The Quadrant II Approach

Let's go through the items on the list using a Quadrant II approach. This is only one possible

scenario; others could be created, which may also be consistent with the Quadrant II paradigm, but this

is illustrative of the kind of thinking it embodies.

As a Quadrant II manager, you would recognize that most P activities are in Quadrant I and most

PC activities are in Quadrant II. You would know that the only way to make Quadrant I manageable

is to give considerable attention to Quadrant II, primarily by working on prevention and opportunity

and by having the courage to say "no" to Quadrants III and IV.

The 2:00 P.M. board meeting. We will assume the 2 P.M. executive board meeting did not have an

agenda for the attending executives, or perhaps you would not see the agenda until you arrived at the

meeting. This is not uncommon. As a result, people tend to come unprepared and to "shoot from the hip." Such meetings are usually disorganized and focus primarily on Quadrant I issues which are both important and urgent, and around which there is often a great deal of sharing of ignorance. These

meetings generally result in wasted time and inferior results and are often little more than an ego trip

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart for the executive in charge.

In most meetings, Quadrant II items are usually categorized as "other business." Because "work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion" in accordance with Parkinson's Law, there usually isn't time to discuss them. If there is, people have been so beaten and smashed by Quadrant I, they

have little or no energy left to address them.

So you might move into Quadrant II by first attempting to get yourself on the agenda so that you

can make a presentation regarding how to optimize the value of executive board meetings. You might

also spend an hour or two in the morning preparing for that presentation, even if you are only allowed

a few minutes to stimulate everyone's interest in hearing a more extended preparation at the next board

meeting. This presentation would focus on the importance of always having a clearly specified

purpose for each meeting and a well-thought-out agenda to which each person at the meeting has had

the opportunity to contribute. The final agenda would be developed by the chairman of the executive

board and would focus first in Quadrant II issues that usually require more creative thinking rather

than Quadrant I issues that generally involve more mechanical thinking.

The presentation would also stress the importance of having minutes sent out immediately

following the meeting, specifying assignments given and dates of accountability. These items would

then be placed on appropriate future agendas which would be sent out in plenty of time for others to

prepare to discuss them.

Now this is what might be done by looking at one item on the schedule -- the 2 P.M. executive

board meeting -- through a Quadrant II frame of reference. This requires a high level of proactivity,

including the courage to challenge the assumption that you even need to schedule the items in the first

place. It also requires consideration in order to avoid the kind of crisis atmosphere that often

surrounds a board meeting.

Almost every other item on the list can be approached with the same Quadrant II thinking, with

perhaps the exception of the FDA call.

Returning the FDA call. Based on the background of the quality of the relationship with the FDA,

you make that call in the morning so that whatever it reveals can be dealt with appropriately. This

might be difficult to delegate, since another organization is involved that may have a Quadrant I culture and an individual who wants you, and not some delegatee, to respond.

While you may attempt to directly influence the culture of your own organization as a member of

the executive board, your Circle of Influence is probably not large enough to really influence the culture of the FDA, so you simply comply with the request. If you find the nature of the problem uncovered

in the phone call is persistent or chronic, then you may approach it from a Quadrant II mentality in an

effort to prevent such problems in the future. This again would require considerable proactivity to

seize the opportunity to transform the quality of the relationship with the FDA or to work on the

problems in a preventive way.

Lunch with the general manager. You might see having lunch with the general manager as a rare

opportunity to discuss some longer-range, Quadrant II matters in a fairly informal atmosphere. This

may also take 30 to 60 minutes in the morning to adequately prepare for, or you may simply decide to

have a good social interaction and listen carefully, perhaps without any plan at all. Either possibility may present a good opportunity to build your relationship with the general manager.

Preparing the media budget. Regarding item number two, you might call in two or three of your

associates most directly connected to media budget preparation and ask them to bring their

recommendations in the form of "completed staff work" (which may only require your initials to finally approve) or perhaps to outline two or three well-thought-out options you can choose from and identify

the consequences of each option. This may take a full hour sometime during the day -- to go over

desired results, guidelines, resources, accountability, and consequences. But by investing the one hour, you tap the best thinking of concerned people who may have different points of view. If you haven't

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart taken this approach before, you may need to spend more time to train them in what this approach

involves, what "completed staff work" means, how to synergize around differences and what

identifying alternative options and consequences involves.

The "In" basket and correspondence. Instead of diving into the "IN" basket, you would spend some time, perhaps 30 to 60 minutes, beginning a training process with your secretary so that he or she could

gradually become empowered to handle the "IN" basket as well as the correspondence under item

number five. This training program might go on for several weeks, even months, until your secretary

or assistant is really capable of being results-minded rather than methods-minded.

Your secretary could be trained to go through all correspondence items and all "IN" basket items, to analyze them and to handle as many as possible. Items that could not be handled with confidence

could be carefully organized, prioritized, and brought to you with a recommendation or a note for your

own action. In this way, within a few months your secretary or executive assistant could hand 80 to 90

percent of all the "IN" basket items and correspondence, often much better than you could handle them yourself, simply because your mind is so focused on Quadrant II opportunities instead of buried in

Quadrant I problems.

The sales manager and last month's sales. A possible Quadrant II approach to item number four

would be to think through the entire relationship and performance agreement with that sales manager

to see if the Quadrant II approach is being used. The exercise doesn't indicate what you need to talk to the sales manager about, but assuming it's a Quadrant I item, you could take the Quadrant II approach

and work on the chronic nature of the problem as well as the Quadrant I approach to solve the

immediate need.

Possibly you could train your secretary to handle the matter without your involvement and bring to

your attention only that which you need to be aware of. This may involve some Quadrant II activity

with your sales manager and others reporting to you so they understand that your primary function is

leadership rather than management. They can begin to understand that they can actually solve the

problem better with your secretary than with you, and free you for Quadrant II leadership activity.

If you feel that the sales manager might be offended by having your secretary make the contact, then

you could begin the process of building that relationship so that you can eventually win the confidence

of the sales manager toward your both taking a more beneficial Quadrant II approach.

Catching up on medical journals. Reading medical journals is a Quadrant II item you may want to

procrastinate. But your own long-term professional competence and confidence may largely be a

function of staying abreast of this literature. So, you may decide to put the subject on the agenda for your own staff meeting, where you could suggest that a systematic approach to reading the medical

journals be set up among your staff. Members of the staff could study different journals and teach the rest the essence of what they learn at future staff meetings. In addition, they could supply others with key articles or excerpts which everyone really needs to read and understand.

Preparing for next month's sales meeting. Regarding item number seven, a possible Quadrant II

approach might be to call together a small group of the people who report to you and charge them to

make a thorough analysis of the needs of the salespeople. You could assign them to bring a completed

staff work recommendation to you be a specified date within a week or 10 days, giving you enough

time to adapt it and have it implemented. This may involve their interviewing each of the salespeople

to discover their real concerns and needs, or it might involve sampling the sales group so that the sales meeting agenda is relevant and is sent out in plenty of time so that the salespeople can prepare and

get involved in it in appropriate ways.

Rather than prepare the sales meeting yourself, you could delegate that task to a small group of

people who represent different points of view and different kinds of sales problems. Let them interact constructively and creatively and bring to you a finished recommendation. If they are not used to this kind of assignment, you may spend some of that meeting challenging and training them, teaching them

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart why you are using this approach and how it will benefit them as well. In doing so, you are beginning

to train your people to think long-term, to be responsible for completing staff work or other desired

results, to creatively interact with each other in interdependent ways, and to do a quality job within

specified deadlines.

Product "X" and quality control. Now let's look at item number eight regarding product "X," which didn't pass quality control. The Quadrant II approach would be to study that problem to see if it has a chronic or persistent dimension to it. If so, you could delegate to others the careful analysis of that chronic problem with instructions to bring to you a recommendation, or perhaps simply to implement

what they come up with and inform you of the results.

The net effect of this Quadrant II day at the office is that you are spending most of your time

delegating, training, preparing a board presentation, making one phone call, and having a productive

lunch. By taking a long-term PC approach, hopefully in a matter of a few weeks, perhaps months, you

won't face such a Quadrant I scheduling problem again.

As you go through this analysis, you may be thinking this approach seems idealistic. You may be

wondering if Quadrant II managers ever work in Quadrant I. I admit it is idealistic. This book is not about the habits of highly ineffective people; it's about habits of highly effective people. And to be

highly effective is an ideal to work toward.

Of course you'll need to spend time in Quadrant I. Even the best-laid plans in Quadrant II

sometimes aren't realized. But Quadrant I can be significantly reduced into more manageable

proportions so that you're not always into the stressful crisis atmosphere that negatively affects your

judgment as well as your health.

Undoubtedly it will take considerable patience and persistence, and you may not be able to take a

Quadrant II approach to all or even most of these items at this time. But if you can begin to make some headway on a few of them and help create more of a Quadrant II mind-set in other people as well as

yourself, then downstream there will be quantum improvements in performance.

Again, I acknowledge that in a family setting or a small business setting, such delegation may not be

possible. But this does not preclude a Quadrant II mind-set which would produce interesting and

creative ways within your Circle of Influence to reduce the size of Quadrant I crises through the

exercise of Quadrant II initiative.

Sky, Land, River.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 1251