TEC Resource Center

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Not Spending Enough Time Managing?

One of the greatest challenges for managers is having the time to manage. Everyone is busy. Managers are consistently being asked to do more with less. So what can you do to manage your time most efficiently? Here are a few tips to help save time and reduce stress!

Change your to-do list into a real time management plan:

Do you actually plan your days out? I know, what’s the use in planning, there’s always a fire to put out? There just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done anyway. Stop making excuses. You are right, you can’t add more hours to your day, and emergencies will come up, but having a real plan, allowing for time to put out fires will help. Start by listing everything you have to do and then prioritize your list to the things that absolutely must get done tomorrow. Then order them in a way that makes sense for you and the task. So if you work best in the morning, do the tough stuff first. If you are preparing for a 3PM meeting, clearly the prep time must be scheduled for before.   Figure out how much time you will need and make sure you schedule it well in advance. And I mean schedule it! Block out time on your calendar to prep for the meeting. We all put our meetings on our calendars, but how many of you block out time to prep? Prep time should not be scheduled for 5 minutes before the meeting.   As we know, emergencies do come up, but if you have scheduled your prep time well in advance, you will have time to attend to the emergency, and still be able to get back in time to prep before the meeting. I’m a big believer in Outlook or some type of electronic calendar. I’ve got reminders going off for everything, so nothing falls through the cracks. And I don’t dismiss something until it is complete. If I can’t do it right then, I’m committed to going back to my calendar and finding a place to reschedule it.

Minimize your “time robbers”:

Speaking of those emergencies and fires you have to put out…….stop thinking they are all unavoidable. Probably only about 1/3 of them are true emergencies. The others are what I call time robbers; the interruptions that come in many forms. They could be your staff that feel they can interrupt you anytime they have a question. They could be meetings that you really don’t need to be at. They could be time you spent looking for things because you are not as organized as you can be. And the list goes on. First identify your time robbers. Then think about ways to at least minimize them. Learn key phrases that encourage people to respect your time such as:

  • “Can you give me 30 minutes to finish up what I’m doing and then I’ll give you 100% of my attention.”
  • “How much time do you think we need to discuss this?”
  • “Can we agree to meet until 3PM and then schedule more time at a later date if we’re not done?”

 

All these phrases let people know, I want to help you, but I have other pressing things I need to take care of. If you respect your time, others will start to as well. For those real emergencies you have to attend to right away, start looking for patterns. Do the same things keep coming up day after day? Is there someone who can be a resource for these issues other than you? Is there a systemic problem that, if addressed, could decrease these types of emergencies from coming up?

Learn to delegate effectively:

Managers often forget one of the most effective time management tools – delegation. There are many reasons people don’t delegate, but many times it is because they are not successful (or are afraid they won’t be successful,) when they do it. Nine times out of ten, they fail because they did not delegate the task to the right person, or they did not give the person the support they needed to be successful. The first step it to change our mindset about delegation. It should not be you dumping your work on someone else. That’s not delegation. You should think of it as an opportunity for that person to learn something new, and to take something off your plate to leave you time to do other things your staff cannot do. Things that help move the department forward. Delegation should be a win / win and needs to be presented that way. People want to know what’s in it for them, so be prepared to tell them. Of course, you also need to be confident that the task will get done. Just because you delegated it, does not mean it is NOT your responsibility anymore. When you are a manager, the buck stops here. So take time to analyze the task and your staff competencies. Then determine, based on how much experience the person has with this task, the level of involvement you need to have with them. Remember the more time you put in in the beginning, the faster that task will truly be off your plate with minimum supervision needed. If you’re having trouble trying to think about the types of tasks to delegate, try some of these:

  • Clerical Tasks
  • Repetitive Tasks
  • Information Gathering
  • Representation in Meetings

They are the easiest types of tasks to delegate and can save you a good amount of time and stress in the long run.

E-Mail me to include your management challenges in our upcoming blogs – abbe@tecresourcecenter.com

 

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Five Things Strong Managers Know!

 

Managers are key contributors in an organization. They have many responsibilities, but here are 5 responsibilities that effective managers pay close attention to:

  1. Carry out assigned duties: Know and understand what is expected of you from your boss. That means asking questions, checking in, and making sure you are aligned with his/her priorities at all times.
  2. Keep your manager informed: There’s nothing worse than being blind sighted by someone who seems to know more about what is going on in your department than you do. Make sure you do not put your boss in that position. Let him/her know if something is going wrong and how you intend to handle it. If you’re not sure, ask to brainstorm together for possible solutions.
  3. Build employee morale: If your people are disgruntled, you need to address it immediately. One bad apple does spoil the whole bunch. It’s the manager’s responsibility to monitor what is going on in their department, including at the water cooler. If you hear something negative, don’t ignore it and hope it will blow over. Interject yourself. Get to the bottom of it and let the negative person know, that doesn’t fly with you. If they are uncomfortable or know they will be called out for negative behavior, it is less likely they will continue.
  4. Give clear instructions: Communication is a 2 way street. When you give a directive, you are responsible to make sure people really understand what you expect. Of course it’s clear to you; it’s in your brain. But everyone else doesn’t have the same brain. Instead of asking closed questions like, “You got it?” or “Any questions?” try open ended questions like, “So where do you think you’re going to start on this?” Or “What obstacles do you anticipate that might interfere with us completing this on time?” People tend to answer closed ended questions with the yes or no they think you are looking for. You really have no idea whether or not they understood and if you are going to get the results you want.
  5. Cooperate with other departments: Successful managers play nice in the sandbox, even if there’s a bratty kid in there. Focus on the issues and results you want, while keeping in mind that others have responsibilities and goals as well. Listen actively. Find the common ground. Work as a team.

Develop your Manager’s Toolbox by attending one of our public training classes!

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Sorry, we’re all out….

guy at desk

 

I was recently traveling to Maine and stopped at a lovely hotel on the way, in Portsmouth, NH. As I unpacked I realized I forgot my hair brush. Yikes!!! The weather was very hot and humid therefore, this was going to be a big problem for me. I remembered that the front desk staff had been very helpful upon arrival, so I stopped there on my way to dinner. I asked if there was a CVS or drugstore around where I could purchase a hair brush. The girl at the counter said, “Oh boy, not really in walking distance….. and we don’t have any here at the desk. I’m so sorry.”

Needless to say, panic started setting in. I guess the other gentleman working at the desk sensed my distress and softly said to the girl, “I wonder if there is a salon close by that might sell brushes.”

He quickly googled and made a call. He put me on the phone with the person at the salon, which he had already confirmed was open until 8PM and sure enough, they had a brush that would get me through my trip. A block and a half walk and I was all set.

The first representative didn’t really do anything wrong. She answered my question and apologized for my inconvenience. I think she really felt bad. But the second representative did so much more. He was a star. First of all, he looked for a solution to my problem, beyond what they could do at the hotel and then he didn’t embarrass the other representative. He helped her with a smooth gentle transition.

This is the kind of consistent service world class organizations provide. Some people are a natural at it, while others need help. But when the culture is one of service, everyone is thinking, “HOW CAN I HELP?” That’s when the true transformation occurs!

Thoughts……

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What kind of hitter are you?

What kind of hitter are you?

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” —Mother Teresa

Sometimes it can be very frustrating when we have these great ideas and it seems like nobody is paying attention. We want to have this giant impact on our organization; we want to hit that homerun, but it’s important to remember how many games are won with base hits.

Joe was a marketing major in college who couldn’t find a job in his field when he graduated college. After 9 months or so, he decided to go back to school to become a biomed tech. He landed a job at in independent service organization and thus began his career in biomed. He really loved the work and the company.

The company underwent a rebranding process. They put together a presentation for the staff. In small groups, they educated the employees on the new brand and how they could be brand ambassadors. Over the short time Joe had worked there, he had noticed, with his trained marketing eye that the PM stickers the company was using were very hard to read and that the logo they had on them did not really convey the name of the company. He had mentioned this to his supervisors and really anyone who would listen but no one seemed to react to it. He was convinced that if they redesigned the logo, it would really have a substantially positive marketing effect.

At the branding meeting, Joe thought it would be a great time to bring this up again, since he had an audience he did not usually have access to. Joe suggested redesigning the logo to include something that would be more identifiable to the users of the equipment. Similarly, the people running the meeting thought he had some good ideas, but didn’t seem willing to adopt them.

Joe became frustrated and eventually left the company because he thought they were the kind of company that just wouldn’t listen to good ideas. What he didn’t realize was that the changes he was proposed were huge. The company just spent a large sum of money with an outside firm to rebrand themselves. The new logo was just adopted and to change it again would be too costly.

Instead of becoming frustrated and disengaging, if Joe could have used his marketing experience to work with what they already had and proposed a small change instead, it may have been the catalyst to a similar result and the improved visibility he envision for the company. Change is difficult. It takes time, and when you refuse to be flexible and convey the message that your way is the only way, the more people will resist or resent it.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. When the big ideas don’t sell, break it down and start hitting the base hits. They can have a tremendous impact on the game!

Thoughts…….. Contact me at abbe@TECResourceCenter.com

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I’ve got the proof right here in this email!

I’ve got the proof right here in this email!
How many people like to be proved wrong? I’m guessing you don’t. Nobody does. Yet so many times we can’t resist the urge to prove we were right by proving someone else wrong.

When I have a difference of opinion with someone, I hate when they are so absolute about something. No, you never sent that! No, you didn’t tell me that! You know what I am talking about? It’s why we have all gotten so good at covering our (selves) though email. I know I always like to have a trail of what I discussed with someone so there can be no confusion later. But that’s different than using it as ammunition to say, “I told you so.”

We know the customer is not always right, but they always think they are. And where does it get us to prove them wrong?  As long as you have the documentation to make sure you don’t get held responsible for something you did not do wrong, you need not use it in your discussions with your coworkers, boss or customers. Here are 2 different responses to the same example:

You know you wrote an email to a coworker about following up with a customer on a work order. In the response email the coworker said that she would contact the customer to give them the update. She is now insisting that you were supposed to give the customer the update. You go back and forth about it for quite a while and then…

1. You whip out the email and show her where she said she would contact the customer.
2. You stop the madness and say something like, “We obviously have a difference of opinion here. The most important thing is to get back to the customer. Would you like me to contact them?’

What’s the upside to response #1? You win, but your coworker is embarrassed or mad, and the customer has not been attended to.

What’s the upside to response #2? The customer wins, and no one walks away mad.

Clearly if this is a chronic issue with your coworker, you need to address it, but it’s usually not best to address it in the heat of the moment. Go back later and summarize what has transpired in the past and brainstorm about better ways to communicate in the future. Perhaps email doesn’t work for her. She will be able to accept her mistake easier if you are in private and you approach it from a “how can we do better” standpoint.

If you really need to prove you were right, prove it to yourself, and keep it to yourself. No need to rub someone’s nose in it.

Thoughts…….. Contact me at abbe@TECResourceCenter.com

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