Einstein understood time management is an oxymoron. It cannot be managed. You can’t save time, lose time, turn back the hands of time or have more time tomorrow than today. Time is unemotional, uncontrolled, unencumbered. It moves forward regardless of circumstances and, in the game of life, creates a level playing field for everyone.”5 Since you can’t change time, you must instead change your approach to it.
Since you can’t change time, you must instead change your approach to it.
WE CANNOT DO EVERYTHING
There was a time in my life when I thought I could do everything, but I was very young, energetic, and naive. Chinese author and philosopher Lin Yutang said, “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists of the elimination of nonessentials.”
You can have anything you want, but you cannot have everything you want. You have to choose. Excellence comes from doing the right things right. You’ve got to let go of the rest. If you’re not sure what the right things are, pretend you have only six months to live. The things you would do in that short time are the right things.
WE CHOOSE OUR LIFE BY HOW WE SPEND TIME
Everything you now do is something you have chosen to do. Some people don’t want to believe that. But if you’re over age twenty-one, your life is what you’re making of it. To change your life, you need to change your priorities.
Jack Welpott, who ran the photography program at San Francisco State University for many years, was once asked how he was able to teach so effectively and create art so prolifically. Here was his answer: “From the day I was hired I began cultivating a reputation within the Art Department of being sort of a flake. I found that after a year or so of losing track of my committee assignments, forgetting to answer memos, and missing departmental meetings—well, after a while they just stopped asking me to do all those things.” Welpott placed a higher priority on creating art and teaching others to do the same than he did on the politics and bureaucracy of university life. You may not necessarily endorse the way he achieved his priorities, but you have to agree that he knew what they were.
PRIORITIES HELP US TO CHOOSE WISELY
Author Robert J. McKain says, “The reason most goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first.” Let’s face it, there are a lot of things vying for your attention. Many people want to put you on their agenda. Thousands of manufacturers want you to spend your money on their products. Even your own desires can be so diverse and your attention so scattered that you often aren’t sure what should get your concentration. That’s why you need to focus. To be successful, you can’t just run on the fast track; run on your track. People who reach their potential and fulfill their dreams determine and act on their priorities daily.
To be successful, you can’t just run on the fast track; run on your track.
Making the Decision to Determine and Act on Important Priorities Daily
When I first graduated from college and began my career, I was not working according to my own agenda. Back in the 1960s when I studied for the ministry, the majority of my course work had prepared me to do counseling and administration. So when I began working in 1969, guess what I spent most of my time doing. That’s right, counseling and administration. Nothing could have been further from my natural gifts—or my natural inclinations. Despite much hard work, I was neither fulfilled nor effective.
Because I wanted to improve myself and pick up skills I didn’t learn in college, in 1971 I began working on a business degree. While reading for one of the courses, I came across a paragraph written about Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. It contained information about prioritizing called the Pareto Principle. It said that by focusing your attention on the top 20 percent of all your priorities, you would get an 80 percent return on your effort. That was my eureka moment! That’s when I made this decision: I will prioritize my life and give focus and energy to those things that give the highest return.
I never looked at myself or my work the same again. I realized that I needed to focus 80 percent of my time, energy, and resources on my areas of strength, not on counseling and administration. Those activities were not bad things. They were just bad things for me. From the moment I made that decision, I have been a practitioner of the Pareto Principle, and I have taught it to others for thirty-three years. (If you want to read a more in-depth treatment of the Pareto Principle, read Developing the Leader Within You.)
Most of the time this has kept me focused and on track, although when I first began applying it, the results sometimes didn’t work out the way I intended. Margaret and I still laugh about the time she asked me to start helping her mow the lawn. “Margaret,” I said, having just learned Pareto, “I don’t want to waste time on something like that. I’m trying to stay focused. We can pay somebody to do that.”
Margaret looked at me and replied, “Pay with what?” We worked it out, but it was a defining moment for us. From that time on, I have tried to focus on those things that are important and not get sidetracked.
If you want to change the way you look at yourself and what you do by making a decision concerning your priorities, then do the following:
TAKE BACK TODAY
Have you ever noticed that the people who have nothing to do usually want to spend their time with you? Poet Carl Sandburg said, “Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you.”
Your greatest possession is the twenty-four hours you have directly ahead of you. How will you spend it? Will you give in to pressure or focus on priorities? Will you allow pointless e-mails, unimportant tasks, telemarketers, interruptions, and other distractions to consume your day? Or will you take complete responsibility for how you spend your time, take control of the things you can, and make today yours? If you don’t decide how your day will be spent, someone else will.
ASK YOURSELF THREE QUESTIONS
No Daily Dozen issue has added more to my success than the principle of priorities. When I discovered that I needed to change my approach to my day and my career, I started by asking myself three critical questions:
1. What is required of me? Any realistic assessment of priorities in any area of life must start with a realistic assessment of what a person must do. For you to be a good spouse or parent, what is required of you? To satisfy your employer, what must you do? (If you lead others, then the question should be, What must you personally do that cannot be delegated to anyone else?) When ordering priorities, always start with the requirement question and give it careful thought before moving on to the next question.
2. What gives me the greatest return? As you progress in your career, you begin to discover that some activities yield a much higher return for the effort than others do. (Anyone who hasn’t discovered that probably isn’t progressing in his career!) The next place to focus your attention is on those high-return activities.
3. What gives me the greatest reward? If you do only what you must and what is effective, you will be highly productive, but you may not be content. I think it’s also important to consider what gives you personal satisfaction. However, I find that some people want to start with the reward question and go no further than that. No one can be successful who doesn’t possess the discipline to take care of the first two areas before adding the third.
Philosopher William James said, “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” If you bring your priorities into focus by answering those three questions, you will have a much better idea of what you should overlook.
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
—WILLIAM JAMES
STAY IN YOUR STRENGTH ZONE
People don’t pay for average. People don’t go looking for a mediocre restaurant and middling movie when they go out at night. Employers don’t award the contract to the salesman known as Mr. Average. Nobody says, “Let’s give the contract to the company that will do a merely adequate job.”
It was a great day in my church when I stopped counseling people and stopped getting bogged down in administrative details. But finding my strength zone took some time and exploration. If you don’t already have a good handle on your strengths, then you may want to explore some of these suggestions. They’re based on what I did to find mine:
• Trial and Error: Nothing teaches you more than your successes and failures. Any time something seems to be all “trial,” and you make a lot of mistakes, it’s probably time to move on. But you’ve got to take the risk of failing to find your successes.
• The Counsel of Others: Asking others to evaluate your effectiveness is not always fun, but it is always helpful. Be sure to choose people who don’t have an agenda—other than to help you.
• Personality Tests: Evaluations, such as DISC, Florence Littauer’s Personality Profile, and Myers-Briggs, can be very helpful. They will help to clarify some of your natural inclinations and help to reveal some strengths and weaknesses you aren’t aware of.
• Personal Experience: You really get a feel for how well you do something by doing it repeatedly. Just remember this: Experience isn’t always the best teacher—evaluated experience is!
British prime minister William Gladstone said, “He is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is wiser still who from among the things he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.” The more you stay in your strength zone, the greater your productivity and the greater your ability to reach your potential.
Experience isn’t always the best teacher—evaluated experience is!
Managing the Disciplines of Priorities
One of the things I noticed very quickly after making my priorities decision was that priorities shift very easily. For that reason they must be continually evaluated and guarded. My reminder to manage the disciplines of priorities is this: Every day I will live my life according to my priorities. What does that mean? Five things:
1. EVALUATE PRIORITIES DAILY
A man went to the Super Bowl and climbed to the top row in the end zone section of the stadium to reach his seat. After the game started, he spotted an empty seat on the fifty-yard line. After working his way down to it, he asked the man in the next seat, “Excuse me, but is anyone sitting here?”
“No,” replied the man. “Actually, the seat belongs to me. I was supposed to come with my wife, but she died. This is the first Super Bowl we haven’t been to together since we got married in 1967.”
“That’s very sad. But still, couldn’t you find anyone else to take the seat—a relative or close friend?”
“No,” replied the man, “they’re all at the funeral.”
Priorities don’t stay put; you have to revisit them every day. Why? Because conditions continually change. So do methods of getting things done. Your values, once defined, are going to be steady. You will be able to rely on them. But how you carry them out needs to be flexible.
2. PLAN YOUR TIME CAREFULLY
I once read that Charles Schwab, president of Bethlehem Steel in the early twentieth century, met with public relations and management consultant Ivy Lee because he wanted to improve his company’s productivity. “We know what we should be doing,” explained Schwab. “Now, if you can show us a better way of getting it done, I’ll listen to you—and pay you anything within reason.”
Lee said that he could help him, and that it would take only twenty minutes of his time. He handed Schwab a blank sheet of paper and said, “Write down the six most important things you have to do tomorrow.” Schwab complied.
“Now number them in the order of their importance to you and the company.” When Schwab had finished, Lee continued, “Now put that paper in your pocket, and first thing tomorrow morning, take it out and look at item number one. Don’t look at the others, just number one, and start working on it and stay with it until it’s completed. Then take item number two the same way, then number three, and so on until you have to quit for the day. Don’t worry if you have finished only one or two. You’ll be working on the most important ones. The others you could not have finished with any other method. And without some kind of system, you’d probably take ten times as long to finish them—and might not even have them in the order of their importance.
“Do this every workday,” said Lee. “After you’re convinced of the value of this system, have your people try it out. Try it as long as you like, and then send me a check for whatever you think the idea is worth.”
In a few weeks, Schwab sent Lee a check for $25,000 along with a letter saying that it was the most profitable lesson he had ever learned. Not long after that, Bethlehem Steel became the largest independent steel producer of its day.
According to a survey taken by Day-Timers, Inc., only one-third of American workers plan their daily schedules. And only 9 percent follow through and complete what they planned.6 If you want to be effective, you must be able to make the transition to planning. I plan my calendar forty days at a time. But when I get ready to approach a day, I have the whole thing laid out. Hour by hour. It’s a rare day that I get up in the morning wondering what I will be doing that day—even when on vacation.
3. FOLLOW YOUR PLAN
I don’t mean to insult your intelligence by suggesting that you follow your plan, but it needs to be said. According to time management expert Alec Mackenzie, surveys show that most executives don’t get to their most important tasks until midafternoon. Why? Most finished off low-priority tasks so that they could have a sense of accomplishment.7
German novelist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.” If you prioritize your life and plan your day but don’t follow through, your results will be the same as those of someone who didn’t prioritize at all.
4. DELEGATE WHENEVER POSSIBLE
I’ve observed that most people fall into one of two categories when it comes to delegation; they’re either clingers or dumpers. Clingers refuse to let go of anything they think is important—whether they are the best person to do it or not. Their goal is perfection. Dumpers are quick to get rid of tasks, yet give little thought to how successful their delegation efforts will be. Their goal is to get things off their desk.
How do you find the right standard for delegation? When is it right to hand something off, and when is it right to hold on to it? Here’s the guideline I use: If someone else can do a task I’m doing 80 percent as well as I do, then I hand it off. That’s pretty darned good. And if I do a good job of motivating, encouraging, and rewarding them, then they will only get better. I’ve handed off responsibilities using that standard, and after a while, the person who’s taken on the job has gone on to do it much better than I could. When that happens, it’s very rewarding.
Today I am surrounded by people on my team who do things much better than I can. They make up the difference in my weak areas, and they exceed my expectations in others. They lift me to a level higher than I could ever attain myself, and they allow me to live out my priorities. The advice of management expert Peter Drucker is true: “No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective.”
“No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective.”
—PETER DRUCKER
5. INVEST IN THE RIGHT PEOPLE DAILY
There’s one more area I want to address in the area of priorities, and that’s the need to prioritize how we spend time with people. My friend Waylon Moore has observed that often “we spend priority time with problem people when we should be spending it with potential people.” I think that’s true.
How do you decide whom to spend time with? Certainly, you want to treat everyone with respect and try to have a good, positive relationship with everyone. But you should not spend time with everyone equally. Here’s what I use to evaluate where to invest my time:
• Value to the team
• Natural ability
• Responsibility
• Timing
• Potential
• Mentoring fit
The person I currently most enjoy mentoring is Kevin Small, the president of INJOY, one of my companies. His talent is huge. His potential is limitless. No one impacts the team the way he does. He is already one of the finest young executives in the country at age thirty-two. I can’t wait to see how he develops over the next decade.
Reflecting on Priorities
I am grateful that I learned to prioritize my life early in my career. No decision I’ve made has had as great an impact on my life and career. Here’s how:
In my 20s . . . My priorities took away the guilt of not doing everything.
In my 30s . . . My priorities helped me separate my strengths from my weaknesses.
In my 40s . . . My priorities gave me a high return on my work.
In my 50s . . . My priorities allow me to staff according to my weaknesses.
If you want to increase your focus and become effective on a level you’ve never experienced before, then make a decision to prioritize your life and manage the discipline of priorities every day.
Children Are Her Priority
Any time people reach the highest level in their profession, you can be sure that priorities have been very important to them. That was certainly the case with Betsy Rogers, a teacher in Leeds, Alabama, who became the 2003 National Teacher of the Year. Rogers can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to be a teacher. It was in her blood—and in her family. Her grandmother taught in rural Alabama beginning when she was only sixteen years old. Both her grandmother’s sisters followed her into the profession. And Rogers’s mother taught Sunday school for fifty years. So when she went off to college, she naturally studied to become a teacher too.
“I wanted to change the world for them,” says Rogers. “It took me several years to realize I could not change the world in which my students lived. But by understanding that school was the best place for some of my children, I became committed to making my classroom a place where students feel safe as well as creating an environment that provides joy to those with unfortunate lives.”8
Rogers began teaching in 1974, immediately after finishing her degree. She took six years off to take care of her sons until they were school age, but she knew that as soon as they were old enough, she would be back in the classroom. And being connected in the community where she would teach was a priority. So in the early 1980s, she and her husband bought an abandoned farm near her school. Rogers says,
When my husband and I moved our family from a more affluent neighborhood to Leeds twenty-one years ago, our purpose was to raise our children in an environment with a more diverse population with a rural background. . . . Many of my colleagues do not believe it is beneficial to live in the community where you teach, but I have found this relationship with the Leeds community to be very rewarding and productive. By living and working in Leeds, I truly became a stakeholder in the community.9
By making that community connection a priority, she has been better able to help her students. She reaches out to parents, has students over to her house, and attends many of their extracurricular activities. “We should be very proud of our profession,” she says, “and we need to be models. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that we have impact we may never see.”10
Focused on Improvement
Because Rogers is focused, she is constantly improving and working to reach her potential in her profession. She believes that teachers must model a dedication to lifelong learning. And she doesn’t just give lip service to it. When both her sons were in college, she went back to school herself. She has since earned three graduate degrees—in 1998, 2000, and 2002.
As National Teacher of the Year, she will be expected to spend a year visiting schools and serving as an international spokeswoman for education. When she’s finished, she could use the recognition she has received as a springboard to a plum teaching job or a higher paying administrative position. But that’s not what she’s about. According to county superintendent Bob Neighbors, Rogers has inquired about going back to work in a county school on academic alert because of poor test scores.11 After all, what’s the use of improving herself if she can’t use what she’s learned to help others? Neighbors calls Rogers “one of those extraordinary naturals for whom teaching is not only her vocation, it is her joy, her daily discovery and her avocation.”12 Rogers sums it up this way: “I was taught that we are here on this earth to serve.”13 That’s her priority—and she is living it out every day!
PRIORITIES APPLICATION AND EXERCISESDETERMINING AND ACTING ON IMPORTANT PRIORITIES DAILY
Your Priorities Decision Today
Where do you stand when it comes to priorities today? Ask yourself these three questions:
1. Have I already made the decision to determine and act on important priorities daily?
2. If so, when did I make that decision?
3. What exactly did I decide? (Write it here.)
Your Priorities Discipline Every Day
Based on the decision you made concerning priorities, what is the one discipline you must practice today and every day in order to be successful? Write it here.
Making Up for Yesterday
If you need some help making the right decision concerning attitude and developing the everyday discipline to live it out, do the following exercises:
1. How have you looked at time in the past? Have you seen it as a precious commodity or have you been lackadaisical about it? How has your approach to time shaped your life so far?
2. Take a day off from work to really reflect on these questions in the chapter:
What is required of you?
What gives you the highest return?
What gives you the greatest reward?
How will your assessment in those three areas prompt you to change your life?
3. Practice a priority approach to going after a major goal that you currently have on your agenda using the following pattern:
• Prioritize: Know what is important.
• Organize: Decide how will it be done.
• Plan: Decide when you will do it.
• Communicate: Share your priorities with your team.
• Execute: Follow through on your plan.
• Evaluate: Examine yourself and your results in light of your priorities.
Looking Forward to Tomorrow
Spend some time reflecting on how your decision concerning priorities and the daily discipline that comes out of it will positively impact you in the future. What will be the compounding benefits? Write them here.
Keep what you’ve written as a constant reminder, because . . .
Reflection today motivates your discipline every day, and
Discipline every day maximizes your decision of yesterday.