Jim, a relatively new manager said, “I don't have nearly enough time. I'm in meetings all the time. And I still need to do some of my previous technical work. I feel stretched from one end of the work day to the other.”
We spoke for a few minutes. I asked him to eyeball the Management Time Sheet (link is to the google sheet) and see where he spent his time.
He glanced at it and said, “I don't have enough time for one-on-ones. I only have those once a month. Instead, I spend most of my time on product issues across the organization. Then I have to relay the ideas back to the team. The next bit of time I spend working alone on the product work.”
I could see how he felt stretched. He had no time to spend on creating the environment for the team—he was doing work I normally categorize as the team's work.
“Why do you spend all this time doing the product work yourself?”
“My previous boss, Dan, also did that. When he left, I was the most senior technical person, so the VP promoted me. Isn't that the right way to manage?”
“You have options,” I said. “How many of those meetings can you delegate to team members? Or even the entire team itself?”
“Delegate my meetings? I'm not sure.”
I bet he's not. Instead of copying how Dan did the management job, Jim's now rethinking everything about how to be more effective.
It's time for conscious delegation.
Consider These Ideas for Conscious Delegation
Here's some guidance, especially if you are newer to a management role:
- If you feel you must work at your previous job (for now), always work with others. Never work alone as a senior person in your previous job. Now, your job is to facilitate everyone else's learning. (If you're moving from first-level management up to director, it's the same idea. Let the newer first-level manager ask for coaching in your (weekly) one-on-ones, but focus on the current level of work. That's how you can create the culture you want.)
- Delegate all the nuts-and-bolts meetings, such as “here's what we want the product to do,” to the team. (I prefer the entire team, so no one plays the telephone game, but delegate those meetings to someone on the team.)
- Create and attend meetings that expose and solve problems, especially problems that cross the organization.
If you use these delegation ideas, you will find you have time to have one-on-ones every week or two, depending on how agile your team is. You will also have time to think.
Let's start with your new role, to help other people learn both what you used to do and to learn to work better, together.
Facilitate Other People's Learning
Like Dan, his previous manager, Jim created a situation where he micromanaged everyone.
He didn't intend to—but he'd never seen any other kind of management.
When technical people become managers, their job changes. (It's the same for every move up the management ladder.) Instead of doing the work you used to do, it's now your job to facilitate other people to do that work.
This image is an example where a 6-person team primarily affiliates with the manager/leader, and no with each other.
Instead, can you learn to trust the team to make their own decisions? That depends on the delegation continuum.
Delegate Team-Based Work to the Team
In Managers: Are You Responsible “To” or “For” People?, I discussed the idea that leaders/managers are responsible “to” the team, not “for” the team. But let me clarify that effective teams decide how they work. That includes:
- How the team organizes its project or product or functional work. Leaders provide the why and the desired outcome. The team organizes itself to do the work.
- All technical practices. As a leader, you explain the outcome you want, even if you want lower cycle time. Or fewer post-release defects.
- All work practices, such as deciding which tools to use and how. (Avoid mandating a “common” board unless all the teams in your organization do precisely the same work.)
As a leader, you can support or facilitate the team as they learn to assess risks and experiment. That's a team-based approach to their problem-solving. In addition, you can use your one-on-ones to offer feedback, coaching, meta-feedback, and meta-coaching.
Now that you're not in the team's daily work, you can start to work across the organization.
Facilitate Cross-Organization Problem-Solving
If you don't yet have a management cohort of managers at your level, create one. See Create Your Peer Management Team for Fun and Profit (and to Solve Problems) for more details.
If you're having trouble making more time in your day, I bet your colleagues are, too. Most of the problem is that organizations reward resource efficiency, not flow efficiency—even for managers.
But, if you can collaborate with your peers and solve your cross-organizational problems, you'll create more ease for you, the teams, and the organization.
And now we get to the sticky part—what the leadership thinks they pay you for.
Get Paid to Lead, Not to Deliver
If you want to get paid to lead, as opposed to delivering, start here:
- Make a copy of the Management Time Sheet, and fill it out for one or two weeks. (I often start with daily notes on a legal pad and add up the time at the end of each day. Then, summarize for the week. If you're only doing one-on-ones monthly, you might have to log every day for a month.)
- Write down the value you currently bring to the organization. Write down the value you want to bring. Highlight the differences. Do you want to do more technical work or leadership work? Now is a good time to decide. (You don't have to decide forever. People have zig-zag careers. Decide for now.)
- Have a portfolio conversation with your manager. Aside from the 3 questions in Practical Ways to Manage Yourself, consider everything in this series: Saying No to More Work.
As soon as you become a designated leader, your job is to support the people at your previous level. You create the environment where they can succeed. You might need to teach them how to offer feedback and coaching to each other. And, you work on the system, the environment, not the actual product work itself.
Consciously decide what to delegate. Delegate technical work, and you'll get back enough time to focus on the quite difficult work of managing in the organization.
(This post is from Practical Ways to Manage Yourself, book 1 in the Modern Management Made Easy series.)
This is part of the intermittent series of leadership tips.