Stop Wasting Valuable Time

Companies routinely squander their most precious resource—the time of their top executives. Here are seven techniques that will help your management team make better and faster decisions.

by

Michael Mankins

by

Michael Mankins

From the Magazine (September 2004)

Summary.

Companies routinely squander their most precious resource—the time of their top executives. In the typical company, senior executives meet to discuss strategy for only three hours a month. And that time is poorly spent in diffuse discussions never even meant to result in any decision.

The price of misused executive time is high. Delayed strategic decisions lead to overlooked waste and high costs, harmful cost reductions, missed new product and business development opportunities, and poor long-term investments. But a few deceptively simple changes in the way top management teams set agendas and structure team meetings can make an enormous difference in their effectiveness.

Efficient companies use seven techniques to make the most of the time their top executives spend together. They keep strategy meetings separate from meetings focused on operations. They explore issues through written communications before they meet, so that meeting time is used solely for reaching decisions. In setting agendas, they rank the importance of each item according to its potential to create value for the company. They seek to get issues not only on, but also off, the agenda quickly, keeping to a clear implementation timetable. They make sure they have considered all viable alternatives before deciding a course of action. They use a common language and methodology for reaching decisions. And they insist that, once a decision is made, they stick to it—that there be no more debate or mere grudging compliance.

Once leadership teams get the basics right, they can make more fundamental changes in the way they work together. Strategy making can be transformed from a series of fragmented and unproductive events into a streamlined, effective, and continuing management dialogue. In companies that have done this, management meetings aren’t a necessary evil; they’re a source of real competitive advantage.

The Idea in Brief

Most leadership teams spend just three hours per month making strategic decisions. That translates into less than a week per year. Worse, many teams fritter away those precious hours on unfocused, inconclusive discussion rather than rapid, well-informed decision making.

The consequences? Delayed decisions that lead to wasted resources, missed opportunities, and poor long-term investments. One global firm spent more time each year selecting its holiday card than it did debating a vital Africa strategy.

How can your leadership team avoid such pitfalls? Spend your limited time on issues exerting the greatest impact on your company’s long-term value. Deal with operations separately from strategy. Put real choices on the table, evaluating at least three viable options for every strategy. Use meeting time for decision making—not just discussion—and agree on what was decided. And move issues off your agenda as quickly as possible.

Your reward? Strategic decisions—made better and faster.

The Idea in Practice

Apply these practices to make the best use of your leadership team’s time:

Deal with Strategy and Operations Separately

Holding separate meetings for each prevents day-to-day operations from dominating your team’s agenda and liberates time for substantive strategy debates. Example:

Dutch banking giant ABN AMRO’s board used to spend only about an hour per month on strategy, with most of its meeting time devoted to day-to-day operational details. But market changes required a more strategic focus. The board now spends slightly less time together—but devotes much more of that time to strategy, typically about 10 hours per month.

Focus on Decisions, not Discussions

Enhance the quality and pace of your team’s decision making, for example by distributing reading materials in advance of meetings. Specify why participants must read them (e.g., for information only? discussion and debate? decision making?) This readies participants to devote precious meeting time to deciding crucial issues.

Measure the Real Value of Every Agenda Item

Prioritize meeting agenda items according to each issue’s impact on your company’s long-term value. Address high-value issues only, and delegate low-value issues to lower organizational levels. Example:

At Roche, the Swiss drug and diagnostic product maker, CEO Franz Humer created a “decision agenda” comprising the 10 most important opportunities and problems facing the company. Leaders regularly update the agenda by quantifying the value at stake for each issue and spend over half of their meeting time on those ten items. This process has transformed the quality and pace of Roche’s strategic decision making.

Get Issues off the Agenda Quickly

Develop clear timetables detailing when and how participants will decide each issue and who will approve final strategy. Example:

At Cardinal Health, a pharmaceutical and medical supply distributor, senior managers continually ask themselves, “When must this decision be made?” and ensure that they reach decisions within a predetermined time. Results? Less overanalysis and more rapid decision making.

Put Real Choices on the Table

Evaluate at least three viable alternatives (not just minor variations on one theme) before approving any strategy. This encourages teams to choose the best course of action, not just the most obvious. By debating alternative strategies, British retail bank Lloyds TSB decided to exit international markets, helping to expand its market value 40-fold between 1983 and 2001.

Make Decisions Stick

Explicitly agree on what was decided in the meeting. Then specify the resources (time, talent, and money) required to execute the strategy, as well as the financial results you’ve committed to deliver.

A few days before AnyCo’s biweekly top management team meeting, the CEO’s assistant sends out an e-mail asking attendees to submit agenda items. A hodgepodge of suggestions comes back. The head of HR wants to update the team on a nasty age discrimination lawsuit that’s about to go to trial. The executive vice president for the European business division wants to discuss disturbing competitive trends in her region. The CIO asks for a few minutes to review plans for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. The manager of the largest North American business unit needs to present a major capital investment proposal for a factory automation program. The marketing senior vice president has to show some alternatives for a big print-advertising campaign. And the CEO himself wants to kick off an effort to revamp the company’s annual planning and budgeting process.

A version of this article appeared in the September 2004 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Michael Mankins is a leader in Bain’s organization and strategy practices and a partner in Austin, Texas. He is a coauthor of Time, Talent, Energy: Overcome Organizational Drag and Unleash Your Team’s Productive Power (Harvard Business Review Press, 2017).