William Penn, English entrepreneur and philosopher, wrote: “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”  One of the challenges that all great leaders face is the effective use of their time – those precious seconds, minutes and hours that relentlessly vanish from each day’s calendar.  In his article, Time Doesn’t Scale, Seth Godin suggests a change in approach in the way of looking at time and how we use it to increase the great leader’s effectiveness.

Time doesn't scale…But bravery does.

The challenge of work-life balance is a relatively new one, and it is an artifact of a world where you get paid for showing up, paid for hours spent, paid for working.  In that world, it's clearly an advantage to have a team that spends more time than the competition. One way to get ahead as a freelancer or a factory worker of any kind (even a consultant at Deloitte) was simply to put in more hours. After all, that made you more productive, if we define productivity as output per dollar spent.

But people have discovered that after hour 24, there are no more hours left. Suddenly, you can't get ahead by outworking the other guy, because both of you are already working as hard as Newtonian physics will permit. Just in time, the economy is now rewarding art and innovation and guts. It's rewarding brilliant ideas executed with singular direction by aligned teams on behalf of truly motivated customers. None of which is measured on the clock.

John Cage [American composer] doesn't work more hours than you. Neither does Carole Greider [molecular biologist]. Work/life balance is a silly question, just as work/food balance or work/breathing balance is.  It is not really up to you after a point.  Instead of sneaking around the edges, it might pay to cut your hours in half but take the intellectual risks and do the emotional labor you're capable of.

Henry David Thoreau, American author and poet, writes:  “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”  Be about your greatness… the incredible gifts within that are yet to be discovered, the ideas and innovations you will find by looking through different eyes, the dreams you will achieve because you have the courage and bravery to take risks and to be more than you ever dreamed you could be.

Mike

（Permitted to share by Professor Michael M. Reuter ，Director, Center for Leadership Development，Stillman School of Business， Seton Hall University; The Article Title is given by http://weibo/houshengtian）