Productivity

Recently promoted to a management position? New managers often feel excited, ready to take on new responsibility, but a little overwhelmed. One comment I hear often is “How do I balance everything?”

When you were an independent contributor, you had only your own work to complete. As a manager, though, your job is to get work done through others. Now you are accountable for ensuring your subordinates’ work gets done, as well as your own. Here are some tips to help you gain leverage and get the right things done.

1 – Understand the value you’re expected to deliver.
You’ve been put in charge for a reason. Talk to your manager to ensure you understand the results he or she expects from you. Be specific. Ask questions. Don’t assume you know already. What you think is best for the company may not be what your boss wants from you. In the end, it will be your manager who determines whether or not you’ve delivered value.

2-Focus on the work that adds most value.
The 80-20 rule says that 80% of the results come from 20% of the work; 80% of the profit from 20% of the customers. In other words, you gain leverage, and multiply the results of your efforts, when you focus on the 20% that provide the most value. Use this rule to help you prioritize. Focus your group’s efforts on the work that delivers the most value.

3-Delegate.
You may have been promoted because you were very good at your old job. If you are a ‘doer’, it can be tough to let go and trust other people to get the work done. You may think you can get it done faster or better by doing it yourself. But delegation is the key to getting more done, and provides an opportunity for your people to develop their skills. You gain leverage when you delegate the work that can be done effectively by someone else.

Start by clearly communicating the desired outcome. Once again be specific. Don’t make your employees guess what you want. Otherwise they may guess wrong.

I once asked my partner to prepare a home-cooked meal. In my mind, this means a meat, starch, green vegetables and a salad. So what did he do? Pop a frozen pizza in the oven. In his mind, that WAS a home-cooked meal.

Identify any special requirements, deadlines, and how often you want them to report progress. Then let the employee figure out how to do the work, and come back to you with a plan. They’ll be more engaged, and more likely to take ownership.

I’ll write more about the delegation process in another blog.

4 – Relax and enjoy!
Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve worked hard to earn this promotion, so don’t expect you’ll know everything right away!

Every February I think of the movie Groundhog Day. Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a grumpy TV weatherman who gets stuck in a time loop, doomed to repeat Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, over and over again. The seemingly never-ending day is agonizing to Phil. No matter what he tries, he can’t break out of the loop.

Sometimes it feels as if our organizations are stuck in time loops – repeating the same mistakes and ineffective behaviors over and over. We talk about improving and hope things will be different next time, but we can’t seem to break out of the loop to change the behaviors that make a difference.

In the movie, Phil wants to win over his female colleague, but his efforts keep failing. He finally realizes that he can take advantage of his situation. Each time the day repeats, he has an opportunity to learn more about her, find out what works and what to do differently the next time. In the end, he wins her love.

We have the same opportunities in the workplace to learn from any activity so that we improve our performance the next time we do something similar. After every project, meeting, and interaction with clients or stakeholders, we can perform an After Action Review. It doesn’t have to be long or drawn out. The goal is to quickly assess what went well, and what we could do differently next time to get better results.

How to perform an After Action Review

Do it right away. Review while the activity is fresh in your mind. Our memory is notoriously unreliable and you won’t remember details days or weeks from now.

Ask key questions and write down the answers

1. How well did I achieve my intended outcome?
2. What opportunities, actions or follow-up did I identify from the activity?
3. How effective was my behavior and that of the other people involved?
4. What could I do differently next time to get better results?

Take action
Capture the information, share it with others doing similar work, and consciously change your behaviour to incorporate what you’ve learned. Strive for continuous improvement. You’ll get better results, and increased productivity.

Unlike Phil, you’re not stuck in a loop repeating the same day over and over again. So break out of the loop of repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

On the battlefield, medics conduct triage to quickly sort injuries according to which needs medical attention first. The purpose is to allocate scarce medical resources where they will have the biggest impact. Priority is given to patients with life threatening conditions who can be saved with immediate treatment.

Triage can be applied in business as well to set priorities, especially when you have more work than available resources.

The key is to look at all the work to be done, quickly identify and prioritize critical items that will have significant impact if not dealt with right away. These are the things that you don’t want to get lost in the pile because they can jump out and bite you.

Start by asking yourself these questions:

• Is there anything that will kill me right away if I don’t do something about it? If so, what is it, what’s the potential impact, what needs to be done now?

• Is there anything that will kill me later if I don’t do something now? What do I need to put in place now to prevent a crisis later on?

When you’re conducting triage you should also look at opportunities:

• Is there any opportunity right now that will go away if I don’t take action now?

• Is there any opportunity I can see in the future that I’ll be able to capture only if I do something now?

Especially when you’re dealing with overload, these questions can help ensure that you’re not overlooking something important. Identify the most critical items, take any immediate steps necessary to ‘stop the bleeding’, and then proceed to planning and executing the work.