Oct
19
2017
Moving up the management ladder: building on your experience
No matter how far up the management ladder you are, you’ll deal with a range of issues and challenges. This blog is the second of a three part series covering some of the common questions and problems faced during each level of management. You can read the first post here.
As your management career progresses, you’ll be faced with success and failures. Even if you’ve got a few years’ experience the failures will still come, but it’s important to learn from them and to figure out what’s going wrong. Quite often, the problem lies with managers’ self-organisation.
Self-organisation results in effective management
Sometimes we all find ourselves swept up in a sea of emails, paperwork, and deadlines. During these times, our usual level of control seems to vanish and we’re left floundering and not getting the right results. Whilst it is really satisfying to tick things off of your to-do list, efficiency does not necessarily mean you’re being effective.
During these busy periods the work starts to control us, but we must not let it! Instead, we need to take control and get organised; prioritising the important things instead of trying to clear our to-do list.
Importance vs. urgency
Not everything that is urgent is important, and not everything that is important is urgent. However, the important matters need to be given the attention they deserve. Small jobs that need doing urgently may be less important than your long term goals, and sometimes it’s fine to get the small job out the way but these little jobs quickly add up. Before you know it, your important long term goals have been forgotten and instead you’re spending all your time on small matters; do you think that gets effective results?
Tame time
How many times a day do you think “I wish I had more time”? We all feel that we don’t have enough of it, but that’s only because we’re not managing it properly!
Cracking time management will give you and your team a huge boost in productivity, and ultimately your results. Recognising the following four paradoxes is the first step in getting those brilliant results.
The planning paradox
Many people don’t plan as it takes up time, but planning at the start of your project will result in saved time further down the line.
The meetings paradox
Waiting for latecomers to meetings is a huge waste of time. You’re not only using up precious time, you’re also penalising those who turned up on time and rewarding latecomers. Next time, everyone will be late!
The long hours paradox
Working a really long day means that we got lots done, right? Wrong. The longer hours a person works, the more fatigued they are and the longer they take to complete tasks.
The activity vs. results paradox
Similar to the long hours paradox, we often feel that if we’ve done loads that’s great. However, we can soon lose sight of our objectives and instead replace them with the need to be busy.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, and our Moving up in management course will provide you with plenty of guidance and useful tips. You’ll also get a year of free support!
For more information on our management ladder course, view the course page here.
