Manage Up: Have as much contact and visibility with your boss and boss’s boss as possible. Make interactions mostly business and put in some casual conversation. (It can be very lonely and isolating at the top.) Do what I call casual encounters — except you plan them.
Follow Management’s Priorities: Laser focus on the organization’s top priorities in these challenging times. Stay current on its external image. In challenging times like these the focus and energy probably have something to do with revenue generation and/or cost cutting. If business is good, innovation and talent retention and acquisition is key. Regardless of your role there is something you can do to push the goals and protect your job.
Be Present: Make sure you are seen and heard, even if it is only on Zoom. Speak up, act interested and alert (even if you aren’t). This is not the time to be a quiet observer or an absentee partner. This is creating job security.
Team Push: Challenging times is when great teams shine. Make success a group effort with you as the leader. Find out what your team members are made of. Whose got it and who does not or doesn’t want to put in the effort. Yes, the talented smart ones will work hard and probably long. Remind them this is an investment in their jobs and careers (and yours).
Take More On: If there are new important projects to work on, or committees to join, do so. You need exposure to all levels of people in a variety of areas. Should there be layoffs, furloughs, or some other form of reduction, be the person who is saved or grabbed by another department. It’s hard to fire a face.
Make Yourself Essential: Be the lead, the expert, the only person who knows about an important subject matter. If you speak a language, in addition to English, or have knowledge of a lesser known platform or app, let it be public within your area but also by Human Capital. Need comes up at the strangest times.
Look the Role: Whether in-person or virtually, dress for the position. In fact, dress for the promotion you want. Never risk being too casual in your outfits or demeanor. Not everyone respects a smart mess.
Know the Gossip: Never be the gossip but listen for it. There is some truth to most rumors, and you don’t need any more job surprises in these challenging times. Consider the messenger, weigh the information, evaluate the impact it could have on you, be quiet and strategize.
Network Externally: You should be networking all the time but now it is job essential. Challenging times are the perfect opportunity to rekindle relationships from former employers and colleagues, college friends, and don’t forget headhunters, recruiters, and Human Capital executives. I promise, they will be happy to hear from you and feel a bit guilty they didn’t make the initial move. If everyone spent just 15 minutes a day on this, their roster of current connections would flourish.
Time Management: There is always too much to do and in challenging times people are more likely to “try everything” to get the results they need. It’s not practicable or possible, which is why ruthless protection and usage of time is essential. Determining how much time a task or project is worth, how much time you have available, and rigidly sticking to your plan is how you get important work done. We all waste an amazing amount of time. Social media is a big culprit. Perfectionism is a thief as well but a lack of planning, scheduling, and a poor sense of time are most likely your biggest pitfalls.
Energy Management: Probably more important than time management is knowing when you are at your best and when to stop. Not a bad idea to know your boss’s best and worst times too. Research tells us quality and productivity measures fall after about 50 hours and drop even more dramatically after 60 hours. You may be wasting your time and effort continuing to work after a certain point.
No one can predict the employment outcome of the challenging times we are all facing. But we can have a game plan, an offense, and a defense, that includes managing ourselves, our team(s) and our supervisors. It gives us a better chance with our current job and for the future we want and deserve.
I’ve said it before and will say it again… leaders are made in crisis. You could, should, be one of them.
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