7 Time Management Tips for Managers
Managing people takes time. It may take an inefficient or in effective manager longer to plan, supervise, and evaluate some one elses work than to just do it herself.
The answer isnt
to fire the staff. The Answer is to manage them effectively. Here are
seven time management tips that will help you do it.
1. Never
waste their time :
Does the sight of one of your workers standing idle threaten you? If so,
resist the temptation to assign busy work, just to keep them moving. You
waste their time, of course and you also waste your time, thinking about
the work, explaining and supervising it, pretending to care about it when
its done.
Youll also be eroding their trust in you and yours decisions. They know its busy work. Dont fill their time for them. Show them what needs doing show them how to do it. Make sure they have the tools they need. Then get out the way.
2. Make Sure the
Time Savers are Really Saving Their Time:
A Researcher recently conducted a time management seminar at a large Wisconsin
company as his host led him through the bullpen office area to the classroom,
he noticed two folks standing by the fax machine, their tensed bodies
tensed with anticipation. As the machine started to whir, one reached
out and actually tugged on the sheet of paper to make it come out faster.
Whats wrong with this picture, two workers employed waiting for a fax to arrive?
The fax is supposed to save time, right? But we soon learn to fax material that could have gone by good old pony express, and we put off writing the letter until it has to go by fax. That doesnt save time: it just increases pressure. Some body has to choose the fax with the new, improved, faster fax, bought with money somebody had to spend time to produce. Have we saved time here? Not really.
We are not advocating a retreat to the Stone Age. We dont even want to think about trying to write without a computer, research with out the internet or handle phone calls without voice mail. But these good slaves can make terrible masters, driving your staff to distraction with their bells and beeps and buzzers. Make sure the machines work for the people and not the other way around.
3. Separate the
important from the Merely Urgent for your Staff :
For your staff, as for yourself, you need to distinguish between truly
important activities, those that serve the central mission, and the stuff
that seems to demand immediate attention without really meriting it. Do
you and your staff ever engage in long terms planning, skill training,
or needed conflict management? Or do these things get lost in the daily
clamor? Youll never find time to do these vital activities
with your staff.
As a good manager, you must be sure to make the time. Ask why? For the phone calls and memos and faxes demand your staffs immediate attention. Can you relive some of the pressure and release your staffers for more important work?
4. Tell Them why
: why do I have to do this ?
If that question from a staffers feels like a threat to your authority,
if you become defensive when you hear such a question, your staffers will
learn to keep the questions to themselves. But theyll still wonder.
They have the right and the need to know the purpose of their work. When
you ask them to do something, give them a good reason. Youll have
a more motivated and mere efficient workforce.
5. Allow them Enough
time for the Task :
Be realistic in your demands. Dont overstuff the staff. For what
you do, youll get shoddy work. You might even get less work. Even
a conscientious, willing worker does not perform well under unreasonable
pressure.
6. Encourage them
to do one thing well at a time :
Watch your staff work. Are they on the phone, jotting notes, eyeing the
computer screen all while trying o grab a fast sandwich? Getting a lot
done? Probably no, and theyre probably not getting anything done
well. If your co worker is on the phone with a potential client, you want
that workers total attention on the task at hand, not thinking about
the next project or the last project or the work that isnt getting
done. Theyll work faster and better, with less need for clarification
during or revision later.
7. Cut down on
Meeting Time :
Ask your staff to make a list of things they least like to do and chances
are go to meeting will rank right up there with take
work home over the weekend,. Most of us hate meetings, and with
good reason. We avoid them if we can resent them when we cant and
complain about them before, during and after.
So, our first tips here ought to be obvious but apparently isnt doing have a meeting if you have a good reasons to meet. That means never, right? Wrong. You really do need meetings you can create a productive interaction that just doesnt occur with memos or e-mails or phone calls or one on one conversation. People get a better grasp of the whole operation. Names become faces, and faces become individuals. You can develop and maintain a sense of shared purpose and cooperation. In a meeting:
· Every one
hears the same thing at the same time, remaining some (but, alas, not
all) miscommunication.
· If people dont understand , they can ask for clarification
· The speaker can use non verbal clues(crossed arms , frowns ,
glazed ,eyes, eager nodding ) to determine how people are responding to
a proposal
· Most important, when people interact, they create ideas that
never would have occurred otherwise.
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