Episode #20 - Stop wasting time chasing your team on tedious tasks
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In each episode, Onirio explores all those tricky, even improbable (and yet real!) situations that the manager's job can throw at us 😉
In today's episode, we take a look at a real scourge: the time spent re-launching your teams...
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🛶 Today's Struggle: How to stop wasting time chasing your team on tedious tasks?
In any activity, there are tasks that don't spark enthusiasm. Tidying up equipment, archiving files, updating procedures, producing reports, completing mandatory e-learnings... These tasks are sometimes challenging to get your team to do.
And managers may find themselves needing to follow up one, two... ten times for tasks - which often only take a few minutes - to be completed. 🤯
How to avoid wasting time chasing your team on tedious tasks?
⛔ Watch out for dumplings!
Letting it go: You give up, and if some tasks aren't done on time, so be it. If your boss challenges you, you'll say your team doesn't have the bandwidth. 😜
Giving instructions and following nothing up: You send a concise email with the actions to be taken and the responsible persons. You tell yourself that should be enough:"They are professionals; I'm not going to micromanage them...". And - oh surprise! - a few days later, you realize that no action has been taken.
Setting a bad example: You're a master of the reminder to put a strain on anyone who's behind with their work. On the other hand, you take liberties with your own tasks: "oh well, it's not urgent, I'll review this report tomorrow.".
Publicly punishing latecomers: For you, there's nothing like peer pressure to get things done: you take great pleasure in posting the names of all those who are behind on their tasks: "That'll teach them and motivate them for next time!" 😈
👉 How do you deal with unpleasant tasks?
1️⃣ Start with the basics: Who - What - When - Why
At the risk of stating the obvious, let's recall the basics to clearly explain what is expected from each and why:
Who: the person in charge of the action e.g. all 5 team members, or one person in particular
What: what is concretely expected e.g.: complete the "Anti-money laundering" e-learning course with a score >70% on the final quiz.
When: the deadline for completing the task e.g. by the end of the month
Why: why it's important e.g.: The company has made commitments to combat the financing of illicit activities. We risk financial sanctions if all employees are not aware of this issue.
2️⃣ Follow existing routines
To ensure follow-up, keep it simple! Use your existing managerial rituals to quickly take stock of the situation and send out a reminder:
The one-to-one meeting you have with each team member
The team meeting if the action concerns the entire team or part of the team
💡 Tip: Do it together during the team meeting
Some actions are quick to carry out. What a pity to spend more time following up and reminding than doing. What if you used your meeting times to do tedious tasks together?
In the example of e-learning, it is entirely possible to take 30 minutes in your team meeting and do it all together, in the session!
3️⃣ Help team members get organized
With some people, you talk about a topic to be addressed once, and the person organizes themselves. With others, it's more complicated...
Helping your teams improve their efficiency and organizational skills is a great coaching challenge.
How do I go about it?
Take a step back with the person in question and discuss how they manage their emails, their diary and their tasks in general.
Share your methods and tools for noting and prioritizing actions, such as:
Use tools such as Trello, Microsoft Planner and Todoist to keep all your to-dos in one place.
Use the Eisenhower matrix to assess the urgency and importance of different tasks
Diary management, with blocked time slots for important tasks and the use of reminders
Regularly discuss this subject in one-to-one meetings, to check progress and discuss difficulties...
Still nothing? Prepare a NVC (Non Violent Communication)
In some cases, despite all your efforts at follow-up, reminders and coaching, nothing gets done . Each time, you end up adopting an authoritarian posture to get things done.
Ex: "I'm meeting client XYZ at 3 pm, and I really need your notes on the recent exchanges with him. You have until 11am to update the CRM."
It's getting really annoying to get to this point for the slightest request...!
HowI Met Your Mother / CBS
It's time to use Non-Violent Communication, which we had already discussed in the episode "Telling a team member they talk too much".
To illustrate, take the example of a salesperson, Christophe, whom you need to remind several times a week to update the CRM.
Observation - Christophe, over the last three weeks, I've had to ask you 6 times to fill in the CRM with notes from your sales meetings with customers in your area.
Feeling: I'm tired of having to remind you and I'm annoyed when your only response is: "sorry, I haven't had time to do it"
Need: I have meetings with our managers every week and I need all the information on our customers to prepare these meetings effectively.
Request: I'd like the notes from our customer meetings to be entered into the CRM no later than 24 hours after the meetings. Does that sound feasible?
We hope you won't need to go this far too often! 😉
À for the next episode!
In each episode, Onirio explores a managerial situation and gives you advice on how to take a step back and adopt the right reflexes!
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Onirio 's 💙 exploration of this management galley was brought to you by Jérôme Labastie.