Dan
Droz, Chairman and CEO of The Marketing Fitness Program, uses a discipline
that goes beyond the scheduling and tracking of time related information
that he has found to be important to managing both personal and professional
commitments. This discipline combines personal priorities, business realities
and good habits that have been tested over time. They work! Leverage your
time to produce results that work for you.1. Pre-schedule Personal Time.
Droz believes that it's easier to make time for personal priorities when they are prescheduled. He has set aside time for lunches with friends, a weekly dinner with his 23-year-old daughter, and a weekly morning with his wife. Of course, these aren't the only times, but he knows he will have at least those times reserved.
2. Start Early.
Droz likes to enter the day slowly, but early. Generally up at 5:30 and working out by 6:00, he's usually at his first meeting by 7:30. Staff meetings at his office start promptly at 8:00. Exercise in the morning "is a great way to start the day…give me a chance to collect and feel that at least I've accomplished something each morning." He also finds that it is easier to set up meetings with others who start early. "There are a lot fewer interruptions at 7:30…you can get a lot done before 9:00."
3. Take Naps.
Although he agrees that you can't nap any time or anywhere you want to, quick "catnaps" allow Droz to comfortably stay awake 18-19 hours and be able to function. "Without naps," he says, "I'd be either non-functional or have a lot fewer hours available. Even 15 minutes helps you to feel refreshed and ready to go."
4. Work On the Business, Not In The Business.
Droz has delegated management through a philosophy of joint ownership or partnership. In each of his businesses, there is a co-founder, partner, or vice president who takes responsibility for the day-to-day operations. Even in his own consulting practice, Droz is not the last word. His commitment to partnerships and building consensus has created teams who take initiative and internalize the ownership of the business.
5. Define Agendas.
People joke about how they know when Droz is getting focused. When you hear him say, "what are our time constraints in this meeting…" you know the meeting has started. He begins to parse the time available and determine what is realistic to accomplish in the available time, even when there is no formal meeting agenda.
6. Use E-mail.
Phone calls are hard to return during the day. The best way to reach Droz is through e-mail, often at 2:00 AM. His return messages are sometimes terse, be he believes that "when you have to keystroke, it's a good way to stay short and sweet in your responses."
7. Short Informal Meetings.
Droz practices MBWA (Management By Walking Around), where he regularly gets a bag of bagels or cookies and walks around the office, offering food. "It's a chance to check in, talk and find out what each person's issues are."
8. Getting Outside Opinions.
Droz often describes his life as a continuous "focus group," where he solicits opinions from others on a host of subjects. He belongs to a consulting firm cooperative where he can solicit the opinions of hundreds of staff members at other consulting firms with simple faxed questionnaires that he reviews to inform his decisions for clients and his own companies. No one is immune to his questioning. "I drive carpool for my 14 year old, and use the car full of teenagers to find out what they're thinking about various issues that might impact our businesses."
9. Skim.
Droz "reads" dozens of articles and books every week. But not entirely. He claims he does not read faster than anyone else, only less of what he's reading. In order to keep up with publications that have to do with his own and his clients' businesses and the latest research in marketing theory, he has learned that the table of contents, headlines, and topic paragraphs can give him most of the information he needs.
10. Use Intuition.
Droz, like other entrepreneurs, makes decisions without all the facts. In fact, uncertainty is a way of life; so intuition figures prominently in his suggestions and recommendations.
21 Strategies for Getting Legal Clients | 10 1/2 Do's and Don'ts for Organizational Change | 10 Principles of Time Leveraged Management | 10 Principles of Marketing and Product Development | 10 Steps for a New Business | Evaluate Your Marketing Smarts | Back to Strategies and Self Assessments
About Us | The Program | The 5 Zones | Portfolio | Contact Us | Home
© 2005 The Marketing Fitness Program - A member of The Institute for Marketing Accountability
212 Boulevard of the Allies, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, 412-338-1818, info@marketingfitness.net