Conference calls, meetings, people in and out of your office, more conference calls, eating lunch at your desk while on said conference calls, tight deadlines that require emergency meetings.
Sound familiar?
It feels great being a part of a fast-paced company where your skills are valued but if you live at this level of chaos day in and day out things will begin to unravel.
What Unraveling Looks Like
If you find yourself without a moment alone you won't have a chance to grasp the bigger picture.
This loss of sight in the greater landscape can cause miscommunications within and between teams. What may start out small can progress over time into large gaps of knowledge. As the gaps are revealed frustrations abound in the form of disagreements, project delays or worse, sending a project down the wrong path only discovered after it's launch.
How Does Solitude Play Into Communication?
I realize at first glance solitude and communication seem like polar opposites, mutually exclusive of one another.
In order to effectively communicate one must first have clarity of his/her own understanding. If you skip this step how would even know what to ask?
Without clarity a little word known as assumption creeps in and wreaks havoc.
But I'm A Quick Study and Ask for Clarity in the Initial Meeting.
John Maxwell calls this type of person a smart thinker. Smart thinkers come up with great questions at the outset of any project. But he goes on to say a sustained thinker always wins over a smart thinker.
A sustained thinker is someone who stays with an idea for long periods of time, teasing out the details. This type of thinker gets granular with an idea and it's smaller questions; almost like whittling a stick. The whittler chips away at the stick over time to create an intricate woodcarving.
You'll also see that this exercise goes much deeper than simply the daily to dos and this is where the clarity truly lives.
Creating Clarity Through Solitude
I want to walk through the steps that will help you gain the best clarity for your team, your vision and your day to day projects.
Pick the time
I know you're busy but it's not as hard as you may think to find time for this activity. You can wake up an hour earlier or stay an hour later one day each week. The key is to do this when no one else is around. You can also do this on a weekend morning before anyone in your house is awake.
(You'll need a whiteboard or excel spreadsheet for the rest of this.)
Think about your team
Before you can evaluate anything larger you need to reflect on your team; their strengths, their skills and their limitations.
In the top left corner of your board or spreadsheet write the name of each member of your team.
Do a quick evaluation of each employee. Are they meeting the goals you laid out for them? Do you know what they aspire to do? What is each member's greatest talent?
If you find you don't have a good grasp of any of these areas for your team you need to make a goal of having one on one time with each person to gain clarity with them.
Think about your vision
In the top left corner of your board or sheet write your goals for the team that you had when the year started. You should write internal (team camaraderie) and external impact ($2 million in savings).
Are you on target to meet these goals this year? If not why? Does the team understand what is being asked of them?
Work with your team on clarifying issues surrounding these goals.
Think about your projects
Finally, at the bottom of the board or sheet you will list all projects your team is involved in.
Are the projects progressing on-time? Are you out of sync with the project goals? What clarity do you need in order to feel up to speed on the project?
Using the Team list you created earlier, could any of your team members work on this project more effectively.
The End Game
Now that you've completed the exercise you should have a better understanding of where your gaps in knowledge live.
Take the questions you couldn't answer from each category and send emails or setup meetings with the employees or project owners for more clarification.
You will gain respect not only with your team but with the project owners who will feel that you're championing their role.