Hi there,
It’s been a busy week at PUSH I cannot wait to share some thinking I’ve been doing!
“But I don’t have time for it!”
I was speaking to one of my favourite clients earlier this week and we were discussing how she never feels like she has enough time to do the work that she really wants to do and is instead caught up in the work she’s good at, but just doesn’t really love anymore. And it really reminded me of the many managers that I speak with who are all really keen to deliver on people management but either don’t know what that really means and where to start or simply don’t have time for it, given their role as an individual contributor.
So, I wanted to share with you a wonderful little process, where you can ‘Delegate and Elevate’ into doing a lot more of the stuff that you love.
What's not to love? Here’s what you do:
We all have a 100% weekly work capacity. Yours could be 20 hours, 30 hours, 40 hours, 50 hours or more - it will be entirely personal to you. Working that out and then working within your 100% work capacity is crucial, because when you regularly work beyond it, that’s when you get that feeling of burn-out, resentment, disengagement, demotivation, unfairness, etc. All the good stuff!
Now, we've worked out the time we have... how do we fill it?
I propose that you write a list of ALL the things that you do. All of them. If you are a manager or want to be manager, make sure that you list out all of your people management duties specifically - even if you don’t do them all now. We need to make sure that you’re going to have time for these moving forward.
Have a look at the example list I’ve created for you here:
Now once you’ve got your list, I want you to break each of the things you’ve written down into the following four segments:
- The things you love and are great at - these will be the things that energise you the most.
- The things you like and are good at - I would imagine you used to love these things but you’ve done them for a while now so they’re starting to drain rather than energise you.
- The things you don’t like but are good at - I bet you have done these for years and they suck the life out of you!
- And, finally the things you’re not good at and don’t like - how the hell do you even have them on your to-do list? I bet someone delegated them to you years ago and somehow they’re still kicking around!
Quick footnote - if you’re a manager and your people management stuff isn’t in the top two sections, then you really need to be thinking about whether you’re in the right role!
Now, I would put money on the fact that, of your 100% work capacity, almost all of it is taken up with the bottom two sections and you absolutely do not get a kick outta working like that! So here’s the next step:
DELEGATE AND ELEVATE!
Your task now is to delegate everything in the bottom two quadrants so you can a: elevate yourself and your work, and b: elevate the people around you. This might not happen overnight, but now at least you have clarity and a plan. There is simply nothing worse than not being sure what needs to be done and no plan of action of how to achieve it! Now you know both, which is a great place to start. Watch as the team around you feel more empowered to grow their roles and you start to feel more engaged with your job again.
I always say, rather than finding a new role, maybe your goal is to fall back in love with the one you have already!
As ever, I’m always here for a chat or another perspective! Get in touch if you’d like to chat about helping yourself or your managers create more capacity and capability to manage your teams to peak workplace performance!
Have a great week!
Cate x
Hi there,
It’s been a busy week at PUSH I cannot wait to share some thinking I’ve been doing!
“But I don’t have time for it!”
I was speaking to one of my favourite clients earlier this week and we were discussing how she never feels like she has enough time to do the work that she really wants to do and is instead caught up in the work she’s good at, but just doesn’t really love anymore. And it really reminded me of the many managers that I speak with who are all really keen to deliver on people management but either don’t know what that really means and where to start or simply don’t have time for it, given their role as an individual contributor.
So, I wanted to share with you a wonderful little process, where you can ‘Delegate and Elevate’ into doing a lot more of the stuff that you love.
What's not to love? Here’s what you do:
We all have a 100% weekly work capacity. Yours could be 20 hours, 30 hours, 40 hours, 50 hours or more - it will be entirely personal to you. Working that out and then working within your 100% work capacity is crucial, because when you regularly work beyond it, that’s when you get that feeling of burn-out, resentment, disengagement, demotivation, unfairness, etc. All the good stuff!
Now, we've worked out the time we have... how do we fill it?
I propose that you write a list of ALL the things that you do. All of them. If you are a manager or want to be manager, make sure that you list out all of your people management duties specifically - even if you don’t do them all now. We need to make sure that you’re going to have time for these moving forward.
Have a look at the example list I’ve created for you here:
Now once you’ve got your list, I want you to break each of the things you’ve written down into the following four segments:
- The things you love and are great at - these will be the things that energise you the most.
- The things you like and are good at - I would imagine you used to love these things but you’ve done them for a while now so they’re starting to drain rather than energise you.
- The things you don’t like but are good at - I bet you have done these for years and they suck the life out of you!
- And, finally the things you’re not good at and don’t like - how the hell do you even have them on your to-do list? I bet someone delegated them to you years ago and somehow they’re still kicking around!
Quick footnote - if you’re a manager and your people management stuff isn’t in the top two sections, then you really need to be thinking about whether you’re in the right role!
Now, I would put money on the fact that, of your 100% work capacity, almost all of it is taken up with the bottom two sections and you absolutely do not get a kick outta working like that! So here’s the next step:
DELEGATE AND ELEVATE!
Your task now is to delegate everything in the bottom two quadrants so you can a: elevate yourself and your work, and b: elevate the people around you. This might not happen overnight, but now at least you have clarity and a plan. There is simply nothing worse than not being sure what needs to be done and no plan of action of how to achieve it! Now you know both, which is a great place to start. Watch as the team around you feel more empowered to grow their roles and you start to feel more engaged with your job again.
I always say, rather than finding a new role, maybe your goal is to fall back in love with the one you have already!
As ever, I’m always here for a chat or another perspective! Get in touch if you’d like to chat about helping yourself or your managers create more capacity and capability to manage your teams to peak workplace performance!
Have a great week!
Cate x
