Guest Post – Follow Through
October 20, 2009 @ How to Manage a Camel - Project Management and Recruitment from JasonBurke
One of the greatest frustrations that any manager can experience is that of giving an instruction, only to have it not properly or completely carried out. There is a degree of trust implicit in any human interaction, but in the workplace, there are explicit rules for accountability. How do you handle situations like this?
It has happened to us all, both as managers and subordinates. The scope is not adequately explained, or there are assumptions about what is known or understood. But when chronic problems are identified, it often falls to the manager to resolve them. What is causing the breakdown? Is there a training issue, lack of motivation, family problems, or something else?
Without following through with instructions, identifying causes, and – most importantly – executing a solution (rather than the coworker), the project falters. In the worst case, a problem employee becomes toxic to the rest, and morale suffers.
It may be difficult to address the problem directly, and it may require going up the chain of command to a supervisor, but it is important to act quickly. When this has happened on my projects, what seemed like a motivation problem almost always turned out to be a lack of training. With a few direct questions, some mentoring time, and a refocus on the task, supervisors don’t even need to be involved.
Instead, if the manager has enough technical ability to negotiate problems, know who to ask for advice, and estimate workloads and timelines, he or she is literally forced into allowing the team to do the work they are good at (and, hopefully, enjoy doing in the first place). The trade-off is that the management skills must be more “advertised” to those who select the PM. Make sure that you have developed and can demonstrate team motivation, coaching, incentives, communication, and proper use of authority in order to become a strong leader. It’s not about playing “king of the hill”, it’s about showing how you can manage others to meet specific goals. If you can do this effectively (facing always-limited resources), you are filling an invaluable role for the project and the organization as a whole.
Jason Burke is a Project Manager at Project Management Underground, his experience ranges from engineering design (literally underground) in a California gold mine and a Montana platinum mine to management of a variety of land development projects. He enjoys sharing his experiences and insights with others, especially those in the engineering industries. But anyone can benefit from business management “best practices” as well.
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