My wife is always reminding me that a happy wife is a happy life.  The same goes in business: a happy employee is a happy work life.  Keep that in mind and realize that both positivity and negativity spread.  When your employees are positive, they will be more productive. The best way to accomplish this is to effectively manage your team.

Don’t Take Advantage of Helpful Team Members

Life happens.  There is no denying that.  When you get in a jam you may have specific “go-to” employees you count on.  These are the ones who always seem ready, willing, and able to help out.  It may be a quick easy solution to your problem at hand, but it will eventually burn them out.  It may get to the point that they feel they are not allowed to say “no” to you.  You may think as the manager, they should not say no to you. However, if you have given them tasks and deadlines, you are putting their reputation, along with yours, on the line.

Appreciate the Effort, Don’t Expect It

Could asking the same employee(s) cause unnecessary overtime?  As a manager, it is important to be aware that overtime is not just about money, it is about time.  At the beginning of this, I talked about happy wives and then happy employees.  Picture the wife your employee goes home to after several hours of overtime.  Now and then most spouses are understanding, knowing their husband (or wife) is working to provide and the job sometimes warrants extra time.  This is acceptable within reason.  Start making it a habit and your employees now see you as someone who expects them to come to the rescue, instead of being appreciated.

Utilize Your Entire Team

When you run into a jam, take the time to call on others, and be systematic about your approach.  Do you have any part-time employees or students available?  Make an effort to never call someone in from requested time off or, worse yet, vacation.  Always reaching out to the same people can make your other employees think you are playing favorites.  You might utilize a sign-up sheet if time allows to help cover these times.

Be Realistic

Deadlines must be met; however, you still need to be realistic in your requests.  If your team is unable to accomplish something, they may feel like failures and will never achieve success.  It will also result in a delay in completion, causing you to miss your deadline anyway.  On the same hand if you promise something to your team, you need to follow through.  If you don’t follow through, you will lose their respect.

Ideas Can Come from Anywhere (and Anyone!)

When working with your team, everyone should be contributing to the success.  Take the time to listen to your team and consider any idea they may have.  The idea may not work, but they will still feel like they were part of the process.  If the idea does work, then you and the team will benefit.  Whenever you use an employee’s idea, give them credit.  There is nothing worse than a manager that takes all the credit, especially when the idea did not come from him. Earn the respect of your employees, as well as the company’s, by sharing the credit.  Always make your team feel valued and be sure to reward those who go above and beyond.  Let them know that you appreciate all that they have done.

Autonomy: It’s a Beautiful Thing

Naturally you want the project to be successful so give your team the necessary space to work.  Let them work through the challenges and find possible solutions. Give them a chance to make, and learn from, mistakes.  Be available as a leader and be willing to get your hands dirty but refrain from micromanaging.  This will just cause them to back off, and you could miss out on some great ideas.

Take the Time to Listen

Work-related group activities are essential and should be scheduled regularly to increase team morale. When you start engaging in one-on-one interests with an employee, you begin sending mixed messages about your role as a manager.  Establish a healthy line and take care not to cross it.  Listening to your employees about their hobbies is one thing, but a good manager keeps the relationship professional and does not partake in those activities with their employees.  It is always good to show interest in your employees and listen to their stories. Maybe they want to talk about their weekend, or the home run their son hit.  Taking a few minutes to exchange pleasantries makes your employees comfortable and it makes you approachable.  Make sure you are there for your team and take the time to listen.  You were given two ears for listening and only one mouth for talking for a reason.

You are busy….  you have a full schedule with conference calls, deadlines, and meetings.  This makes being productive difficult as you seem to be doing things for everyone else instead of focusing on your own agenda.  I get it.  As a manager, you will be pulled in every direction, but it is important to know that busy and productive are not necessarily synonymous.  Activity doesn’t always equal productivity.  Let’s talk about ways to help you be more productive.

Be Organized

Get and stay organized; it is the key to your success.  Prepare for your meetings.  Know what you need to accomplish and knock it out.  Be as efficient as possible, and do not waste time.  Clear your schedule from distractions, and make sure that you are able to give your full attention to the things that are important.  If you get it done right the first time, then you do not have to waste your time reviewing it over and over.  Touch it once and move on.  You will feel a great sense of accomplishment as you complete projects, and organization is key.

The Only Place Execute Comes Before Plan is in the Dictionary

Take the time to plan before you execute.  Creating a plan saves you time, it doesn’t add to it.  Create a task list, putting your most important tasks at the top, in order of how quickly they can be accomplished.  A task that must be done that day, whether five minutes or two hours, should be at the top.  Do not keep pushing your least desirable tasks to the bottom.  Remember the old adage about eating an elephant: one bite at a time.  This will put you in motion and give you that sense of accomplishment.

Time is of the Essence

Respect the time of others, and never be late.  If you have an 8am meeting, be there at 7:45am, fully prepared.  This ensures you are ready to go on time and shows you value the time of others.  Make sure you take detailed notes and follow up on every point. Should you be running late, let the key participants know as early as possible so they can adjust their schedule as necessary.  We all run into a snag in scheduling, the important thing is to communicate. And speaking of communication…

It’s Key!

As a manager, communication is key.  How quickly you respond to calls and emails might be the difference between landing an account or watching your competitor get it. Take phone calls and deal with the issue then and there.  If you are in a meeting or unable to, return missed calls as quickly as possible.  A good rule is to return all calls and emails within 24 hours.  Even if you don’t have the answers yet, let the other person know you received their inquiry.  No one wants to wait around and wonder if you even got the message.  Create folders to keep your inbox organized and set your preferences to automatically filter incoming emails.  This will help you to immediately find correspondence for any given project.  Plus, a clean inbox can make you feel more productive, and allows you to focus on the task at hand.

Learn to Prioritize

There is only so much time in the day and only so many things that you can accomplish. Don’t feel like you have to go above and beyond on every project.  Simply completing your project, and staying on schedule, is enough in most cases.

Putting out daily fires is definitely a top priority, but you still need to complete your day-to-day tasks.  Stick to your schedule as best you can by developing a routine. This will allow you to stay productive and give you the opportunity to be creative.

Make use of the tools at hand, sometimes quite literally “at hand”.  Use your computer or smartphone to set appointments, reminders, and lists.  Tackle tasks in the moment whenever possible, thereby eliminating the need to continue thinking about them.

Lastly, take advantage of down time at the office, or your time on the road.  Uninterrupted time is priceless in management, and you should take advantage of it.  Do not be afraid to focus on yourself during this time.  Stretch out, listen to music, call your mother…  it is not against the rules to do things for yourself.  Simply taking a few deep breaths and releasing them clears your mind and prepares you for what is ahead.  And it’s no secret that being prepared is the key to productivity.

We are all guilty of waiting until the last minute to do certain things.  December 24th, who’s online shopping ready to pay a fortune for overnight delivery?  I see those hands!  On the way to a potluck dinner and you forgot you were supposed to bring something?  Grocery store rotisserie chicken to the rescue!  In and of themselves, these are not tragic events.  In business, however, waiting until the last minute can be the end of a client relationship.  It does nothing but make you and your team unhappy and stressed out.  You can relieve this stress by helping everyone set clear, and realistic, goals and objectives.  It is better to be forthright with a client about the reality of their expectations than to make promises you can’t hope to keep.  The ability to meet deadlines on time reflects well on both you and your team.

Make the Goals Clear

When setting goals, it is important to make sure they are clear.  Take the time to write them down on a whiteboard or send a memo to the entire team.  Be prepared to gather everyone to go over the expectations of the goals so each team member is on the same page.  You and your team will have a better chance at success if you stay organized.  Each team member has certain strengths so delegate responsibilities accordingly.  Be careful not to overwhelm any one team member.

Reaching the Milestones

Each team member should be aware of the milestones that you are looking to achieve, along with deadlines for each.  The timely completion of these will give your team a sense of accomplishment.  In addition, schedule regular meetings and keep the lines of communication open.

Get (and Stay) Organized

Never touch the same piece of paper twice.  Read the information thoroughly the first time so you do not have to waste time reviewing it time and again.  This saves time, money, and heartache, especially on long projects.  Keep your team focused on their goals, and on reaching their milestones.  This will keep you on schedule, and lead to a successful project.

Save

Save