Standard Operating Procedures

Have you ever taken a new supervisory position and wondered how anybody knew how to do anything? Unfortunately, many organizations utilize the sink or swim approach to training new employees. With the huge effort it takes to hire the right person for a position doesn't it make sense to set the conditions where they can hit the ground running? Developing and publishing how things are done is absolutely one of the most important aspects to consistent, quality performance.

The Army calls the written procedures for doing business Standard Operating Procedures or SOPs. If the actions required to execute your responsibilities are not clearly stated in SOPs you will never reach your full potential. Developing SOPs for your areas of responsibility accomplish several things:

1 – New hires have a ready “instruction manual” if you will on how to do the basic functions of their job
2 – Continuity
3 - Consistent and reliable output from your section
4 – Establishes baseline for counseling your people

Give new hires an instruction manual. Personnel turnover is a significant event so don’t let the situation compound itself by not having SOPs in place. This allows for the temporary replacement and/or the permanent replacement to quickly fall into the habit of following SOPs and will lead to minimal disruption of office requirements.

Continuity. Reduction in output is expected when new people come into an organization. Not by lack of their ability, but because the new hire is exactly that: new. Give them every advantage to excel from the first day. Give your section every advantage to not be disrupted during this time. Get your SOPs done!

Consistent performance. By your position you alone are ultimately responsible for SOPs and system development. The only change in performance your boss should ever see is improvement. Workload at the middle management level is extremely high as we know. Don’t think for a moment your boss’s workload is any less; it’s more. Endear yourself to your boss and your subordinates by establishing systems that produce consistent, outstanding results. Write your SOPs!

Counseling baseline. Another significant advantage of having your people write the SOPs covering their areas is that it also identifies most, if not all, of their responsibilities. Both you and your subordinates should have a clear understanding of their responsibilities to start with and SOPs will serve to reinforce and modify those responsibilities as necessary. Clarity is the goal here. The importance of counseling will be addressed in detail in a later post.

Final thoughts. You are not alone in the actual creation of SOPs. Don't get hung up on format for Pete's sake! Worrying about format is a stall tactic.  Force your people to actively participate in system and SOP development.  Here’s why: Outside of the reasons above, they are the ones that do the heavy lifting and should take ownership of procedures being taken care of properly in their absence. Who better than the subject matter expert to write the SOPs that cover their responsibilities? Who knows better how to start an IV on you in the hospital, the nurse or the brain surgeon?

Enough already! Let me know your thoughts.

Z

Communication

Think about every time we’ve heard “poor communication” as being the reason something wasn’t accomplished, coordinated, or a misunderstanding occurred because it just didn’t exist? Almost every problem in the workplace can be attributed to poor communication. A lot of lip service goes into being a good communicator, but it takes actual ACTION to cure communication problems. So how do we fix it?

Good communication means building rapport with EVERYONE. This means those that outrank you and certainly those who work for you. This can best be accomplished through open, direct interaction. Nothing beats face to face communication. Building relationships through email and other electronic media is one thing, but truly effective and lasting impressions are maintained through personal contact.

Good communication with your employees means taking the few minutes to give them your undivided attention and by LISTENING to them for Pete’s sake! Our workload is so great that the temptation to use this as an excuse not to give your people the courtesy of your full attention is great; I know. BE BETTER THAN THAT! If one of your folks come to you this is what you’ll do: face them directly, stop stealing glances at your email, don’t answer your phone (you have voicemail), put your paperwork down. Just listen. The five to ten minutes you invest in listening to them will 1) send the message that you care about your people (they’ll tell each other and will lead to extra effort), 2) you might learn something about your section, 3) you might be able to help them through a problem or give them guidance on something you assigned to them, etc, etc, etc.

The relatively small amount of time that you invest in listening will directly result in their increased productivity because they were able to get something off their chest or received needed guidance from you.

If you don’t have time at that moment, tell them so and IMMEDIATELY set a time when they can have your full attention. This is huge, believe me!

I could go on with this topic, but seriously, would you read it? I’m not sure I would, too much other stuff to do! There are many more aspects and techniques of communication as we all know. I look forward to your comments!

Z

Kipling

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack” - Rudyard Kipling

Extra Effort

People are in it for themselves. You must clearly understand this and never assume that, given a choice, your subordinates will choose to make you look good when they don't have to. HOWEVER, if they know that you truly care about their well-being, respect you, AND like you personally, they will break your way through EXTRA EFFORT as opportunities arise. I can hear the collective groan already! "It's not about being liked, it's about getting the job done!" I completely agree, but if you could have both why wouldn't you try for it? (We'll get more indepth with that aspect of management in future posts.) What kind of extra effort am I talking about? If your people have the choice of taking a little extra effort to do what is in your best interest or not, they will more often choose the course that could make you look better. This is especially the case when no one will know that they could've made the extra effort and didn't. Subordinates will put forth this extra effort if they have a genuine respect for you and personally like you. This absolutely does not mean that you kiss their ass; this never garners the respect that you deserve and or are entitled to. Respect comes easiest if it’s mutual (another topic we'll dive into later). It takes little or no effort to be nice. If you’re nice to everyone it pays dividends that you could never predict or appreciate if you’re an ass. If you look good it honors your people. They will share in the glory of your acheivement. Don’t ever take the credit though or you’re done in their eyes; goes back to the mutual respect thing and leads to a future post that covers personal acheivement. I look forward to your comments! Z

Purpose

Middle managers are in positions of great responsibility. They are typically tasked with executing the strategic visions of their “higher-ups,” have few resources to get the job done, and are the first in line for “restructuring.” Not cryin’ about it, it’s just the reality. In the military we call these mid-level managers Action Officers. Middle managers, military and civilian, deal conceptually with the same management challenges and only differ by the environment they work in. We’ve learned a lot in our careers so far and truly realize that there is more to learn – not in the book sense – but from our peers and those few bosses that actually give a crap about developing future leaders. This blog is about leadership through effective management. We’ll clearly discuss how to manage people in ways that maximize excellence: Excellence in the organization; excellence in your people; and excellence in you. We’re talking Major Management. Are you up for it? Z

Welcome to Major Management!

Who else wants to be a better manager? Major Management is the result of sixteen years of military management training and experience. Stand by.....We'll start sharing stories on 11 January 2010. Z