Manager Time
A manager's time is their most important resource. When not managed intentionally, leaders and their teams fail.
Our philosophy
Pillars of Success
Defining relationship expectations with direct reports, implementing a process to manage your schedule and having a process for email/open item follow up are keys to success.
Direct Report Expectations
Be intentional with your time and your direct reports' time
Schedule Management
Leaders should constantly define and evaluate how their time is being spent
Master Follow Up
Effective leaders follow-up and move through open items in a reliable and timely manner
Direct Report Expectations
Being intentional with your time and your direct reports' time is critical:
Use 1-1s to discuss open items and questions instead of sending emails or calling immediately when something comes up. There are items that require urgency, but most can wait until a 1-1. Consistent disruptions distract your team and can create a “firefighting” culture.
Trust your direct reports to own their areas and set expectations on what this means to you. Specifically, what needs to be escalated and what reporting you need to be comfortable. If you do not trust them, coach them on the task. Follow up with partners to ensure your team is meeting their expectations. If this cannot be achieved, you have the wrong leaders on your team.
Schedule Management
Leaders should intentionally set and evaluate how their time is being spent:
Define which activities are most important to you and prioritize being available for those. This likely includes leadership meetings / discussions, 1-1s and coaching direct reports and being more engaged on key projects that are high impact or off track. This should also include ensuring time is set aside for important work such as planning, developing additional skills and communicating with the team.
Evaluate your involvement in any activities that are not defined on your “most important” list. This will include meetings that someone on your team is also included in or should be included in, answering questions / leading areas that you used to own and for whatever reason have not been transitioned away. Be proactive in getting yourself out of these items and put your time into finding a long-term owner (not doing it yourself).
Fight meeting culture by challenging when a meeting could be addressed in an email, constantly evaluate the value of any recurring meetings, aim for short meetings.
Master Follow Up
Leaders must methodically manage communication channels and open items:
Review email for opportunities to be taken off distributions and/or create rules to automatically move items to folders when they are for information only.
Define a methodology for organizing and tracking open items in your inbox.
When an employee of yours and you are repeatedly copied on an email be intentional in affirming you want to stay on there. If your employee is covering it, you likely do not need to be.
Define a process to track and prioritize all your open items. This should include time to update your open items and reprioritize. Make use of small slots of time to knock out small tasks.
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