"I never realized how much you protected us from", a former employee said to me the other day. Dave has advanced in his career and now deals directly with some executives I used to work with when I was his manager. This has given him a better understanding of some of the things I protected my team from. Not everything that comes down from on top needs to go through to the employees. I passed on what would help my team do their job, but I also used to filter out a lot of the comments, questions, and directives from my managers so my team wouldn’t have to deal with them.
Distractions
It’s your job as a manager to make your team more productive. There is no reason for a team to have a manager if the manager does not help the team produce more than they could have without a manager. One way to make your team more productive is by buffering them from some of the distractions. Distractions take away time they could be spending on productive work and make them less efficient when they do work.These distractions include things like:
- Office politics
Office politics and networking can be helpful. They help you build the contacts you need to work effectively outside the official power structure as well as within it. But they can also eat up a lot of time without getting anything done. As a manager, you can buffer your team from a lot of the office politics. Help them build the networks they need, but keep them from wasting time on the in-fighting and backstabbing of some office politics by reassuring them of their value to the organization and explaining how to increase it. - Rumors
Worrying about rumors is another time sink. As soon as a rumor starts, the work either slows down considerably or stops completely. Workers talk to their neighbors to see what they have heard. People start expounding their theories about "what's really going on" and "what that really means" and others stop to listen to them and add their theories. As their manager, you are in a position to stop a lot of the rumors. You can identify which ones are unfounded and tell your team that they are. You can often answer questions about some of the rumors that are fact-based. Some rumors you may not be able to address, but tell your team why you can’t comment on them or tell them you’ll look into it and get them an answer. When the team knows they can depend on you for straight answers, they won’t waste (as much) time in rumor chasing. - Self Defense
Another way employees waste time is by preparing to defend themselves and their actions. If they think that they have made a mistake they start preparing their explanations about why it wasn’t really their fault and why it won’t happen again. If they think they might be about to make a mistake, like missing a deadline, they start trying to figure out how to avoid it or how to explain it if they can’t avoid it. If the mistake only affects the team they only have to explain to their manager and you can set the tone that mistakes are learning opportunities – but not to be repeated. If it’s something bigger, they might have to explain to a larger audience. As their manager you give them more time to be productive when you take on this role for them. "Right or wrong", my ex-boss used to say, "I'll defend you with (his boss), but if you did wrong, we'll talk."
