From the Ask Tom mailbag.

Question

I have just joined a new company as a project manager and another PM has been assigned as my manager. While this person has been with the company for a while, he is not that far ahead of me technically, though he knows some of the ins and outs of our clients. My problem is that I have been here for a week and a half and, though I have approached him several times about assignments, he continues to keep everything to himself. I am getting tired of staring at my computer screen. I don’t want to go around him, but I don’t know what I can do.

Response

Your manager is obviously more interested in task oriented work rather than management oriented work. Project Managers manage projects, not people, so he may not even know what to do, or how to manage you.

Whatever his reasons are, it really doesn’t matter. The first obstacle you have to overcome is, lack of trust. You have to get to know him. And I am not talking about warm and fuzzy stuff, this can be brilliantly professional. Grab him at a coffee break, before or after work and try these questions:

• Where did you go to school?
• How did that prepare you, for your career as a project manager?
• What attracted you to project management?
• What is the most interesting project you have ever completed?
• What part of your job do you find the most satisfying? (Hint, he is likely to also tell you the part he finds the least satisfying…which may be your entry into an assignment for some productive work).

Ask him what the most appropriate first assignment might be. Would it be a small project on your own, a segment of a larger project, or simply a small task in a larger segment?

Each day, ask him if there is some small thing that you could do for him that would be truly helpful. It doesn’t have to be a huge assignment, yet something you can successfully complete that begins to build the trust. It might even be an administrative task like collecting all the projects in a list and tagging the status of each project, who is working on it, etc. (This will be helpful to you, because you will know about projects in-house). Good luck, keep us updated on your progress.

Emily’s white board had been in place for three days when I got the call. The tone in her voice was quite cheery.

“My team is absolutely amazing,” she reported. “The first day was tough because production was pretty much the same as before. The daily target was 175 units and we only managed to produce 86. I thought the team would implode, but when I got to work the next day, they were all there early and the line was already running. Instead of shutting down the line for break, they took breaks one at a time to keep things moving. We still only got 110 units, but they saw the improvement. Yesterday, they changed a couple of more things and we produced 140 units.

“What’s funny,” she continued. “All I have done, as a manager, is post the target number on the board in the morning and make comments about their improvement. All the changes, they have done on their own. It’s like everything has shifted. This is no longer my problem. They are working to fix it like it is their problem.”

“And, what about your morale problem?” I asked.

Emily’s face curled into a smile, “Oh, I don’t think the problem was morale.”

“With those two purposes for delegation, time management and people development, where is the leverage, for the manager?” I asked.

It’s a lizard eye question, destined to create silence in the room. The answer to that question requires a series of more specific questions.

“If your purpose for delegation is time management and you delegate a task that saves you one hour, how much time have you saved?”

“One hour,” someone shouted out. “As long as you didn’t have to explain it. But if it took ten minutes to explain, you only saved 50 minutes.”

“You must have been a math major,” I replied. “So, the relative leverage for delegation, if your purpose is time management is 1/1, as long as you don’t have to explain much.” I stopped to survey the room. Heads were nodding in agreement.

“And if your purpose for delegation is people development and you delegate a task that saves you one hour every week, in a years’ time, how much time did you save?”

“Fifty two hours,” shouted the math major.

“And so, if it took an entire hour to explain this one task, that now saves you 52 hours over one year, what is your leverage?”

The math major was still on his game. “52/1,” he announced. “And if this delegated task saved you one hour a day, your leverage for the year would be 260/1.”

“Now we are talking leverage. If your purpose for delegation is time management, your leverage is likely closer to 1/1, but if your purpose for delegation is people development, your leverage is huge. When I work with CEOs, I am always looking for leverage, where they work for an hour and gain 500 or 1000 hours of productivity. The only way to gain that kind of leverage is through developing team members to assume responsibility for tasks and roles that you think only you can do.”

“Be selfish. Don’t think about anyone else. If you could delegate more effectively, what would be the major benefit, to you, as a manager?” I asked.

The class was quick. We charted their responses on the board. I drew a careful red line across the page and asked the second question.

“And for your team member, what would be the major benefit for your team member if you were able to delegate more effectively?”

Again, the class responded and we filled the rest of the page thinking about the team member. I stood back. The top was all about the manager, the bottom was all about the team member. And the themes were distinctly different.

“What is the major theme when you think about yourself?” I continued.

“Time,” the class replied. They had twenty responses, but they were all connected to time.

“Indeed, delegation is your most powerful time management tool.” I stopped and surveyed the faces as I pointed to the bottom of the chart. “And what is the theme, here? When you focus on the team member, is this about time?”

Heads were shaking, eyes squinting, some sat back. “It all has to do with learning, self-confidence, growth and recognition,” they finally replied.

“Indeed, as a manager, you think about delegation as a time management tool. In fact, delegation is your most powerful people development tool.“

“I know I need to delegate more often,” Sharon explained. “But, it just takes that little bit of extra time that I never seem to have. It’s just easier to do it myself.”

“How many hours do you put in each day?” I asked.

“Well, ever since I became a manager, probably ten or eleven. It seems the harder I work, the more work there is to get done.”

“Sharon, do you know the reward for long hours of hard work?” I could see she was going over the obvious answers, dismissing them one at a time. In the end, she had no answer.

“You’re right,” she said, “at this point in my career, I don’t need another plaque to put on the wall. I don’t need to be Employee of the Month, again.”

I smiled. “The just reward for long hours of hard work is more long hours of hard work.” I stopped. “Is that why you are working so hard?”

Sharon stared, first at me, then the wall behind me, then I think her stare began to burrow into her brain.

“Unless your intention is to work even harder and for longer hours, you have to begin to work differently.”