Managing in the Age of Uncertainty
Are you good at prioritizing?
The hardest part of managing today is separating what’s important from what’s urgent.
It goes without saying that the modern employee and manager have more to do, in less time, with fewer resources, than the boomer generation.
These facts sum it up: today’s managers have twice the number of direct reports compared to boomer managers and are spread so thin that developing people is less than 10 percent of their time. And let’s not forget that 50+ percent of first-time managers get no training for the role.
As the “do more with less” era of efficiency engulfs companies, it also confuses employees with too many priorities — too many urgent things to do, all day, all the time. As crazy as it sounds, it was okay to be a little “confused” about priorities as a boomer — because the career ladder was always in the background and kept job progression on track.
As readers of this newsletter know, millennials and gen-z understand they can’t count on the ladder, especially as AI impacts virtually every job role.
Which is exactly why job role alignment to a manager’s priorities, goals and metrics is the single most important part of consistently managing people today. Instead of a career ladder, the current generation knows they need to write their own career story — and aligning a job role to the top priorities on a manager’s dashboard is fundamental to writing a best-selling chapter of any story.
Today’s newsletter is the third in a five-part series to provide a consistent framework for managers to drive alignment. Keep in mind, my research showed millennials and gen-z want to work for managers who are consistent — especially with job role alignment. Here are the five parts:
Two weeks ago: The Manager Dashboard— Job Role Alignment Framework
Last week: Why a common vocabulary is the secret ingredient to alignment
Today: How shared goals set the context for a “box” of responsibilities
Metrics: There can only be one scorecard of success
Alignment examples: Writing a chapter of a career story
Why Prioritization Matters
In the end, prioritization comes down to your decision-making as a manager and how well you set goals.
As team manager, you want your people focused on the needle-moving activities. While I write about managing people, in the end, managing a high-performing team is about getting to the next level yourself — and it starts with setting goals to laser-focus the team on outcomes that will get you and your people noticed.
The purpose of shared goals is to make it clear what your priorities are – what you need to achieve to keep your job and move forward. At the sametime, shared goals are the necessary first step of job role alignment. Remember, your best people want to own a “box” of responsibilities that has a direct-line-of-sight to work that matters to you.
When someone knows how their responsibilities are part of your accountability system, it motivates them – they know it increases the likelihood of getting recognized if they outperform expectations.
What are shared goals?
Goals are the foundation of what makes prioritization possible. Prioritization expresses intent; goals express outcomes.
Clearly articulated common goals makes it crystal clear to the team which tasks, projects, or decisions deserve attention first.
Here is a framework to help with translating priorities into goals. While there are always different points of view, my operational experience taught me there are three (3) types of goals associated with priorities; and seven (7) common goal categories aligned to the priorities.
Which of these is your team using? Can your team members align their roles to any of these goals?
How to Communicate Priorities and Goals
In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about the importance of a common operational language to consistently drive alignment on a team.
Each of the common vocabulary frameworks has a specific way to express shared goals — highlighted in yellow.
Your job as a team manager is to set the pace for the team — and a team can only run fast if it can see the destination. Alignment gets easier as your shared goals get clearer.
Your Homework Assignment
The process you use to determine your shared goals is a once-in-a-planning cycle opportunity to determine how optimized your team is for execution.
Prioritization and goals give you a chance to scan your team for areas that are out-of-alignment. As you look at your team, how would you answer these questions:
Do you have too many people doing the same thing?
Do you have too many people doing the same thing for too long?
Do you have all the right roles on the team?
Are there any elements on the team pulling in a different direction?
Are you still not using a common vocabulary to run the team?
In Summary: Principles of Managing in the Age of Uncertainty
I left Cisco to answer this question with research and evidence: What does the manager of the future look like? What are millennials and gen-z seeking in a manager? Which behaviors, tactics, skills or processes matter? What’s it going to take to attract and keep the best people over the next decade? In short, how to be a great manager.
Based on this research, the core philosophy of this newsletter is rooted in one idea: successful managers in this moment in time, for this generation of talent, need to be “career dot-connectors.” The next-gen doesn’t expect to spend their entire career on your team — that’s an idea boomers grew up with. A job on your team is like a chapter in a career story to the current generation. If you want the best people on your team, you have to connect the dots between roles on the team and the career opportunities of the people working on the team.
What is the“Age of Uncertainty”? If the industrial age was about taking predictable steps up the ladder, the age of uncertainty is about finding or discovering the path of a career without any predictable steps, without an obvious ladder — it’s why being a career dot-connector will differentiate you as a manager.
How to be a Great Manager in the Age of Uncertainty: Be a Career Dot Connector is available on Amazon.
What kind of manager are you? Take my free self-assessment and learn about yourself.