Time is a resource like money. It's spent, allocated, monitored and wasted. And like money there is never enough . Organisations don't give as much thought to how managers spend their time as they do to how they spend their budget.

The new leader /chair of the organisation was surprised and disturbed by a conversation they had with a group of managers. The managers complained that they spent most of their time in meetings and admin. They used phrases like , ‘wall to wall meetings' and ‘ increased red tape' to describe their frustration at the time they were obliged to spend away from managing the day to day operation of the business. They gave examples around HR recruitment polices, annual appraisal forms, Health and Safety assessments, financial procedures and a steady stream of requests for information /explanations on performance, all of which contributed to hours spent every day at the computer reading, answering and chasing up replies to emails.