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PETER Stephenson, the author The Naked Executive, The Bulletproof Executive, and Executive Coaching has now written Highwire Executive, from Penguin (www.penguinbooksindia.com).

The book draws inputs from 850 `working case studies' to answer questions such as: How to focus on the main game at work, given all the distractions and a sense of being spread too thin? How to work with the complexities of matrix reporting and communication lines? How to really step up your delegating effectiveness? How to put emotional intelligence into practice? How to live life to the full?

If you are working more than 60 hours a week, decide what your one principal business objective is, advises Stephenson. "Next, determine the two main `first-level' drivers of your principal business objective, that is the two main activities and result areas that have the greatest impact on attaining your one objective."

For instance, improving sales, and reducing variable expenses may rank top in the business's profit tree. Next, enter the matrix — "an increasingly common phenomenon, particularly in larger companies with headquarters overseas".

Because all the contact points around you are interconnected in so many ways, your communication lines are not the sum of the contact points, explains the author. "Rather, they are more a multiplication of the various levels — number of `senior' times number of `peers' times number of `juniors'."

Implement the `Fast and Simple!' technique of Stephenson to select those initiatives or tasks that have "the greatest positive impact on business results, customer satisfaction, and competitive advantage".

What is the difference between a `hands-on' and `hands-off' delegation? Read on for the answer: "Be more directive or hands-on when a task is high priority or high impact, or when the capability or motivation of the individual is insufficient for them to accomplish the delegated task without your close involvement.

At the other end of the scale, when a task is one of low priority or low impact, or when the capability or motivation of the individual is adequate for them to proceed, you can literally abdicate, be hands-off."

The latter saves time in today's flatter structures with broad spans of control and complex reporting and communication lines, explains the author.

We are a mixture of pro-activeness or Yang and receptiveness or Yin, writes Stephenson in a chapter titled `people power', using terms from ancient China.

The high Yang leader is "hands-on and active, talking, directing, being competitive, overcoming difficulties, being results- and output-oriented, and `getting things done well'."

There's more: "They take a down-to-earth attitude, relying on commonsense approaches. They prefer tangible, concrete objects to `airy-fairy' ideas or feelings. They learn by doing. They are confident in meeting new circumstances or strange situations alone."

The author identifies other possible combinations of the two Y forces. Likewise, there is an analysis of in-team behaviour into knights who are `overly internally competitive', clones or the ones who are `very supportive' and who go along with the team leaders, rooks who "usually accept team consensus even if with some initial reluctance", and henchmen who "full of cunning and native wit and often come up with good ideas on behalf of the people they serve and support".

To think that coaching eats up your time is wrong. Because when you coach others and achieve greater individual effectiveness, you can save time for yourself.

Coaching involves counselling and requires the giving of examples and guidelines, and mentoring that is "drawing on the experience of the coach as a sounding board". Coaching is not telling or teaching, explains Stephenson.

As the preface states, the book is about creating `more air-space' in the executive's time so that "they get home earlier; they work less in the evenings and during weekends; they are more proactive in managing their priorities and time; and they are less reactive, less caught up on the treadmill of meetings".

The book is full of ideas that you can hank off for putting into practice.

ManageMentor@TheHindu.co.in

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