Know what is happening, know what to do
Over many years of consulting and research in the workplace, I have found that one of a manager’s greatest needs is to “know what is actually happening”, whereas the greatest need for people doing work is to “know what to do”.
Managers need to know what is happening so they can:
· stay in control
· report to senior management or the board
· assess work progress
· know who is doing what, when and with whom
· know when something has been done
· know when something changes
· keep workers and other managers informed
· identify the best person to give new work to
· get timely accurate information for reports
· decide how to increase productivity without getting workers offside
· solve problems when they are small
People need to know what to do so they can:
· know what they are expected to do
· know who is responsible and accountable
· know who they need to work with and when
· know the processes and procedures managers want them to use
· easily report progress in a way that managers can understand
· make the best use of their time and effort
· accommodate changes
· know what feedback is relevant to them
· appreciate how their work contributes to organization and team goals
· explain to managers when they are overloaded
Few people like:
· uncertainty (especially unclear context, goals, roles and processes)
· not feeling trusted
· wasting time and effort
· stress
· spending a long time planning work
· being interrupted when trying to get work done
· answering questions that don’t help get the job done
· creating and updating lists so nothing is forgotten
· telling others what they are doing (especially more than once)
· conversations, meetings, communications that take time away from work
· being given more work than they can possibly do
· using processes and tools that provide no benefits to them
· re-entering and/or updating data
· doing work that is not important to their organization
Meeting the detailed needs listed above, so that managers know what is happening and people know what to do sounds overwhelming. However I have found that it is not as daunting as it may seem.
The usual way to solve management problems is to disaggregate them to manageable parts, then by solving each part, you edge closer and closer to a comprehensive solution. However the parts are so interrelated and dynamic that only solving parts of the puzzle in isolation makes it extremely difficult for managers know what is happening and people to know what to do.
I have taken a holistic approach, to develop and validate a distributed management method with tools to address all the challenges listed above at the same time. Web and mobile browser technology has been used to provide easy and fast access, and computer processing capabilities can now handle the dynamic complexity of thousands of people doing thousands of tasks globally.
Our distributed management methods and web and mobile software tools makes it possible for managers to know what is happening in close to real-time and people to know what to do.
More information can be found at www.me2team.com and www.taskey.com.
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