Sales and marketing alignment

As a commercial enablement leader, it is very easy to get inundated with constant tasks and stress in your everyday work life. Over time, you begin to become too busy, too busy at work, too busy in your day-to-day life. A “too busy” mentality prevents business executives from reaching their fullest potential, which gets in the way of enacting personal and organizational change. When you become too busy, your business suffers. It is critical to learn how to adjust to a busy lifestyle so you can make sure your business, your employees, and you as an individual grow and develop towards success.

How being too busy at work affects company culture.

Here’s the thing. When top business executives implement new policies to streamline processes, this can often fail. Business initiatives usually fail because the people involved are too busy to make the change necessary to see it become successful. Managers let employees off the hook because they have other tasks to tend to, and employees don’t adopt the practices because they’re not being held accountable. When new systems aren’t put in place, then your business doesn’t grow in an upward motion, leaving the company at a stagnant or declining rate. When “busyness” affects a company’s attempt at organizational change, then it becomes a problem and the company culture suffers.

Understanding the factors that affect a “too busy” mindset

Once you realize that you’re suffering from being too busy at work, it is time to reveal what is weighing you down. As a business leader, you have to multitask, manage staff, and ensure the business runs smoothly. You are receiving pressure from all sides of the business–from the top, from your staff, and your clients.

When you are weighed down by pressure from the top of the company down to your staff, you become paralyzed with inaction. Now, your day fills with day-to-day tasks that need to be completed; however, these tasks do not contribute to the organization as a whole. Relieving pressure and stress can help you take control of your long-term strategies to put them in place and see them effectively take place in the organization.

How to organize yourself when you feel overwhelmed

Time management is a useful skill for orchestrators, and so is stress management. Anxiety about time and stress often go hand-in-hand, and if you can master one element, the other is sure to follow suit. When you feel that you’re becoming more and more overwhelmed and you cannot enact the change, or keep up with requests, ask yourself the following three questions:

Culture Sales Enablement
  1. “What can I focus on…?”
  2. “What am I grateful for…?”
  3. “What can I let go of…?”

Pause and reflect. If the answer doesn’t come to you right away, wait for it. You’re in too deep and you need to pull up for a few minutes. PAUSE.

As an orchestrator, you have to be able to organize your thoughts and tasks, so you can focus on the ones that are truly important to the company as a whole. Ask yourself what you need to focus on to yield results. What steps can you put in place to achieve a long-term business goal? Are you going to focus on spending the day showing your staff a new company procedure? How are you going to make sure that the company moves in a forward, growing momentum?

Identify what you are grateful for the reassurance that you have the tools and staff to help you through this time. When you ask yourself what you can let go of, you need to think about is there someone who you can rely on to handle smaller tasks while you focus on larger, more significant moves for the company? Are you performing unnecessary tasks that can be removed from your daily to-do list? Is there anything you can do to unload the stress you’ve accumulated over time? Asking yourself these questions when you’re feeling too busy at work can help ground you in reality and show you where the gaps are.

Once you know what to focus on, you can set a plan in motion to achieve those goals. Once you let go of the unnecessary tasks, you can move forward with less stress. And once you realize what you are grateful for, you can fulfill your tasks with greater purpose and care for the tools and people around you.

How overcoming “busyness” can have a positive impact.

When a commercial enablement leader overcomes a “too busy” mentality, the organization benefits. Executives who have too much on their plate become unavailable to team members, resulting in a drop in performance and negative perspectives and thoughts. Overcoming busyness can help you focus more on the company’s performance because you can give it the attention it needs.

Leaders who dedicate a majority of their time engaging with staff develop genuine working relationships. Everyone in the organization thrives off of collaboration and the desire to do great work. The positive energy bounces off one employee from the next when people begin to work together. As a business executive, you have to decide what deserves your attention to make the business flow.

Being too busy affects others in the company as well

Even if you develop exceptional time and stress management, there is still a chance your employees may not. When you begin to focus on implementing organizational change, your employees may become too busy at work to focus on implementing the changes. This can cause the change to come to a halt and force the company back to its old standard ways.

As an orchestrator, you must have the leadership skills to talk to your employees when they become overwhelmed with other tasks. Helping them see the benefits of adopting the new change can help the transition become smoother. If some employees are not accepting the change, it becomes a ripple effect, and others begin to do the same. Executives must create movements within their organization in order to make employees accept and enact new organizational change.

Become a master at organizing your thoughts in order to organize your company

Business leaders are constantly bombarded with new daily tasks or fires to put out. When you are pulled in seven different directions, it is easy to lose yourself in the craziness of it all. Effective business leaders can reign in their thoughts, organize and prioritize the most critical tasks, and take action.

Managing stress and time is a skill required of all business leaders. Learning how to compartmentalize your daily to-do list can equip you with the freedom to organize your business from the ground up. Once you can prioritize yourself and your thoughts, your staff or top management will benefit. You’ll be able to handle top company concerns, effectively implement solutions, see that those solutions are being handled. This is how you can catalyze movements within your organization. You create a momentum that others want to join when you take action on what is beneficial for your business.

Learn More about sales enablement strategy.

Learn how to orchestrate your company into a well-oiled machine

Commercial enablement leaders need to become orchestrators. Being an orchestrator means you catalyze change, execute tasks with the right people, drive results, are pragmatic, mobilize teams, and collaborate with people to meet a unified goal. Are you an orchestrator? If you want to learn how to drive growth strategies and become an authentic business leader, participate in the community