This is far from a complete list, just what I could complete during my self imposed time limit, but I think it is pretty useful. I won't go into details in this post, but will probably follow up with additional posts in areas I think warrant it. In fact, one of my previous posts is an expansion on one of the items in this list - Priorities for Tough Decisions.
How to Get Things Done
- Know your values, be consistent
- Do you want to manage or do you want to do?
- How much influence and responsibility do you want?
- How much time are you willing to devote to work?
- What makes you excited to come to work in the morning?
- What do you expect from the people around you?
- Know your strengths and play to them
- Know your weaknesses and pick what needs to be improved and leverage the strengths of people around you
- Know how you react when under pressure – what does ‘unbalanced’ feel like?
- Recognize when it is happening so you can adjust your thinking and become effective again
- Don’t build technology for the sake of technology
- Solve real problems, don’t treat work like a hobby
- When making tradeoffs use the following priority stack
- Company
- Customer
- Product
- Team
- You
- Don’t take it personally – focus on getting the job done, not bruises to your ego
- Set up for success
- Yourself
- Those working for you
- If you know a task is going to fail, change the conditions or abort
- Don’t just hope for success, have a plan that you know will get you there
- If you are in trouble, ask for help
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions
- Even very smart people don’t know everything, those who don’t ask questions are usually scared, not all-knowing
- Beware of experts
- Don’t rely on experts to give you all the answers, do your own searching
- Don’t be a bottleneck
- This is done out of fear of losing control – allow yourself to trust
- Before delegating a task, know the task.
- Do you know how it can be done?
- Do you know what success looks like?
- Do you know level of effort and level of skill required?
- Trailblaze (related to previous)
- Push the limits, learn how to do something, then let others follow behind
- Take risks, don’t be afraid to fail
- Sharpen the axe
- Don’t spend so much time getting things done that you never have time to improve process, tools, methodology, education, etc.
- Postmortem
- At the end of a project/milestone step back and ask how you did, what could go better, what should continue
- Give feedback in real-time
- People respond best to quick feedback – otherwise the connection is lost
- Ask for feedback
- If you aren’t getting feedback ask and ask and ask
- Appreciate praise but seek out criticism
- Be careful of friendships at work
- Do you value the friend or the goal more highly?
- Be honest about your limitations
- If asked to do something you are ill-suited for, explain to your team why you may not be the best choice
- But, don’t be afraid to jump in and do it anyway
- Set expectations
- Describe to your manager what you'll be able to accomplish
- Describe to those working for you, what you expect from them
- Be explicit about what makes you satisfied, happy, upset, etc. so they know what to expect
- Hire for a role not for a personality
- Don’t hire someone and then try to fit that person in to your organization.
- Instead perform a gap analysis – know what you need, define a position, then look for the individual who represents the best fit.
- Know how others see you
- Are you a leader?
- Are you effective?
- Are you valued on the team?
- Know your manager's priorities and how he is being evaluated for success
- If your priorities misalign with management then:
- Change your priorities
- Or influence your manager to change their priorities
- Or leave for a position that aligns better
- Bring something to the table
- In any relationship – team, coworker, company – know what value you bring
- Dig into cracks
- Look for signs of a problem in results or assumptions
- Dig into the problem until you fully understand it
- Know your long-term goals
- Know where you want to be in 5 years so your current decisions have a long-term purpose.
- Keep your options open
- When making a decision that balances short term gain for long term flexibility lean toward long term flexibility
- Know who your friends and enemies are
- Who can you trust, who is competing with you, who wants you dead
- Understand the root cause of objections raised by others
- Are they based in reality?
- Are they based on perceived threat?
- Are they based on misinformation?
- Reality vs. perception
- Know what is real
- Know what is the common perception
- Know that perception will win over reality in group opinion
- Be pragmatic
- Do what it takes to achieve your goals without conflicting with your values.
- Don’t be too idealistic or rigid in your approach
3 comments:
James, what a collection of gems!!
Seems like it is going to be my morning set up read :)
Thanks for sharing this
alik
Solid thoughts; Best management approach.
Greetings dear Jason and readers!
I has been a complex experience for me to manage my department on charge due to the fact, that as a woman that I am, people think they can go over me, then it makes me feel sick.
I have already taken some notes in order to improve the way do things.
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