The CIO Assistant's Blog

After writing the first post on Rule of 3 (the Rule) a few days ago, I realized that the article is too short and criptic for the readers to appreciate the power of the Rule. This post is a follow-up [in order] to illustrate how you can apply the Rule beneficially in several practical ways.

1. Use the Rule to consciously manage the Personal – Professional – Social aspects of your life.

In my opinion: 

• the Personal life would include time for your basic needs such as sleeping or eating or keeping your body and mind in good shape;
• the Professional life would include time for your work-related activities such as managing or honing your skills;
• the Social life would include time for interacting with your surroundings, including your family, your friends, your communities and your social network.

You may have a different view on what falls under one aspect or another. For example, you may consider your better half to be part of your Personal life while the rest of the families, especially the in-laws, to be part of the Social one. Or you may consider your act of painting, photographing or gardening part of your Professional life since you make a good living out of the chosen hobby. As you can see, there is no clear-cut boundary from one aspect of your life to another, but if you don’t pay enough attention to any one of them, the quality of your life will suffer.

Many persons have unconsciously spent roughly 8 hours a day for each aspect without giving much thought about how to maximize the time. However, since there was little awareness, there was also little excitement and satisfaction. That’s why Henri David Thoreau has observed: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

A few ambitious ones, who feel that life is too short and there is much to achieve, would become workaholics and spend too much time at work, sometimes up to 18 hours a day. They carry work home, follow the office while on vacations (or forego the vacations all together). That’s a personal choice but many of them have sacrificed some other important moments in their Personal or Social life (e.g. a son’s graduation) with much regret in later part of life.

A smart person would try to get the best out of life by consciously decide which activities worth spending time upon and then devote enough quality time to each of them. Here are a few suggestions:

• kill two (or three) birds with one stone by selecting an activity that would bring in joy and inner satisfaction from more than one aspect of life. Blogging is a good example for many. Successful professional bloggers such as Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) seems to enjoy what he is doing, connecting with a large group of readers and making a bundle in the process.
• fine-tune your inner clock to get the most out of the day (e.g. get 6 hours of good sleep which may be sufficient for most). 
• intersperse different types of activity (e.g. a 15-minute yoga/meditation/reading/relaxation after a 4-hour blogging) to avoid fatigue and keep the energy at peak performance level. 
• keep score of the amount of time devoted to each aspect on a weekly basis and adjust accordingly over time.

I am interested in hearing some other good suggestions from you.

2. Use the Rule to consciously communicate and connect with your Superiors – Subordinates – Peers in a balanced way.

I imagine that in a typically hectic day at work, many of you would frequently let the events dictate your priorities and consume your time. You would experience or suffer from the interminable strings of meetings that spring on you, unsuspected souls, every day by your bosses, your staffs and your colleagues in the name of this crisis or that emergency. Notwithstanding the umpteen reports to produce, present, read or listen to. You would feel exhausted at the end of the day, wondering about how many truly meaningful decisions you have reached during this whirlwind of activities.

If you take a step back now and then, you would realize that these meetings and reporting events are great opportunities to communicate and connect. While the need to communicate and connect is fairly common regardless of the target audience, there is a different objective and a distinct way to go about depending on whether they are your superiors, your subordinates or your peers. By consciously acknowledging that all 3 groups need your attention and by reaching out to them with clearly defined messages via those meeting opportunities, you project an image of relevance and consistency worthy of a Leader.

Cast your net wide and do not restrict your circle to just your immediate boss, your direct reports and your friendly department heads. Your superiors should include your boss’ boss and key influencers such as the Chief Counsel, anyone who could favorably open doors or remove obstacles for you. Your subordinates should include all the staff under your responsibility and even some who are not, if you count on their current contribution or potential to contribute in the future. Finally, your peers should include all friends and foes at your level and a selected few at plus/minus one level, anyone who you could call up for a synergy session or to form a coalition.

I propose that you create a list of key people arranged by these 3 groupings and keep tab for a week of the quality time invested (i.e. time truly spent to communicate and connect, not meeting duration). Would you spend too much time with your superiors and too little with your subordinates, or vice versa? Is it consistent with your image as a Business person, a Leader or a Manager? Do you detect some correlation between the time spent communicating and connecting with a particular group and the associated outcomes, positive or otherwise?

3. Use the Rule to consciously do business with your Customers – Suppliers – Business Partners in a more effective way.

Unlike the previous use of the Rule which is primarily intra-organizational, this time the Rule could be applied to the outside world. You may pick 3 different sets of constituents than Customers – Suppliers – Partners, but as long as you understand and appreciate the dynamics of these 3 entities, the same principles would apply.

The most important of them is of course the Customers. Ask different people in different organizations in different industries the simple question of “Who are your customers?”, you will get different answers. A dealer or distributor may or may not be a customer. A customer may or may not be called a customer depending on the type or classification. So your first rule of engagement is “Know thy customer”. Then come the Suppliers or vendors or contractors or service providers. Some are more strategic, hence meriting more attention, than others. Last but not least are the Partners. This is the most confusing group because Business has a tendency to obfuscate by calling everyone else a partner. Your outright competitors could be your partners. Your suppliers could also be your partners. Your customers? Definitely. My advice is to treat partnership as an onion, having multiple layers and a potential to bring tears to your eyes if not handled carefully.

Again, I would propose that you create a table of key business entities (and internal groups) and place them in one of these 3 categories. An entity can appear in all 3. Then tabulate the amount of time and effort spent for each during one week . Would you spending too much time with the Customer group to the detriment of the Supplier one, or vice versa? Is it consistent with your current priorities (e.g. cutting costs or introducing a new product/service)? Is it consistent with the general pattern of your business (e.g. Wal-Mart with its supply chain)? Do you see any causal effect of doing business this way and its impact on your growth and viability?

There is more to The Rule and I will continue to expand on it in future posts. The bottom line for today’s post is that by consciously identifying your world as groups of 3 components and paying attention according to the degree of importance and priority that you assign to each one of them, you would have a simple yet effective framework to engage successfully in life’s activities, be it personal, professional or social.

Related Posts

• Rule of 3
• A Rule-of-3 Quote
• 10 Steps to a Successful Blogging Project