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It is very rare that you will ever walk into an executives’ office and watch him cut out paper templates with the scissor, or take messages for someone on a “while you were out” pad, or sit sharpening his number two pencils.

Now there is nothing undignified about any of those tasks. They are invaluable and simply must be done. However, they are not the tools the chief executive needs to be busying him or herself with.

My suggestion is that you examine your desk. Do you have the right tools for the job you are doing? Are you busying yourself with tools and tasks better left to support staff? This could be an indication you are micromanaging and stifling your staff.

I did a survey of a moderately size staff site (about one hundred employees). In the survey I asked the staff to record for me what they felt were the most valuable items/tools on their desk. The results I found were not quite what I expected. And they revealed some interesting information.

Now, profiling people is a bad thing. It can get you into trouble. That being said the result did fall out into certain categories.

The executive level had one group of items on their desks, the middle management another type and the support staff yet another type. There were , of course, some items that spanned the hierarchy.

Executive Level.
1. Planner/Day runner
2. In Box
3. Sticky Notes

Middle Management.
1. Pens
2. Pictures
3. Stapler

Support Staff.
1. Pens/Pencils
2. Bible
3. Current Paperwork.

One of the things I found most interesting, is that I expected every item to be related to getting things done. Both middle management and support staff had inspirational/motivational items listed at the second highest priority. Now, I’m not sure what that means but I’m sure it means something.

I also found it interesting that of the items I felt to be of the highest priority, only one showed up in any form on either of the lists.

1. Log Book
2. Computer
3. Project Chart

What are the highest priority items on your desk?

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 8:11 pm and is filed under tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.