The concept of having a little extra. A little extra time, extra money, extra whatever…

Margin is in its simplest form a little space of freedom. That beautiful space gives you choice. Margin very rarely happens on accident. You must be intentional to create it.

Why is margin so important?

This principle is important in time, as well as money, resources, or even in relationships. For the rest of this conversation, I will focus on the example of time, as I personally feel it is the most valuable resource we have. The concept of margin applies to all areas of life and similar constructs could be discussed for each of those areas.

Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you. — Carl Sandburg

With margin you get:

• The key to successful time management
• Time for PLANNING and PROACTIVITY
• Uniquely positioned to seize opportunities you may have otherwise not had time for (huge benefit in terms of $$ margin)
• A huge reduction in fire drills, which have a negative snowball effect your schedule
• Commitment to margin over a period of time will have a positive compounding effect on your productivity. You get more efficient as you go.
  • More planning time = less surprises = even more planning time = even less surprises = … well, you get the point.

Without margin you get:

• Overwhelmed when you have back to back meetings all day, every day
• Stressed and pinched at home when you routinely are working overtime
• That heavy feeling of carrying the weight and stress of looming deadlines

How do you create margin?

Here are some practical ways that I personally have adapted to creating and keeping margin in my schedule over time.

Create a 90% budget of time

For me, this means I have 4 hours of my week blocked out on my calendar. This is the padding for any “fires” that need putting out.

• Creating a calendar budget is crucial and part of a bigger topic. Just a few of my personal tips below.
• I use a specific technique to schedule out priorities and blocks of time for the week in my calendar.
• Then I color code those blocks so I can visually see how my week is laying out
• It is routine for me to build in time for Team Member 1:1, leadership development, planning, MARGIN, gym time, project tasks, partner meetings, etc.
• I schedule out up to 4-5 weeks in advance

MYTH ABOUT MARGIN: I can hear some of you now… “Scheduling time for other activities such as planning, gym, leadership, and even 10% of NOTHING is counterproductive”. There is no way that we would get anything done if we operated this way.  I would refute that with the difference in operating out of reaction vs operating out of being proactive.

Learn to say NO, so you can say YES to the right opportunities

• Ties back to the vision of your team, the culture, and core values
  • Everything we do should align and move the dial on our vision and values
• If our schedule is full of all the things we are at risk to miss opportunities. We can miss chances to do the BEST thing while we are busy doing just things.
• Sometimes saying no just means you tell the other party that your next availability is the next week. Other times it is just saying no. 🙂
• I honor and value my time. If I am out of time budget for the current week I look for the next available time that type of activity is budgeted for.
• There are always times when you have to take a meeting or project you didn’t plan for. That is why we have margin built in.

Discussion with your team

I hope this particular topic has made you think about your own schedule and as a result, reflect on either how much or how little margin you operate with. Let’s hope it’s in celebration of a spacious calendar. Even better yet I hope this helps inspire you to make some changes to how you and your team manage their time and priorities.  One of the best ways to learn and grow as a team is through a small group discussion. You can use the high-level points above to do a quick teaching, add some of your own insight/team situations, and then use the questions below to foster healthy and change-inducing conversation.

Here is to an Unleashed Team!

Cheers!

Discussion: (potential conversation starters, feel free to add any commentary you come up with)

1. Do you currently operate your schedule with margin? If so what are ways you create margin? If not what are some of your biggest struggles?
2. Does your current team culture operate proactively or reactively?
3. Do you feel empowered to take control of your own schedule?
4. What is 1 daily habit you can do to create more margin in your schedule?
5. What are the ways that margin could operate in other areas of our lives? (finances, relationships, health, and fitness)

People = friends, customers, team members, congregants, players, family members, …hint pretty much anyone

Overlooking = looking past, unaware, undervaluing, lack of interest, not knowing value, can be unintentional or intentional

Why does this happen?

The Junk Drawer Mentality – We all have a junk drawer. Some of us even have 2 of them! … I know from friends.. 🙂 … The decision to put something in the junk drawer can happen because we:

• Don’t really know what the item is or where it belongs
• Are too rushed to find and create a place for the item
• Don’t need to use the item RIGHT NOW, even though it has had value or perceived value in the past
• Kids 🙂

The only problem with the junk drawer, is that the stuff is labeled as junk. The stuff gets lost in there. We don’t really understand all of the stuff that is in there. Its valuable enough for us to hold on to, but not to use.

The sad reality for many leaders

The sad part is many of us treat people this way.  In many ways looking past people is just like putting them in the junk drawer. It’s not that you actually have to put them there, its the default place they end up if they are being overlooked.

I am just unaware of them and don’t really know them… junk drawer. We don’t have a need for them at the moment… junk drawer. There was a mistake on a recent project… junk drawer. I just don’t have time to get to know their strengths and see where they fit well in my organization… junk drawer. Dare I even say it, I don’t have a need for this person right now and don’t have time to develop them, but I don’t want them to go anywhere else either so I will hold onto them…. to the junk drawer.

We are left with people who feel like they are lost and floating around in the junk drawer. They often times associate their value to where they currently are. No one likes to feel junky. The truth is their value lies in their strengths and created purpose, not necessarily how they are currently being used.

With people, teams, organizations, churches, families, etc. we should never have a junk drawer. We cannot afford to lose sight of people. We can never be too rushed to value them and properly place them with opportunity to use their strengths.

What suffers by overlooking people?

Credibility – In many cases you are building a product or service for people, but you overlook people to get there. That is a conflict and reveals you care about the result more than the people. When you lack credibility, trust and respect tend to follow close behind. When trust and respect are gone, then morale, culture, and results are sure to follow.

• If you don’t really know the people around you, you are missing opportunity to discover hidden potential as well as hidden ineffectiveness
  • Discovering hidden potential in your team is the key to long term success and positive team culture
• • Leaving ineffectiveness hidden in your team erodes team culture and long term success
• If you don’t have time to notice people around you, then you will become an ineffective leader.
  • You either need more priority time spent on people, or more leaders who can make it a priority
• Helping people reach their potential creates passion and growth for the individual, creates positive team culture, and ultimately team success
• Results will suffer if the people are not a priority
  • Wanting good results is not a bad thing, but it cannot come at the cost of overlooked people

Challenge yourself to reach your mission AND notice people around you. Bring them along with you. Your people will thrive, your relationships will deepen, and your teams will have better results.

I can remember when I first took a leadership position at work as an entry level manager. I was fortunate to have a great boss leading me. He taught me the importance of “getting out of the weeds”. I learned about delegation. I learned to communicate at a senior level. The next few years were a tremendous learning opportunity and brought growth. While some entry level managers never make it out of the weeds, I was fortunate enough to make it through this challenging test.

If you are in leadership at any level I challenge you to think about the amount of time you spend on simply two activities; doing the work and developing people. To be successful and create the growth your team needs you must have the ability to differentiate the two activities above.

So here they are, the 4 types of leaders.

The Micro Manager Leader

This leader is in the weeds! He spends most of all of his time doing work, and very little to none of his time developing people. This type of leader is often disconnected from the vision of the larger group. They are consumed with getting the work done and may not be aware of the team they have to help them get it done. This leadership style can be stifling to talented team members.  Often this leader thinks or projects that the team isn’t capable of success without their significant input.

The Maxed Out Leader

This leader still does a tremendous amount of work, but also spends a little time developing people. She likely understands and values her team members but because of the time spent doing the work, she has little time left for growth. As a result, the leader and her team are MAXED out on growth. If this team is asked to build new products, create positive change, there will be rough waters ahead. The team likely respects this leader, but turnover could result just purely based on lack of growth and opportunity.

The Out of Touch Leader

This leader spends ZERO time doing work, but also spends ZERO time developing people. As a result this leader is officially out of touch. The role of “Manager” has made him large and in charge.  He will struggle to represent the team to senior leaders. This leader will not have the respect or trust from the team and will soon find themselves disconnected from both the vision of the organization and the team members they lead. Turnover will likely be high with this type of leader. This is the worst place for a leader to be. Team results will quickly suffer and organizational accountability will likely be handed down.

The Connected Leader

This leader understands the healthy balance between work and people. She spends most of her time developing people and stays connected to the work through her team. This leader does not do the work but stays connected to it through the people. By building relationships, this leader coaches and advises on challenges that arise. They empower their teams to make decisions and create positive change. They are connected to the vision of the organization and to the hearts of their team members, because of the time spent genuinely developing them.  This leader and her team grows. Turnover is low on under this leader. Outstanding short term results turn into sustained long term success.

Final Thoughts:

If you are reading this you are probably looking for ways to become a better leader! Being a connected leader is the sweet spot and where we should strive to be as we lead our teams and organizations.

• Poor leaders do the work (steal growth opportunities from your team members)
• Average leaders delegate the work (hand out to-do lists)
• Good leaders empower people (give responsibility and decision making)
• Great leaders build leaders (grow other leaders who can do the same)

If this has helped you at all please leave us some feedback in the comments. If you have a team that would benefit from a teaching on this you contact us here to setup a quick conversation. We would love to connect with you.

Great teams have the following characteristics:

1. Common Goal

• Same heartbeat – they know the vision.
• Know what a win is!
• Team members are motivated by being a part of something bigger than themselves.
• Understand that unified vision positively influences what we do and how we do them.

Vision is the difference between the girl who shows up to work just to get a paycheck doing only what she is asked to do, and the passionate mindset that she has as a business owner.

2. Commitment (SACRIFICE/WORK)

• Team members show up ready to work and serve
• Not everyone has the same talent, but they all bring same effort. (attitude)
• Has less to do with talent more to do with heart.
• Commitment is easier when you know the vision. You know the WHY behind the WHAT.
• Team members Are TEAM first, self last
  

  Coach Bud Wilkison – “If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals to the good of the team.”

3. Value People

• Recognize that everyone has unique God given strengths and talents.
• Value people based on who they are, not what they do for you. Separate the value of the person from the value of their performance.

If people are valued based on performance, then when they fail they are worth less.

Instead value people, then they will perform. Reward/coach the performance.

4. Trust

• We need to have each other’s back when the stakes are high.
• Trust = transparency + credibility.
• Trust is tested in difficult situations.
• Form better relationships and communication at the next level through TRUST.
• Simon Sinek —  “a team is not a group of people who work together, a team is a group of people who trust each other”

When trust grows it reinforces the vision, commitment, value of others

When mistrust grows it degrades the vision, commitment, value of others

5. Grow

• Team is hungry to get better, to reach more people, to sell more widgets, to score more points
• Knows what got them to the top is not enough to keep them there. (complacency)
• Team members welcome coaching and feedback
• Team is willing to hear the things they don’t want to hear, to say the things that are hard to say, for a better self and a better team.
• Development is built upon trust. Your level of trust will set the bar for your growth potential.

Someone who wants to grow is willing to endure temporary pain for permanent gain.