A senior GE exec says successful leadership depends on how you spend 10% of your time
Ask Beth Comstock, vice chair of General
Electric, and she'll tell you that's a terrible idea.
In an interview with LinkedIn's editor in
chief Daniel Roth, Comstock gave some leadership advice that applies both to
people relatively new in their careers and to those who have been in the
workforce for a while:
"The first thing you have to say to people is: Make room
for discovery. If I manage myself, I manage a team, I manage a division,
there's a certain amount of your budget, your time, your people that need to be
focused on what's next.
"And it could be 10% — you know for yourself. I think
usually 10% is a pretty good way to think about it.
"Think about how you manage your own time. Can I spend
10% of my time a week reading, going to sites like Singularity, TED, talking to
people, going to industry events, asking people: What trends are you seeing?
What are you nervous about? What are you excited about?"
This
drive to learn new things may be an integral part of Comstock's success. In
2012, when she was GE's chief marketing officer, she spoke to Fast Company about her penchant for
change in her career: "I'm propelled by curiosity … My formative years at
GE, every two years I moved to a new assignment."
And
soon after earning the vice chair title in 2015, Comstock told The Washington Post that one of the
biggest keys to her success is "curiosity — wanting to learn and to
constantly try to be better and do better."
Sure,
switching assignments every two years is one way to get a fresh perspective.
But you can also take it down a notch and do what Comstock suggested to Roth in
the LinkedIn interview: read, research, and network relentlessly — for just one
out of every 10 hours you spend at work.
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