Author: Bob Bannister

How do you keep a sense of team when everyone is geographically dispersed?

Bob Bannister
by Bob Bannister on

One of the problems associated with becoming a remote worker is the loss of team feeling.  We find that organisations who have a great culture start to introduce remote working, home working, hot-desking etc, only to discover that they are loosing something of the sense of team.  

Talking with an organisation recently, they sighted how there was such a ‘great fun’ culture in the office, BBQ’s, ice cream vans, cake at any opportunity even champagne flows relatively frequently.  But the increase of remote working was starting to have an impact.  I witnessed a team huddle in the office, but comment was made ‘has anyone thought to include the remote workers of the team in that huddle?’  Possibly not.  

It’s a common issue; take the people out of the office, and the office will change its dynamic.  It’s possible that this is one of those things that will change the organisation, and it will never be the same again!  That does not mean however, that there is nothing that managers can do it improve the sense of team.  I would suggest it just makes it more critical for managers to be thinking about this and injecting in new practices to help compensate for what is being lost.  

Meetings have a new purpose.  

One thing that managers of remote workers need to understand, is that all physical team meetings now have a new purpose.  There is something to add to the agenda that’s just as important as the list of work issues.  That is ‘catching up’.  

Working physical presence meetings into the life of the remote team is not optional, it’s a vital dynamic that will help to maintain a good team spirit.  Especially if we design-in catch up time.  We should encourage this time to chat, strengthen relationships and most importantly share what’s going well and what’s been a struggle.  In part it’s going to inject back in, the element of social learning that’s lost the  moment we stop being in the same room.  It shouldn’t be optional either.  It’s too easy to tag an hour on the end of a meeting and suddenly find half the team are rushing off.  Three meetings in and you will probably give up on it!  Alternatively, make it happen in the middle of the meeting, cut out a ‘catch up’ break mid process to ensure everyone gets involved.  

Investing in team needs to be high on the agenda of all managers of remote workers.  Involve the team in coming up with ideas, they’ll have plenty I promise you.  

Bob Bannister

Ships Captain.  

Ask vs tell – Your management style

Bob Bannister
by Bob Bannister on

We probably use ask-and-tell all the time in our management roles, but there’s something important about this that goes beyond just being polite or not.  There are times as a manager when I really need to tell, be directive and give individuals instruction.  There are other times when we really need to be non-directive too, to use the skill of asking insightful questions.  

Understanding when and why I make the choice between these two approaches is a management foundation that we all need to get right.  Here’s some simple guidance:

Using ‘tell’ as a manager.  

‘Tell’ is quick, it’s easy, and it’s a way of getting things done, but it can be problematic if used in the wrong situations.  ‘Tell’ is the correct approach in situations where your team member is unable to draw on previous experience, it’s something they currently don’t know how to do.  Can you imagine turning up at parachute school on the first day and being asked how you would like to fold your parachute? 

If I don’t know, then I need you to tell me.  

Directive input is welcomed when the recipient is unable to draw on their own knowledge or experience.  It’s not welcomed when they already have a good understanding of something.  Start telling me, when I have knowledge and ability and I will feel patronised.  

Using ‘ask’ as a manager.  

Ask is the tool you should use when you want to take someone from a basic understanding into a deeper level of insight and ability.  Ask is developmental.  If I say (tell) “No, the answer is 8” you will learn the answer and little else, except your the answers guy when I need it.  

If instead, you ask “How did you get 7?” The person will learn how to work it out for themselves.  It’s a completely different experience for the recipient of that question.  It’s not patronising either, because you are merely helping me to improve whatever it is.  

So there is clarity on when you should be ‘asking’ or ‘telling’ your team members.  Use ‘tell’ too much and I’ll just create management junkies that are addicted to asking me for the answer.  Use tell when the person has a good amount of experience, and I’ll end up with a frustrated team.  Use Ask when someone doesn’t know what to do and nothing will happen!  Getting this right is critical for the growth and motivation of your workforce.  

Make yourself super self-conscious concerning what you are doing, and when you are doing it over the next week.  It can transform the performance of the team and their perception of you as the manager.  

Bob Bannister

Ships Captain

New leadership role? It’s all about grabbing the moment!

Bob Bannister
by Bob Bannister on

Unless you’ve been avoiding the news, you will probably know that there is a leadership battle underway for the UK’s top political job.  At the last count there were 11 contenders all competing for the opportunity to be the next (unelected) Prime Minister of the UK.  Following some of them on Twitter has proven both interesting and insightful.  They are all very hungry for what might be the most desirable yet undesirable job in politics – leading a split country and split government through Brexit.  

The party race is yet to conclude there are many weeks of the competition yet to run, but it got me thinking about the importance of those early weeks in a new leadership role.  What would you and I do given the opportunity to take on a new leadership position.  

Here’s what I think should be top of any new leaders list.  Four things (three really) that need to be established within the opening weeks of taking up any leadership position.  

Week 1:  Relationship is everything.  

OK, it’s week one, what do you need to do?  Obviously all the on-boarding stuff, but then what?  Make your first week about your people.  Spend as much time one to one, with as many of your team as possible.  The quality of your relationship with your direct staff (and your boss) can be the key that will unlock the potential within.  Make an active attempt to avoid or not listen to the ‘words of wisdom’ that you may be offered by others, particularly about individuals in your team.  Instead extend the largest benefit of the doubt and work at finding people just as you find them.  Form your own opinions, don’t be coloured by those who may have a jaded or fatigued views.  Building a strong, open, trusting relationship from the outset is priority number 1.  

Ask everyone, what they would change given the opportunity.  Find out about the things that frustrate them and hinder their progress or efficiency.  

Week 2:  Relationship is still everything.  

Week two needs to continue in the same vain, but this time with the network that surrounds your department or function.  Meet with as many stakeholders of your services or products as you can.  Sit with them one to one and ask as many questions as you can.  Listen to them.  Find out what they need from you and your team, understand what for them would constitute outstanding performance.  Use this question…  “If we were to wind the clock forward 6 months, and you are amazed at how my team have supported you, what would we be doing?”  

Use the SPED question set; tell me about your Situation, Problems, the Impact of those problems and what solution you Desire.  You will learn so much about the changes you need to bring about within your team and its provisions.  

Week 3:  Great leaders do bold things.  

Make a statement, a commitment to your team.  List all the things that you promise to uphold for the team, issue it to everyone and pin it on the wall.  Tell you people in this statement how you are going to work with them.  It might start something like this: 

I will:

  • Empower you to make decisions and own your work domains.  
  • Always be at hand to support you and answer any questions you may have. 
  • Work at developing your individual skills. 
  • Always seek to provide direction for the team.  

This is a bold commitment, especially as you are putting it out there on public view.  Here’s the thing, great leaders often do bold things.  Making it commonly understood within your team will also help you to work at upholding it.  

Week 4:  Make some significant changes.  

In a career there is seldom a better time to make changes than at the beginning.  By week four you should have gained enough insight to change something significant, for the better.  It will demonstrate your attitude to change, inspire new hope within the team and set the context for more change in future weeks.  Starting in the way you intend to continue is so much easier than trying to introduce your first change in week 16.  Make a land grab and show your team that they have a new boss that’s going to make things happen.  

The first four weeks are so valuable, don’t waste them but go into the role with purpose, focusing all the efforts of doing something exciting by the end of the first month.  

I can’t help feeling that whoever wins the Conservative party leadership will find themselves in a no win scenario.  It will be surprising if they manage to be re-elected after Brexit has settled.  Make your next role a success by starting in a truly positive and inspiring way.  

Bob Bannister

Ships Captain

Three reasons positive feedback matters

Bob Bannister
by Bob Bannister on

What’s all the fuss around giving people praise, especially if they are only doing what’s expected of them?  

Sometimes we managers can get ourselves into a really unhelpful way of thinking.  Perhaps it’s because we feel we mustn’t ‘over-do’ the praise of our staff.  “Surely” we tell ourselves, “it becomes worthless when we give it too much”.  Perhaps it’s like asking how much we should tell out partners we love them?  We wouldn’t want to say it so much that it becomes worthless, would we?  

Well, here’s my view, you can’t tell them enough!  

I just read a tweet by Sajid Javid praising Theresa May and showering her with gratitude; sorry Sajid the horse has bolted, what’s the point of saying #nowyou’regoneweloveyou ?  

We badly need to recalibrate our appreciation filters (perhaps especially in the UK).  Here are three good reasons why…

 

1. All the studies show it’s motivating.  

The carrot, far outweighs the stick!  All the studies affirm this.  I’m a big fan of the work by Tom Rath on this (see his book ‘How full is your bucket’).  In one of his experiments he shows how praise can double the performance of someone compared to receiving no input at all.  That’s bonkers, double the performance – yes double it!  Praise is massively motivational, and we managers need to get this implanted into our brains.  

Motivation is such a moving feast, one day I feel like going to the gym, another day I don’t.  Nobody has done anything, it’s just my own motivation doing its usual thing and going up and down like a yoyo.  So often all I need is for someone to help me find that motivation.  A word of praise or thanks can provide just that inspiration.

2.  It’s how they know what you like.

I’ve probably said this somewhere before; managers are the custodians of the standard.  You are the ones that need to communicate what his acceptable in performance, delivery and behaviour.  Telling people when they’ve done something you like is the absolute best way you can do this.  

It helps them to understand what good looks like, what pleases you, and therefore what they need to do next time in order to do a great job.  

Don’t leave it to chance or guess work, tell your people when they’ve done well so that they know exactly what to replicate in the future. 

3.  They’ll need to uphold your view of them.  

Here’s a strange but true story.  I’ve worked with a lovely lady for maybe 15 or more years.  She’s changed employer three times during that period, but sooner or later the phone has rung and I’m suddenly working with a new client.  

She knows what she likes, and thankfully she likes what we do at iManage.  The strange thing is this, she commented once (just once) on my shoes ‘that I always wore nice shoes’ kinda comment.  Now we might think this was a throw away thing to say, from someone I knew well and had worked with for many years, but it wasn’t!  Oh no, it was an enormous thing to tell me, because from that point onwards I’ve always had to check what shoes I’m wearing before I meet her!  I can’t help myself, it’s now become so ingrained that I might even need to buy new shoes next time I see her, just in case the old ones are looking slightly tatty!  

Here’s the thing, when we tell people what we like about them, they are highly likely to need to uphold the positive view we have expressed and so, will try even harder to keep that standard.  It’s absolutely true, tell John that you like the way he’s always on time for meetings and the chances are he’ll strive even more to make sure he’s never late for you.  So giving positive feedback will very often strengthen the individuals resolve to maintain that standard.  

Giving positive feedback is literally a win / win / win scenario.  There’s virtually nothing to lose and so much to gain through expressing your appreciation of the individuals in your team.  So don’t do a Sajid Javid and leave it until it’s too late, instead master this as a management foundation and show your team some individual appreciation while it still has value.  

Bob Bannister

Ships Captain

iManage

I can see clearly now the rain has gone… Effective Management Direction

Bob Bannister
by Bob Bannister on

For many years I thought the opening line of Johnny Nash’s hit was “I can see clearly now Lorraine has gone”  The realisation that the lyric was about the weather brought for me a whole new meaning to the song!  Seeing clearly is such an important thing for teams that managers really should think more about it.  Rather like that vet on the glasses advert (who can’t find the pulse in his assistance fury winter hat), managers who don’t provide clarity for their teams are making a serious mistake.  

I want to suggest that there are two-forms of clarity that managers could all do with, the long view and the short view.  Perhaps it’s my engineering apprenticeship origins (having a big and a tiny hammer in the standard issue toolkit), but I’ve always warmed to these two extremes.  The little car and the big car, the little suitcase and the big suitcase.  What more do you need in life, isn’t the middle always a compromise 😉 

Great managers who get the fundamentals right will always look to bring clarity for their teams, at both these extremes.  

Long view clarity

Long view clarity is about purpose.  It’s the big picture stuff.  Where are we heading? What’s the main thing, the direction we are going to travel together?  Getting this right provides a guiding star for the team to follow.  It’s vital not only at an organisational level, but definitely at a functional.  You as the manager need to get this clear, because if you don’t understand it, then your team members never will!  You have to have a precise view of your teams future world, what will you be, what will you have achieved, how will you be operating?  Articulate this as clearly and precise as possible.  Write it down, discuss it with your boss and your team, fine tune it and make it the guiding star that ensures you are all focused on the same thing.  

Once you’ve got it mapped out, then you have to make it live.  It’s got to be front of mind, not bottom of drawer!  Simply that means you have to keep drawing attention to it.  Pointing it out and reminding every one of it.  You need to aim at highlighting at least an aspect of it once every  month.  It will become the barometer by which you and the team understand whether they are busy about the correct things.  

Short view clarity

The short view is equally important.  If the long view gives purpose and direction, the short ensures that the team operate within the correct boundaries.  What you need to do is drop into the day to day, every day.  

Now let’s be clear, I’m not advocating micromanagement, but leadership.  

Everyday it’s your job to steer, to nudge, to point in the right direction.  You have to set the boundaries of what’s ok what’s not.  Every manager has to be the custodian of the standard.  If you don’t draw the operational lines where they are needed, the team will assume that what they do is perfectly OK (even when it’s not).  See it as highlighting the sequence of events that will lead to the long view position.  It’s probably true to say that nothing happens without a sequence of events, so it’s a management foundation to ensure that the whole team understands what it is and is therefore working towards it in an acceptable way.   

Clarity is one of the two foundations of being able empower your team (the other is competence).  Step up your effort in making sure that the long and the short clarity exists for everyone you manage.  You do that, then you’ll find the going is so much easier, even if the rain has come!  

Check out our other management foundations in our up and coming open course.  

Bob Bannister

Ships Captain

3 weeks to the Festival of Work 2019 at London Olympia

Bob Bannister
by Bob Bannister on

Three week to go before the festival of work kicks off.  We’ve a brand new stand to show off this year, although we did have a few problems trying it out in the office!  iManage 1, light fitting 0!

We’ve just been granted a speakers slot too, so if you’re there on the Thursday (13th June 2019) come to the Learning and Development stage for 1045hr to see Bob present on ‘Designing learning solutions for remote/virtual team managers and workers.’

Be sure to come and say ‘hi’ to us.

 

VTMT – The simplest way in the world to write a SMART objective.

Bob Bannister
by Bob Bannister on

Most people seem to have heard of the SMART objective. An acronym to help you have all the correct ingredients when crafting an objective. There are loads of different versions of it too, my favourite being: Specific, Measurable, Awesome, Ridiculous and Time-bound 😉
But the traditional amongst us may be more familiar with Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

It’s not a bad guide, the problem is that hardly anyone I meet really understands how to translate these 5 ideas into the written objective. So here’s my solution; the most incredibly simple sentence structure that will not only give you a smart objective, but will:

  • provide a consistent look to your objectives,
  • ensure that the objective is singular (not multiple objectives rolling into one paragraph),
  • plus it will stop you dropping into the task level (how to deliver the objective) which is always more motivating and empowering for the owner of that objective.

So here it is. A super simple four part sentence structure:

  1. Start with a good verb to describe the journey that needs to take place. E.g Increasing; Decreasing.
  2. add the target area. E.g. Use of keyhole surgery procedures,
  3. add a measure for the target. E.g. 10%; £10,000; 500m; 1 hour,
  4. add the time over which the objective is to be achieved. E.g. July 20XX; The end of Quarter 2.

So that is verb, target, measure and time (VTMT).

Here’s a couple of examples:

  • Increase number of open days by 10% by March 2016.
  • Increase the number of twitter followers to over 10,000 by the end of 20XX.
  • Maintain the customer satisfaction level at 4.5 out of 5 throughout the 20XX sales period.
  • Implement the SCAT software for all staff by the end of November 20XX.

I’m going to argue that it’s possible to fit any objective in the world to this format! I’ve been challenged many times on courses, but always found with a bit of care you can work it into the format.

What’s great is that you don’t even have to worry about the ‘SMART’ thing. It will have all those elements, just by writing a VTMT sentence.

I can also tell you from my own experience, that the measure element will usually be one of four types. It’s not an exhaustive list, you may be able to find another type of measure, but most of the time these four will cover it. They are:

  • Quality measures, how well the work is performed. Quality can be measured in a variety of ways, including the accuracy, effectiveness, or usefulness associated with the objective.
  • Quantity measures, the actual amount or capacity of work produced. Performance objectives measured via quantity will almost always involve a numerical benchmark, such as raw numbers, percentages, or level of productivity.
  • Timeliness measures, how quickly the work is performed. Performance objectives measured via timeliness include some sort of a time frame.
  • The final way to measure performance objectives is in terms of cost-effectiveness. Typically, when we think of cost-effectiveness, financial savings come to mind. However, cost-effectiveness can also refer to personnel savings or time savings.

That’s pretty well all you need to know in order to craft really SMART objectives. It’s something that’s a great management foundation, one of those simple techniques that can transform the clarity of your team objectives.

You will always do a better job if you agree short concise singular objectives over those wordy paragraphs that tend to emerge. Give VTMT a try, I promise you’ll be pleased you did.

Bob Bannister
Ships Captain

Management Communication – Your Top 3 priorities

Bob Bannister
by Bob Bannister on

Are there key things that managers should communicate?  Well, yes, there are actually!  Three things that are vital for all managers in all organisations to communicate well and regularly.  

I see them as weekly leadership and management communication priorities.  Areas you should think about every Monday morning in preparation for the week ahead.  Great managers will work at this, developing open and regular dialogue with all the direct reports in the team.  We shouldn’t leave something as important as this to chance, but think through each area in a clear and logical way.  It’s not difficult to do, but it is difficult to become consistent at this.  So help yourself and create a weekly table you can complete identifying who you need to say what to, under each of the following headings, during the course of each week.  

Priority 1 – Issues and risks for escalation.

Each week there are likely to be exceptions that your team need your support in resolving.  It’s vital that you keep an open channel for them to keep you up to date with these.  As the manager, the buck stops with you, so you need to keep abreast of potential problems and offer the team the support they need to work through them.  This is the most important communication priority, offering support, insights, decision making and on occasions ‘making things happen’ for your  team.  

Ask who do I need to say what to about the issues and risks we are facing this week.  In a good week, there may not be anything for escalation to you, but unfortunately that makes this priority easier to drop off the radar.  So you have to keep asking, checking in on anything that may be on the horizon that needs your input and guidance.  

Priority 2 – Focusing objectives and the sequence of events. 

Your second communication priority is to ensure that there is absolute clarity across the team about what’s got to be achieved this coming week.  This is both at the level of team and individual deliverables.  Every person needs the focus you as the manager can bring.  

Are we doing the right stuff, are we working on the things that deliver the goals alone, or is some resource being diverted inadvertently to other things?  I’m really quite hard about this; I don’t have spare resource in my team to have anyone doing anything that is not directly contributing to the goals we have set ourselves.  It’s not that people are actively wasting time and energy, it’s just that without clarity people will start picking up work which is peripheral to the main thing.  Our job is to keep people focused on that main thing.  That way we will create momentum and direction across the team towards the things we need to achieve.  

Priority 2 asks, who do I need to say what to about this weeks objectives and the sequence of events?  Everything has a sequence of events, everything.  A good manager will recognise this and ensure that the team have got it.  When people fail to see the sequence of events needed to deliver the objective, they often fail to deliver it (at least in a timely way).  

Priority 3 – Motivational and developmental feedback. 

Your third priority is to give feedback.  There are only two types of feedback that you need, motivational and developmental.  Please note ‘constructive criticism’ does not exist on this list!  It is singularly the most inappropriate phrase that managers have adopted in the last few decades.  Nobody (including me) wants constructive criticism.  My dad used to say “you can’t make a purse out of a pigs ear” neither can you make criticism a good thing by adding the word constructive! 

You need to give feedback, every week.  It will either be motivational; feedback that affirms the good things people are doing, or developmental; feedback that increases the competence of the team.  Competence is one of my pillars of a great team, alongside clarity (spoken about in priority 2 above).  

Each week you should work out, who to say what to, that is either motivating them to continue and/or helping them to do even better next time.

So three priorities you need to implement to polish your management communications skills.  These are management foundations in my opinion, things we ought to have been told on day one but probably weren’t!  The great thing is that they are specific, so often people talk about management communication in such generic terms.  It’s a pet frustration of mine that people speak about the need for communication, without the pointedness of what that really means to you and I as leaders and managers.  Start introducing these three to your weekly task list and become known as the manager that supports, directs and develops their people like no other.  

Why not check out our Management Foundations open course to fast-track your management capability.

Bob Bannister

Ships Captain

The only three reasons you need a presentation slide!

Bob Bannister
by Bob Bannister on

Is it possible that the presentation slide has become the nail in the coffin of good presentation?  A rhetorical question, but just in case you are wondering, I think the answer is yes!  If we wound back the clock a few decades to when I was a young lad in the workplace, PowerPoint never existed, no really.  There was a time in living history when we all worked without computers and apart from the occasional telex we had to rely on getting the job done with a pen and paper (or sometimes find a typist to ‘type it up’ for us).  In those distant days, a presentation was a presentation, not a set of slides.  In fact to be blunt a presentation was you, you were the presentation!  It had been the same since time begun, you stood up and presented to your audience, engaging them, drawing them in, teasing them with hooks and stories.  You were responsible for bringing the presentation to life.  

Now at the expense of sounding like an ageing baby boomer, it was (I’m afraid to tell you), way way better!  Today, so many presentations are dull, slide ridden, disengaging monologues.  Today the slide deck is the presentation – and we so need to change that! 

So here’s a starter for you.  I’m going to suggest that there are only ever three reasons that you need to have a presentation slide.  Use this simple rule and you will begin to move the presentation away from being the slide deck, back to it being you.  They are the 3 E’s of presentation slides…

1. Slides that entertain

Look at any good presenter and they will entertain you.  No matter how dry the content of their subject.  It’s true, I’ve seen excellent presenters bring the most technical of subjects to life by entertaining and lightly amusing me.  Entertainment (according to google) is to provide someone with amusement or enjoyment.  An appropriate slide is a great way to do this.  Let’s face it, we are not all naturally witty and engaging!  So lets find a good slide that does this for us.  Entertainment is all about engagement, so find content that engages, even if it’s something really technical.  Wow us, hook us, tempt us, tickle us.  

2.  Slides that emphasis

The second good reason to have a slide in the presentation deck is to emphasis something that I’m talking about.  Sometimes it’s really useful to draw particular attention to something in the presentation.  Bingo – that’s a great use of a slide.  When I’m covering a key fact, when I’m drawing attention to a specific action, when I’m highlighting the importance of a particular step, then I want it on the screen.  Work out what needs emphasis in your presentation (a really good thing to do by the way), and build your slides around those things.  

3.  Slides that explain

The only remaining reason you will ever need a slide in the presentation deck, is to simplify and explain something that is somewhat complicated to talk about.  This is where you drop in your diagram, chart, process flow, picture – whatever.  To see something complicated laid out clearly gives the revelation needed for your content to hit home.  Imagine teaching an alien to make a cup of tea! Where do you start? Suddenly the process looks complex and bewildering, especially if our particular aliens don’t even have need of drink!  Then a slide would be useful, simply laying out the steps of the process.    

So there we have it, 3 E’s that will vastly improve your presentations; it will stop you having too many slides and make you the presentation instead of the deck.  Why not take up my challenge, pull out your last presentation deck and strip out every single slide that is not entertaining, emphasising or explaining.  Everything else you can bring to life yourself, it’s for you to deliver, for you to present that stuff.  Just you direct to your audience.  In both PowerPoint and keynote a press of the ‘B’ key while in presentation mode will turn your screen blank (black), so why not loose it from the screen and start your own personal slide deck revolution. 

Bob Bannister

Ships Captain 

Stop managing, start leading!

Bob Bannister
by Bob Bannister on

We work with a lot of managers, literally thousands of them over the years from all walks of organisational life.  One of the big things we always find ourselves addressing is the tendency to succumb to the gravitational pull of activity.  The stuff that keeps managers buried in the day to day operations and therefore failing to get some height and lead their teams.  Everyone we meet seems to know that this is not ideal, that it hinders the growth of team members, that it frustrates the people working for you, that it lacks any thought of the future and buries us in the now.  But even so, most managers struggle to ‘take off’ get some height and lead rather than do.   

The reasons for this are many.  It’s very easy to give a reason as to why you, as a manager has to be involved in the day to day doing.  Many of those reasons will be genuine, but I want to suggest that stepping up and leading is always a choice you have as the manager of any team.  The skilful piece is working out where and when you can choose to lead rather than defaulting at all times to being operational.  This may be simpler than it seems. Here are six steps you can follow to work this out in an intelligent way, to stop managing and start leading.  

Step 1 – Understand the territory.  

This is the easiest part of the exercise but I would still encourage you to think it through carefully, capturing your ideas somewhere so that we can work with them during the following steps.  

I like to do this in a three by three box grid.  That gives you nine areas (that’s not too important as you may only have a few areas or maybe nine is not enough), but spreading your list around the page will give us some space for working on each area later.  

Simply list all your areas of responsibility.  What are the blocks of work that you have to be concerned about as a manager in your role?  By way of example, here are my nine areas; Finance, People, Marketing, Sales, Customers, Organisational learning, Face to face training solutions, Online learning solutions, Processes.  

What are yours?  Work it out and write it down somewhere.  

Step 2 – Evaluate clarity. 

Now take each of your defined areas in turn and ask whether there is a high level of clarity about what is required of you and your team.  Is there consistency, is there repetition, do you have predefined outcomes and or procedures, are the goals clear?  Can you say under each area what it is you are striving to achieve?  If the answer to these questions is a strong yes, then assume a good level of clarity exists, even if you might question how well these things are known throughout the team.  Mark each area high or low for clarity, then move to step 3.  

Step 3 – Evaluate competence. 

Next you need to think about the competence of your team members.  This can be collectively or individually if appropriate.  Do they have the requisite skills to deliver the desired outcomes of each area.  Think about how it is today, rather than your aspiration.  Take each area in turn and ask whether they could (A) deliver it without additional experience, (B) would need support and or (C) would need training from the beginning.  Add your teams competence levels to the page you are building.  

Step 4 – Identify where you could lead today. 

Now go back over each area and identify those that have both high levels of clarity and competence.  I like to put an ‘up arrow’ to indicate height and leadership against these.  These are the areas that you can and should be leading, not doing.  This is where your choice comes in, it’s up to you to choose not to be operational in these areas.  It’s like a premeditated response every time this type of work comes up – you make the choice to lead it, not deliver it.  My own example of this would be in my Finance area.  There is absolute clarity about what my finance people are required to do, there are monthly process, there is clear intent.  But as well as this, there is complete competence.  I know that I can rely totally on the team to know what to do and how to do it to a standard I am happy with.  So if anything finance comes up, anything whatsoever, then I will lead on it, but I will not deliver it.  I will actively avoid the doing, so that I can step up and give direction.  You can do the same. Take a look across your areas and make the choice to lead. 

Step 5 – Identify where you have to be operational. 

Here’s the practical reality, there will always be some areas that you will still have to have an operational focus.  These are where you either have low levels of clarity or low competence, and or a combination of the two.  Obviously this can change in the future, but for now you need to accept that you’re going to be doing less leading and more delivering.  For me the example is with sales activity.  We have good clarity concerning the goals and the processes, but I do not have the competence or resource within the team.  That means until I actively change this, I have to deliver the sales activity for iManage.  I use a down arrow to indicate this next to the area.  

Step 6 – Identify potential movements. 

Our final step requires us to assess whether there are any areas that are currently down (operational for me) that with a little work could start to be things I could lead in the future.  There will always be two things I’ll have to work on to be able to properly lead; the clarity of what’s required and the competence of the team in delivering it. Sometimes it will be both, sometimes one or the other.  Go back through your list of areas and ask whether there’s something that you could do to begin the process of shifting that area from being operational to leading it.  My example is face to face training.  Each month I’m actively seeking to do less training delivery myself, as I transition from being totally operational a couple of years ago, to some future point when I might become totally strategic and only lead in this area.  Right now it’s a mix of the two, so I use an up arrow with the arrow head placed halfway up the line to indicate this.  Take another look at your list and identify any areas that you could work on to become less operational and more strategic.  Mark them on the page.  

This exercise can really pay dividends if you take some time aside and work through the steps methodically.  Start becoming the leader that you need to be, and create a competent team that know exactly what they’ve got to achieve.  Help yourself by remembering your team will never develop unless you step up and give them the opportunity to learn.  Stop kidding yourself that you have to be so operational, the best managers are always those that lead and empower the ability of their teams.  For me, this is like the 101 of being a great manager, they actually stop managing and start leading!  

 

Bob Bannister

Ships Captain

Contact us today to learn more

We're Trusted By

100% money back guarantee if people don’t change as a result of our work with you Discuss The Training Your Team Requires

I'm Bob Bannister, owner, and trainer at iManage Performance, the specialists in training for remote workers and managers with over 20 years of experience in this sector.

As the UK has rapidly shifted towards working from home, this challenges the norms in which we work and manage We can help to fast track your remote management or team skills. Speak to us about our training options today.

call today +44 (0)1444 474247

email bob.bannister@imanageperformance.com