They say it’s better to deal with crisis now rather than wait. Procrastinating allows problems to accumulate and exponentially increase the resources required to resolve issues.
They also say that something well managed and measured performs better than something left in the hands of chaos.
1. Lessons learned
At the beginning of my career I learnt many lessons about myself, the job at hand and the difficulties of managing people and projects. The management of people and projects is a skill that takes time to foster and unless you know your job well, the work process and expected outcomes it is very difficult to be effective as a team leader.
2. Mastering your trade and yourself
Mastering your trade, yourself and freely acknowledging your own actions have the potential to cause failure, eventually matures people enough to know that a new lesson awaits and that the best solutions are obtained within a team environment.
3. Effective manager level crew
An effective manager level crew member is very good at magnifying the effort of individuals, building teams and coordinating resources according to prevailing circumstances.
Leadership is about situational awareness, utilizing every means available to achieve success, motivating people, sharing success and having the strength to carry the burden of failure on your own shoulders.
4. Developing a work plan
A work plan with realistic time lines, sufficient resources and well defined parameters immediately becomes obsolete when work commences, because unforeseen issues and problems outside your control negatively and positively effect progress.
The successful completion of tasks and critical milestones requires intelligent manipulation of resources.
Developing a simple bullet point work list and then quantifying precisely what you know and don’t know about the tasks being performed, builds a network of information that highlights:
I. A clear task succession
II. Critical milestones
III. Resource requirements
IV. Safety priorities
V. Un-quantified aspects of the work plan which need further investigation
VI. Useful information that is discoverable when columns are sorted differently to expose useful data
VII. Workplace congestion
Work plan example
|
Task
|
Component
|
Area
|
Safety
|
Time
|
Sequence
|
Resources
|
|
Define the task concisely
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Define exactly what is being worked on
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Define location of the task on & off the boat
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Define safety & protection requirements of workers & workspace
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Provide an achievable time period with an expiry date
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Define the task succession by activity sequence
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Define man power, materials, facilities & specialist tools or contractors
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Note: sorting the document by various columns uncovers dormant information. For example sorting by Area will pinpoint which area has the most work occurring and greatest potential for congestion.
5. Measuring progress & anticipating change
A strong ability to measure progress in not enough, progress must always be measured in a tangible way.
Anticipating change becomes exponentially easier when you have tangible facts and a forward facing plan. Looking ahead and searching for dormant bottle necks occurs when people work together and tunnel vision is removed from the equation by viewing issues form varied perspectives.
6. Delegation of responsibility
Delegation of responsibility is an unnatural process for people that lack confidence. Team leaders that are running short on experience, struggling to achieve results or lamenting decisions should learn to slow the train down and share the burden of responsibility across their team.
Intelligent delegation of responsibility is an excellent way to sustain forward momentum, because letting everyone know the basic objectives and inviting people to take ownership of the work process capitalizes on individual crew member’s talents.
Distributing an acceptable amount of responsibility across the workforce enable afford management level crew time to analyze progress, team member performance and anticipate problems before they become bottlenecks.
7. The power of duplex communication
A brief but formal meeting twice a week combined with impromptu discussions throughout the day that encourage duplex communication between team leader’s and coworkers keeps people focused and updated.
Holding onto information and ignoring the potential of how effective people can be when a team approach is used undermines a person’s leadership very quickly when that behaves like a dictator.
I regularly see experienced and inexperienced team leaders shuffle people and materials around several times a day because they are in a kafuffle.
Snappy or negative comments from a team leader diminish morale, are direct outcome of leadership anxiety that decreases productivity. Negative gossip and groups of people loitering around the workplace occurs when everyone gives up and expects failure to occur.
Off the cuff decisions made outside the team framework increase the number of tasks open, stalled tasks and tasks left incomplete, whereas group decisions deemed achievable by everyone subliminally take people outside their comfort zone and thereby magnifying the efforts of the individual through teamwork and structured time management.
Success should always be given praise and failure should always be analyzed so it can be reduced in the future.
8. Bring the team together
Decisively bringing the team together and pressing for feedback regarding progress has four (4) positive effects:
I. Actively involves team members and counters the tunnel vision usually associated with singular perspectives
II. Provides an opportunity to resolve workplace problems that negatively effect productivity and/or morale
III. Magnifies the collective effort and uncovers innovative ideas which normally remain dormant
IV. Keeps the Marco perspective of the project intact and adjusts the Micro perspective according to prevailing circumstance