The role of manager is full of paradoxes… For me, it’s an art to be in perpetual search for balance! Make decisions quickly on complex ?! files Deliver strategic files by having short and varied (and above all fragmented!) daily activities Be responsible… by doing nothing concrete?!
Whatever he does, the manager is constantly pursued because he could and should do. (Mintzberg)
For me, the best manager is the one who never stops getting to know himself better, improving himself and who navigates between all these paradoxes with balance. The more he finds his own art, the more fun and success he will have!
Here are in my own way, three first paradoxes inspired by Mintzberg’s book “Managing (Simply)”.
1. Superficiality
How can we deepen the reflection when the pressure to obtain results is omnipresent? I have known managers who put the value of superficial decisions to the extreme: “I made 50 decisions today!” and others who did not dare to decide… What do you think is the best balance?
My tips:
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- Do an impact and risk analysis! Even summary – a list of +/- on a post-it note also allows you to put things into perspective and help with decision-making… A call to a colleague or boss for a second opinion is also pretty quick!
- Be creative! Know just enough about your field, the impacts, the risks, the key people to be able to create or create solutions on your own that will lead you to good priority management. (Write down your priorities very clearly and use them as a decision filter!)
Develop your courage to make decisions with the online training ” Developing your managerial courage and your ability to delegate “. It will give you decision-making tools and help you make unpopular decisions. You will also develop your courage to act, to say, to persevere, to learn and to delegate.
2. The difficulty of planning
How do you plan, design strategies, think between the concrete and the conceptual and understand the specificities of each situation? Whew!!
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- Create your routine! I have a morning routine where I validate my goals for the day and how they align with my strategy and my medium- and long-term goals. I then adjust my agenda accordingly (yes, yes, I cancel or postpone meetings as needed!)
- Focus on your role: What do others expect of you as a manager? That you make decisions? That you are available? Know your field? That you are working on your objectives, your orientations? Then… What do you always do in meetings? Do you dare to say no? Oh my, so many questions…
- Block out beaches and RESPECT them! What worked well for me was to block two time slots in my calendar, before 10 a.m. and after 4 p.m. What really worked was to respect them. It allowed me to be present, to organize myself, to respond to emergencies, to breathe a little, to do all the informal side of my work. What routine could you put in place? How will you communicate it? Because another success factor is communicating these beaches! You will gradually see people come to your office and you will settle many more files “on the fly” than in a meeting! Long live efficiency!
Do you have your 3 levels of vision?
3. The difficulty of recoil
How do you manage the day-to-day, the unexpected, the unforeseen and the unforeseen while staying the course in the right direction? You have a strategic planning or goal meeting once a year and 1) the time to participate in this event was difficult to plan 2) when you return you are overwhelmed by the flow of work and you leave it (a little) aside. Sound familiar?
If so, here are my questions for you:
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- How motivated are your goals?
- How well do you really know which direction to go?
- Which do you prefer more: a savior role or a guiding role?
- What are you going to do to find the balance?
If not, what are your tips for staying the course while managing your daily life?
I like a monthly micro-point and a quarterly formal point where I review, communicate, follow up and adjust.
