Make Time to Lead Manage Your Time More Efficiently to Manage Your Team More Effectively

There is a tremendous engagement and execution gap in companies.

of employees don’t understand the

companies goals.

of executives sustainably

achieve those goals.

of employees are actively engaged in

their work

Only

% 13

% 60

Only

10

%

Employees aligned with and engaged in company goals create value…

Engaged employees drive innovation and the organization.

They are the only people who create new customers.

Disengaged employees sleepwalk through their day and undermine

what their engaged coworkers accomplish.

while their disengaged peers undermine that value.

   

This costs companies 500 billion a year.

   

Senior Management

Middle Management

Frontline Managers

The Problem Lies with Management

…And How They Spend Their Time

Consistently achieve their goals only

10% of the time

Can have the highest impact but are first to get blamed

Direct face to the workforce but receive the least training

Senior Management

Middle Management

Frontline Managers

Managers don’t spend their time leading

•  Monitors middle management initiatives

•  Deals with administrative matters and e-mails

•  Conducts meetings for operational improvements

•  Assign multiple people to the same initiative

•  Request frequent progress reports on initiatives

•  Review justifications for decisions from below

•  Produces data for reporting

•  Seeks approval for decisions

•  Completes forms and reports

The bulk of leader’s time is consumed by low-impact tasks like getting facts and preparing and reviewing status reports.

This leaves little time for leadership activities that drive positive engagement and performance:

ü  Setting strategy ü  Communicating goals ü  Empowering teams to execute ü  Coaching rising leaders ü  Creating learning environments

Frontline managers 1.  Are most likely to have full workloads other than

managing 2.  Have primary role in sustaining goal alignment 3.  Are whom employees engage with the most 4.  Receive the least training of all roles 5.  Are least prepared to be great at the job of

managing

Middle managers 1.  Have the highest potential impact on the

bottom line 2.  Lack the authority or resources to execute

for impact 3.  Are an easy target of blame from both

above and below 4.  Are left out of leadership coaching

Business has gotten far more complex and teams more global.

The tools for communicating and linking goals, actions, status and feedback haven’t improved in 20 years. 

So management at all levels use 5 productivity tools to cascade goals, identify the work to achieve them and communicate progress week after week. Excel lists of actions, SharePoint sites with versions of half-finished work, PowerPoint red light/green light dashboards, emails explaining what didn’t get done and endless status meetings. These time-sucking methods of communicating goals, actions, status and feedback consume precious time and sap the leadership capacity for most managers.

   

To improve engagement and execution, managers need an efficiency breakthrough before they can increase their leadership capacity.

Blaming the execution gap on managers or suggesting it’s as simple as using their time wisely isn’t helpful – they need the means to create more time and capacity.

Managers should spend more time leading

Senior Management

Middle Management

Frontline Managers

• Coach and motivate direct reports • Communicate the company’s vision and strategy • Analyze future trends

• Empower frontline managers to stretch themselves • Set performance goals • Share best practices across teams

• Deal with under-performance, reward positive results • Know each individual personally • Create and share clear and tangible business targets

Make time to lead.

Be skillful and disciplined about: Communicating Goals Driving execution accountability Making transparency efficient Giving frequent constructive feedback

Make communicating goals and priorities a priority

Your time is well spent communicating goals, objectives and priorities to the team. The team can’t achieve goals it doesn’t

understand.

Repetition of goals pays off when people are overwhelmed with a lot of data, noise and distraction every day.

   

Be clear and specific on the work to achieve goals

Doubt about ownership and the actions needed to achieve goals undermines achievement and wastes tremendous time.

Make sure everyone knows what’s required to achieve group goals,

hand offs within the team are smooth, ownership is clear and people feel accountable for execution. Rather than spend your time doing,

spend your time creating shared accountability.

Create efficient transparency

Track a consistent list of the actions needed for goal achievement and current status to ensure people don’t waste time on immaterial work

and you have transparency on the progress of important work.

Avoid reconstituting the actions list or status framework each week – it makes facts harder to get or trust when they mutate every week. Set an

interval to check status rather than doing it haphazardly throughout the day; it will save you and your team time.

Give immediate and real feedback to the team

Be consistent in giving feedback to all your team members (not just the super stars). Link the feedback to actions and goals to improve both engagement and achievement.

Both positive and negative feedback are essential to engaging your team and achieving your execution goals – so don’t short change this part of the management job.

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Want 30% more leadership capacity?

Get Workboard, a free app to help managers and their teams:

Share goals and priorities

Coordinate and delegate work

Automate status reports and achieve transparency

Enable consistent, engaging feedback

20  

The Zen of Achievement

www.workboard.com

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