Bruce Tulgan

It's Okay to Be the Boss

You Don't Have Time NOT to Manage People

Sometimes managers tell me, "I don't have time to manage people." And I tell them, "You don't have time not to manage people."

When managers don't spend time up-front in advance providing guidance, direction, support and coaching, eight things go wrong:

1. Fires get started that never would have gotten started.
2. Fires get out of control that could have been put out easily.
3. Resources get squandered.
4. People do their tasks and responsibilities the wrong way for days, weeks or months before anybody realizes it.
5. Low performers hide out and collect a paycheck.
6. Mediocre performers start telling themselves they're the high performers.
7. High performers get frustrated and think about leaving.
8. Managers do tasks and responsibilities that would have been better delegated to someone else... Or maybe they WERE delegated to someone else but then they come back to you because they weren't done right or they weren't finished.

You don't have time not to manage people.

Sometimes managers say to me, "No, no, no, I actually don't have time." So I say, "Let me follow you around for a couple of days."

And here's what I find: The managers that are absolutely convinced that they don't have time to manage people spend more time managing people than anyone else. They just spend all of their management time in crisis mode solving problems that never had to happen in the first place.

Sometimes managers will say to me, "No, no, no, but I actually don't have time." So I follow them around and here's what I find: There's plenty of talk in the workplace: talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Talk about everything under the sun. Just not enough talk about the work.

You don't have time not to manage people.

If you're short on time, then the only way you can increase your productive capacity is to spend more time leveraging the productive capacity of other people.

Management time is high-leverage time. Every minute you spend guiding, directing, supporting and coaching another person is going to help that person avoid unnecessary problems, get more work done better and faster, and help you delegate more responsibility.

Bonus Management Best Practice 
Regarding every single person you manage, regularly ask and answer for yourself: "Who is this person at work?"

• Assess each employee's basic strengths and weaknesses.
• Consider the role each person plays in your workplace.
• Know how issues at home bear on an employee's role at work.
• Manage the self each employee brings to work.
• Is this person a high performer, low performer or somewhere in the middle?
• Does this person have high productivity, low productivity or middle?
• Does this person do high quality work, low quality work or middle?
• Does this person have irritating behaviors that you want him or her to stop? Or positive behaviors you want others to emulate?

Created by: Bruce Tulgan, © 2009 RainmakerThinking, Inc. in conjunction with Bruce's free video newsletter that's available at Rainmakerthinking.com.

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