Failure story: 5 learnings from my 5 years of managerial role

Recently, I have got my first ever promotion letter in my life. The previous one was a Senior Manager role, and now I have made it to the Asst. General Manager role where I directly report to the Executive Director and I get to collaborate with my team more in-depth. My roles have changed several times, I have switched jobs and went for a better role, but promotion! This was my first! When I sat down and reflected on my 8-years journey as a development professional, I realized that I have been a manager for last 5 years, if not people manager then a self-manager. I always had a project of my own or a team of my own with whom I needed to collaborate on a daily basis. I have worked with supervisors who have never let me feel managed rather I was empowered to the extent that I always got to manage my own tasks and to plan ahead for the next. Sometimes I failed, sometimes I did reach my goal; It was more of a learning journey and it's still on.

Here's a sneak peak of learning from my managerial experience:

1.Know what to manage and what not to...

[Short: You manage team goal, facilitate team to achieve the goal]

I started my career when I was at my early 20s. So, I wanted to manage everything as a professional - people, their tasks, my training audience, my own manager, my project participants, my projects - EVERYTHING! I became a teller, I started telling everyone what needs to be done. I wanted everything to be perfect, 100% PERFECT. I started getting overworked, overwhelmed and unhappy with my work, I stopped being a team player, and became a solo player. If you know, that's not very good for your managerial career!

To this point of my career, I learnt that as a manager I am just a facilitator, I don't need to be a dictator and control everything. I learnt that I can never manage people rather I can create a safe space for them to manage their own tasks which will contribute to my team's final goal. I am still practicing towards managing team goal, facilitating my team towards that goal. I would say, I have become good at one thing that is - I keep a window open for my team members to knock and talk to me, challenge and debate for their causes. I keep an open space in my worksheet (that's an excel sheet I maintain) where I can accommodate that cause easily.

2.Manage your own tasks and determine your time-wasters!

[Short: plan your own tasks first, identify time-wasters and commit to one or two things to do religiously to avoid wasting time on your calendar]

As I have stated earlier, I have always managed my own tasks. No one ever assigned me any daily tasks rather than assigning a project or a bigger goal. That gave me space to break down the goals into smaller tasks, completing those tasks within timeline - because I was accountable to no one but myself. Well, that also gave me scope to waste a lot of time! I kept procrastinating, I kept complaining, I kept competing with other team members and I kept going on and on! Then I discovered - my graph was going downwards!

I took a step back. I started finding time-wasters like unnecessary meetings, spending too much time on formatting meeting notes, spending too much time complaining and not thinking about solutions. So, I gradually worked on my problem solving skills. I started maintaining a calendar. A shareable, online and goal-oriented calendar. Two things I do religiously - a) I never send meeting invites without agenda b) I never spend time after meeting to format meeting notes/meeting minutes. A meeting without agenda is never a successful meeting, that's a waste of time. If you spend time after meeting to format meeting notes and there is a high chance your team will never turn that note into action! It's 100% efficient to complete your meeting notes precisely and within the meeting time so that everyone gets time to reflect, act and proceed.

3. Clarify goal, routine and delegation

[Short: the key is in clarifying ultimate goal/final product of any assignment precisely, tell your team when you expect it to be achieved and then give him/her the full ownership. Leave the "how" to him/her]

I believe that's the key job of a manager - clarifying goals, by which time that goal should be achieved (routine) and who should be responsible for achieving that goal (delegation). If you have read the book One Minute Manager, you certainly know how important it is to clarify the goal. Sometimes you tell it, sometimes you brainstorm with your team members and sometimes they suggest and you take it! Anyway, you keep the goal short and precise and state it clearly in a easy communicative language. You answer three questions - what (goal), when (routine), who (delegation), you keep the "how" for your team member to take lead on. But always and always keep that window open for your team member to come back to you with their challenges and problems so that you can facilitate and give them a breathing time.

I remember that during my internship days, we had to present our tasks weekly in front of our team members. By the end of the month, I had this complex list of 80 tasks on my worksheet which I couldn't explain properly in the monthly meeting. My fellow-intern had only 4 tasks on her worksheet and she explained it so well! Because, she knew her goal clearly and she spent time to break that goal into tasks on her own. I just kept adding whichever tasks came into my mind in whatever time and I ended up creating an unrealistic task list for one month time period.

4. You are not supposed to know everything and that's okay!

[Short: Normalize learn-it-all attitude rather than know-it-all attitude. Listen and learn and feel okay if you cannot! You are a manager, not a teacher or a parent. Know you can offer your own strength and that's okay!]

I have four units in my department - research & publication, innovation, learning & knowledge, and grants & proposal. Does that mean I need to be an excellent researcher or an innovator or a big data manager or a grant writer? No! Right now, I am a gender researcher, a person who can generate insight from the field, a person who knows what to pick from a story to be displayed as an impact and a person who knows how to formulate concepts for grant writing. And that's okay! As I have stated earlier, I need to facilitate, I need to create a safe space, I don't need to be a dictator, likewise I don't need to be a know-it-all. Rather I would prefer a learn-it-all attitude where I am open to learning new things and add that to my skillset, if necessary.

Well, I would love to develop my career to a path where I become a gender researcher full-time who works with real time practical data and who can pitch it to people for impact management and change.

5. Develop a shareable, trackable and understandable system

[Short: It takes time but you will eventually get there! The habit of following up with utmost sensitivity and an automated system which you will nurture with passion]

This is something, I have learnt recently, to be precise - this is something I have learnt yesterday. We were having a meeting where one of our seniors were showing how he manages his daily tasks. He never misses his deadline, he manages multiple projects, he works with people with multiple types of understanding and goals. At some point, we were thinking that he might have a burnout soon, but he didn't have it yet! How? Because, he is disciplined. He knows what to manage. He knows how to manage. He knows when to manage. He manages a task list of his own where the task board is interactive, he can delegate it to any members of his team, he can track it from anywhere in the world, it's organized so he can share it with anyone. Most importantly, it's easy and understandable.

Well, I have my own task list, I assign my team members different team goals. I have been failing to follow up religiously because I didn't have the habit of following up! I had a lot of time-wasters in my schedule, I didn't have an understandable layout of my work. This is something, I am going to work on. Let's see, what happens!

!Happy reading!