If you’re a cricket enthusiast, tomorrow is the big game: India-Pakistan semi-final. Well, even if you’re not, you can’t ignore it because everyone and everything around you is talking cricket. It’s in your face. Open the newspaper and you don’t even have to turn to the sports page; the front page itself has something to say about the match that is coming up tomorrow.
I was thinking that the team must be under such pressure. They are a World Cup team; the series has been built up by the media in such a way, pinning a billion hopes and dreams and aspirations on it. They’ve made it through the quarter finals and now are in the semifinals of the World Cup and their opponents are none other than Pakistan. That brings added pressure and the expectations of the country all around them, the media overkill, the number of articles that have been written by people, knowledgeable and not so knowledgeable. You see people who have probably never been to a cricket match or bowled a ball in their lives, being armchair critics knowing exactly what Sachin Tendulkar or Zaheer Abbas needs to do. But that’s the pressure that is on the team. And to cap it all, our Prime Minister has invited his counterpart, so it has become a political thing as well. All of this comes to bear on the 11 players who will walk out tomorrow.
Thinking about the focus that they will need, made me think that they can’t be concerned about the things that I talked about. For them it has to be “What will I bring into the game that will help us win it and to do my very best?” It boils down to what a batsman needs to do as he thinks that he should be there to score as many runs as he can. The bowler’s idea should be to take as many wickets as he can; the fielder – to save as many runs as he can; and the captain – to make the right decisions at the right time and get the best out of his team. It has to boil down to that match and those 50 overs that each will have. It cannot be about the hype and the expectations and the outcome and the build-up and the consequences. Because all of that will bring stress and tension and prevent them from being the kind of people that they are and that they have practiced to be.
As a preamble, having said that, I remembered David Lonnie, a management specialist who worked with Boeing. He once had a team of new MBA students who had joined Boeing and a visiting lecturer had come to talk to them on different issues that had to do with getting into the corporate world. At the end of his talk, he took a bucket out from under the table. He then started filling the bucket with large rocks till it reached the top. Then he asked the class “Is this bucket full?” And everyone said, “Yes, it is.”
But he said, “No, it isn’t.” And he took another bucket that had gravel or smaller rocks in it. He proceeded to put the smaller rocks in the spaces between the big rocks and so filled it. Again he asked the students if the bucket was full. This time they were a little more apprehensive. He said that they were right in being apprehensive because it was not full. And he reached down and took out a bucket of sand and poured the sand where the big rocks and small rocks hadn’t gone. He filled it to the top and asked, “Is it full?” This time they were onto him and said “No, it’s not.” He said that they were absolutely right. Then he reached down and picked up a bucket of water and poured it where the big rocks and small rocks and the sand had not gone and filled it to the top. Then he asked if it was full and they all replied in a chorus, “Yes, it is.” Smiling, he agreed but asked them what the moral of the illustration was. One person said “However busy your life is, you can always find time for something more.”
The instructor said, “You’re wrong but that is probably the way all of us would respond. Our lives are filled to the brim and yet we think that we can fit in something else, here, there, just crowd out our lives.” All the students looked expectantly at the instructor who said, “Here’s the moral. If you don’t get the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”
I’ve never forgotten this illustration. When you look at life, we have the big rocks that must go into our life. And if they don’t, then we are in trouble because we end up doing small things, a million of them, but which have zero significance.
That’s the large picture of our lives but also every day, we still have that bucket in front of us. We still have the ability to fill our days with the big rocks, the small rocks, the sand and the water, in that order. It’s so important for you as leaders and managers to be able to make sure that you do put the big rocks in. The big rocks are the things that will take up chunks of your time that need significant amount of time and effort. You need to make sure that those timed segments are put in the right way, using the right resources; and the right things are being used to fill those chunks of time.
The gravel, the smaller chunks, half an hour, one hour here and there, that don’t need a sustained effort. And you need to know in your sphere of work what it is that you can do in this manner. Then you have the sand, the 5 minute things that you can do, now and then, here and there, right through the day. And finally the things that you can do constantly, the one-minute, 30 second things like a reply to an email, something to get out of the way.
How do you and I manage our time? Are we getting the big rocks into our days or are they being endlessly filled with just the sand and the water; the 5-minute things that are just filling our days but have no real significance.
I read somewhere that the 3 important D’s are:
When your life is out of sync, when you feel that you’ve lost sense of equilibrium or well-being in your life, then you can be sure that you are not getting the big rocks into your days. That’s a good litmus test for all of us. Are we feeling a sense of despair, a feeling of not getting the things that one needs to get done? If that is true, then check and see whether your bucket each day is getting the right rocks at the right time.
God Bless You All.
I was thinking that the team must be under such pressure. They are a World Cup team; the series has been built up by the media in such a way, pinning a billion hopes and dreams and aspirations on it. They’ve made it through the quarter finals and now are in the semifinals of the World Cup and their opponents are none other than Pakistan. That brings added pressure and the expectations of the country all around them, the media overkill, the number of articles that have been written by people, knowledgeable and not so knowledgeable. You see people who have probably never been to a cricket match or bowled a ball in their lives, being armchair critics knowing exactly what Sachin Tendulkar or Zaheer Abbas needs to do. But that’s the pressure that is on the team. And to cap it all, our Prime Minister has invited his counterpart, so it has become a political thing as well. All of this comes to bear on the 11 players who will walk out tomorrow.
Thinking about the focus that they will need, made me think that they can’t be concerned about the things that I talked about. For them it has to be “What will I bring into the game that will help us win it and to do my very best?” It boils down to what a batsman needs to do as he thinks that he should be there to score as many runs as he can. The bowler’s idea should be to take as many wickets as he can; the fielder – to save as many runs as he can; and the captain – to make the right decisions at the right time and get the best out of his team. It has to boil down to that match and those 50 overs that each will have. It cannot be about the hype and the expectations and the outcome and the build-up and the consequences. Because all of that will bring stress and tension and prevent them from being the kind of people that they are and that they have practiced to be.
As a preamble, having said that, I remembered David Lonnie, a management specialist who worked with Boeing. He once had a team of new MBA students who had joined Boeing and a visiting lecturer had come to talk to them on different issues that had to do with getting into the corporate world. At the end of his talk, he took a bucket out from under the table. He then started filling the bucket with large rocks till it reached the top. Then he asked the class “Is this bucket full?” And everyone said, “Yes, it is.”
But he said, “No, it isn’t.” And he took another bucket that had gravel or smaller rocks in it. He proceeded to put the smaller rocks in the spaces between the big rocks and so filled it. Again he asked the students if the bucket was full. This time they were a little more apprehensive. He said that they were right in being apprehensive because it was not full. And he reached down and took out a bucket of sand and poured the sand where the big rocks and small rocks hadn’t gone. He filled it to the top and asked, “Is it full?” This time they were onto him and said “No, it’s not.” He said that they were absolutely right. Then he reached down and picked up a bucket of water and poured it where the big rocks and small rocks and the sand had not gone and filled it to the top. Then he asked if it was full and they all replied in a chorus, “Yes, it is.” Smiling, he agreed but asked them what the moral of the illustration was. One person said “However busy your life is, you can always find time for something more.”
The instructor said, “You’re wrong but that is probably the way all of us would respond. Our lives are filled to the brim and yet we think that we can fit in something else, here, there, just crowd out our lives.” All the students looked expectantly at the instructor who said, “Here’s the moral. If you don’t get the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”
I’ve never forgotten this illustration. When you look at life, we have the big rocks that must go into our life. And if they don’t, then we are in trouble because we end up doing small things, a million of them, but which have zero significance.
That’s the large picture of our lives but also every day, we still have that bucket in front of us. We still have the ability to fill our days with the big rocks, the small rocks, the sand and the water, in that order. It’s so important for you as leaders and managers to be able to make sure that you do put the big rocks in. The big rocks are the things that will take up chunks of your time that need significant amount of time and effort. You need to make sure that those timed segments are put in the right way, using the right resources; and the right things are being used to fill those chunks of time.
The gravel, the smaller chunks, half an hour, one hour here and there, that don’t need a sustained effort. And you need to know in your sphere of work what it is that you can do in this manner. Then you have the sand, the 5 minute things that you can do, now and then, here and there, right through the day. And finally the things that you can do constantly, the one-minute, 30 second things like a reply to an email, something to get out of the way.
How do you and I manage our time? Are we getting the big rocks into our days or are they being endlessly filled with just the sand and the water; the 5-minute things that are just filling our days but have no real significance.
I read somewhere that the 3 important D’s are:
- The things that you have to Do and can take time
- The things that you can Delegate, the small half-hour, 15-minute things
- The things that you need to Delete
When your life is out of sync, when you feel that you’ve lost sense of equilibrium or well-being in your life, then you can be sure that you are not getting the big rocks into your days. That’s a good litmus test for all of us. Are we feeling a sense of despair, a feeling of not getting the things that one needs to get done? If that is true, then check and see whether your bucket each day is getting the right rocks at the right time.
God Bless You All.
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