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Shocking answer, you don’t.

“JoAnne” called me today and asked if I could help her with a time management problem.

When I stopped laughing I told her that time management definitely did not fall within my expertise and asked why she had called me when there was so much information available.

JoAnne said that she had read multiple books and blogs and even paid for some coaching, but none of it worked. She said a friend had mentioned me and after reading some of the posts she thought maybe she had a MAP problem.

Now, that is a totally different kettle of fish, so I asked her to describe what she did and where she was having problems.

I kept notes and occasionally asked her how much time something took; then I added up the total.

No wonder JoAnne had a problem, the total was close to 22 hours and that was before such minor details as eating and sleeping.

When I mentioned this JoAnne agreed, but said she couldn’t bare to give up any of her activities and did I have any suggestions; maybe a MAP solution.

I explained that every solution was a MAP solution because if it isn’t synergistic with MAP it wouldn’t work. That simple.

I told Joanne that she already knew what to do; she just didn’t want to do it.

I said that there is no such thing as time management, only self management, and nobody could do that for her, it was definitely a DIY project.

First she needed to dig into her MAP and identify those things that made JoAnne herself, and then she needed to compare that list to the “activities she couldn’t bare to give up.”

The activities in sync with her MAP she would probably keep, those that weren’t were the ones most easily curtailed or dumped—although she might choose to change her MAP if one turned out to be important enough.

The lesson here is that the next time you’re overloaded remember that while you can’t manage time you can manage yourself. Start with your MAP, focus on what is really important and let go of the rest.

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Last Monday I said that leadership was another word for initiative and that meant it had to be spread like fertilizer to every level and person if the company wanted to thrive.

Tuesday I followed up saying that leadership fertilizer was better composted than taught.

That thinking made me realize that the best cultures are also composted.

Cultural development follows a Y-shaped path.

Initially, the raw ingredients from the top person’s MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) form the basic building blocks of the culture.

At that point the culture moves along one of two divergent routes—one akin to the controlled manufacturing approach of synthetic fertilizer and the other to composting.

Bosses who opt for the former build out the company’s (or their organization’s) culture with little-to-no input from others. They define it, shape it and present the whole as a set piece that is unlikely to change unless they do the changing.

Bosses who opt for the latter use the basic blocks to create a framework that encourages ideas from all levels and positions within the company. The framework acts as a composter with the ideas being processed by various people. One of the most prominent examples of a composting culture was the development of ROWE at Best Buy.

Manufactured cultures have little flexibility, are limited to their creator’s world-view and often defeat initiative and the spread of leadership; even those that are positive are slower, less empowering, and less welcoming to initiative.

Composted cultures are enabling; they encourage people to have initiative, take risks, step out of their comfort zone, grow, and, above all, think—all without worrying that they will be stomped for doing so.

Manufactured culture makes bosses feel safe; they are non-threatening and within their comfort zone.

Composted culture takes bosses out of their comfort zones, often challenges their world-view and shakes up their MAP—not for the faint-of-heart.

Are you a manufacturer or a composter?

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In a classic episode of the original Star Trek, Capt. Kirk is split, so there are two Kirks, one good and the other dark.

It’s not a new idea, Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde predate it by decades, but it  struck much closer to home because both Kirks were identical and, in an interesting and realistic twist, neither functioned well without the other half.

And that is a lesson well worth learning.

There are many people out there who only present one side, spending enormous effort to submerge or mask the other.

Some want to be know for their positive MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), for always being up, supportive, giving, etc. and they believe that any form of negativity will spoil the image. The problem is that that image doesn’t always ring true and you may come over as a phony; I’ve seen this happen even when the MAP was real.

Others hide their positive side for fear they will be used or taken advantage of in some way.

Real people are a mix of positive and negative, the two complementing each other and in some strange form of alchemy producing a better person than either does separately—which was Star Treck’s well-made point.

All of you has value, so you should use all of you for the good of your team and to accomplish your goals. Even your not-so-nice side can contribute positively if you control it and use it sparingly in the appropriate places.

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Just nine more day to enter the contest running on Leadership Turn, so click over and share your favorite business OMG moments for the chance to win a copy of Jason Jenning’s Hit The Ground Running.

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Friday I quoted Henry Mintzberg, the man Tom Peters called the world’s premier management thinker. I hope you clicked and read the short opinion piece in Business Week.

Here is a link to an interview in the Wall Street Journal that will give you more substance on his new book, Managing.

Mintzberg says that, “Basically, managing is about influencing action. … One step removed, they manage people. Managers deal with people who take the action… And two steps removed from that, managers manage information to drive people to take action… too much managing through information—what I call “deeming,” and says his four year old daughter can do that.

“The alternative is to give more attention to the people plane and the action plane. Even when you’re managing information, you can manage in a much more nuanced way than just shooting a bunch of figures around.”

You can check out more about Managing at Amazon. I just ordered my copy (it’s available now, not September) and I recommend that you do the same.

I honestly believe that this will be one of the most valuable business books to be published in a long time.

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Just one more week in which to share your favorite business OMG moments for the chance to win a copy of Jason Jenning’s Hit The Ground Running.

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Last Monday and Tuesday I hit a nerve when I described leadership as fertilizer and went on to say that the composted kind was better than that produced in a lab.

So today I went looking for good quotes about fertilizer. I only found two really good ones, especially the one from Rick Pitino

Since there aren’t more, I thought I’d invite you to make up you own. Read the posts (if you haven’t already) and share your fertilizer quotes in comments.

“Fertilizer does no good in a heap, but a little spread around works miracles all over.” –Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Failure is good. It’s fertilizer. Everything I’ve learned about coaching, I’ve learned from making “mistakes.” –Rick Pitino

“Spreading fertilizer on others juices your own growth.” –Miki

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See all mY generation posts here.

Today I have two offerings about money and those who have it and one sanity update.

Let’s start with the sanity. A couple of months ago I asked if women really were less risk-prone and cited a woman=led startup that was planning on doing geo-thermal drilling in the worst earthquake zone in the country; apparently that project has been delayed.

Next, in case you missed it, is the newest listing of the Top 10 for CEO pay. I couldn’t decide between the two versions, CNN and the NY Times, so here are links to both; each has slightly different peripheral content.

Finally, for 30 years the rich have been getting richer. Think about it, in 1977 the top one ten-thousandth of households took home 0.9 percent of the nation’s income; three short decades later it took home 6 percent, but what’s happening now? Will it bounce back and continue? This analysis offers good information and doesn’t require a degree in economics to understand.

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You, my readers, my friends and whatever enemies I have all use social media (well, almost all), I don’t. No Twitter, no texting (no cell phone:), no Facebook, no MySpace—OK, I do business blog,

But I do read a lot about it; follow the trends and tragedies, as when Twitter went down. So I thought I’d share some of the more interesting articles I’ve come across recently.

First is a clear, concise description of three tactics to get your company up and using social media. Not strategy (as several commenter pointed out) but solid action items.

The Wall Street Journal offers (more) advice—why and how—on the importance of learning texting lingo—that’s one no one will ever sell me on, but you should if you plan to function in the cyber-world.

From Psychology Today, 5 Smartphone Rules To Live By that teach you how to own your smartphone instead of it owning you.

But not everybody believes that everything you do should be chronicled for public consumption. Protocols NYC, a salon created by five Manhattan news media types and those they invite, has banned texting, cell phones, pictures, etc. They call it off the record and just talk to each other—it’s called conversation for those of you too young to have experienced that kind of focus.

Two final offerings for kids and adults who think it’s cool put their life online. They should serve as a warning to anyone with kids and the second for anyone who holds or plans to hold a job at anytime in their lives. The first tells us that “one in 10 teens admitted posting a nude or seminude shot of themselves or others online.” Combine that with the second, “35percent of the 2,667 managers and human resource workers decided not to offer a job to a candidate based on the content uncovered on a social networking site,” and you have a recipe for disaster. Privacy settings aren’t the whole answer, since inappropriate pictures sent and information shared with friends may appear on their pages (and who knows where else)—and they never go away.

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