10X management tasks

10X Management Tasks

I remember my first sales management job. The Managing Director was an elderly gent in his late 70s named Lionel (RIP) who had built a hugely successful company over multiple decades and coached dozens of young whipper snappers like me to become effective managers.

Lionel spoke with me during my induction and said, “Stephen, you can’t manage people with spreadsheets and emails. You have to get out with the reps and observe what is going on in the field.” It was one of the best pieces of management advice I ever received.

Lionel set me an activity metric to spend 2 days every week in the field accompanying the sales reps as they called on customers, to gain market intelligence, and give the reps ongoing training and corrective feedback.

In a previous article, “Time Management for Managers” I wrote that the goal for managers is to increase the percentage of time performing high-value, high-leverage tasks that you (the manager) must perform to be effective in your role.

Lionel understood this concept intimately and created an activity metric to force me to spend enough time in the field supporting my sales reps.

What are the high-value tasks a manager should prioritize? I think of these as “10X Management Tasks”, where you can potentially get 10 times the return on your investment of time and energy.

Always remember, your role is not to do the work. It is to get work done through others. Don’t dip down!

10X management tasks tend to fall into these 4 buckets:

  1. Planning
  2. Organizing
  3. Observing
  4. Coaching

P = Plan

Planning the work of your team is a high-value 10X management task. You plan the projects. You plan the metrics. You plan the standards.

Managers must make decisions. This doesn’t mean you make all the decisions, but your job is to make the “big” strategic decisions to provide clarity and focus for your team.

You plan and prioritize the projects your team will implement in the coming period. You ensure the work is properly scoped, and negotiate clear commitments for deliverables and deadlines.

You plan and prioritize which metrics (KPIs) your team will focus on, and negotiate the standards for performance targets.

The manager sets the standards for results (projects and metrics), and the standards for core values (the behaviors you will and will not accept).

The military has a saying, “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.” If you see something below standard and you do nothing, then you’ve created a new standard.

In summary, you plan the projects. You plan the metrics. You plan the standards for results and behaviors.

O = Organize

Once you have a clear plan, organizing your team to deliver on that plan is a high-value 10X management task.

W. Edwards Deming has a quote that I love, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, then you don’t know what you are doing.“

A core part of the manager’s job is to build, document, and refine the processes that drive your current business model (the business as usual, day-to-day activities of your team). This is so you can drive consistency and efficiency as your business grows.

You recruit the right people to drive those processes and allocate resources (people, time, and money) to achieve the projects, metrics, and standards you have set in your plan.

O = Observe

Once you have a clear plan and have organized the work, observing progress is a high-value 10X management task.

You track the team’s projects and metrics on a dashboard so everyone on the team can see how things are progressing. You get the team to submit weekly 15-5 Reports on their achievements for the week, and priorities for next week.

But don’t just rely on dashboards and reports. Do what business author Tom Peters calls “Management By Walking Around.”

Army Generals learned long ago they need to “Go and See” what is happening on the front line. Never just rely on what the data tells you. Never just rely on what your direct reports tell you, either. “Go and See” the reality for yourself.

Get out from behind your desk and observe your team doing the work. This is especially important for sales managers.

All managers should get out from behind their desks and speak with customers (internal or external) to understand their experience of doing business with your team.

“Go and See” for yourself where the problems are, and where improvements can be made. Yes, it is a big time commitment, but remember, this is a 10X management task where you can potentially get 10 times the return on your investment of time and energy.

C = Coach

Coaching your team based on your observations is a high-value 10X management task.

In my experience, most managers do not spend enough time training and coaching their people, but actually, this is where you need to spend the bulk of your time!

Your job is to grow the capabilities of your people and increase the output of the team. You do this by continually training your team on the job. You praise and recognize good results and behaviors, and provide corrective feedback and coaching for below-standard results and behaviors.

I recommend that my clients set a personal metric for how much time the manager needs to spend alongside their direct reports, observing their work, and giving ongoing training and corrective feedback. (Just like Lionel did in my first sales management role, insisting that I spend 2 days each week in the field).

Likewise, set a metric for how many meetings the manager needs to have with key customers to understand their experience of doing business with the team. (For many clients, this is a quarterly target for the number of 4Q Conversations they have with customers).

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In summary, planning, organizing, observing, and coaching are the 4 buckets in which most of your high-value 10X management tasks reside, where you can potentially get 10X returns on your time & energy.

I have a saying, “Strategy Execution is 20% getting clear about what needs to be done, and 80% following up to make sure it actually gets done”.

To me, that means you spend 20% of your time planning and organizing, and 80% of your time observing and coaching.

Are you doing enough observing and coaching? I doubt it.

The following 2 quotes resonate with lessons I learned the hard way as a manager:

1. “People perform to the level that you inspect.”

They don’t perform to the level that you “expect”. They perform to the level that you “inspect”.

Yes, you trust your people to do their job without micromanaging them, but you still need to “Go and See” for yourself. You inspect what is going on at the front lines to ensure plans are being carried out, and standards are being met, just like good army generals do.

2. “Trust, but verify.“

This is a Russian quote, used by President Ronald Reagan of the USA when he negotiated a nuclear disarmament treaty with his Russian counterparts back in the 1980s.

You trust people to meet the agreed expectations, but you still verify to make sure they do.

If you don’t absorb the implications of these 2 quotes, my experience would suggest you are being naive, and you are setting yourself up for disappointment as a manager.

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Until next time…
Stephen