How do you make sure nothing falls through the cracks?
I know the things I need to check in, so I literally calendar them for a few days away to check on them. I am pretty religious about making sure my calendar is up to date and whether there's a timeline or deadline there. If there's not a deadline, I give myself a deadline and I add it to the calendar.
I usually keep a lot on my to-do list for the day. I have a must-be-done list, a should-be-done list and an it’d-be-nice-if-I-got-to-that list. I tend to keep them all on the same day. Then, as I reorganize and reprioritize, I might move things off to the next day depending on critical triaging. I triage a lot.
What’s the best process or system you’ve set up for yourself or your department/office?
I think it's kind of the combination between the twice weekly staff meetings and Outlook and Outlook tasks. One thing that I do when I’m deciding what to delegate is I make sure that I have a list of what they're doing on my task list. So I can kind of move those around and check in with them when they should be done as well. Giving them a to-do list has been really helpful as well. Not only creating my own, but creating theirs and letting them know if I see a priority that they didn't catch. I will reorganize their priorities, but they usually give me the priority of items they're going to take care of. I've been having them copy me on things and it's really helped me let go knowing they'll get it done.
How do you choose what work you’re going to bring home or stay late for?
When there's something critical. When we get a deadline from Frank. If he gives us five o'clock, I know he's probably doing that at nine o'clock that night, so I know he needs it. But I also know that some deadlines are somewhat flexible. I try to balance self-care with that, too. So I know, for instance, that we all had a deadline on Friday, but I also knew that [the person who needed it] didn't work that weekend, so I was able to kind of leverage my time there. It should have been done at five o'clock on Friday. It didn't get done until 8:00 AM on Monday. A little bit of self-care, I think, is important. It does take time to know what is important and what can wait. Sometimes, you know, you could work for five hours on something and you get a different directive that sixth hour. So knowing that — sometimes — when things don't quite seem settled, it’s OK to give it a minute. And that's helped me a lot with self-care and setting up boundaries.
And sometimes, your faculty are rolling something over. If you rushed it, you wouldn't get their perspective. If you give it a little bit more time, sometimes things resolve themselves before you have to interfere. So not jumping on things too quickly is important too. And that's a finesse that takes time to develop for sure.
What tips would you offer to a new manager?
I would tell a new manager that you aren't supposed to know all the answers, and if you act like you do, you're going to get yourself in trouble. it's OK to need to ask people questions. It's OK to verify. It's OK to say, “I don't know, I'll look into that for you.” People respect that. If you get uncomfortable when you don't know, it's like blood in the water. You don't want to let them know you're uncomfortable with not knowing. It's the confidence of, “I don't know — we'll figure it out and I'll get back to you.”
I think reaching out to folks, making yourself available, checking in with people and not assuming they know or understand everything. Showing them empathy, because things are crazy right now. Being human and letting people know that you have stuff going on in your life, too. And even admitting when you just came out of another meeting and you're shifting gears and it might take a minute because there's a lot of important things that came down in that meeting. Being human, I think, is really important. Something I've been working on more this past year than ever before is sharing more of my story because students' experiences are challenging, and I don't know that a lot of people have had similar experiences. So trying to share perspective has been really crucial to my success during these really challenging times.
How does it feel doing the job now versus how it felt when you started?
So the first six months there was a lot of technical learning and learning processes. Now that's all slowed down and that leaves space to do other things, to leave space to make sure you're involved in areas of the campus that are important to you.
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Something to think about:
“Clarity on your goals creates intentionality. Intentionality accelerates progress.”
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The Rabbit Hole (resources, content, etc. that are relevant to the job):
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