Mind Boxing: How Leaders (Should) Spend Their Time

My own observations are similar, and I’ve come to think of the multitude of tasks that fill up a manager’s day as sorting neatly into three buckets: purpose, people, and process.

When it comes to the latter topic, business thinkers tend to focus on secondary factors, like better leadership or clearer objectives to help stimulate productivity. Little attention is dedicated to the actual mechanics of how work is assigned, executed, and reviewed.

First-level managers tend to ask When? What? and Where? because they are responsible for getting stuff done. Middle managers ask How? and Who? because they are given a goal and have to muster resources and assign them, often within budgetary constraints. Top-level managers ask WHY? because they are responsible for the strategic purpose of what is b