We plan for many things in our business life, but sometime we forget to put clarity and cadence on performance.
First of all let’s find a common ground of what we call “performance”. Performance is a function of time: comes from reviewing in a critical manner, how time is used both by us as managers and by our team.
How to plan for it?
Consider what you are engaged on from both perspectives (manager and team) regarding these key areas:
A) Meetings need to be used wisely and planned adequately. Meetings involve up to 40% of your professional time, so is it important to define which are the essential meetings to start during the month. What can be different in planning or in their composition? To whom can your presence be delegated? Your presence as a manager is not needed all times, evaluate to whom you can delegate. What will make your meetings more effective?
B) Support your people by guiding them through a structured approach to work. .What are the most relevant focused conversations you need with people on a regular basis? Who needs to benefit from them and needs to be engaged? What kind of conversations can be useful to different team members?
C) Communication is key. What is working in terms of communication right now? What, however, is not yet ready? What can be simplified (think for example of email both in terms of content, exposure, information channeling)? What are people’s preferences?
D) Concentrate you work where needed and focus on it. What are the interruptions you experience that take you off course? How can you create more attention and thus more effectively get to the things that are important to you?
