The Manager’s Routine

Dear Managers and Leaders!

A long time ago, someone told me that he really enjoyed switching places every time he was coming to a classroom. Doing that put him out of balance and he actually enjoyed that feeling of uneasiness and the sensation of starting anew even thought he was coming to a known classroom. He added that doing this kept him on his toes. I was actually quite different so I replied that I preferred keeping as many parameters constant so that I could focus better on the “real new items”. Twenty-some years later, I still feel the same. I think routine is power!

I believe routine is power in two aspects. First, by doing things routinely, you can really perfect the way you do it to the point where you could not do it better or faster. Second, by defining a clear routine, you can really focus on the non-routine items and give them lots of time and attention. Defining a clear routine and acting upon it can really improve your efficiency!

So, what I would suggest to all leaders and managers would be to define their routine and keep working at it and improving it until it becomes a reflex to perform these tasks. How to define a routine is not that difficult. Take a piece of paper and start writing down what you need to do every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year. You can limit that to your job activities or you can go wild and include all of your personal activities as well. It depends if you want to focus on the time you spend at work or on your entire life. This is up to you.

So, let’s give some examples of items that could fall into a manager’s routine. Hopefully this will give you a good idea on how to start defining this routine.

Every day

• Review to-do list
• Talk informally to my team members

Every week

• Creation of my week’s to-do list (setting goals for the week and placing actions every day to meet those goals)
• Weekly meeting with my team
• Weekly project meetings
• Weekly report to my boss
• Weekly meeting with my boss
• One-on-one’s with some of my team members, some of my peers, my boss

Every quarter

• Unofficial performance and objectives review meetings with team members
• Quarterly budget update

Every year

• Official performance appraisals of my team members
• Official performance review meetings with team members

Once you have a list like the one above, the next step is to put all these items in your agenda. That way, you will know exactly what and when you have to do things. It will also have the effect of reserving time for performing these items. Don’t forget to reserve time to prepare for meetings or write reports. All this should go in the agenda.

The next step is to find ways to improve the way you perform all the actions found in your routine. Since you have to repeatedly perform those actions, improving the way you do them will give you a lot of return. This should free up your schedule for the other actions you have to do but cannot plan so easily.

So, unless you really like to always be destabilized and feel unorganized, define a routine and perfect it. You will never be caught off-guard and you will free up a lot of time for the rest of your activities.

Until next time,

Remi Cote

PS: If you find these postings interesting and would like to learn more about what I can do for you and your team, then please visit www.innovachron.com or contact me directly at remi@innovachron.com.