Footprints and Monuments

“You Are Not The Boss”

By Jeff Earlywine

Employees don’t always get to call the shots when planning out their daily agenda. Sound familiar? If you are an employee, or have ever worked for someone, you know what I mean. You come in to work on Monday morning all ready to get your week started. A week you have carefully and thoughtfully planned out; each day is full of tasks and appointments. You know you are going to add tremendous value to the company, your clients, and yourself.

Then it happens. You get that phone call, that email, or even worse that “pop in.” It is your boss, and he wants you to come into his office. Your head drops, your heart sinks, and you begin saying good-bye to all the careful planning you have done.

Right about now, all the time management skills and training you have learned is making you feel guilty.  So, how do you…

• Plan for the future by setting corporate and personal goals?
• Manage your time when your time is really not your own?
• Accommodate your boss’s requests while still accomplishing your plans?

These are questions that literally millions of people have asked. Many ask them on a weekly basis, and some have asked them so often that they have given up on accomplishing their personal goals and tasks.

First, you must understand that no situation is exactly the same. Your work environment could be dramatically different than your tennis partner’s, your neighbor’s, and your college roommate’s. Not only are work environments different, but so are leadership styles. In laymen’s terms, what I am referring to when I say leadership style is some employers could micro-manage, delegate, accomplish tasks through teamwork, cast vision and leave the details up to you, etc… Therefore, with so many variables I am only going to be able to give you general ideas, but ideas that I have personally applied or have seen others apply to their work life.

How to serve your boss and still accomplish your dreams, goals, and tasks.

• Buy into your boss’s vision. It has been said that a vision is caught rather than taught. While I do believe that a vision can be taught, it is usually caught. This catching of a vision takes time, and the time spent catching your boss’s vision is very valuable. When you catch someone’s vision you become connected to them and their dreams like never before. Being connected to your boss in this personal way will allow you to add tremendous value to him and the organization.
• Be flexible. For some personality types this is most difficult. If you are a true planner, someone that likes to plan things out to the Nth degree, then you will struggle when your boss changes your entire day.

• Plan your schedule with blocks of time. I definitely encourage planning ahead. In fact, I have taught for years that you should plan next week at the end of this week. I also think you should plan your schedule out in great detail. However, if you work for someone that has a habit of changing things on you then I suggest you plan your schedule in “blocks of time.” For instance, if you have to finish a detailed project for a new client by Wednesday, then I suggest you block out time on Monday and Tuesday to finish it. These blocks of time allow for interruptions but keep you on track. Not only should you block out time for your tasks but for unexpected ones as well.  
• Plan for the best but always be prepared for the worst. Now, I am not suggesting that you look at your day through negative lenses, but you must always be mentally ready for your schedule to be changed.
• Be prepared.  I don’t know who originally said the following quote, but I think they are dead on accurate, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” If you have thoroughly planned out your schedule, then you will be able to adjust to any interruptions that come your way.

Lastly, we must always remember that we are rarely the boss, and that our plans can change at any time. A good example of this happened on Saturday, April 11, 1970, the time 13:13 CST.

The event to take place was to be one of NASA’s finest hours; the launch of Apollo 13. Apollo 13 was supposed to land in the Fra Mauro area of the moon. However, an explosion on board the spacecraft forced the crew to circle the moon without landing.

The first two days the crew ran into a couple of minor surprises, but generally Apollo 13 was

looking like the smoothest flight of the program. At 46 hours, 43 minutes Joe Kerwin, the

CapCom on duty, said, "The spacecraft is in real good shape as far as we are concerned.”

At 55 hours, 46 minutes, the crew finished a 49minute TV broadcast showing how comfortably

they lived and worked in weightlessness. Nine minutes later, oxygen tank No. 2 blew up, causing

the No. 1 tank also to fail. Next, the warning lights indicated the loss of two of Apollo 13's three fuel cells, which were the spacecraft’s prime source of electricity.

Then, the crew, and the entire NASA staff spent the next 5 Days, 22 hours, 54 min, 41 seconds working to get the three man crew back to earth.

The boss in this case was life and circumstances – both of which couldn’t be controlled. However, just as the staff at NASA, we can feel a great since of accomplishment at week’s end when we have accomplished our goals along with our boss’s.

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