Work Effectively with Others
Working productively doesn’t always mean working alone. You’ll often need to work with others, and for good reason: The people around you can be great resources in helping you get work done. Recognize when it’s appropriate to delegate work and learn to do it well; also identify when to ask for help.
Working with others can also slow you down, however. In a social environment like a workplace, you’re often driven to do work that you don’t need to simply because a colleague asked. You need to learn to recognize when work doesn’t add value and know how to say no. Working with your colleagues also often means a lot of meetings; to be efficient, you need to learn to make the most of those gatherings so they don’t proliferate. And in today’s world of telecommuting and far-flung global offices, it’s critical to learn how to work effectively with a virtual team to avoid miscommunication and inefficiency.
Learn to say no
You want to be known as a helpful, eager team player, but you should have a method of assessing the mountain of requests that come your way, especially if you feel as if you’re losing sight of your goals and priorities because you’re already being pulled in too many directions.
When a colleague asks you for a favor or to take on a new task, consider the following:
1. How valuable is this work to the company? Does it contribute to the company’s overall objectives or to the objectives of your team or division? If the work doesn’t add value and it’s not having a positive impact on the company’s goals, it may not make sense for you to take it on.
2. How important is this activity to your own professional performance goals? Classify the work as essential, important, discretionary, or unimportant. If it’s not important to your organization or to the metrics for success that you and your manager have set for you, don’t do it.
3. Do you get personal value from this work? Do you enjoy it or do you dislike it altogether? If the work isn’t meaningful to you, chances are you’re not going to perform the task well and it might not be something worth putting on your list.
4. Do you have enough time to do the work? Even if it’s valuable, if you have other high-priority work on your plate, it may not make sense for you to take on this project now.
5. Is this something only you can do because you have a particular skill set or expertise, or could it be accomplished successfully by someone else? If it is the latter, this task is one you should delegate.
Even if the request is coming from your boss, it’s acceptable to push back and ask these questions. If you’ve clearly outlined your tasks and goals, the two of you together will be able to see if this request doesn’t fit.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself, and for the business, is to not take on those tasks that add little value and instead commit yourself to the work that matters.
Delegate
Do you find that you’re still working in the office every night after everyone else has gone home? Do you feel as if nothing could ever get done without you? Do other people keep offering to help you? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, think about whether you have too much on your plate. You may need to seek help to get work done.
While it’s true that there are only so many hours in a day, it’s also true that you can free up more of those hours if you delegate (or eliminate) the less important tasks on your list. You’re not shirking your responsibilities; you’re working efficiently to get the real work of the business done.
What tasks could be done well by someone else? Delegate that work to a colleague or direct report. Here are the three important steps for delegating effectively:
1. Identify low-value tasks. Go through your to-do list and look for tasks that are not a high priority for you or your company (like those you identified earlier in the book). Those are the ones that you should consider delegating. If you’re not sure what is within your right to delegate, talk to your manager.
2. Choose the right person. Consider what work could best be done by your direct reports, each member of your team, and other colleagues around you. Is there something on your list that would give another team member valuable experience? Is there work that could augment—or take advantage of—a colleague’s skill set? Making the work you delegate a part of someone’s development goals will ensure the work gets done. For administrative tasks, identify more junior team members who may have more time to do them. Again, work with your manager to make sure that the person you’ve picked for the handoff makes sense.
3. Walk away. The key to successful delegation is to hand off the work and let others determine how to get it done. Show that you trust your direct reports or colleagues by not intervening or micromanaging the work they’re doing. Instead, monitor their progress at a distance and be available for support as they hit roadblocks that might require your expertise.
Once you’ve delegated some of your work, decide how you will reallocate the time you’ve freed up: List the two to three things that you would like to be doing but haven’t had the time to do. Treat these items as you would others on your to-do list by following the processes described earlier in this book.
You’ve kept your boss informed throughout this process, but in order to commit to freeing up more time for what’s really important, share your time-reallocation plan with her in detail by asking her to review and assess what you’ve delegated and what you’ve committed to spending time on. Request that she hold you accountable. If you don’t, you’re likely to lean on bad habits when you get busy again.
Remember that it takes time to learn how to delegate well. Give yourself that time and know that you will make mistakes. Ask your manager and your colleagues for feedback, so you can adjust for the next time. (See the sidebar “The Dos and Don’ts of Delegation.”)
Ask for help
Sometimes it’s difficult to admit that you don’t know how to do something. But it’s worse when your insecurity leads to work getting done incorrectly or a project spiraling out of control. Sometimes you need to reach out to others for assistance.
In some cases, it may be easy to identify who you can ask for help. Remember that person you consulted to see how long a task would take when you were assigning deadlines? Reach out to him again if you’re having trouble with that task now that you’ve started. If you’re just not sure whom to ask, talk to your manager.
THE DOS AND DON’TS OF DELEGATION
Do:
• Be aware of how much you’re working, compared to your colleagues.
• Hand off the tasks that do not fit into your goals and might be best done by somebody else.
• Involve your manager by explaining your delegation plan in detail.
Don’t:
• Give someone a task and micromanage how she accomplishes it.
• Assume you’re the only one who can get a task done.
• Think you’re going to get delegation right every time.
Once you know whom to approach, think about how you’ll ask for help. Taking more of the initiative will mean that you’ll get quicker, better answers.
1. Start with what you know. Give the person the information that you have, so that he knows where you’re starting from. In addition to giving him important background information that he needs to help you, this will also help you feel more confident.
2. Have an opinion. You might not know the right answer, but you should know where you’d like to begin or have a suggested course of action. Explain to the other person the direction you’d like to take and let him give you input on whether or not he thinks it’s the right one, rather than making him come up with a plan himself (that will take a lot more time and effort on his part than reacting to your ideas).
3. Be direct. There will be times when you ask for help and you still don’t understand the direction you’re given. Ask again. The person who is assisting you won’t know if his instructions are helpful if you aren’t clear with him.
Interacting with others efficiently can be a great asset as you work toward your goals. But you won’t always be working one on one with your coworkers. Now let’s look at how you can be more productive when you’re leading a meeting with a group.
Make meetings more productive
Whether the purpose of your meeting is to bring people together to make a decision (or several decisions), to brainstorm, to give status reports, or to share other information, gatherings of multiple people can become inefficient very quickly. Here’s how to make your time together more productive:
• Get the right people together. If the vice president of marketing is out of the office and you can’t make the decision without her, reschedule the meeting. Otherwise you’re wasting time for yourself and everyone else.
• Set an agenda. Outline what will be covered in the meeting in advance and route that agenda to the attendees ahead of time, along with any other important documents needed for the meeting. Two to three days in advance of the meeting is ideal to give attendees a chance to review. Label each agenda item as “for discussion,” “for information,” or “for decision,” so that everyone in the room is clear on what the action items are during the meeting. Gathering to meet when participants are unaware of what you’ll be discussing and haven’t prepared is likely to waste everyone’s time as well.
• Assign time slots for each agenda item. This will help ensure that you don’t spend more time than necessary—or than you have available—on any one agenda item. Begin with the most important to-dos, too, since most people come to a meeting with energy and enthusiasm that will decrease as the meeting progresses.
• Stick to the 90-minute rule. Very few things are accomplished after 90 minutes. If it’s not possible to cover everything you need to in that time frame, schedule a follow-up meeting rather than taking the time all in one session. Your time together will be more productive.
Running effective meetings will improve the way you work—and also the way your colleagues work. They will appreciate your respect of their time and, ideally, learn from your own good habits, making other meetings you attend more efficient as well.
Make virtual work more effective
Many employees work from home or from another location outside of a company’s main headquarters. Whether it’s because of the company’s far-flung global offices or as the result of a flexible work benefit, working off-site has become a normal part of our work lives.
Virtual work demands that you communicate clearly or you’re going to be spending a lot of time resolving misunderstandings or redoing work. There’s a lot of room for confusion when you’re not addressing your colleagues face-to-face. Often, you can’t see the person you’re talking to. Social cues and the information we get by looking someone in the eye—and seeing her in her environment—are gone. Tone can be misread. You have to work harder to ensure you’re understood.
If you’re part of a virtual team, establish communication norms. For instance, how long will it take you to respond to e-mail? Will all team calls take place via Skype or through some other type of videoconferencing? If a team member needs to be reached right away, does she prefer a phone call to an e-mail? When these norms are made clear at the outset, you won’t need to have a back-and-forth before a meeting; you’ll already know that you’ll be using a set videoconference line. Nor will you need to flood your colleague’s inbox with messages asking for a response to an email you sent 20 minutes ago. You’ll know he’ll be in touch within the hour, and you can devote the time before you hear from him to other important work.
Keep the following tips in mind to make sure that your communications are understood and efficient.
• Spell it out. Be clear and specific in your messages. More communication is better than less. If you’re unsure whether your message was clear, ask your colleagues to paraphrase it for you; if they don’t get it quite right, clarify it again. For example, if you need a response by a particular date, communicate that deadline explicitly. Saying, “I look forward to hearing back from you,” doesn’t sound urgent, and it’s unclear when you’ll need a response. Instead, be specific: “I need your feedback by end of day Thursday so I can communicate it to the client during our call on Friday morning.”
• Respond promptly. In virtual work, you don’t have the benefit of knowing where your colleagues are or what they’ve been doing all day. If a virtual colleague sends you an e-mail, he may not know that you’ve been stuck in a conference room for hours, or that you’ve been working on a specific project and have turned off your e-mail alerts; he may assume that your lack of response means that his request isn’t important to you. Let your virtual teammates know when you might be unavailable and respond to their e-mails as quickly as possible, even if that response is a brief one to tell them you aren’t available at the moment but will be back in touch soon. They will spend less time trying to track you down, and you can feel less stressed to respond to them as soon as you do get out of your meeting or step away from your project.
If you’re the one working away from a central office, remember that virtual work requires the same commitment to task and routine as any other kind of work; don’t let your new and improved productivity habits lapse when you or others are out of the room. All of the great work you’ve done to be productive, and to work well with others, is even more critical when you aren’t always working face-to-face.