Marilyne H. O’Hara, PhD

People Strategy/ PMO (Former Global Head M&A Integration) at Block (fka Square)

A remarkable executive known for her ability to solve problems and produce high quality work quickly led to rapid career growth.  Below, Marilyne shares her insights on how she first discovered Time Leadership® for herself, and then brought it to her team, empowering them all to manage their high-demand roles with collective efficiency, effectiveness and balance. 

What prompted you to bring Time Leadership training to your team?

I was very fortunate to have been selected to be part of the McKinsey Black Executive Leadership program at Block. It was just a perfect time because our team was working on many sensitive and high-visibility projects at the same time and everybody was really stretched thin and very busy. I needed additional time for peer mentoring, and to add to this I was growing my own team as well. 

As a leader, I always strive to be efficient and productive. I was always known to be almost a time freak; Always on time, always making sure I planned everything. I was not thinking about time being a finite resource. I was the ‘go to’ person, ready to answer everybody's issues and problems. The high achiever who wants to do things well, quickly and move on to the next thing. 

As I grew into my role and got more responsibilities, trying to keep up with that expectation of getting everything done for everyone quickly was taking a toll on me. Something had to give. Unfortunately, it was my physical and mental wellbeing that I was neglecting to make sure that I was that top performer, and top achiever that everybody knew. Recognizing time as a finite resource and the realization that I have to make sure my tank is full before I can continue to be that top executive was a big change for me.

After the initial training, I was able to start picking up a couple of tips and immediately some of my team members were noticing the difference. That was my ‘aha’ moment. I thought, “Hey, we should be doing this as a team because we're all feeling the same pressure and the same challenges of the workload, the work life balance and now, the blurry line between work and home life.”

WHAT DOES “TIME LEADERSHIP” MEAN TO YOU?

Time Leadership means that I create an environment that allows me to be my best. To perform my best in a healthy, mental, physical and psychological state. I like to call it my time equilibrium. Now that I have actually found it, it's one of the things that I guard the most because it allows me to be a strong leader without sacrificing my personal wellbeing.

Name one or two concrete changes you made to take charge of your own time as a leader.

First, making sure I refueled myself.  Knowing those anchors I need to be able to go further through the day. I realized that going to Mass daily, early in the morning, set me up to be in a state where I was calmer and better able to prioritize. Exercise was also something I was always putting off to a much later time. I realized that in the mornings, the combination of the two was my Secret Sauce. I started protecting that time. I adjusted appointments, set alarms to ensure I had those morning forty-five minutes to work with.

Another way in which I began taking charge was changing the way I managed the quiet time I set aside for work in the morning. I always knew that I was very productive in the morning. What was challenging was, with larger expectations and greater responsibilities, I would have late days at work because I would be working across time zones. It was normal to sometimes finish a call at ten or eleven pm. As a result, I would forgo my me-time to be able to work at night, and I wasn’t being effective. 

Before the training, I would give up the morning quiet time I’d set aside maybe 95% of the time. If people would ask for time I would say, “Oh, try me between 8:30 - 10am. It's usually my quiet time. That's a time to get me.” I would actually say that!

But now I say, “No, that’s my legato time. That's my thinking time and it's early in the morning because that's when I am the most productive.” I also set goals and deliverables to produce during that time.

I'm getting more work done with less stress. If I were to measure my stress level from one to ten, I've cut it at least in half or three-quarters.

How have the changes you’ve made impacted your team & colleagues?

I’m more comfortable with delegating responsibilities and being intentional about which meetings I attend. Can someone else attend that meeting? They might not be ready, they might not have all the information, but that's an opportunity for them to grow. I set time on my calendar to have more coaching time with the people I'm delegating to, so that they are going to those meetings more prepared.

I've seen the impact, it's beautiful for me, but also for my team because they can see me asking, “What are we trying to achieve here?” “Does this meeting need to happen this week?” From a team standpoint it's kind of rolling down where we are all more intentional in how we're using our time, what meetings we're attending, and doing what's critical.

Even with stakeholders, I’ve gotten out of the “Automatic Yes” to every request and feel more comfortable questioning timelines on urgencies. In the past, whenever certain stakeholders made a request, I would drop everything to get it done because I know that their request is triggered by another bigger request. It's always from the top down. But now, I'm more comfortable going back and asking, "Does this conversation need to happen now? What's the impact on top of all the other activities we're doing?"

How do stakeholders respond when you question timelines?

They actually respond very positively, which is a powerful discovery.

With most people, when you start having conversations about time and explaining the why and when, they will understand and will clarify the urgency of the requests. And if you're known to keep to your deliverables, they will often be OK with tomorrow. Because if I'm telling you, “No, not today, you will get it tomorrow.” You know that with Marilyne, when she tells you she's going to get something done, she gets it done. 

Sometimes people are used to not getting deliverables on time and so ask for something to be done immediately when they actually need it in a few days. By asking how critical the request is and proposing a realistic timeline, you can better manage expectations and ensure you deliver on time. So, it’s really on you to start having those conversations. 

For me as a manager, I just love it when my team pushes back on requests that would derail another priority. A couple of weeks ago I was assigning something to someone on the team who's been through the training and their reaction was, “Right now I'm working on X, Y and Z and I can absolutely do this new ask. But I won't be able to get to it until two weeks from now. Will that work?” And I loved it. I said, “That's exactly what I want.” 

I was able to find someone else to handle it in the meantime. It was a great example of having those time conversations and being willing to adjust timelines to ensure quality work while also managing workload.

For the Team Time Leadership program, you chose to combine large group sessions with 1:1 coaching. Why did you take that approach?

First, I realized I could not just be intentional with my time, in a vacuum, because we are a very collaborative group. I needed this to be a team effort for everyone to have common approaches to prioritization and efficiency. I wanted them to understand that taking care of your mental health, your whole being, is just the beginning.

I knew the team was very busy. So, they needed to get the biggest impact in the shortest time. And they needed something to be customized so that they would make the connection between the strategies and their day to day challenges to see benefits and quick wins.

In addition to the large group training, I knew they also needed a little bit of hand holding. Coaching would allow them to dive a little deeper within their personal circumstances. We have a great team, with different people at different stages in their life and in their career. What works for me with grown children is different from a colleague who has a two-year-old. The time demands and constraints are very different. 

What has been the impact of the team learning these principles together?

One of the quick observations–pretty much everybody has implemented and respects each other’s legato time. We all have more time to consider the strategic impact of what we need to do. That time is critical and helps organize and communicate our priorities. People are less stressed, because we feel like we are in control of our time.

As a whole, the team can take more time off where they don’t have to worry about continuously following up on items, because now we have a process to plan ahead. We create out-of-office documents with a clear description of what's open, and who is picking up for you. So that when you are out of the office, you really enjoy your refueling time. But to be able to craft that, you need that legato time in order to think about what you’re working on, what’s critical, what’s open, and what you can delegate to a peer or direct report to hand off for a week or two. It’s very important because we work on very tough projects, where you’ve got to be a hundred percent when you are in. You need to make sure you have a full tank all the time.

What advice would you give other leaders who want to practice Time leadership with their teams?

For a leader, I say, start with ‘Why’—why do you want to do this? Look at the most recent employee engagement survey. What is the team saying? Are they complaining about workload, work-life balance? Find one to three themes that employees are raising that really could be solved by looking at how you are sharing and managing that finite resource: time. 

The survey will help you realize “Hey it’s the team, it’s not just me.” You cannot do this in a vacuum because it will crumble if it’s just you. When Time Leadership becomes a team effort, it's much easier. Remember, it's a new skill you're building—a new muscle.

Within our team we know it's like a race. We have to get our heads out of the water from time to time to breathe. When I have one head out of the water, I know John Doe is pulling the team.  Our whole team knows the value of refueling and carving time for ourselves in order to be our best at what we're doing.