Perspectives & Strategy

Some of the thoughts that I have been having recently are looking back to some of the challenges I faced many years ago when I became a new manager. As with many people I had always thought myself as an expert, a problem solver, perhaps one of the best in my particular field (even if I do boast a little). Taking on managerial responsibility was something that I was privately at least not sure that I was ever ready for. Yet one of the challenges of management is about learning to stop thinking about the details.

Once you take on managerial responsibility it is necessary for someone else to be given the detailed elements and for you to move on to other responsibilities. Yet that in itself can be quite a challenge. In a recently published article (Leadership and The Fine Art of Delegation) I stated “The art of delegation is largely about breaking each and every job into workable components and entrusting that a group of competent individuals will be able to complete the work”

Letting go of the details can be a difficult thing for any boss to do. We often try to do everything because we think that we are the only person to understand the full scope of the problem. This largely is about having a team that is motivated and goal driven. Sure every team has its arguments and petty jealous challenges and the new manager is less likely to spot them than the seasoned one.

In “Delegation: The Problem Solver Becoming The Manager” – I observed that the problem solver has a serious challenge as a manager “because their normal mode of work is to identify solutions, then shift gear and fix the problems”. as a manager they have to trust others to solve the problem that they have identified, eventhough they can possibly solve the problem much faster by themselves than delegating the problem. Yet delving in rarely makes this individual an effective manager.

Actually this can be an opportunity to put into place the right frameworks to resolve problems, something that you wished were in place before becoming a manager. This is about putting in place effective procedures that lets everyone know what is happening at the same time. This framework is a part of the challenge of moving the whole business forwards. The effective manager should think about empowering their staff in order to harness their strengths so that they can become the new problem solvers.

From a management perspective in order to become a better manager this usually means increasing your skills as a leader, coach, teacher and most importantly, a motivator. Few problem solvers think about these aspects when they are solving problems, yet they are powerful tools in the hand of the problem solving manager. Ultimately the manager must takes on this responsibility on behalf of their team in order to improve their effectiveness. In addition they must know what their limits are, know when to say NO!

one of the key elements here is that we all have to learn how to communicate better. This is an ongoing challenge that we must regularly focus on. It is perhaps one of the reasons that drove me to join Toatmasters; the perennial challenge of improving how to communicate. I never considered myself a bad communicator yet I knew there were areas that I needed to improve in. In reality communications will be one of the biggest challenges of our lives.

In reality we have to let go of one set of detailed problems in order to understand a new set of problems. The details and the challenge do change – we enhance our own capabilities and we grow.