As human beings our perception of time varies from second to second. We are each given exactly the same 86,400 seconds in each and every day. Yet I hear time and time again that there is just not enough time in the day. We can’t make time so as a human what are you going to do?
I was standing at the front of the room as the clock ticked down the time when we had to wrap up our quarterly planning session. We had been at it since first thing in the morning. The energy in the room was low. We had been going in circles for a while in making the final decision on the #1 priority for the quarter and what the theme should be. I had let the group have their say, we had brain stormed everything onto the wall, but now it was time. I gathered my own energy together and then said “it’s time to decide.” For the next twenty minutes I just pushed, and pushed, until the group had made up their mind.
You stand up to present to your entire company. Together all of you moved through the challenges of the last year. After the polite applause died down, you press the forward button on your remote control. No one except you know for sure whether the ambitious goals that you and your senior team together came up with were achieved. Instead of showing financial numbers and progress against your goals, you show them a picture of the strip in Las Vegas. Cheering erupts in the room as everyone realizes that the each of them and their spouses are going to Las Vegas for three days to celebrate achieving those very goals you put in front of them a year ago.