The Hot Seat

We Must Meet

2009-04-20T23:41:00.001-07:00

From my experience so far, I learnt that one of the ways of carrying everyone along is through Meetings. Initially, my team members did not look forward to the meetings. The meetings were either too long or irrelevant discussions came up, or the meetings seemed to be like lectures. Knowing that I had the responsibility of conducting effective meetings, I had to change strategy.

Some of the things I learnt along the way are: -

Each team member surely has something to say. The meeting is an avenue where they can openly share their thoughts about the process and know what others think about it.
No suggestion is stupid.
Meetings should be planned. Agenda, time and venue should be communicated in advance. This would help people be prepared for the meeting.
The venue must be available. If you cannot get it done yourself, delegate.
Keep to time. The agenda should be such that time is allocated to each item. If something seems to take too much time, move the discussion to after everything in the meeting agenda has been covered or take it offline.
Always recap to ensure everyone got the objectives of the meeting.
Get action items and follow up on them.

For further information on how to conduct effective meetings, please visit here and here.

Time for Appraisals

2009-02-24T08:13:00.000-08:00

Every quarter, I had a one-to-one appraisal with the team members telling them how they were doing. I joked that they were all D candidates and I expected them to prove me wrong by the end of the year. Yet, I did not look forward to my first end-of-year Performance Appraisal with them. Why? Was it because I did not know how to look into their eyes and say "You did not impress me?" or "You could have done better?"

Well, the time for appraisal had to come. This was the real thing not the quarterly laugh and joke appraisal. My guiding principle was "Be Objective".

The supplementary principles were
1. Be constructive
2. Discuss strengths and weaknesses and their relevance to the organization
3. Effectively listen to the employees feedback
4. Plan for development

All my team members are hardworking and I made sure we all had a one-on-one for the appraisal. The quarterly appraisals helped because it put them on track.

I told them their strengths. They are impressive. But I did not spare them their weaknesses for those had been reasons for frequent meetings and "calibrations" by my manager.

The time for appraisals have come and gone...it was not so bad afterall.

And I had to go for my own afterwards...

How To Conduct A Successful Performance Appraisal
Tips for Successful Performance Appraisal Meetings

Pruning the Vines

2008-12-09T10:56:00.001-08:00

The strength of a team is measured by the strength of the weakest person. This is because the weakest person can bring the strength of the team so low that 5 hot heads and 1 dullard is less than 6 average persons in competency and efficiency.

Just like they say one rotten tomato spoils the whole basket, 1 bad member in the team affect the rest of the team. Not to mention if there are 2 or 3 or 4. Imagine if every time a job has to be done, one person escapes thereby causing the team not to achieve their objectives. Or a member is so insulting it affects team members. Such a person needs to be pruned or where applicable laid off.

However, before laying off someone, please do the following
1. As Manager, discuss with the person and let the person know what he or she is doing and how it impacts on the team. Identify if the person’s inefficiency is due to personal problems, lack of motivation, or it is just the person.
2. Coach / provide solution on how the person can develop and overcome the weaknesses.
3. Give the person time to change. Monitor the person. Is there a willingness or effort to change? If no, the person can be removed.
4. When letting go of the person, always discuss it in a matter that will not reduce the person’s self worth.

For more information on how to minimize the damage to those employees laid off, please go here.

Trust At Work

2008-10-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

How will you feel if you work for someone you do not trust? You do not trust his motives, you do not trust what the person says and you do not feel encouraged to share the truth with this person?

Trust is a very important element for leaders and managers. Your followers cannot support you completely if they do not trust you. They need the assurance that what you say is true, they need to be sure that if you say you will do something you will do it. They need the assurance that if you are working on something, the motives are pure. To improve the working relationship, they need to be sure that what they have shared with you remains with you. If you can get them to say in their hearts, “I trust you and I trust in what you can do” then you are not far from having their 100% support and commitment.

I remember a team member of mine who shared a lot of her personal life with me. One part of her personal life had some implication for the organization. One afternoon, she found herself in a meeting where this part of her life was being discussed with me and other management. I saw the hurt in her eyes.

Later on I received a text from her which implied that she was hurt by the company’s treatment but felt more betrayed that what she had discussed with me came out in the open. I defensively wanted to take offence because I was also under some pressure concerning her situation. But my eyes were opened to the fact that trust had been severed and we cannot work effectively together if that trust is not rebuilt. Under the rain, I went to find her and we talked about it. Communicating with her helped her understand that the purpose of the meeting was not to harm her but to help her. I also learnt that I should have communicated this with her rather than letting her find out about the leak in secret and taken unawares.

You may feel that management and leadership is so professional that you do not need such simple things as trust. From my experience, it goes a long way in bonding teams.

And if you ever find yourself in a situation where trust between you and a colleague, subordinate or boss is being affected, quickly repair it. You need trust for a comfortable working relationship.

Security in Knowledge Sharing

2008-09-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

As a sequel to Delegation, I’d like to talk about my experience with mentoring and sharing knowledge. I cannot delegate if the delegatees do not know how to do the job I want them to do. For a novice in the team, it had to be teaching. For someone with a good level of knowledge, it had to be mentoring. For someone who has enough experience, it is only coaching needed. In either of these methods, I needed to pass down the knowledge.

There were some few months of my management period when I felt like a star because people could sense that within the team, only I knew so much.. But this was to my own detriment. I had to do the jobs myself and I could not delegate. My system almost crashed because of excess work load and I almost broke down.

My vacation was fast approaching. I wondered what would happen when I am away? It would not tell well of me if the team could not survive in my absence. It then dawned on me that I had to pass down knowledge.

This knowledge sharing came through teaching, hands on training, developing manuals and procedures they could follow, coaching and mentoring. Yes, it was a month of spending extra hours but it paid off. Not only did the team members have the confidence to work independently, they had materials to refer to in my absence.

I know that there are some who feel passing down knowledge would make them irrelevant. On the contrary, passing down knowledge freed me to do other things and prepared me for higher responsibility. I felt more valuable having shared knowledge rather than hoarding it to myself.

What’s your take on this?

Easy Lies the Head that Delegates

2008-09-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

I used to be a Do-It-Myself Champion (even evident in the analysis of my love language).

That was how I was piling up work and stress on my desk. I come early and I leave late. Others were adhering to the normal working hours.

I had almost broken down before I realized that I was carrying too much work load. I was not being evaluated based on how much work I could do, but rather how much work I could delegate out which should make me available for other assignments.

I don’t know if I could not trust someone else to do the job. I was almost broken before I asked for help from the team members. Not only did they receive my plea for help with open arms, they were able to do the jobs better than I would have done it considering the workload I had.

The incident that day made me sit back and strategize afresh. Delegating was empowering the team members. Delegating was removing excessive workload from me. Delegating was motivating some of the team members. I felt so much better with delegation.

Is there any excess work you need to get done? Do you need to delegate?

For further reading on Delegation, please check here.

Separating Work from Life

2008-09-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

Often times, I wondered why I had to listen to team members as they make excuses concerning situations like car, wife, family, health, money, etc.

That’s personal life, I thought. This is not bringing value to the table.

I then planned that for one week, I would say “NO” to any personal request. Actually, to say it with a sweet smile.

The test week came, and I needed only one day to see the impact of trying to remove personal life from work.

“Please I would like to see the doctor by 3p.m. today,” he said.
“My dear, please can you reschedule? We have deadlines to meet today. Won’t 5p.m. suit all of us?”
Reluctantly he replied, “Alright, I will reschedule.”

We did not meet the deadline. Team member was demotivated. He spent hours trying to get through to the doctor. He had a frown all through as he went about his work. The zeal and passion was no longer there. I tried to think of other times when I had accepted his reason to take an hour. Even if we missed a deadline, he was sure to put in extra hours to make up for the time lost.

Yes work is work and life is life, but we cannot separate these areas entirely. Someone who has personal issues may carry them to the workplace. This would ultimately affect his output at work.

I am still not in support of people taking excuses during working hours to solve personal problems. However, if it is for a genuine cause, there is no reason why such excuse should not be granted. And to take a step further, as “Manager” it was not enough to grant a request, but to ask about the progress of the personal issue. Has it been solved? Is everything okay? Knowing that someone cares could give some motivation at work.

We cannot separate work from life. Or can we?

Followers Follow

2008-09-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

Team members grew from 2 to 3. It was really bothering me why the team members were not time conscious. They came late to work, except one who had to leave home very early lest he be caught in serious hold-up. In the afternoon, they took more time than their break hours. On this particular day, I came in from lunch by 2:15p.m. Break time is 12-1 or 1-2 but we just take 12 - 2. Team members were not on seat. They started strolling in from 2:30p.m.

I wanted to give all of them a query instantly but I was stopped by a warning that said, "Lead by Example." I held my peace. I decided to come to work early and actually monitor their timing. Same thing with lunch. I would return early from lunch and monitor their timing.

This was a week's exercise. I noticed that when I began coming to work early, their resumption time was readjusted to some minutes after I came in. Similarly, when I started returning from break early, their return time from break also readjusted. They were simply following their leader.

That was how I spoke change to the team. It was not a case of "Do as I say and not as I do". Anything I wanted them to do, I did it. I demonstrated that they could do it too. I only had justification to give them a query if they were doing wrong things which I was not doing.

For me, "Leading by Example" was one of the greatest things I learnt during my experience of learning to be a "Manager".

Managing Myself and Getting Organized

2008-08-31T14:13:00.000-07:00

It was 8p.m. Like every other day of the week, I had put in 11 hours of work. Yet there was nothing to show for it. I had toiled and sweated, missed lunch (no breakfast by the way), still there was no effective work done. That spelt inefficiency. Something was wrong.

With a sigh of frustration, I went through all I had done that day.
1. Reply emails that led to series of other emails.
2. Answering phone calls.
3. Helped colleagues get their job done.
4. Struggled over something for boss that had no head or tail. It was only after 5 hours when I could not get it done, that I had asked for clarifications.
5. Mentoring.
6. Browsing.

It was the same pattern the whole week. Wasted hours.

I could not manage the team if I could not manage myself. Those were my thoughts all through the weekend as I tried to find a solution to the inefficiency.

A new week began with a different approach.
1. I had a motto: Work is 8am to 6p.m. If at the office earlier than 8 am, use the time to check non-official emails and browse. When work starts, start work.
2. Do not respond to non-pressing official emails until after lunch. By then, you would have accomplished a lot of things (done within the first few hours of work).
3. Outline the tasks for the day, and allocate timings (when and duration) to it. Take notes of incoming tasks and their level of priority.

When I tried these few things, I saw some improvement in what I was able to accomplish in a day.

The key to solving the inefficiency was: To manage people, you have to manage yourself. This involves managing your time and activities, and getting yourself organized.

But these were not all that made the difference. I will share with you more in subsequent posts.

The Promotion

2008-08-29T04:55:00.000-07:00

I sat facing the set of managers as we discussed the next step in my career.

"What do you want next?"
"More serious technical stuff," I replied.
"Do you see yourself in management position?"
"No. But what does it entail?" I wondered.
"Managing the people, the business, making client contacts..."
"I won't do management. I'm cool with the technical part. I can handle processes. 'Don't want fight..." I was saying.
"Your boss says you have potentials to be a good leader..."
Was she looking for something to complete the 3 strengths of mine in the evaluation?
I could not call my boss a liar, not when she was on speaker phone somewhere.
"We'll give you an opportunity to prove or disprove what she said. Congratulations! You are now a manager!"

(Of 2 people, LOL)

*************************************

My People, the role was hectic and stressful. It was not easy. Everyday was one complaint or the other. Emails, phone calls, followed by meetings on my head. At nights I would come home and cry, wondering what I was doing wrong. My manager once asked me, "Why is everyone complaining about your team? Do you want me to micro-manage your team for you?"

I look back now and I give God all the glory. It was a challenge but a learning curve for me. Soon I will be moving on to something different, probably higher responsibility (I prophesy for my life). So I'd like to share with you on this blog some of my mistakes and some of the things I had to learn the hard way about management and leadership. The posts will come in no particular order.

If you find yourself in such a position, know that someone out there survived, and you too can do it.