GETTING OUT OF THE REACTIVE CYCLE

I work with a lot of leadership teams in organisations across all sectors, from big global businesses to small charities, councils to government agencies. One of the consistent issues that I see is the curse of the reactive cycle.

Once you are caught in the reactive cycle it is very hard to break out of it. And right now, almost every leader I see is so caught in that reactivity that they struggle to do the important leadership tasks they know they should be doing, which of course leads to the reactive cycle getting more and more intense and difficult to get out of. 

What is the ‘reactive cycle’?

It’s when your workload becomes so heavy, that there is never enough time to get everything done. It is an impossible list of things to be done — meaning all that ever ends up being done is the more ‘urgent’ and the most ‘important’. It’s what many leaders call ‘fire-fighting’, and right now there is more ‘fire-fighting’ going on in organisations than ever. There is no time for the ‘fire prevention’ that we know, as leaders, we should be doing — if we only had time and only had the capacity.

With the flattening of structures and cutting (yes I will call it what it actually is) of resources (people and budgets) within organisations, there are quite simply not enough people to do it all. I understand that, many years ago, there was a case for making ‘efficiency savings’ and reducing ‘headcount’ but we’ve gone through so many re-iterations of those cycles that now organisational and team structures are cut back to the bare bone. What that means is that now there are about a quarter to a third fewer people to do the same amount of (if not more) work. 

Combine the structural and resource issues, with the lack of proper training and development of staff, managers, and leaders over the last 15 years, and it is no wonder that many senior leaders are getting caught in the metaphorical ‘operational weeds’. These leaders are doing things (often because no-one else can) that are way below their pay-grade, which means they don’t have time to do the really important leadership tasks they know would make a real difference. 

I do an exercise with leadership teams as part of our ‘working smarter not harder’ day that is called ‘what do you have time and capacity for?’ In this exercise I ask the leaders what they ‘DO and DON’T have time and brain capacity for’. If I were to put all of the leadership teams’ feedback together into one document, it would highlight that most of them suffer from the same issues: 

1. Their diary is full of back-to-back meetings, leaving very little time to do their day job. 
2. They have a crazy amount of emails in their inboxes that they feel obliged to reply to (which takes up an inordinate amount of their time and energy). One director in a major metropolitan council, just yesterday, told me that he turned off his emails for 2hours, and when he turned it back on, he had 150 new emails!
3. That almost everything is classed as ‘urgent’ or ‘important’ and they feel they spend almost all of their time and brain capacity focussed on getting the ‘urgent/important’ done. These tasks tend to come from leaders or external bodies that are more senior than them, so they feel they must do them. 

QUESTION – How does this compare to your own experience? Do these three time and capacity consumers affect you? 

Of course, because of these three major time (and energy) consuming issues, many important leadership tasks end up being put aside, and it is very hard to find any time to do them. 

I was working with a very senior executive in the NHS recently and, when we did a time and capacity analysis of what she actually did over a two-week period, we found that on average she had 9hours of meeting every day. To be clear, she was only contracted for 8.5hours a day. She had NO time in her day to actually do her day job. She would find time (way beyond her contracted hours) in evenings and on weekends to get the tasks (not inconsiderable given her level) for her day job done. 

Now this is an extreme example, but I am finding more and more leaders truly struggling to get what needs to get done, done in their working day. 
And more importantly, they are finding that it is only the ‘urgent’ and ‘important’ that they are able to find time for. 

The second part of that exercise asks the leaders what they ‘DON’T’ have the time and (brain) capacity to do. The consistent answers are these: 

1. Planning — forward thinking, strategic thinking, planning ahead.
2. Reflection and thinking time — to stop for a moment to reflect and think things through properly to get to root causes and sustainable solutions. 
3. Time for their own development and best practice research — no time for their own development, or to look at other best practice examples in their fields, do research, go to conferences, or read important documentation (for example, new government guidance etc.). 
4. To do tasks at the quality level they would like to — most leaders say that, often, just 75% has to do because there just isn’t the time to do it properly.

Some leaders also mention that they often will end up having to put off their 1-1s/yearly PDRs with their team until the deadline is fast approaching (but that’s probably around 75%, not all of them).

Again – how does that compare to your own experience as a leader? 

Notice all of the above tasks that leaders don’t have time and capacity for can be put in one category — IMPORTANT LEADERSHIP TASKS.

I was doing some work in a large-scale organisation a few years back, working in the ‘strategic directorate’ with a senior leadership team there. The number one thing they said they didn’t have time for was ‘strategic thinking’!! I said if they weren’t doing it… who was?? 

When directors and senior leaders are drawn into the operational and away from the strategic, your organisation is at risk. When leaders are caught in the reactive cycle of putting out fires and not preventing fires, then who IS in charge of ‘fire prevention’? 

This is NOT a criticism or judgement of leaders I have come across or know. I think the leaders I come across are doing an amazing job. I marvel at how resilient they are and how much they care and try to get everything done in almost impossible circumstances. They know that they need to lead more and get less caught in the day to day task management. They want to be pro-active not reactive, more strategic and forward thinking, not micro-managing from one day to the next. 

They want to develop their staff, be inspirational and motivational, but that’s hard to do when there’s a never-ending list of stuff ‘to-do’ and not enough time, too many meetings, oh and of course, there are fewer people to do it. 

So, they leave the captain’s deck where they can see what lies ahead strategically, plot their course through the chaotic seas of projects, plans, and things that need to be delivered. They go down to the engine room and get stuck in — which is wonderful and inspiring to their team in one way, but it means who is steering the ship? Who is plotting the course? Who is making sure that the ship doesn’t hit any icebergs? Or run aground? Or capsize?

It’s understandable, but it’s more important now than ever to make sure that we get out of the engine room and up on deck. Leaders need to be able to see what is coming, chart a course, and prepare their crew for the journey ahead. 

There is another issue that bears highlighting — the issue of DIARY MANAGEMENT. 

There are very few leaders (apart from those with amazing PAs or EAs) who have control of their diaries anymore. You will try to carve out space in your diary for ‘focus time’ or ‘planning’ or ‘1-1s’, but when you wake up the next morning, you’ll find there have been more ‘urgent’ meetings that you must attend to and put into your diary, even if you have said ‘please do not put meetings in here’. This means that your time and diary is no longer yours to control, so it is very hard to plan in advance or structure your diary properly. 

As an aside here, I must share that, in all the years of working at Meta and especially since the advent of virtual meetings, I have not met one single leader at any level in an organisation who says that they love back-to-back meetings, that they’d like more of them, or that they love emails and wish people sent them more! I also have yet to meet the leader who says explicitly, “NO you can’t take your lunch!” or “I don’t want you to have a lunch”. And yet, how many put back-to-back meetings in your diary over lunch and send you emails rather than talk with you? 

Once you are caught in the reactive cycle it is very hard to get out of. It requires some real organisational leadership (and bravery) to do something about it. But there are things you can do that will help your leaders and, as a result, your organisation get out of that reactive cycle. 

1. Limit all meetings to 45-50minutes — allowing everyone to have at least a 10minute break to reset their brains and get ready for the next meeting. This requires some serious thinking about what your meeting structures should be. Make them more efficient and you save everyone time, time that they can use to do more. 
2. No meetings over lunchtime — if you want your organisation to be effective and more productive, your people need to fuel their brains and have time to do some exercise and get fresh air! 
3. Email-free time every day — we can’t stop external people sending us emails, but we can, as an organisation, say that a couple of hours of each day is email free time. This allows people the time to ‘catch up on emails’ and might even encourage your people to talk to one another about issues, which is a much more effective way of communication. 
4. Allowing leaders time to do the leadership things that matter — each leader in your organisation should have a protected amount of time each week (it is up to you to decide what you feel the right amount of time is, but I would argue a minimum of 5 hours a week, that’s one hour a day) to do the leadership tasks that will help them get out of the reactive cycle.
5. Leadership skills and team development — when was the last time you invested in your leadership team? By upskilling your leaders and getting them working closer as a team, you can identify the key obstacles that keep you in that reactive cycle. Your leaders are amazing — so give them the tools to enable them to be truly excel. 

That’s great IF you are an organisational leader at the top table, because you could make that happen. However, what can you do as an individual leader? 

Well, I would argue that you can have informal agreements with your directorate or team around points 1, 2 and 3. You can’t change what the rest of the organisation does, but you can change that which is in your influence. 

As a leader there are certain things that you can most definitely do: 

1. Wrestle back control of your own diary — make sure that you are putting aside for the key leadership tasks that really matter and you actually GET a lunch.
2. Put aside at least a couple of hours a week for ‘strategic thinking time’ — thinking and planning ahead, to prevent any potential fires before they become fires you have to put out. 
3. Put aside a particular time each week (the same time) for time with your staff and their development — develop your people and you are less likely to have to do tasks below your leadership level, because you feel no-one else could do them.
4. Time to think, reflect and get perspective — make sure you have time to reflect and think more deeply on things that require proper leadership time and attention. Getting perspective helps you come up with the best pro-active and sustainable solutions. 
5. Time for your own development and research — what is the best practice out there, what do you need to research, how do you improve your own leadership knowledge and skills? How do you work smarter not harder and grow yourself as a leader?

This is not an exhaustive list, but these are good things to start to help you to get out of the reactive cycle. I don’t want to overwhelm you, or frighten you, and at the same time I know that the current trend of working longer hours to try and get everything done, is not sustainable and will lead to serious health consequences to those leaders who do not start to address this thorny issue. 

Oh and by the way, there is ZERO evidence that says you are more productive if you work those longer hours. Did you know that? The evidence is overwhelming that the longer hours you work, the less productive per hour you become and the lower quality your work becomes. This leads to more things you need to correct, more iteration of work, which is much less efficient than getting it right first time. 

I want to be clear that my heart goes out to all of you leaders out there right now. You are doing amazingly well in almost impossible circumstances. Truly, I am in awe of all that you do! And I want to remind you that Meta is in business to support you through these challenging times. 

If you are an organisational leader and you feel your organisation has got caught in that ‘reactive cycle’ then please do reach out and get in touch. We have a whole slew of innovative ways that we can help you to create the culture that enables your organisation, your leaders and your people to break the reactive cycle. 

If you are an individual leader who feels your organisation is not in the right headspace to do that just yet, but you’d need some help and advice on how to get out of the reactive cycle in your directorate/department, or indeed just for yourself, then Meta is here to help you to do that too. I spend a lot of my time doing precisely that with the leaders that I coach and mentor and I’d happily do that with you too.

There are solutions, there are ways to break the cycle of reactivity, to help you to get back to doing the leadership things that matter. And that’s what Meta is in business to help you to do — it’s a key part of our mission. 

I hope this article has been useful to you, and I DO hope that you’ll take me up on my offer of support.

Feel free to drop me an email and we’ll arrange a virtual chat over a cuppa to see how Meta can help you, so message me at jo@metapositive.com

In the meantime, look after yourselves and be kind to yourselves in the coming months,

In peace,

Jo x

CEO of META