A seasoned presenter with over 20 years experience in sales and marketing, Maurice’s enthusiasm, knowledge and ability allow him to connect with diverse groups, from senior executives and decision makers to staff new to their roles and responsibilities. His background includes a successful career in commecial real estate with a focus on project management and business development.
When Maurice is not traveling, he enjoys spending time with his family at home in the Minneapolis area.
David Allen says
“You’d probably find yourself with a much larger list of things you had taken on to get done as a result of feeling so great from getting the existing stuff done” (paraphrased)
You author concurs, but has an additional thought:
You might learn something about ‘completion’: “the calm amidst storm”
You see when I ask people in a seminar what they would feel like were I to wave a wand over their heads and complete everything that needs to get-to-done in their worlds, they seem to have a visceral experience from the inside out right before my eyes.
They seem to experience the joy, the peace, the rest of completion without actually having completed anything (unless some of them can travel at Star Trek or Star Wars speeds at an individual level and like the comic book hero the Flash, can move faster than my eyes can see).
Thus I conclude that this feeling of completion could be experienced at will from the inside out on demand.
One of the subtleties of framing desired outcomes as completion statements is that the statement itself moves one’s focus into pre-experiencing completion. In fact for those who truly articulate the completion they are intent on achieving, they literally experience the benefits of completion every time they look at the list of projects needing completion.
Is this how your to-do list makes you feel?
It could…
Simply script your projects and even your next action statements in the completed past tense with any necessary descriptive bells and whistles embedded.
Then watch how they begin to allow you to experience completion before completion has been realized.
Further, if your next actions are crafted in an attractive enough manner, they actually begin to entice you to engage with the incomplete items as soon as time presents itself. Often this emerges out of a desire to actually experience the reality of completion on the physical versus just the psychological plane (which beats the fear of deadline approach any day in my book).
The feeling this produces is my definition of the “calm amidst the storm”.
At ‘that’ moment, you understand the power of getting it out of your head.
Some might think that means merely writing it down, but it actually requires one to implement Peter Drucker’s thinking from the Effective Executive treatise (1969) that one must:
When you are concerned about:
you realize the power of being able to focus past your desired outcome toward next action execution. At times like these, with as little unproductive stress as possible, you hope to conduct yourself such that you can eliminate all drag associated with achieving the desire of your outcome(s).
And thanks to Providence and the mechanics of GTD, I was able to arrive just in time to see them starting the inducement process and to be the support my wife needed (I still need personal growth in this area) to get through the initial steps in the process.
Editor’s Note: Here’s a short inspirational post by GTD Facilitator Maurice Gavin. He challenges himself as well as all of us to ask ourselves a tough question; Why Not? He doesn’t stop there, either. He goes on to ask “What if?” In your life you may only get a few moments where the answer to these questions can change your own future or possibly even everyone’s future. Back when I was still racing my bike, a great Italian Champion, Francesco Moser said something to me that changed my career forever. He said to me “to win the big races you must first risk losing them.” I think that Maurice is making the same point only on a bigger and more important canvas than simply winning a bike race. Take Maurice up on his challenge and ask yourself these two big questions. For the courageous among you, how about sharing your answers in the comments below? The best answers - according to Maurice, myself and some of the other GTDtimes contributors will get something nice from DavidCo for being so brave…
“What if you really could achieve the dreams you conceive for yourself and your corner of this world?”
“What if you could overcome any obstacle set before you in your life and in the lives of others at will and on demand?”
”What if you saw every problem as an opportunity to face yourself, overcome yourself and expand yourself without fear or uncertainty during the process?”
”What if you could inspire others by your example to change themselves for the better and to want to model your success and your personal standards of integrity and excellence?”
As I write this I am doing so to challenge myself as much as to reach out to you the reader.
I have moved past
“What if”
and am now asking
“Why not?”
In fact, to be honest I am now saying to myself, if even in a whisper,
“Why not now? Right now?”
Regardless of what you do or think about this or anything else…
“What are the questions that are secretly plaguing you from within?”
”What would you try anew if you were guaranteed you couldn’t fail?”
“What is the highest level you could achieve across the various spectrum of your life’s experiences if you were to intensify your focus and apply yourself without regard for time required or the fear of failure?”
Editor’s Note: Maurice Gavin is a new contributor to GTDtimes. He’s one of David Allen’s certifed GTD Facilitators - a great GTD Coach and a prolific writer. He’s already submitted a number of great articles that I’ll be posting over the next week or two. Please join me in giving Maurice a warm welcome. I’m sure you’ll appreciate his intelligent and practical advice as much as I do. If you’d like to schedule a coaching session with Maurice, please contact the David Allen Company directly.
During a recent seminar I delivered, a senior company leader asked the following question: How do you recommend I delegate?
I have been asked this question before but lately it seems that this question, or one like it is being asked more and more frequently.
Usually this question is being asked by individuals who manage others and/or who describe themselves as those who ‘get their work done’ through educating, inspiring, leading and supporting others–sound familiar?
It seems to be a more and more common concern for people who are senior in their roles and responsibilities: “How do I delegate such that I hedge my bet to improve the odds that what I delegate will be done on time, within budget and to my standard of quality”.
The person who asked the question then proceeded to tell a near horror story: what they had delegated to trusted staff turned out terribly. The end product was
As a result the person who had delegated the task found themselves staying up late that night (the presentation was the next morning) correcting and finalizing the previously delegated task (a critical component of the impending presentation) and doing what they could have done themselves (had they just hung on to the item in question). Fortunately, after burning the midnight oil, the deliverable was turned in and the day was saved.
The bad news… this manager has the emotional scars from this experience burned into his subconscious. Now every time they consider delegating to that same individual or anyone else they second guess themselves and more often than not hold onto the item and do it themselves to ensure “it gets done right”
My response to her question and my response to others who have this question is always the same (I paraphrase for our purposes) . “ The failure “ was not necessarily in delegating in the first place, or to that particular individual (usually one intuitively knows who is right for the task or is offering that person an opportunity to ’step up’), but in the failing to clarify whether the item in question was fully quantified and communicated at the point of the hand-off in the minds and systems of all parties concerned (in this case the senior leader and her direct report)
I frequently will then say, “Did you delegate the desired outcome regarding this item?” in an attempt to get the person raising the question to see for themselves what contributed to the target being missed .
At this point, there is usually a pause as they think about my words and the syntax I have within I have framed them . Sometimes, they immediately get the play on words, and shorty thereafter they realize the power of ‘Desired Outcome’ as it relates to delegation.
I often will follow-up with questions similar to the following, just to ensure that they have a chance to visualize the steps during the delegation process where they could have inserted the elements of GTD to their mutual benefit:
Everyone is usually clear on the actual deadline, but often people have unstated comfort zones that represent how far ahead or behind schedule they are comfortable being. This can be a major point of stress for both the person doing the delegating as well as the person to whom the work was delegated (often at a less than conscious level—‘when do they really want this back’)
Did you identify the ‘Next Action’ you see as being ‘next’ as the start point you preferred they undertake first to get them headed in the right direction?
I am now seeing leaders train their followers to ask:
Frequently when I ask these questions, senior managers that delegate many tasks will nod in agreement as they realize that the only direction they have given was the stated deadline. In many instances their direct reports are intimidated and as a result they do not come back and ask for clarity for fear of being seen as less than ‘up-to-the-task’.
The Desired Outcome Must Be Delegated
If we are going to be effective when it comes to delegating tasks, we must take steps to be certain that what we are delegating is absolutely clear to the person to whom we are delegating the work. This means that:
As we are more and more dependent on others to support us in the realization of our desired outcomes at work and in life, it is critical to become as effective as possible at task delegation.
I recommend becoming so by “Delegating The Desired Outcome”.
