View From The Top… Stay In Touch!!!

This is the third installment in an ongoing series of blog posts from Todd Weeks, Sr. Director of the Microsoft.com Portal and Operations Team

As I have been working with a few people over the past months, there have been a couple of themes that seem to keep popping up with respect to management style. The first is how should I approach a problem to have the most success at resolving it, the second is; as a Manager of Managers, what is the best way to stay in front of the business and make the right decisions.

The two things are very similar, and the way I have found myself answering those questions is first:

Approach a problem systemically. Systemic Thinking is looking at the entire environment, making sure when you are trying to fix something you are actually applying the proper wrench to the right bolt. If you are talking to the wrong person, or level of person, things won’t happen to the degree you may want. Look at the entire system, the people, the integration points, and devise your plan of attack to have the best results to solving your problem. As much as someone may want to help you, if they are not the right lever in the system, most likely things won’t happen and you’ll feel tension, not success. Or, they will help you and it could cause other problems in the system.

This brings me to my second theme that not surprisingly ties right into systemic thinking. You need to understand the system and your environment if you are going to know how to most effectively influence and help it. I have found it extremely helpful to meet with nearly every person on my team on a monthly if not quarterly basis. As my team has significantly grown this has had to change, but the one thing that has remained is meeting with people from every level of the org in every role at least every month just to stay in touch. My role as a manager is to be here to help them, reduce roadblocks and know the business and daily decisions so I can help provide guidance or air cover. Growth and change are things that really intimidate people. By staying in touch with every level of the team, knowing the pain points and the help needed; I can make much better decisions as a manager or try to make change, that will make my team happier and have a healthier work life.

So Stay In Touch!! As you have more levels of managers or people under you, meet at every level, don’t just stop at 1 or 2 levels down. I have the ability to affect my system greatly, and it is my responsibility more than anyone’s in it to understand it