Management 4-1-1

If you are like me, you get a barrage of emails, meeting notices, phone calls from all kinds of people pulling you in different directions and asking for your focus and attention.  The next thing you know, you’re multitasking in more directions than you have brain cells to keep track of.  By the time you realize what’s happening, you’re feeling overwhelmed and not sure how to best focus your time and attention. 

Don’t panic!!  After all, you are the captain of the ship, right?

It’s in these seemingly overwhelming times, you need to calm the ship by stepping back and answering one of the most clarifying and liberating questions - “What was I hired to do?” 

Michael Hyatt, calls this process “Master Tasking.”  He describes, the Master Tasking process as the regular identification of the most important work-related tasks you are responsible for.

When answering this question, you should focus on the following steps:

1. Write down five to seven broad areas you are responsible for. (e.g., Customer Success, Budgetary Oversight, Employee Development, etc.)
2. Underneath each major area, write three to five action-oriented sub-tasks. (e.g., Coaching direct reports, Review and report on key metrics to executive leadership team, etc.)

By answering this critical question, you can become more focused and productive on the most important areas you are responsible for.  In addition, you can take the results of this exercise to better align to your daily calendar to ensure you are spending your time the right way.

Below is my “real life” example of doing this exercise:

Chuck’s Master Task List

Business Planning & Development

• Provide input into organizational direction
• Align organizational strategy, goals and direction with corporate and business unit strategies
• Review departmental annual plans (aka – Roadmap) and track progress
• Deliver on group presentations highlighting organizational service offerings, vision, etc.
• Meet with sales leadership and customer-facing groups to identify additional market needs

Operations & Delivery

• Identify and establish new value-added service offerings(e.g., consulting services, training services programs, value-added support programs, etc.)
• Review and evaluate operational processes for delivering current & new services programs
• Monitor processes from sales –> implementation –> ongoing support for process improvement
• Participate in due diligence and execution phases on acquisition opportunities
• Deliver quarterly Operations Review Presentation to executive leadership team

Customer Success

• Monitor Customer Satisfaction scores (e.g., Net Promoter Scores, Professional Services Survey, Support Interaction Surveys, etc.)
• Track and monitor customer happiness scores for Top 200 customers
• Monitor customer cancellation and non-renewal reasons
• Monitor customer churn 
• Report to leadership team results of Customer Success program and provide recommendations on follow-up action items.

Budgetary Oversight

• Provide input into annual budget
• Review monthly budget and manage any expense deviations
• Provide updated revenue forecasts for professional services line of business

Employee Development

• Coach direct reports
• Set quarterly and annual goals for direct reports
• Prepare and deliver regular performance reviews
• Recruit and hire top talent (as needed)
• Identify opportunities to empower direct reports to gain additional skill-sets and experience through on the job learning and/or training

Question:  What were you hired for?