In any organisation, progress is frequently impaired by the time taken up to resolve problems that occur again and again - usually with people's performance (or not!). At a macro level, there could just seem to be 'lots of problems', which is a symptom in itself. On a micro level, managers are often frustrated by the amount of time they spend fire-fighting, whilst the more creative work of planning, developing people, marketing and more are left way behind.

There just isn't time.

Build onto that the lack of fairness, that having to regularly resolve problems posed by just a few demanding people in the team, can leave many others, including the manager himself, very de-motivated. Then your best people start to leave...

People issues can easily be resolved, with focus and tenacity. A recent client of mine found, when asked, 'Which 20 issues in your business, take up most of your time?', that 6 of the 20 were just one person. This is hugely demanding, both mentally as well as emotionally. And no wonder he was under pressure and feeling stressed. Actually, on calculation, just over 15% of his work time was being spent with shoring up the performance of just one person.

So asking yourself:-

'What wastes my time?'

...can be a very revealing exercise - if you are prepared to dig deep and be very honest, or work with a coach. Then, focusing on the action that must be taken, or you will personally suffer more and longer yourself, sharply brings the challenge into perspective. Tackling the issue in a progressive and controlled way, but with a relatively short time-frame, will free up your time for the real work to be done. And that will be much more satisfying - and a lot less stressful.

And then there will be the reward of utilising the freed up time towards really accelerating your businesses' performance.

Have fun with this - is is most illuminating, once you get real with yourself...

Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com (Note to editors. This article may be edited for use in your publication or newsletter as long as a live link to the website is included)

...helping you, to help your people, to help your business grow...