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Aspire to be a CEO? Practice Multitasking

Moving up the ladder requires you to do many tasks at the same time. They may be managing multiple projects, juggling things to do, manage people and expectations to just name a few. This also requires the coordination of efforts of several people, each of whom is responsible for a part of the job, with every part of the job being necessary for successful completion. Your ability to handle these multitask jobs is a critical skill for success.
Multitasking is a must have and no more a ‘nice to have’ quality: It is not surprising that the study by Stanford University of the qualities that companies look for in promoting people into the position of chief executive officer concluded that the ability multitask and put together a team to accomplish a task was the single most important identifiable quality of an executive who was destined for the fast track in his/her career.
Is this an inherited talent or a learnable skill? I have heard often times by people that they just cannot do multiple things at the same time? It is not their DNA. They can read the newspaper and have their morning coffee. They can watch television and brush their teeth. Project management is a learnable skill, like riding a bicycle. Similarly, any project can be divided into a series of steps, each of which you can master, one at a time. You begin by defining the end-game. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? What is the face of success?  Start by defining the end.

  1. Where to Start? Start where it matters – at the beginning. What you are going to have to do? Determine the specific outcome and timeline. Make sure that it is realistic and achievable.
  2. Build the troops: Bring together the people who are required to make this project a success. Sometimes you need to assemble a team before you can even decide upon the ideal result and the schedule. People are everything, take ample time and think carefully about the people and what they are going to do.
  3. Create a shared vision: A shared vision is an ideal future picture of success that everyone believes in. How do you do that? You sit down with the people in the team nod work with them to answer the question, “What are we trying to accomplish?” You encourage everyone to contribute, visualize, and to imagine the ideal outcome or desired result of the project. Once this vision is clear and shared by everyone, you move on to the development of “shared plans” to achieve the vision.
  4. Set Schedules and Deadlines: Once you have a shared vision and plans, and everyone knows exactly what is to be done and what the ideal results will look like, the next step is for you to set a deadline for project completion based on the consensus of your team.
  5. Follow through: Follow through to completion

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