Team management is all about making decisions that are in the best interest of your team and your organization. The quality of your team relationships will help you thrive or fail in your role as a manager. The more insight you have in your role the more effectively you’ll be able to do your job. In order to be a productive manager you must first have a broader understanding of your industry, your company, and your role, and ultimately your subordinates.
Good Habits that Productive Managers Share
Time is money.
Here are a few more skills you may develop in order to become a productive manager. Remember, these are traits that will not develop overnight. Each requires a fair amount of practice and precision. But the end result will give you a renewed sense of hope in managing your team at its optimum productivity.
FOCUS
In order to become a productive manager you must understand your team and their issues before they grow into bigger problems. This also means being proactive and preventive at the same time. You must know what’s best for the team’s wellbeing so you can make the right decisions that prove to be a game-changer.
EISENHOWER DECISION MATRIX
We cannot stress the importance of using the Eisenhower Decision Matrix if you want to be a productive manager. The Eisenhower Matrix is a 4-square grid with axis representing the level of task urgency and importance. The horizontal x-axis represents the most urgent tasks and the right side the least. The horizontal y-axis represents the level of importance, with the lowest at the bottom and highest at the top.
The end result is the Eisenhower Box made of four quadrants: Important/Urgent. Important/Not Urgent, Unimportant/Urgent, Unimportant/Not Urgent. You can place all your tasks within these boxes.
TRUST
It is said that ‘trust’ is the key to a highly-functioning team. You may learn to practice trust within the team by delegating tasks to the team members. This way you’ll find enough time to focus on bigger tasks that really require your managerial eye.
DEPRIORITIZE
A regular digital detox is what you need in order to stay productive. You may do so by turning off Slack notification, email notifications, cutting 70% of meetings, etc. Not everyone can afford the luxury of turning off work notifications or eliminating meetings. However, we can all take time out to reflect on day-to-day activities that we’re tangled in, and which consume a majority of our time.
Learn to deprioritize what yields no productive value, and eliminate what will not help you get tasks done.
It’s important to learn the art of prioritization if you want to be a productive manager. Stick to these five rules of work and see the magic happen instantly!