It's been nine months and finally we have managed to organize our monthly meeting. We as in people I work with. See, every month we are suppose to have a gathering at our circle office in Ahmedabad to discuss good and bad of past month, progress of current month and planning for month closure. We are not a big team, I at Surat, another guy at Baroda and three at Ahmedabad. Me and my colleague from Baroda always travel to Ahmedabad. You would think how difficult it can be to organize a meeting for five people. The answer is painfully hard.
I remember during first few months when my manager would call me and ask are you ready with your ppt and I would draw blank. He would tell me I should be ready with my material irrespective of whether he tells me meeting schedule or not. You may be inclined to think he has point, I did too. So, I started preparing data that can be added to ppt at moments notice. Even this didn't solve the problem as the notice given was literally of moments. Usually, information about meeting came to me after 6.30 in the evening, to ensure I spent my day productively I presume. So, I had to rush for booking of earliest bus or train to reach Ahmedabad before midnight and have few hours sleep. Then early morning I would rush to office at Ahmedabad and finish preparation of ppt. Annoying part was that even here there was no fixed time for our presentation. It could start first thing in the morning or any time of day or not happen at all.
Entire activity felt futile and a waste of time. Eventually, we started to lose interest. Few of my colleagues stopped preparing or did lousy job at their ppt. Once, even I went and started my session with data in excel. All this pushed my manager to finally declare a date of meeting at start of month. Such a small change felt like complete turnaround for us and it made me think how many of us and our managers have failed to adhere to most basic requirements in daily life.
Now, I am not saying I am an expert who never made such errors. On the contrary, I am guilty of all of them and learnt through bitter lessons. You may also feel these are too simple and straightforward, everyone is aware of them. My point is for that very reason we mess them up. So, let's review a small list of must dos for all managers.
1. Communicate
You might say you do that the whole day but here I don't mean talking. I mean conveying instructions, guidelines, planning, target and expectations. I once heard a tale of an effective CEO of a successful firm. They had a good last year and during annual meeting he pumped everybody with energetic speech. He even had all of them chanting "we will do our best" on top of their voices. At the end one of the consultants asked the CEO what numbers was he expecting next year. He said 16% increase. Consultant asked why didn't he say that to everyone. Well, they will do their best which will get us there, he answered. Consultant asked him to conduct a small survey. Together they inquired around twenty people what numbers they expected to gain from last year by doing their best. Mr CEO was shocked to find none were even close to his expectations.
Message to take home is that as managers we have to communicate our plans and actions very clearly. This is the only way your plans may be actualized. In fact, you need to cultivate a habit to communicate clearly at both ends of ladder. A timely and accurate information can be the difference between a good year and an exceptional one.
2. Drive discipline
This is the key to success in any job. If you are an artist or a writer, you may afford to work at your whimsy. For all others, hardcore discipline is necessary. That is if you want to be really successful. Gandhi Ji is an ultimate example of self discipline. After the establishment of sabarmati ashram, he developed a practice of weekly speech to his followers. Once begun, he never missed a single week ever. Even during incarceration he would write his speech in continuance of his previous message and send in time to ashram. Thus ensuring his ritual was never distributed. He said one should never start something if there is a doubt in continuing it however if started, you should always follow up.
Discipline, he regarded as third most important virtue after Truth and Non-violence. He influenced others with him to follow the same. It worked for him and it will work for us. Condition is that you need to discipline yourself first. As Winston Churchill said, you cannot talk yourself in to a habit but hammer and force it in.
Try that, your career graph will change dramatically.
3. Involve and delegate
The Justice league and the Avengers are proof that even superheroes require support. We are no different. We need support of others to accomplish our jobs. And if you are at managerial role, you are lucky.
Lucky because you are allowed to utilize talents of others to fulfill your assignment. Don't think I am undermining the role of a manager. Instead I am highlighting that almost all managers have to rely on people working with him to effectively use their gifts. There are many potholes in this path though. Most common are, micromanagement and lack of involvement.
Both completely different but eerily similar. Let's take an exaggerated example of two engineers.
Mr A and Mr B, both highly certified civil engineers, were given a challenge of building a canal from nearby river to the village. Both had same equipment, resources and budget allotted. Both of them created blueprints and laid out their plans with the team. Work commenced for both canals. Mr A was a nagging kind, he kept constant barrage of instructions to his team. Every decision was to be routed through him else he would flip out. Internal conflict and heartburn was frequent with his team. Many people left and new ones were hired. Consequently the work was slow and tedious. His team even kept information from him for the fear of reprimand. Final result was that the project finished much beyond the deadline and extra budget was required. On top of it, a few minor mistakes were never rectified which put the longevity of canal in question. Mr A was disappointed that even after his continuous involvement his team failed him.
Mr B on the other hand was easy going and believed in complete delegation. After giving instructions he never ventured to look at what was happening. He encouraged team members to make decisions. Team was happy. Later this happiness turned into resentment. Team members started feeling that Mr B was not interested in work at all. They felt frustrated when he wasn't around to make critical decisions. Team members did their best and finished the project in time. However, when tested, it was found that canal didn't work. All the effort was wasted. Mr B questioned his team why his instructions weren't followed. They replied they followed what they were told but no one was there to guide and correct their mistakes.
We all realize how important it is to balance your involvement with the team. If we don't, we are in for a disaster. Your team might have understood the goal and you may even have provided them with tools to check if they are on right track. However, they would still require you to look at their progress from outside and recommend or alter their trajectory. This is why you are hired.
CDI-D : communicate, drive discipline and involve and delegate; these according to me are only steps to lasting success.
I try to practice them and reap the benefits. Hopefully you will do so too.
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