All posts by Sarah Darden

03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, feedback

Poor Managers Are More Costly Than You May Realize

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In this HBR blog, Monique Valcour identifies some of the key success factors in top managers. To sum up her thoughts in one impactful statement, “If you’re not helping people develop, you’re not management material.”

So what does this mean? It means that because candidates value learning and development opportunities above any other aspect of a prospective job, a manager’s role is more critical than ever. Skilled managers attract top candidates, retain and challenge them, and drive performance. Poor managers do just the opposite. The firm not only misses out on potential talent, but it also costs them a lot of money due to employee turnover and subpar productivity.

As most of us have learned, the majority of learning and development (roughly 90%) happens on the job rather than in schooling (not to knock Goizueta!) or formal training programs. An effective manager can benefit you in many ways – from mentoring and challenging you to providing constructive feedback and helping facilitate conversations. In many ways, a mentor is someone you can look up to and model yourself after. Thus, your own management style will, in turn, help to shape the firm’s future leaders.

Below are some characteristics of effective managers:

-Invested in coaching

-Someone you can respect and learn from

-Takes interest in your career development

In conjunction, here are some tips to becoming an effective manager:

1) Be transparent

2) Share detailed information about firm’s ongoing operations

3) Support internal networking

4) Have frequent conversations about career goals and interests rather than just once a year during annual performance review (I have found this to be very helpful in my own relationship with my supervisor)

5) When planning the team’s work, ask employees how they can contribute and what they’d like to get out of the project (this gives them ownership and helps them buy into it more)

6) Establish open lines of communication and provide regular feedback

Having a poor manager/undesirable relationship with a direct supervisor tops the list as the number one reason employees quit their jobs. Therefore, continual teaching and development should be a non-negotiable in every manager’s repertoire.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/if-youre-not-helping-people-develop-youre-not-management-material/

03-Planning the work of a team, work plans

Breaking Down the Work

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Do you ever find yourself feeling overwhelmed by an upcoming project and don’t even know where to begin? Planning the work of a team, let alone yourself, can be difficult. The planning portion sometimes seems like another project of its own. So what can we do to help manage and streamline this process?

Solution: Create a work plan.

While creating a work plan involves a few extra steps, the planning and organization involved actually makes more efficient use of your time and keeps you on track to the completion of the project. Without a proper work plan, it’s all too easy to lose focus along the way.

In Shelley Frost’s article How to Plan & Organize Work Activities and Maggie McCormick’s How to Create a Work Plan, they each break down the planning process into simple steps to help you stay organized and ensure you meet your deadlines. A summary of these steps is included below:

1) Record your goals and outcomes of the project.

2) Set an end date/deadline.

3) Break down larger tasks into smaller steps and prioritize them.

4) Schedule tasks into a daily and weekly plan. This involves creating a timeline.

5) Make sure you are regularly sending out updates and scheduling meetings to solicit feedback.

All of these steps can be tailored and applied both to a project for a whole team or individual. I’m going to try to implement this in my daily work routine to see how it affects and/or improves my organization and project outcomes. Has anyone else tried something similar and seen results?

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/plan-organize-work-activities-10000.html 

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/create-work-plan-4599.html

 

04-Managing a project team, feedback

First-Time Manager Survival Guide

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One of the motives for me in obtaining my MBA is to learn more about managerial best practices and apply what I learn in the classroom to the workplace. This is why I’m especially looking forward to taking ‘Managing Groups & Teams’ in the fall. Currently, I have only had the opportunity to supervise student workers and have yet to manage other full-time professional staff members. Many of you may be in a similar boat, as you find yourselves only a few years out of college and still trying to establish your place in the office hierarchy. As we continue to move up the chain and are promoted to management positions, we will be entrusted with increased responsibilities, and with this comes its challenges. Our success now is not only dependent upon our own performance, but also of those we oversee.

In order to be a successful manager, I believe you must be a leader first and foremost. Here are some guidelines to becoming an effective leader from Bill Gentry’s article 3 Tips For Surviving As A First-Time Manager:

1) “It’s not me, it’s you”

Schedule an individual meeting with each of your direct reports as soon as you move into the new management role. You need to figure out what motivates them, how they like to be led, and what questions or concerns they may have. Communication is critical in every (work) relationship, so this is the best place to start. Using the Birkman Method Assessment may be a very useful tool to utilize here as well.

2) “Mentor others for a win-win”

Mentorship is also a big factor in a successful supervisor/supervisee relationship.  Research has shown that it not only benefits the person being mentored but also helps the manager doing the mentoring become a more effective and efficient leader. Regular check-ins and providing feedback (both constructive and positive) will help both parties involved.

3) “You are 100% the boss, but only 50% of the relationship”

This is something first-time managers struggle with the most. You must accept the fact that you are only responsible for your own actions, behaviors, thoughts, etc. You cannot control other people’s opinions or feelings about you, so you must learn to let it go. It is impossible to make everyone happy 100% of the time. Just focus on being the best leader and manager you can be, and the rest will fall into place.

From my personal work experience, I feel like I’ve learned what not to do as a manager. I value this Forbes article because it’s provided me with some actionable takeaways or “To Do’s” rather than “Don’ts,” which we too often focus on.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ccl/2013/05/10/3-tips-for-surviving-as-a-first-time-manager/