The first thing I typically do every morning after I wake up is look at my calendar and review what I must do today.  I’ve pretty much decided this is not the best thing to do.

In my position, it is not what I must do today, but who I must invest in.  That is the first question I should be asking each and every morning.  This should include people inside the organization, outside the organization that I am hoping become part of the organization and those outside the organization that we work with, both customers and suppliers.

This thinking stems from the revelation that my job is not really about making things happen by myself.  It also stems from me operating on a metric that really isn’t that useful for judging my activity on any given day.  In this moment, my number one goal is to grow the revenue of our company.  Thus, I was coming to work thinking about what I must do in order to make that happen.  I was thinking about my hustle and activity with this as the measurement.

Our business is built on engineering product specifically for individual applications, making the sales cycle long as we work with customers to discover their exact needs.  Then, once discovered, there is typically still extensive engineering work to be done before the final product is ready for manufacturing.  Beyond that, since we are in the product development business, several of our best projects are for programs that will not launch into full production for another year or two.  This makes thinking on a daily basis how to grow revenue really hard.  The activities become extremely granular and when looking back at a week or even a month, it is nearly impossible to see exactly how I contributed to achieving the specific goal of revenue growth.  In the longer term, say a year or quarter, this is still the right goal.  It is one of the primary measurements that ultimately judges my performance.  As a way to plan what I must do today, it is really terrible.

I have begun to view my job as doing three things: connecting customers to HSI, connecting those customers to the right product, and team development.  All three of these objectives are people focused.  All three of these can be planned and measured based upon the number of people I connect with on any given day.  All three of these can be linked directly to revenue growth in the long run.  All three of these force me into a leadership role where I guide the team towards success.  This is much different than thinking about what I must do on any given day to grow, which puts the pressure squarely on me for results that I cannot deliver alone.

One of my friends and mentors, Dr. Lew Sterrett revealed this truth to me years ago; I just didn’t hear it.  He told me how he makes a list of everyone he wants to encourage each day.  The best part of the way he tells the story is that one day his wife found his list and her name was on it.  She was appalled at this, thinking that he should naturally want to say positive things to her every day.  His response was both honest and insightful.  He said, “Here’s the thing.  I can take your name off the list, but I will likely forget to say something nice and encouraging to you.  Or I can leave your name on the list and the majority of the time I will say something nice.”  She chose to keep her name on the list.  I can relate to this story because if I am not intentional about it, I will likely let other busy-ness and distractions get in the way.

As I was thinking about this advice I had been given quite some time ago, I wish I had paid more attention.  Kind of like one of those moments where you realize your parents had been right all along, even though you didn’t see the wisdom in their guidance at the time.

I’ve been operating on this mental framework for about 3 weeks now.  It has changed my behavior, who and how many people I interact with on a daily basis.  I hope that it is already making me a better leader.

I know for sure, it has lowered my stress level, improved my focus, and given me a better way to think about my daily achievements.