The Professional Cleanse
By: Kevin Shea, Vice President, Recruiting Operations
Every year, about this time, my house undergoes what my wife terms the Cleanse. As the Cleanse Project Manager, she instructs our 2 kids and myself to evaluate our personal belongings – clothes, art projects, rock collections, toys, books, etc.. and create 3 piles. – a KEEP pile, a DONATE pile and a TRASH pile. The initial pass usually produces a large keep pile, a fairly small donate pile and an almost nothing trash pile. As the day progresses though, we re-evaluate our piles based on what is most important to us, how much we use it and whether it holds any significant sentimental value. As we go through this process, the piles start to even out and although the keep pile usually finishes in the top spot (it’s tough to throw away the old college sweatshirt no matter how many holes it has), the donate and trash pile are pretty significant as well. In the end, we are all successful in hanging on to what is most important and useful, donating items which have outgrown their use for us but could be useful to another, and throw away clutter which is simply not needed and getting in the way.
I have learned over the years to apply this same process to my professional life. My former manager used to call it “sweeping the dust off the porch”. Every quarter I self-evaluate my role and responsibilities. I categorize these responsibilities by evaluating them based on professional criteria and place them into the same 3 piles:
1. KEEP pile – these are responsibilities most important to me, what I enjoy doing (and sometimes do not enjoy doing), they contribute to the success of the company and those that work with me, provide pathways to achieve our goals and allow us to stay on mission.
2. DONATE pile – these are responsibilities which are important to the company, but could be done by another member of the team – either because they can do a better job than me or it is a means to elevate their role.
3. TRASH pile – these are tasks or projects that have grown obsolete and need to be replaced, combined with another project, or thrown away all together. They are taking up valuable time that could be spent on piles 1 and 2 – they are simply in the way.
Conducting a professional cleanse on a consistent basis allows me to focus on what is important to the company and my team, delegate those important tasks/projects which can be managed by other members of the team who are better equipped to carry them out, and identify items which receive my attention but should not. For me, it is difficult to give away responsibilities important to me, or end a particular project or process that I worked hard to create. Ultimately, doing so makes me a more efficient manager and helps my team grow. Most importantly though, a professional cleanse allows myself and my team to always being doing things which continue to move the ball forward and help us stay on mission – “to improve the lives of those we serve by connecting opportunity and talent in meaningful ways – one job at a time.”
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