The life-changing question

Ask yourself:What question, if answered, could transform your business life? What question could focus you on getting to a higher level of thriving in business while maintaining life balance? Well, here it is:What is a deadline? Right off I know you are thinking what a boring question! And 20 years ago I would have agreed.

But back then I also had a weak appreciation for jazz, compound interest and cowboy poetry.

Today, as a business coach, there isn't a client with whom I've worked who didn't have to rethink this question like a bridge to be crossed before finding effortless momentum to thrive.

Certainly, this is a small question when treated as mundane detail.

But you really can't afford to treat it as just a detail.

These four words probe into what you are willing to settle for, what you are able to control, what you expect to happen and what you dare imagine boldly.

Two deadlines The first wake up call for most people is that every job has two deadlines.

The first one everyone notices, the Customer Deadline.

This can be set by a real customer, but also includes bosses, coworkers, etc.

From a practical standpoint this is the "it must be done by" date.

The second deadline, rarely considered, is the Operational Deadline.

This is the date you choose for getting the project done.

An empowered business person opts to get ahead of the curve and picks a target allowing him or her to step over the finish line ahead of schedule and in control of events.

In stark contrast, the average person is characterized by the fact that his or her Operational Deadline is the same as the Customer Deadline.

(A third deadline occurs when you are your own customer,where failure to set a deadline means your goal is a weak wish, a dream on wobbly legs.

But that's a topic for another day; today the focus in on deadlines set in motion by external forces.)

The paradox Most people think of Operational Deadlines as lepers afraid to even look at them.

This aversion springs from the belief that a shorter deadline is all about pressure.

While true in the short view, in the long view it is about fitness that leads to effortless performance.

This is where a motivational speaker would drag out Lance Armstrong for illustration.

But we don't need him, because even baby steps by average folks will produce significant advantages.As a hiker, a couple of years ago it took all my willpower to trek a two-mile trail with a 15 percent grade.

Today I take that grade chatting away, and then walk another 20 miles.

It's the same with work skills.Your capacity for better performance in anything comes from asking yourself to improve, and then steadily moving in that direction one step at a time.

The best leaders I've known expected things to go wrong.Not in the woe-is-me sense; but in the planning for the unexpected sense.

They make it look easy because they design breathing room into their game by getting ahead of the curve.

Start striving for tighter deadlines, and you will grow the skills to meet them and award yourself breathing room.

Worker bees The average person thinks like an employee (including managers and business owners).

Someone tells the person when a project needs to be done, the person thinks "OK" and away they go a worker bee.

They confuse being responsive (e.g.,Yes, I can get it to you by then) with being empowered, and feel shock when events turn sour.Worker bees are buffeted by events.

Whereas, the person dedicated to thriving takes control.He or she calmly accepts that life is complicated, things break, people get sick, hurricanes cut off suppliers.

Operational focus allows room for such setbacks.

It crafts a better environment for exercising judgment, improving quality control, and even delighting the client when suddenly the due date is pushed up.

Being a worker bee isn't a bad thing, but if your aspirations run higher the Operational Deadline should be a key part of proactively positioning yourself for success.

The siren's call Many people will cling tenaciously to being under deadline and to having their plates compulsively overfull.

It has been my experience that this grows from a series of seductive, addictive emotional needs rarely from empirical logistical details.

The Siren calls to us in many ways: needing pressure to validate self image; hoping activity is productivity; hunger of a day so forced upon us there is no time for reflection; and so it goes.

These seductions to live under deadline pressure are so numerous, insidious and tenacious that to describe them all would require pages.You can let the Siren pull you to the cliffs or resist the current to find healthier shores.

The big 'but' During my dad's naval career he became known as the guy who could go to any station and turn it around.As a kid my only appreciation for his gift was that it kept us in exotic locales.Yet later, as an accidental manger in my 20s, I desperately needed to understand how he did it.

The solution he told me was simple.

Get people to spend a percentage of their time on proactive activity no matter how many fires there are and no matter how bad the fires.

It's that simple (take it from the combined 70 years of experience between my dad and I).

Dad also warned me this simple solution was exceptionally challenging because people vehemently resist.

They swear,we are working as hard and fast as we can.We don't have time to be proactive.

And despite hearing the merits of getting control, they respond with an emphatic: But my situation is different! And that's impossible! Such insisting is a sign of vapid thinking.When you can't take a stand for Operational Deadlines that get you ahead of the curve, you are announcing poor fitness you think acceptable.You are a worker bee.

Be more.

The million dollar payoff Rethinking deadlines is a path to rich rewards.

Time and again I see companies and business people master better deadlines and leap into abundance.

They double output, stop taking work home, feel the calm confidence of control, while customers rave and new adventures bloom.What is a deadline? It is your expectation about the soul of work.Your barometer for success.

Anne Lazarus is a Reno-based business coach and speaker.

Reach her at anne@mindstep.biz or 775-852-4973.